Ursa Major SOLD

Ursa Major (Illuminated Twitter Poem)
11 in. x 14 in.,  Pen & Ink and Watercolor
Unframed, $85  ~  SOLD (Somebody liked this!)

For some time I have enjoyed the challenge of using what used to be the old 140-character limit Twitter format to compose a bit of poetic verse.  For those of you who know me, you will not be surprised that I have several rueful lines aimed at my disdain for the month of March.  A couple of Septembers ago I was out at night for a run and there in the darkening sky was The Big Dipper, that highly-recognizable portion of the constellation Ursa Major that as children we might first learn to find and become familiar with.  Staring at it twinkling in the cooling heavens, I thought about how much larger the full constellation is supposed to be and how the classic Baroque drawings of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) often showed an odd bear with a long tail (?) arranged over the stars in a non-sensical way.  And so often in reality the stars beyond the dipper in the full constellation are just not visible.  I found myself re-imagining Ursa Major along the dipper itself without the extended, invisible stars, and suddenly, there he was, crouching just above the horizon, eyes penetrating and ears at attention, his powerful back tense and curved upward and away.  

I drew Ursa Major on mixed media board with pen and ink in Zentangle-style and washed watercolors over the top.  There are washes of iridescent aqua blue watercolor over the surface of the sky.  In person, he sports interference shine across his intimidating form. The poem he is illuminating is casually lettered below.  At some point I will mat and frame him, or whoever buys him could opt to have it done themselves.  He was enjoyable to create, and I hope you like him. Maybe other constellations will follow.

Ursa Major

Unblinking
Straining across the cold black
he arches low, blocking the
northern passage.  I am pinned beneath
his unmistakable vertebrae.