Asiatic Bear

When I was in Israel with my family in 2009, we visited the Jerusalem Zoo. There was a surprisingly large and varied collection of animals, including this relatively rare breed of bear. I took a photograph while the bear had its rear paw in a small pool of water. Once I began the painting, I improvised by removing the visible cage around the bear and adding a diffuse distant landscape. I also loved trying to represent the bear’s extremely thick coat of fur.