They want a grizzly. A bear for the expanse of wall in the new section of the hospital. Color and joy for contemplation and encouragement of their patients.

I choose a 40” x 30” canvas and brush on pigment. Browns and reds and oranges for the bruin. Teals and yellows and greens for his forest. His home. He ambles toward you. Curious.

He is “Born to Be Wild”.

Does the title make you laugh and encourage you at the same time?

He lives in my living room on his ‘wall den’. I like him there. He encourages me. We both wait.

I received word yesterday. They want him and sent a check. I’m thrilled. It is an honor.

But art making is an emotional process. It has to be. I’m going to miss this bear. I prepare him for packing but we are both a little sad. Happy-sad.

I promise to go down to Soldotna, Alaska to visit him in his new home. If you are in that neck of the woods, stop by and say hello.

A bear comes alive on my canvas.
I like him.

I should stop painting.
Instead I add brushstrokes.
Bad idea. I lose him.
He disappears into a mess of goo.

Fortunately, I took a photo before he slammed the door.
I repeat the same brushstrokes. I repeat the same colors.
I repeat the same everything.

The harder I try. The worse it looks.
Frustrating.

Have you been there?
The harder you try to make something work, the worse it becomes?

Lesson learned.
I have to let my bears emerge on their own.
Watch the change every brushstroke makes.
Forget the bears of pigment past.
Be open to new discoveries.

I play with layers and layers of paint.
A new bear appears.
This one is different. Better. Stronger.

Wild.

There is a rhythmic rumble in the fields of ice.
Dark stands up to sky.

Curtains of electrons explode into fantastic light.
Shimmers of luminescence chase away darkness.

The rumbling stops.
A slumbering bear glows gold.
She twitches from a tickle and feels peculiar.

And the Aurora began to dance in her fur.

I am struggling with a painting.
Some passages work like a dream. Color vibrates. Other parts look dead, lifeless. I change colors. Use different kinds of brushstrokes. New layers of paint. I thought it was finished many times. But later it was clear the bear wasn’t breathing. He looked wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

I work on other canvases but keep coming back to this one. I give it a name to capture the power and majesty of a polar bear. He is awesome in my imagination. If I could just get him to come through these layers of paint.

The title taunts me. Polar Power. This painting might be a failure that I won’t be able to stir out of the ashes. Oh well. Work on another painting.

This morning I walk into the studio and gave myself permission to NOT work on the painting. I immediately feel relief. Pressure is off. Other studio work needs to be done. No painting today. Keep away from brushes and frustration for a day. Time for a cup of tea. Do some low stress, no pressure tasks.

I look at the bear taunting me while I sip tea.
Ok. I see what I want to do. Those passages that I thought were working… time to cover them up and try a different approach. I argue with myself. Leave it alone.
No, it is time to go for it. It is time to save it or burn it.

The tea is cold but the paint is hot
I grab the orange paint, my favorite cobalt teal, and cover up my troubled areas plus many of my favorite areas. It is time to be bold. The brush goes back and forth with warm and cool colors.

Orange is the heat of the bear, his body heat, his breath, his aliveness. The cold blues are the arctic bone chilling cold. The deep dark purple is the mystery of the polar night. The golden colors are the sunlight. Sunlit parts of the bear become the center of attention. We are drawn to the light.

Finally, the bear starts to emerge
Benzi orange pigment saves me. Suddenly I see my bear emerge and breathe. One of us growls. Yes. The painting has power and color surprises. I celebrate a victory. This was tough.

I will share it with you.

Does it make your eye dance around the composition?

Details of the painting

I promised you updates about my New Big Goal several months ago.

The Goal frightens and excites me: paint six large polar bears within a year.

An ambitious goal. Lots of questions. I don’t even know all the questions yet. But the bears must be portable and easy to transport. LARGE and portable.

Progress has been made.

Discovery
I discovered scrim in the Homer Alaska Pratt Museum. They used it as a translucent wall. The open random weave looked like a snow-blown day in the wintery arctic. A perfect ‘landscape’ for my polar bears. I contacted the manufacturer.

I tore down a shelf and made room in my studio to dedicate a whole wall to the scrim. Taped brown paper on the wall and floor to contain drips and splashes. Painting wildly is messy.
The scrim hangs neatly from a rod in the studio and is ready for color.

Bears can fly
I was completely absorbed in shaping my bear with pigment when the pole holding the banner suddenly slipped off the holder.
Pole, bear (and almost me) went flying.

It shook me up but no one was hurt. I had not replaced the end cap.

Lesson learned.

Painting in the sky
Standing on a ladder and reaching up with a big brush has it’s rewards.
The fabric is lightweight, springy and the rough texture grabs the paint from my brush. I feel like I’m painting in the sky.

Why are they called Kroma Bears?
I found paint in a most unexpected way. Wandering around Vancouver, my sister and I came across a little store named KROMA. Inside the walls held bins of color. Beautiful tubes of pigment stacked to the ceiling. A ladder on wheels was there to assist me. I could reach whatever color my heart desired.

They paint their sample cards of Kroma colors by hand. I like that kind of passion. They manufacture high quality artist’s acrylic paint in that little shop and sell it for wholesale prices to artists. They have been doing this for over forty years.

I chose several tubes of color and left with my prize, eager to see if I liked the consistency of the paint.

I love the paint and only use Kroma paint for my bears. It has intense color, wonderful consistency and an easy flip top cover so I can grab color quickly and not lose momentum. It has become my favorite paint and I placed a large order. I don’t ever want to run out of Benzi Orange or Cobalt Teal again!

Kroma or chroma means pure pigment or purity of color, from the greek word Khroma.

It was natural that my bears became Kroma Bears.

Thank you Jessica and the whole Kroma gang for making this quality paint.

Light makes dramatic changes
Kroma Bears can be rolled up and carried anywhere. They are easy to hang and display.
When they hang in front of a window they shimmer and change. Back light is different from front light and a combination of front and back light has it’s own appearance. These are not one dimensional bears. They dance to different colors because the translucent fabric is dramatically changed by the quality and direction of the light.

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
—Vince Lombardi