The picture attached was taken by my step-dad on a motion sensor camera. This little guy lives about 200 feet behind my house (at least that's where the camera was set up). This is an eastern Black Bear, very reclusive, usually avoid any contact with humans.
We think this is a juvenile male, one of six we know are living back in the swamp. I was so excited when it came up on screen - and the first thing I wanted to do was share it on Drawspace. Actually - that was the second thing, first I had to draw him.
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This is an amazing picture for a couple of reasons. It's a daytime shot, bears are typically nocturnal. And it's a full body shot, with feet clearly visible. Bears prefer grassy and forested areas, so getting a shot of their peculiar feet is wonderful. A common error amongst bear artists (self included) is to draw large puffy teddy-bear feet, when in fact, bears have feet similar to our own. They walk on the entire sole of the foot (most animals well known to us walk on their toes) and they can use them sort of like we use our hands.

Bears are fairly common in my part of NC. They were threatened for the longest time, but have now rebounded to the point where (not sure if this is fortunate or not) some counties have opened a short hunting season on them. They are magnificent animals and I hope this one stays safe and grows into a big happy bear.

My version is attached. Sorry for the quality of the photo, remember this is a bear in motion, so there is some fuzziness, can't really see the eyes, but in my defense, it's hard to get them to pose for you. You may have to research some anatomy and guess at other parts. For the direction of the fur, I went out and looked at the fur on my dog - they are distant cousins of the bear, I'm thinking they are at least similar.

I invite anyone who is interested in drawing wildlife to give this fellow a try. Please post your versions and let's celebrate the bear!
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cool nc girl...i love it..and shall post a bear drawing myself..who can resist a big ol cuddly bear..thanks for hosting

hm..does it have to be this bear that i draw ?

your bear is drawn quite nicely..we have them here too in my yard and it can be rather scary cause the dogs ya know..they are not smart enough to leave them be..

ncgirl, wow that is cool that you managed that photo.

but knowing they live just in your back door, yard..... Kay... there goes my hipotetical visit to you

Absolutely incredible.
Thank you for sharing.

Hello art friends. I want to thank ncgirl for this challenge for two reasons maybe three. first i added one more work in charcoal to my worklist, two i discovered a good subject for a Chinese brush painting and three I am practicing animals drawing.
This is a quick study of two pandas i want to try tomorrow in Chinese brush. It will be a first and i will post it here.
So my charcoal pencils on Canson mi teintes pad 9x11 in.; 20 min.lot of fun

PS.I am not brave enough to draw your Black bear, ncgirl; you did a wonderful job on him.

The wildlife at my backdoor, my little friends the squirrels. They were playing in a tree the other day and in my walks I always take a camera so here they are.

Thanks for the feedback everyone - to me, drawing wildlife is one of the more challenging and rewarding areas of art. Rewarding in that we get an appreciation for the other inhabitants of our planet, challenging when you have to occasionally out-run the critters.

Kay - yes any bear pictures are welcome and for that matter, any wildlife drawings or photos in general! Here's another picture, pretty much impossible to draw from, but sweet anyway. You said you have bears in your backyard too - you're right, they can be a blasted nuisance sometimes. We haven't had any actually close to the house, probably because of our redneck neighbors who won't take their trash to the dump - the bears find that area much more attractive! I have heard from some of the old-timers here that playing a radio at night keeps the bears away.

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Elena, great pics of the squirrels! with your permission I would like to try drawing one for my friend. She rescues squirrels, and currently has one that my husband and I took away from our cats. They wanted to make a snack out of him, but he was so small and sweet, we made them change their dinner plans. The squirrel is happy and healthy, getting fat on peanut butter crackers. His name is Macho. Good panda drawings too!

Alas, it may be a while before we get more bear pictures. The flash and sound of the camera apparently annoys Mrs. Bear and her cubs. They tore the camera off the tree and smashed it to pieces. We do have a good play-by-play of the destruction, as the camera worked up until the very end.

Looking forward to seeing your drawings and photos!

after hurricane katrina in new orleans..my aunt helped out at the local swamp garden..lots of animals died there, but this lil guy was lucky..it is a baby squirrel

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Hi, ncgirl. Of course you all are welcome to draw my squirrels. That's why i posted the pics for. My intention in my walks is to get a shot of the little bunnies we have on campus. But they are very shy and hard to get on camera. I will keep trying, though.

Cute lil guy, Kay.

i know its not a drawing, but i sculptured this little darling years ago with polymer..

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Kay that is adorable! I didn't realize you were a multi-talented artist. Do you do other sculptures? Thanks for the pic of the baby squirrel too - he was certainly a lucky duck...er...squirrel.

Elena, can't wait to see your Chinese brush work, and the bunny pictures too. Is the Chinese brush work like traditional Japanese/Chinese watercolor? Educate me on this please, I don't know too much about it.

Ncgirl, I am glad you are intersted in Chinese brush painting. yes the two are related, like in all matters of culture, tea, bonsai, etc. the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese and then developed ino their national version called sumi-e painting. Here are my links to excellent lessons in Chinese brush painting.

Brush painting

Chinese painting lessons
The second site I am currently taking a course from.

And here is my brush set for calligraphy which can be used with China ink and colors for painting.

Wow! The brush set is a work of art in itself! How inspiring they must be to work with. I will check out the sites you listed when I get home tonight if the cats aren't doing their usual three-ring circus.

here's a quicky I did in pencil (HB 2B 9B) - took 20 mins -could do with 20 more I think

anyhow mum and two polar bear cubs

those are sweet vick

I had the courage to attack my Chinese brush set with China stoneink and here is the result.The paper should be rice paper or drawing pad but i used for this first exercise Strathmore sketch pad 9x11 in.

Very nice Vicki! You really captured the strength of these bears and at the same time they have a very soulful look! How do you get the fur to "look like fur" without a lot of detail? I feel that I overdo the fur on animals.

WOW!!! Elena this is gorgeous! Very delicate, but you show the mass of the pandas too. It looks very traditional, but you've put your own spin on it.

Ncgirl you can't imagine how happy i am you challenged me to draw bears. I wouldn't have discovered this splendid ancient Chinese art. Yes they are traditional and they repeat the themes a lot, the secret is the excellency which you acquire in time.I just came from the art store I bought more supplies and ran into this Chinese artist on Campus who had his paintings and name calligraphy art ready for sale. I talked to him but he couldn't speak much English. Anyway he used some modern tools Japanese ink markers colored. He didn't have pandas but all the traditional peach blossom branches and peony. Beautiful! Now probably i need to try drawing your bear for real. I cannot have your patience with the fur but I will try to do my best.

NC - fur??!! luck more than anything!! I used a 9B to add light shading and then smudged it with my fingers, the finer bit round the nose I sharpened the 9B and added dots - that's it!!

thank for your encouraging comments - my drawing class must be paying off!

Elena and others, I'm glad you are enjoying this thread and BECAUSE I JUST CANNOT RESIST here's one more picture. If anyone wants to draw him and post, he's a wonderful little snake, very harmless. He is a cute little fellow that made the mistake of dropping into our driveway. My husband took the photos and tried to rescue him, but our cats discovered him. We hope he got away.

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Vicki thanks for the tip, I'll try it on my next attempt at the bear. My step-father saw the first drawing and insists on a larger version. Wish me luck!

these were mailed to me today..i have seen albino moose, bison, deer, dogs, cats, alligators, people, etc but NEVER an albino bear


THESE PICTURES WERE TAKEN NEAR GORDON , WI . Not just any mother bear and
her cub, but a black bear with a white cub. I don't know how rare it is
for a black bear to have a white cub, but at least we can say we've
seen it no matter how rare it is!

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Im not sure if these pictures should go here or not but I thought....why not!
I took these pictures at the zoo, hope you enjoy them
BTW nice bear pics oliverandjazz

Hi fredbo,
Great pictures. I am not sure if this the right place either. I know there is a gallery for people to post pictures for "inspiration". Anyways, just wanted to tell you I enjoyed the pictures.
Hey, when are you going to post some more of your work, as I remember, it was pretty good.
Bye for now,
Trish

Let me contribute to your thema, NCGIRL,
A clumpsy CP, inspired from many photos found in the net. I do not remember having seen a white bear in reality.

NVA - wonderfully rendered work! I've only seen one polar bear at a zoo - I think they are so graceful for their size! Kay and fredbo, thanks for the bear pics - I'm going to try and sketch one or two and hope that others will too. In my opinion the difficult aspect of drawing bears is to communicate their strength and bulk, since the soft fluffy "teddy bear" is so ingrained in our culture.

Signed off too soon... fredbo thanks also for the tiger photos - they are hard to find on the net. I love drawing tigers and look for as many photos as I can find on them. Too bad - I only have bears living in my back yard.

Here you are,
sorry but I don't have a scanner and I usually work directly on PC, so this was done with my graphic tablet.
To resemble the condition of an actual drawing on paper I used just one dimension for the brush tool and I didn't use any program artifact.
I drew without zooming in or out and didn't use layers tricks.

I also gave myself a time limit of 20 minutes, considering that an actual Bear wouldn't stay around that long

Probably the fur part isn't right because I reproduced it from what I saw in the picture, but I think it was not THAT bad, you could make out the general outlines of the fur direction.

Strange has it may seem, this work reminded me of when I was asked to draw the skeleton of an horse in high school, during zoology class, it's probably because of the massive use of hatching

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Wow! I really like this! He looks very realistic and dynamic - you did a great job of capturing him in motion. You did great on the fur - The picture was not as sharp and focused as I would have liked - but he was moving and the camera had been previously knocked off the tree (by bears!) So, we have to use our imagination.

You are right, they usually don't sit still for an artist. Thanks! Great job!

Well, thank you, I take it from your dedication as you are a huge fan of bears drawing
If you are interested I have some pictures of Chinese black bears, which are as much venerated as Pandas in Peking.
The photos were shot at the base of the great wall, the bears were in a large cage, badly fed by the crowd of tourists with some sorts of crumbs and nuts.