PAINTING 4 - Bear With Me

it started with...a chicken.

Then a banana.

Then some garlic.

And apparently Painting No. 4 is where I abandoned the grocery/farm fresh aisle and a bear showed up.

Excellent. No notes.

This glorious blue beast is Bear With Me, because I am four paintings into a completely unplanned series of 100 and honestly, that feels like a reasonable request. Things are going to get weirder before they get....actually, I'll stop right there.

Bear with me.

I have no idea where we're going.

The bear doesn't know either.

But unlike me, he appears entirely unbothered.

I love his face. He's big and scruffy and loosely painted in layers of turquoise, navy, violet, mossy green and little flashes of gold and pink. He looks simultaneously enormous and like he'd quite like you to give him a little scritch behind his ears.

Which feels appropriate for a bear. Except the scritching, don't do that, you'll die.

Perhaps there is a tiny bit of meaning sneaking into this one despite my best efforts.

Because bears don't seem terribly concerned with being productive.

They eat.

They wander around.

They investigate things.

They take extremely long naps.

They emerge when the time is right.

Frankly, the bear has cracked the fucking code.

Maybe Painting No. 4 is a reminder that we don't always have to know where we're going.

Sometimes we can just follow whatever looks interesting.

Make the thing.

Take the nap.

Eat the snack.

And trust that eventually we'll find our way.

Bear with me.

There are 96 paintings left.

NOBODY knows what's coming next.

Original acrylic painting on rough-edged paper. Roughly 8.5 x 12
One of one
Painting 4 of 100

No chickens, bananas or garlic were harmed by the arrival of the bear. They might be offended.