Polar Bear Sketching Fun

Polar bear and cubs pencil drawing

A couple of weeks ago I was in Michaels and couldn’t resist buying some of those cute miniature animals. Telling myself that I would use them as props in paintings and drawings, I happily carried home a wolf, a Percheron draft horse and a giraffe. But what captured my interest and imagination the most were the polar bears: a mother and cub. 

This morning I happened to turn on the TV at the end of a documentary on a female polar bear and her two cubs. Remembering my own sow and cub and my plans for them, I watched and studied the bears as they went about their daily activities. When the show was over, I grabbed a sketchbook and did this drawing from memory of a polar bear and her two cubs on the ice. 

I didn’t bother with using my little models; I just wanted to grab from memory with no reference and no expectations of this little sketch being a preliminary for something more refined. That’s the way I often drew as a kid; from memory with no references. I spent many many happy hours drawing this way just for the pure enjoyment of it. 

If you’ll recall, I took a workshop three years ago in which we drew a stuffed polar bear at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City. I channeled my memories of that experience, too, along with the observations of the bears in the documentary. These are the only two times I have ever drawn bears, and I’m  fairly pleased with the results. I like the gesture of the mother bear’s movement and the babyness of her cubs. That is not to say that any of them are perfect, but that wasn’t the purpose or goal of the sketch. 

When I brought those polar bears home from Michaels, I had a painting in mind to do with them. The scene would be in the winter darkness with the Northern Lights in the sky behind them. Wouldn’t it be cool, I thought, to paint those light colors into the coats of the bears and on the ice? Perhaps this sketch will be the starting point for that painting after all; just an idea of an image to expand upon in a full fledged painting. Perhaps I’ll head to the Dennos and do some more sketches of that stuffed bear in the lobby. 

Yeah, that sounds like a plan.