The 2nd week of featured paintings.

10 days until Christmas.  I'm really looking forward to the holidays this year.  Growing up in Arizona, I've never really been a fan of the cold and snow.  I like the idea of winter, it's pretty, but it's more a thing I want to visit, and then quickly go back to where it's warmer and sunny.  This year, however,  Michel is determined to make me find the fun in a snow filled winter.  I will say that I'm excited to try ice skating again.  There's several large lakes in various parks in Montreal that freeze over every year and become ice rinks.  In 2010 I went to one of the largest of the lakes to try ice skating.  It was a disaster.  First just standing on skates was near impossible.  I'm a big guy, 6'4", 250-260 pounds, so putting all of me on top of two thin metal blades....  I fell on my butt like a big cartoon character with lots of flailing limbs on the way down the instant I stepped from the mat onto the frozen pond.  It didn't get a lot better from there.

As I continued to try and skate, I think people started feeling bad for me, seeing me struggle as much as I was, as I kept having strangers offering me pointers or words of encouragement as they'd skate by.  My friends had given up on me and went on ahead to skate around.  After several people had lapped me 4 or 5 times, I started having strangers skate up on either side of me, grabbing my arms, and trying to hold me up.  These brave people were always French speakers, so I didn't understand a word they were saying while they were dragging me around on the ice and trying to tell me what I was doing wrong.  At least that's what I think they were trying to speak to me about (I dont speak French).  I took a couple of these people down to the ice with me as I fell at one point, so I stopped letting people try holding me up.  The best I got was taking 2 or 3 strides at a time before falling, and what should have taken maybe 10 minutes to go around the lake, took me about 2 hours.

I never really learned how to skate growing up, for good reason:

I'm often asked "why Dizzybear?"  Growing up, I never had a lot of balance, would get dizzy frequently for no reason, and often just fell over while walking.  It made things like riding bikes, skating and such a bit difficult.  Eventually I outgrew it, for the most part, but not until my early 20s.  As for the "bear" part, I'm part Native American.  My dad's Indian name was "Bear Tracks".  My parents didn't really put a lot of thought into a name for me.  They just slapped a "Jr" on my dad's name, and added a "little" to his Indian name.  It was quickly shortened from "Little Bear Tracks" to "Little Bear", and then just as quickly to just "Bear", as I was a huge baby and it seemed odd to call me a little anything.

I'm looking forward to ice skating again though, as earlier this year I decided I was going to learn how to skate and start playing roller hockey with some friends of mine.  I lost count of how many times I fell while learning.  It took over a month before I could even let go of the wall around the rink while trying to skate.  I'm a fairly decent skater now, on roller blades, almost a year later.  I'm hoping that translates to the ice.  There's also talk of seeing how I do on skis.....  You might want to start buying prints now, as most artwork goes up when the artist dies.  haha.

Speaking of which, let's get to the two featured paintings of week two.

The first of which, is my very first, Day of the Dead painting.  I wrote an earlier blog that did a nice job of talking about The Bride and Groom painting.  You can click here to read that blog.

The Bride and Groom

What I dont mention in that blog post, however, is that The Bride and Groom painting is still one of my best sellers in print form.  I gave the original to a friend as a wedding gift back in 2008.  A couple of years later it was destroyed in a house fire.  That house fire, and what happened to the next two paintings, are a big part of the reason why I don't put a lot of importance in painting in such a manner that results in "originals".  I was really sad when I heard the news about the original of The Bride and Groom being destroyed, until someone pointed out to me that they were happy I still had the digital files and could make more prints.  Between this, and what happened to the second painting (that story coming in next week's blog) I started thinking differently about how I painted.

When I paint now, for the most part, I break down the paintings into smaller, individual sections and then digitally bring all the pieces together.  Most of my newer painting are each comprised of hundreds of individually painted pieces.  Painting all the elements separately makes it easier for me to paint wherever I am.  Traveling with big canvases isn't an option for me, and I'm on the road a lot.  Often times though, it proves to be a lot more work to paint this way, and definitely a lot more time consuming than it would be to paint in a traditional manner.  I've become a much better painter as a result though, and the finished products have definitely improved over time, because I can paint little bits of the painting over and over and over until I like that little section, and then move on to another.  This method is not really something you can do easily when you paint everything on a single canvas.  In late 2015 I'll be traveling less, and will be painting some of my future series in a "traditional" manner, all on one canvas, and making the originals available for sale.

The second painting being featured this week, is the second painting I did of the series of 16 paintings painted in 2012.  I'm married to a French Canadian, so I've spent a lot of time in Canada, going back and forth between Montreal and Northern AZ.  Usually shorter trips, but in 2012 I was able to stay for an entire six months.

The Mermaid

Painting #2 “The Mermaid” and painting #3 “The Pirate” (which will be featured next week) actually started out as one painting.  The mermaid and her rock were smaller, and there was a pirate ship (complete with skeleton pirate onboard) over her left shoulder where you now see the larger swirling wave.  I ended up starting over on this painting and breaking them into two paintings because I did not like how small the characters were when it was all one painting.  I was able to save some parts of the original painting to use in the new mermaid painting, but the pirate painting was a complete start over.  The waves were my favorite part to paint and the largest of the waves over her left shoulder was painted over the spot I had originally painted the pirate ship.

Prints of all the paintings shown here are available at the webstore.  The Bride and Groom is available in 4 different styles and I have each of those four styles available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints.  Limited to only 10 of each design.  You can see all four styles by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com  The Mermaid is currently available in 3 different sizes at the webstore.

The Bride and Groom - Metal Frame

The Groom

The Bride

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Two new paintings next week!  Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest....  It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world.

Happy Holidays!!!!

5x7

8x10

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