The Significance of Bears

There are four pictures in this series, which was the first work relating to my trip to Canada last September to watch bears in the wild. From the first time I read about the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, I felt a real desire to go there, although I’m not a great traveller and certainly not an outdoor adventurer. I did not go with the intention of painting bears, in any form. It took me a long time to process what was actually a fairly brief experience — just a few days – but gradually I started wanting to deal with it visually and began work on the paintings. The title word – significance – is about an attempt to synthesize the experience and feelings about the whole trip, including the magic of being so close to bears in the wild – grizzlies, black bears and the lovely white spirit bear. Quite how one magazine article spurred me to make such a mighty leap of geography and culture is something I’m still working on, in my head and on paper. These are watercolour crayon and acrylic paintings, the dimensions of each are 23x13in (59x33cm). See also Bears in the Woods post below.