Grazer & Peanut...

Just finished this wonderful commission for a friend of mine - the bears Grazer 128 and her daughter, Peanut 902.  Peanut is now a full grown bear, but was the tiniest and most frail looking little cub, the runt of the litter.  Looks can be deceiving though, she was feisty and strong and survived to adulthood with no problems.

This has been painted in watercolour on paper.

Next on the easel - bears, bears, bears!  I am now officially fully booked until January 2021.
 

Peanut...

 While all this virus malarkey is going on, I still had a couple of commissions to do.  I finished this cute little wooden trinket box a couple of days ago - it has a picture of the bear 902 Peanut on it.  It was nice to paint a bear other than Otis for a change, and seeing as I have nowhere to go, I spent a lot more time on it than I would have normally.

 Instead of painting the rest of the box black as with the Otis boxes, I decided to paint it to look a bit like water, with shades of blue & green.

As the box is smaller than the usual ones, it wouldhave been impossible to line it with cotton fabric entirely, so I used a greeny-blue felt for the sides and lid, with a piece of fishy cotton fabric for the bottom of the base.

The only sad thing is that due to the recipient's location, I can't send this until their country's lockdown is relaxed.

The other commission is a watercoluor of a bear - looking forward to that.

Peanut...

 This is my last piece of commissioned painting before Christmas - a wooden disc with a portrait of the bear Peanut on it.  This can be used for a Christmas tree ornament or hung up on view all the year round.  I deliberately made it un-Christmassy!  The disc is only about 2.5 inches across, so most of this had to be painted with the assistance of my magnifying lens headset.

This is the back of the disc, a watery pattern.  When the ornament is sent off to it's recipient, it will have a better hanging cord, not a piece of old string!  The string was used while the varnish was drying.

So while I have a few painting commissions waiting in the wings for after Christmas, it's time to take a bit of a break and re-charge my batteries while geting ready for Christmas and my impending 60th birthday.  60?  I never thought I'd make it past 40!

Surprise, Surprise, Another Bear...

This is Peanut, bear 902, another Katmai bear.  This one is a little smaller than previous stuffed bears - simply because the real bear is a petite little sow too.

Currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

I think that might be the last stuffed bear until after Christmas - time for a well earned break!

Peanut!

 I had a sweet little commission this month - to design & make a replica of Bear 902 Peanut! 

 I have to admit that I had to think about this for quite a while before I knew how to go about it.  I bought some different fur fabric (called wolf hair for some reason) and hoped that it would be OK.

 Cutting the pattern was quite tricky as I had to ensure the fur lay smooth and in the right direction in all pieces. 

After I sewed the ears on, it all looked a bit weird, like a very hairy rat and I was a little panicky!  However, after taking Peanut out into the garden and giving her a very good haircut, suddenly she emerged looking pretty good.  A little bit of shaping with some stitching around the face, and she was ready.  Off she goes in the post tomorrow to surprise someone...

Peanut & A Lily...

It was a wet and blustery day today, the kind of day you stay in and get on with some painting!  Here is the bear 902 aka Peanut/Fifi when she was a cub.  I've painted her a few times, mainly because she was just so cute but also because she defied the odds and despite being the tiny, skinny runt of the litter, survived and thrived to adulthood.  Last seen in the autumn of 2018 at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, looking very fat and ready for hibernation.  I can;t wait to see her return in the Spring!

I have also re-vamped the lily painting - I like using paint dribbles on my paintings but this time it didn't work at all.  So I painted the whole background gold and am happy with it now.  Once I can photograph it in the daylight (there was not much of that today) it will go up for sale in my Etsy shop.