Since then, she has gradually expanded her catalogue of pets and people to develop a real love for painting wildlife.  In her own words, “I also quickly realised that I could combine my love for wildlife with conservation, using my art to make my contribution to help protect some of these amazing creatures.”

Debbie says that she not only looks for stunning creatures to paint but also for different compositions that really look deep into the soul of the creature or tell their story in some way.

In the summer of 2021, Debbie entered the Conservancy’s Art & Poetry Contest, The Resilient Mountains, with her pastel, “Mountain Ghost,” which won First Place in the Traditional Artwork category. Debbie went on to donate a portion of the proceeds from that painting to the Conservancy to support snow leopard conservation. 

Several years ago I found out about a poetry and art contest held by the Snow Leopard Conservancy. Since then, I have been participating in it every year. I think this is necessary to attract people’s attention.

I am not a professional artist. But I really love animals, and I love to draw animals. And I like to draw especially a lot of snow leopards. Improving my skill as an artist, I think that it will help preserve rare species on our planet.

In addition, I like to write short stories about animals, describing funny or interesting episodes of their life. I even wrote a book once. This is a series of stories of the growth and maturation of the little snow leopard Fuku from the Tama Zoo in Japan. Fuku was born sick and weak. But his inexhaustible will to live and cheerful disposition helped him overcome all difficulties. He has now grown to be a lovely adult cat!

This beautiful drawing won Second Place in the Traditional Artwork Adult 18 & Over category of the“Searching for the Snow Leopard” Artwork & Literary Works Contest.

Through her artwork, Elena is making a difference for wildlife, creating awareness by demonstrating their beauty and mystery. 

Eight-year-old Olivia tells the Conservancy that she first learned about snow leopards in her class at school in Cambridgeshire, England. She says that they have been her favorite animal since she learned about them. Oliva says, “I think that snow leopards are very pretty creatures and also very interesting. I made a fact file on snow leopards, and then I had an idea to do a fundraiser to try and help them. I like running so I decided to try and run a marathon in a month, from May 15 to June 10. Altogether, I have raised $863. Snow leopards are being killed by farmers because they are eating the farmers’ livestock.” Olivia explained that she hopes with the money she raised that livestock will be protected and snow leopards will instead have plenty of wild prey to hunt.