I like the lion gate at Sigiriya. There is the old account of the lion's head that stood above the stairway, and only the paws and forelegs are left standing now, the claws about the height of a person. I am curious about Sigiriya generally, about what happened there and the stories that have collected around it. I wanted to paint the way in, climbing up through the mouth of the lion with a paw on either side of you. It struck me as a place that would take a great deal of sun and be hot underfoot, and that is where the colors came from.