Friday, January 25, 2013

GRIZZLY BEAR PAINTING

Grizzly Bear
30" x 40"
oil on gallery canvas
Well, he is finally done! This bear was a lot of fun to paint. The photo reference was from a photographer-friend of mine, Rick Paradie, who also gave me the photo for "Big Boy" which is this same bear. 

Rick is a person that I met on a plane - he was sitting next to me. We got talking about photography (he had his camera with him), websites, selling our work...and before I knew it, the flight was over, and we went our separate ways. I had given Rick my email address, and we had kept in touch on and off since that flight. Then last summer, Rick flew into Edmonton, and rented a car to come to Calgary to meet my husband and to see my studio (and me)! He is such a thoughtful person...he had brought me copies of his best photographs so that I could paint the ones I liked. What a wonderful and selfless thing to do! I especially liked the pictures of this bear - and have done 2 of the 3 now. 

Rick told me that one of the reasons that the bear's fur is what I term as "ropey" is that it had rained just before he took the photos, and the bear was still wet.

I love the pose of the bear...all that massive power just lazing over the tree trunk, just hanging out. Power under control. 

Thank you, Rick, for the beautiful photos. You are a wonderful photographer, and a very generous friend. 

I am allowing the canvas to dry on our living room wall before I put a coat of retouch varnish on it to protect the surface. My husband likes this one enough that he might not want to take it down. So nice to receive that affirmation and support from friends and loved ones. :-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice article, Joanne. I enjoy reading your stories.