Old Bear

8x10 inches

Acrylic, Paper, Pencil, Canvas Board

A world-weary, bearded old man with a furrowed brow gazes above the viewer and wears a Grizzly Bear head and hide on top of his own head. He is drawn in pencil on tracing paper and is adhered over an autumn scene with golden grasses and foliage leading up to and surrounding an ice blue lake. Beyond are mountains which turn white at the snow line and fade into a misty sky.

“Old Bear” is an homage to the Gold Rush prospectors who came to Alaska to turn over riverbeds for that elusive element. I imagine this guy in particular went a little nuts and ran off to live on the mountain, after discovering that the wild of Alaska was worth more than the gold he could wring from it. He is also 100% inspired by that old bear man who comes ambling out of the woods during that one scene in “True Grit.”