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.

Baby Bear...

Currently on the drawing board, bear 451 and her cubs.  Just the one cub completed for now.

Bears seem to have taken over my life lately - I've always liked them and painted them from time to time over the years, but the past two or three years it seems to have snowballed.  Since watching the Explore.org live cams I've got to know people all over the world that share my interest and who have wanted to buy my work, whether it is a painting or a stuffed bear.  I'm definitely not complaining - I love what I do and if I happen to get paid for it as well, all the better!

And later in the month I get to go and hand feed a pair of brown bears at the Wildlife Trust in Kent - a highly anticipated birthday present!  There will also be other animals to see there such as wolves, bison, lynx, and many more that used to be indigenous to Britain.  My camera will be working overtime!

Walker!

I've been sewing bears again - more Otis bears for commissions and this Walker bear just for fun and a bit of a change.  He is currently listed in my Etsy shop.

Study In Water

After the Easter weekend with everyone home for four days, it was good to get back to the easel on Tuesday.  I've had this painting in the back of my mind for a couple of years ever since I took a snap on Explore.org bear cams so it was time to put it down on paper.

I have to admit I spent more time on painting the water than the bear - it is one of my pleasures to play with paint & water to see what happens as it mixes and swirls on the paper.  I used a couple of my precious Daniel Smith watercolours, and they granulate and create interesting effects all by themselves.

Then the bear was another exercise in mixing the paint on paper to get the effect I wanted on the head and the wet fur.  I just love watercolours, you never know if they will cooperate or not!

Diddly Donkey...

When my daughter was at infant school, she learnt the Christmas song Little Donkey for the nativity play - she couldn't pronounce 'little' so it became 'diddly donkey' and she sang it for months after Christmas.  So it has stuck - she has grown up and can say the title properly, but me and Mr.B still call it Diddly Donkey...

This is a watercolour painting of a mare & foal donkey at Miller's Ark that we saw a couple of weeks ago.  The foal was only a couple of weeks old and cute as a button.  I have tried to keep this one as loose as I could - not as loose as I would have liked but still relaxed on the detail for me!  It was a lot of fun to do and a bit of a break inbetween commissions.