Polar Bears and Red Pandas

Because of my current workload and deadlines, I haven’t been able to get away for reference photos lately. Shonna and I want to see our families and visit Discovery Wildlife Park, but her workload has been ridiculous this summer, so getting away has been challenging. I also meant to get down to Coaldale to the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre this spring, but that didn’t work out. Hopefully, I can get there before their season wraps at the end of August.

I drove to the Calgary Zoo on Tuesday to deliver a large print and sticker order. I was glad to get it done early in the week as the city is about to get very busy with the Canada Day long weekend, followed by the Calgary Stampede later next week.

With plenty of school groups on field trips this time of year and attendance high with the warmer weather, I didn’t expect to spend long at the zoo. But I brought my camera, just in case.

Within five minutes, I was ready to go. I’m not a fan of crowds, especially those made up of children. There’s something about that high-pitched, sugar-powered screaming that triggers my flight response.

If a foreign power ever tried to get me to reveal state secrets, they’d only have to suggest chaining me to a chair in a daycare, and I’d tell them everything. It’s a good thing I know absolutely nothing of value.

For those who keep suggesting it, I have no interest in drawing a children’s book.

But because I was already at the zoo, I gritted my teeth and set off to walk the circuit to see what I could see.
When I got to the new polar bear habitat, I was surprised to find both bears sparring with each other in their smaller splash pool. They have a much larger pool, but this was clearly where they wanted to be. Baffin and Siku seemed to be having a great time, wrestling, biting, and pushing each other under the water.

As one school group moved on, I parked myself at the edge of the window before the next group could arrive, and for a good ten or fifteen minutes, took photos through the glass of two polar bears, playing ten feet from my lens. I couldn’t have asked for a better vantage point.
Though I have just finished a polar bear painting and haven’t time to start another one, I took plenty of references for future projects.

Prints of that new piece, Big Bear on Blue, are now available in the store.

My zookeeper friend Kayla had to miss Expo this year, so it was nice to chat with her outside the wolf habitat before she and a colleague introduced some fish-oil-scented enrichment the wolves seemed to enjoy taking apart.
Finally, at the other end of the zoo, I caught the red pandas awake and playful and took photos that will no doubt inspire paintings down the road. One had found a perch high in a tree, balanced over a branch, in a comically lazy pose. There’s painting potential there.
After only a couple of hours, I was more than ready to head home, sort through the pics, and finish drawing an editorial cartoon.

As I’ve made a couple of commissions my priority right now, I don’t have any new progress to share on the other pieces I’m painting. Hopefully, I can put some more hours into those this weekend and share some new images next week.

Cheers,
Patrick