Which came first, the bear or the cub?

I gravitated towards photography because I didn't have the patience to be a painter.

I tried, I grew up sketching and drawing, even made a decent living on school supplies in elementary school trading my drawings for cool football team pencils, but when it came to painting, my ADD kicked in, and I was a frustrated painter. No less frustrating was having my mom as an art teacher. She was a wildlife painter in acrylics and when we moved to the North Carolina, she shifted her talent to pottery.

Now, that would have been fine and good for some, but she missed painting, and figured out a way to combine painting with her pottery, taking nature scenes and transferring them to her dishes, vases and even basin sinks for custom home projects.

But this year,we finally teamed up. My wife and I took a babymoon trip to the Canadian Rockies in May and were just in time for the elk, rams, and bears to crowd out the scenery. I was snap happy and managed to get some fun animal pics for myself. I sent them to my folks and my mom instantly jumped on them began cranking out the clay and paint brushes. Here is the result. Enjoy.