I once had to judge a Mayfest art competition on the theme of cats. Lurking among the twee tabbies and fluffy felines was a red and raw tiger which I sprang on with all the decisiveness of a jungle kill. No contest. The tiger picture won.

This week an assorted international group of 15 artists are off to deepest India to paint tigers. They include artists from Moscow, the US, Sweden, France, Holland, Germany, and the UK. The seven Brits include Peter Howson, Vicky Crowe, Hock Aun Teh, John Busby, and Nicola Hicks - the latter also one of the participants when I went to India a few years ago. A nicer bunch of folk you could not find. They are all open-minded, ready to experiment, and artists who can draw on the spot.

The results of their trip will be at Glasgow's beleaguered Burrell from next July, together with an appeal for Tigers in Peril. But, after last week's judgment to overthrow Sir William Burrell's will, what about the Burrell in peril? (An open meeting for people concerned about Glasgow Museums is at Glasgow Art Club on Saturday at 11am. If you can't attend, letters to After Burrell, 72 Peel Street, G11, or fax 0141-337 2470.)

The Tiger exhibition, which runs under the auspices of the Artists for Nature Foundation based in Amsterdam, is one of a series which has looked at endangered species all over the world including elks, beavers, storks, and eagles in the marshlands of Poland, cranes in Spain, and birds in the Loire and Eire.

The exhibition is usually accompanied by historical and environmental backup plus book. Tiger was originally planned for Glasgow's McLellan Galleries with a historical dimension, but closures and funding cuts have severely reduced this idea.

''It would now be too expensive to borrow other pictures, Indian miniatures, and artefacts from the V&A or elsewhere,'' said a Glasgow spokesman.

The core of the smaller Burrell show is the pictures by the 15 artists, plus wildlife films of tigers in the Burrell theatre, a stuffed tiger which died in Belfast zoo, and Burrell ''tiger'' exhibits like ceramics, plus interactive displays: ''An innovative way of engaging children and visitors with the tiger's lifestyle and wildlife information,'' I'm told.

While the inadvertent tiger in the Burrell's tank may be good for its attendance figures, this means, horror of horrors, press-button technology at the Burrell. Budget? They're not saying. ''We haven't even briefed our staff on the show yet.''

John Busby, a stalwart of ANF having been on previous projects, did the advance recce for this trip to Bandhavgarh, a long journey from Delhi via hot train plus 10-hour taxi along poor roads before the real excitement began.

''I was trying to draw a tiger at the foot of my elephant as I hung on!'' says Busby. ''The aim is to help the cause of conservation; to aid the place you're in. It gives you a target, plus a good discipline. And it's such a treat to work alongside other artists.''

East Lothian-based Busby, who showed at the Scottish Gallery in April, has a 1999 retrospective lined up in his native Bradford's prestigious Cartwright Hall.

Crowe (whose portrait of the distinguished resistance hero Ole Lipmann has just been presented to Copenhagen's National Portrait Gallery in Frederiksborg Castle) is also an experienced ANF artist, having participated in Poland and Spain.

''A nourishing thing - but bloody hard work! Yet it's a relief to get out of the hidebound establishment and into a breath of fresh air. Bandhavgagh is very wild, untouched, but there's a temple to Vishnu and a fort. Really exciting.''

Happily both Glasgow's Hock Aun Teh and Peter Howson have new shows in the city, with Teh at Glasgow Print Studio and Howson at Billcliffe Fine Art till the end of the month. And, while Busby, Crowe, and Nicky Hicks are known for their images of animals, birds, or flaura and fauna, Teh is an abstract artist whose colourful flying brushstrokes are, he says, ''like my other passion, the martial art tukido - fast and dramatic, energetic, and expressive. Every punch, kick, and movement resembles the marks in my paintings, which are a release of energy freely flowing on to paper.''

His GPS show includes one acrylic aptly called The Cat is in the Garden and a large impressive Waiting to Excel, plus three new screenprints done with Norman Mathieson (whose own print, made recently in Arizona, was presented to Princess Anne). Malaysian-born Teh's talent is in colour and it will be interesting to see what he makes of tigers. ''That which does not change cannot grow,'' he says.

So, too, Howson. His in-your-face Billcliffe display shows his obsession with the army plus his famous Bosnian War series. In fact, the charcoal army sketches are among the best things here, together with heads like Seeing the Light and The Lark or the best of the Helmet Row series. Others, like the strident caricaturish Girl Power or Red Nudes sex series, are really bad. In the studio Howson can slip into slickness all too easily - but the tigers should sort him out, just as the Serbs and Muslim refugees of Vitez and Travnik did. The reality of the outside world provides a keen - and much more true - inspiration.

Meanwhile, across the road from Teh's exhibition (make sure you see his video), Ashley Cook deals with real girl power in her impressive new screenprints made specially for this occasion. It Ain't Easy to Keep the One You Love Satisfied is the overall title to a work inspired by the 10 stages of obsessional love outlined in the Kama Sutra.

Cook has taken a novel perspective - literally. Leaning over her female friends' heads as they lie on the pillow, her portraits are viewed from the angle of a lover and deal with the notions of emotional vulnerability in a sexual relationship, and also the empowerment of female sensuality when controlled by the women themselves.

Usually these are mere token words, but Cook's panache applies both to her art and her career. Using friends to pose for images titled Loss of Shame, Madness, Love of the Eye, Attraction of the Mind, and Destruction of Sleep, (she saves the last, Death, for her own face: ''Well, I could hardly ask anyone else!'') she lines up a series of strong, highly-coloured Warhol-style portraits, their blue lips, gold eyes, and mauve or emerald skin making for arresting images.

Cook has long been a virtuoso technician and witty composer of narrative and decorative prints like Battle of the Sexes, Playing House, or Dance of the Seven Veils, but I'm glad to see her moving along. Singularity, with its text and ducks, is a favourite too.

Cook, now 33, taught at Glasgow Art School from 1987-95. She has recently visited Vancouver, Seattle, Iceland, and Los Angeles. Meanwhile GPS itself is currently abroad, in Slovenia. Works by 70 Scottish printmakers are touring the country at the invitation of Slovenia following an extravaganza of Japanese contemporary prints. People there seem to think Scotland is the place for printmaking. They're right, too.

Last but not least, bon voyage to Martin Hopkinson of the Hunterian Art Gallery, who has done so much for Scottish art, past and present. If they were all like him, Scotland would have no problems at all.