I have a confession to make, I believe I have fully submerged myself into my "bears with coffee" era. Now, those lucky persons who have only seen the magnificent creatures either out in the wild or diving through your dumpster you may be thinking "how does the coffee aspect come into play?" Well, it just does and that is all the explanation I can dutifully provide you. When did this obsession first possess me? Now that I can trace back to my very first musings at the Dana Point Café called “Bear Coast Coffee” last year. Being down the way from where we were staying on the sunny California Coastline, our paths naturally crossed out of cafe curiosity.
What I found in opening the doors to what would become my favorite cafe, was an insanely fun and eye-catching black and white mural on the back wall of the café. It featured a groovy, chill surfing grizzly enjoying his very own French pressed coffee onboard of his surfboard. A quirky and cute combination of coffee, surf and coastal animals. The mural stuck with me, crawling its way to the inspiration files deep within my head, where it took a brief and relaxing vacation.
My bears and coffee inspiration came out of its docile hibernation once I found myself on a trip up to my former home, Vancouver Island, to celebrate my friend’s wedding. Arriving earlier in the week for the festivities, I found myself strolling along the beach enveloped in the morning mist accompanied by my morning cuppa jo’ to soak in the sights of wave chasers that surfed their way in and out of my line of sight. Perhaps it was the presence of the rare sunny gemstone that warmed us with its hello, or perhaps it was the surfers flailing about over the top of my coffee mug that sparked a renewed interest and exploration of the idea of a beach-town bear towing his precious nectar along with him. Finally, this time I paused to allow my beachy bear to stumble from mind to page as I decided to make myself comfortable on a variety of beach logs and to let my watercolors flow. The result: some very PNW looking black bears mucking about the coastlines with coffee.
The idea and inspiration of a bear mucking about with a coffee touted safely on his snout returns to me every time we find ourselves back in Dana Point and running into my favorite cafe. I can't help but continually recreate a bear enjoying the sights out on a stroll with his coffee within the confines of my leatherbound sketchbook. As of this moment, I am not sure if this "bear-era" will ever truly end for me, and so I thought I would share a few snapshots of my favorite sketches with you today.
Thank you so much for tuning into this week's offbeat anecdote. I hope that you enjoyed learning of one of my very real obsessions on this cozy Sunday morning. I hope you tune in next Sunday for a new offbeat anecdote as well!
As always,
Keep it offbeat!
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