Here's Freedom Bear (Green Ribbon ), February's Painting of The Month Special

I had difficulty deciding which of my paintings to offer for this month’s special, All the polar bears in my paintings are doing their grand polar bear thing, but their vulnerability to climate change is always lying there somewhere under the surface. It’s a worry, isnt it?

And January was long enough.

But this little bear oil painting, painted with a little more spontaneity than is my usual after I had just completed a series, exudes that freedom I felt. No pressure to create, it was just for fun. I think it’s one of the happiest paintings, the brushstrokes are free and confident and that brightness and lightness of spirit shines through. Don’t you think so, too?

Freedom Bear (Green Ribbon)

Regular price $300

Special $250

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This painting was originally called Green Ribbon ( the stylized northern lights in the background) but I have since renamed it Freedom Bear.

Because polar bears certainly are symbols of living free aren’t they?! In Freedom Bear, we see a happy looking polar bear on its solitary journey through the arctic night. The northern lights, fluttering like a lime green ribbon, light his way.

As with all my polar bear art, this is created in in tribute to the beautiful polar bear, the Arctic and to raise awareness of the vulnerability of both to climate change.

The painting is signed in front, and has a unique work completion number on the back. It is wired and ready to hang. The painting continues around the edge to give a nicely finished look. A Certificate of Authenticity is supplied.

It is 12” wide x 6” high x .75”deep oil painting on canvas

Close up of Freedom Bear

Freedom Bear in my Studio

Freedom Bear on the wall.

Beauty in Suspense

A flash of northern lights reveals a beautiful polar bear suspended beneath the surface of the sea. A buoyant animal, and a strong swimmer, it is comfortable in this underwater space.

But the frozen sea is its true place, vital to travel, hunting, mating, denning.

Due to climate change, sea ice forms later in the fall, and melts too soon in the spring, leaving the fate of the polar bear species, in suspense.

But for the time, in this painting, we can admire the beauty, and power of the bear, envy its solitude, see the intelligence in its bright eyes. Beautiful deep blues, green, and unlike the situation, black and white.

Contact me here more more info about Polar Bear Beauty in Suspense.

Beauty in Suspense. ©Christine Montague 2018 30” x 30’ x 1.5” oil painting on canvas.

Detail of Beauty in Suspense ©ChristineMontague.com

Beauty in Suspence was recently on exhibition at In Situ 2018, an exciting multi arts festival held at CreativeHub 1352 (Small Arms Inspection Building), Mississauga, ON. Canada. Although this photo is anything but exciting (I don’t have permission to publish the works it was hanging by.), it does give a good representation of how it looks on the wall, and how the edges are painted.

Polar Bear Dreams

About Polar Bear Dreams

These polar bear oil paintings are part of the Polar Bear Dreams Series, a dreamlike, wistful, and spiritual tribute in oil to the mighty polar bear, whose threatened future always seems open to debate.

Polar Bear Dreams. On the Move. Oil Painting ©Christine Montague

Symbols

In dream intrepretation, the symbolism held by a bear is independence, strength, death and renewal, and/or resurrection.

And, if that bear is a polar bear? Reawakening.  

I try to show the physical beauty and power of the bear in my paintings. The night sky, the aurora borealis (northern lights) , the use of color, and lack of detailed landscape show how this beautiful bear has a foot in our world, but may be edging closer to the spiritual one. Hopefully,  knowledge, awareness, and empathy, will ensure that the ursus maritimus remains firmly planted in this world.

The limited color pallette of Prussian (or Indigo) blue, white,  black, (and sometimes green ) creates the other-worldy mood, spirituality, and mystery.

Polar bears are actually not white, but we do see them that way. (Read the Polar Bears International article on their fur here).

The white in my polar bear paintings represents strength, intelligence, innocence, and hope.

Blue is the most popular colour. Looking at blue is proven to make one feel well, and is helpful to sufferers of SAD. The blue in these paintings is more than representation of the night sky. It symbolizes the earth, the spiritual, the unknown, and beauty, too.

When I paint the green of the northern lights, it is one of the colours of the aurora borealis, but also represents nature, fertility, life and balance. The colour reflects off the bear's fur, connecting it to all this colour represents.

And, as in many of my paintings, the concept of living life "in the moment" and of solitude that is not lonely is prevelent. But, longing lingers there, too.

In these paintings, the longing can be as simple as wanting these polar bears and their progeny to live a long. healthy life. 

I welcome your comments and inquiries. To see more polar bear art, or to make inquiries about my polar bear paintings (portraits, too), please feel free to comment below, or contact me  www.christinemontague.com

Follow the Yellow Fish Road

I just answered the door to a team of five middle school students wearing road safety vests.  My "blink" intuition (yes,  as in the  Malcolm Gladwell BLINK sense)  wasn't kicking in.  My brain could not equate the facts - students in safety gear, the lack of chocolate bar boxes and  school  not yet out (it's only 1 pm)  - and my experience, i.e.  they want money.

To my pleasant surprise, what these young people were selling, was awareness.

These young Mississauga Peel School Board Students working as "Trout Unlimited Canada" volunteers, were spreading the word "only rain in storm drains" .  They were giving  a friendly reminder , and an important one , too, that storm drains connect directly to our local streams, rivers and lakes.  As well, as part of the Yellow Fish Road campaign, they had just painted  a yellow fish by drain on the road by my house.

You may be enlightened  to learn , as I recently had, that in most cities, storm drains do not connect to the sewage treatment plant & that oil, salt, soap  &  fertilizer goes directly and untreated into your local waterbody!

What does this have to do with art?

Well, aside from the friendly, humourous and hopefully effective, creativity of the campaign, it is also another reminder to artists to responsibly dispose of our environmentally unfriendly materials.

And any campaign that has young people that might not normally paint, and have them think it is fun to paint, even it it just a yellow fish by the side of the road, is golden in my book.

For more information:

Yellow Fish Road

Trouts Unlimited Canada

Region of Peel: For Safe Disposal (unwanted chemicals, paints, oils) 905 791 9499

Report Spills & Dumping:

Into watercourses - Ontario Ministry of Environment Spills Action Centre 1 800 268 6060

Into storm drains - City of Mississauga 905 615 3000