They're Taking Over!

Part of a current project - my life seems to be revolving around bears at the moment!

Tale Of A Small Dog...

I finally finished this yesterday - took much longer to 'colour in' than I thought it would.  This is a private commission, not for use in anything further I don't think.

Drawn in pen and ink, then coloured with Japanese watercolours which are very like gouache except they can be lifted and/or re-wet & worked on the paper once they have dried.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

This is something that has been on the back burner for far too long - a little story board that I've been asked to draw.  It made a bit of a welcome change as I am stumped for inspiration otherwise - the rotten weather outside doesn't help!

Garden Time...

 The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a nightmare outside in the garden.  We have had a faulty gutter for years which has caused all sorts of waterfalls and water related problems.  I finally managed to get the housing association to fix it but it involved having scaffolding put up on our patio for a week - not so easy with all the flower pots, greenhouse, grapevine etc. out there!  So everything had to be moved out of the way and we had chaos for about a month (first date for scaffolding never happend...) 

Finally last Thursday we got our patio back - a few breakages but I'm willing to overlook them because we now have a shiny new gutter.  I spent two days putting everything back on the patio as well as building two new wooden tables for the bonsai trees.

 Everything seems to have come out of it reasonably well, no major casualties.

 I moved a few things around - gave the olive tree some more space and got rid of some pots of what might well have been weeds that I was cultivating!  It is starting to look good.

 We also got a new fence after a winter of it crashing and banging about every time the wind blew, so I was able to plant a few climbers in at last.

 The Torbay palm at the bottom of the garden has put out a large cluster of flowers this year - the scent is overpowering but the bees and flies are loving it!

And the triffid in the front garden has put out a flower spike as well this year - two years ago it got to about 15 feet high.  Waiting to see what it does this year!

So with all that going on, there has not been much time or inclination for arts & crafts - hopefully now things have calmed down I will be able to get back to the easel once more.

A Happy Ending...

Just completed this while stuck at home waiting for scaffolders - I guess being under house arrest has its advantages!

This is bear 451 and her cubs, painted in watercolour on paper.  Bear 451 has a bit of a history - for a start, at some point in her life she has been seriously injured and has a distinct stiffness and limp in one of her back legs.  Then back in 2015, she had a litter of 3 cubs, lost one early in the season to either illness or injury.  The second cub collapsed and died right in front of the Explore.org camera in October of that year, while bear 451 kept a sad vigil throughout the two days it took to die.  She and her remaining cub finally left and were not seen again that year.  In 2016 she returned to Brooks Falls briefly, limping very badly and alone.  Things did not look good.

However, in 2017 she showed up in the early summer with three cubs and these three cubs made it through the summer unscathed and healthy.  She returned with all three last year and despite a rocky start - very thin and hungry - they ended up all very fat, healthy & ready for hibernation. She really is one of my favourite bears on the web cams and I can't wait to see her return this year, hopefully with her cubs large and ready to be emancipated.

In the meantime, I have to be satisfied with just painting them!

Real Bears!

 I've been a bit busy this week, meeting some real bears!  Turns out they like gravy bones - who knew?

Had a fantastic day out at the Wildwood Trust in Kent and saw lots of other animals as well as these two rescue bears.  More about it another day when I have sorted through the hundreds of photos we took!

Slow But Steady...

I'm not getting as much time to spend on this as I would like, but I am very happy with how it is progressing.  This is Bear 451 who lives at Brooks Falls, Katmai, Alaska.  It's not the first time I have painted her - she is quite a favourite of mine with an interesting back story. 

This is watercolour on paper - hoping to get it finished soon, but a busy week ahead.