A Welcome Bear

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 pinkā€”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!

Odd Job

A dear friend, B, is a very accomplished quilter. She is also a true Mineral King person. Check out this quilt she made:

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In case you need a tour guide, this is a view of Sawtooth, with Monarch Falls and the East fork of the Kaweah River. B was not pleased with Monarch Falls as it appeared in fabric form, so she requested a painted quilt square to replace it. Took some real planning! We walked to the view, I did a sketch, we laid out the quilt and I sketched it in place on tissue paper over the top of the quilt. Then I cut a piece of fabric, taped off the seam allowance, and coated it with gesso. Then, I lost it for awhile. After I cleaned out a closet, it reappeared, and I painted it as B and I planned.

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This shows it just lying on the quilt without being stitched (hence, the white border). I actually mixed paint to match part of the fabric! Isn’t this a cool idea? Isn’t B an over-the-top quilter?

Unusual commission

Have a look at the completed umbrella. Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but isn’t this the coolest thing?!? Have you ever seen this treatment before? Painting a patio umbrella wasn’t my idea, but the poppies were. I’m into poppies, but if you read this blog, you knew that.umbrella.jpg

“You’re an artist. . .”

“. . . and I have this project.” Those words can be a big OH-OH or they can signal an adventure on the way. Now that I know how to paint, those words are most often in the adventure category. When you are an artist, especially one who makes her living rather than being a hobbyist, people ask the strangest things! Here is my latest adventure:

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This is not a funny looking tablecloth but a patio umbrella! It has some sort of water resistant stuff on it, so it has to be rather forcefully persuaded to take the paint. Several layers into the process it gets easier to spread the color around. It needs more, but I ran out of workday today, as usual.