We have bears in our neighborhood, and they are a nuisance. However, there was a welcome bear in my workshop recently. Literally a welcome bear.

This odd job came from the same man who had me repaint Little Bucky.

I started with the letters.

Next, I rotated him to experiment with brown fur colors. He’s not a “brown bear”, which is another name for a grizzly. Our bears are called “black bears”, without regard to their colors.

I mixed in some dark purple with the brown to give it variety; it makes the brown much darker. The whole idea was to have variation in the fur coloring.

The ears got a touch of pink—but less than appears in this photo.

Finally, I sent these two photos to Mr. Customer, and he was pleased, so I am too.

Bears around here tend to have lighter colored muzzles, so now this guy does too, regardless of whatever color it was when he was new. I also put a few splinters into his sign. The lettering is actually bright white, not light blue. The funniest part to me was that when he was wet, I turned his entire being by grabbing his nose. Don’t be trying that on a live one!