The bear sculpture was commissioned by a friend of mine who has a house in our small mountain village, he wanted to have s a sculpture created that would relate to the Pyrenees and also provide a point of interest in the village.

I purchased the trunk of Cedar from my local saw mill in Belvianes (Duran et Cie) it was approximately 80cm wide this meant i would have to add pieces to the trunk to achieve the required scale. I decided to add a section of the trunk for the head this would allow the grain to be in a more satisfactory direction for carving and give the required overhang for the nose;

I roughed out the carving by chain saw and then left it for while to help the drying process, a trunk of this dimension is rarely dry in the center.

In the meantime i watched film of bears and saved some screen shots from the computer to aid me in sculpting the form.

When the  Bear was a bit lighter in weight i moved it to the workshop, i could then work on it in all weather and it was also out of direct sunlight ,i was concerned it would start to split as up here at 1000 meters the sun can be very harsh in the summer months. I generally prefer to work by hand with gouges as it gives me more time to contemplate how the form is taking shape and i wanted to leave the gouge marks to vaguely represent the fur of the bear. When working in Cedar of Lebanon this means changing direction often and being disciplined enough to keep the gouges sharp.

I think it took around 2 weeks to complete the carving.