Sleepy Bear

The tranquil, sleepy spirit animal, spilling its tea, creating a perfect rectangle gold leafed border.

For this painting I took a trip to Zoo Atlanta to get some reference photos. This sun bear was nodding off in the sun, barely keeping his eyes open — it was perfect!

The hat and floating stars and spheres are all collaged. I first sketched to plan their locations on a separate sheet of paper. They were then all drawn and watercolored on a new sheet of synthetic vellum. I then carefully cut out each with a scalpel. I painted their edges to cover the white from the cut. I held each shape with my tweezers, brushed on a thin layer of aqua collage medium to be my adhesive, and pasted them down.

The painting is mounted on a sheet of heavy weighted paper onto which I gold leafed a rectangular perimeter.