PLEASE NOTE: When this scene was at the printer they printed a run of 700 prints, as I had ordered. However, they noted at the bottom of the white border edge that it was a run of only 500! I wasn't going to have them re-print the whole thing just to correct that little mistake, that no one would even see when it's framed anyhow. So, just be aware of it, as your print may be numbered higher than 500.

When my husband, Sonny, and I were hunting deer one November, we traveled along an old logging road on the "spine" of a mountain in the George Washington National Forest, about twenty five or so miles from where we live. It's a pretty rough road, with large rocks, (more like boulders, I think), that must be avoided! You have to have a four-wheel drive vehicle to even think about going. But, it was fun and exciting, bouncing all around! The autumn day was just gorgeous! On one side of the mountain was the George Washington National Forest, and just on the other side of the "road", (if you could call it that), was Saint Mary's Wilderness Area, a protected wildlife area. We could hunt legally in the National Forest, but not in St. Mary's. On the St. Mary's side were huge, wild rhododendrons, with paths going into them made by black bears and deer. It gets quite flat after a while down the road. At one time there were actually cranberry bogs up there and it was swampy! Now, it's all dried up, but a nice place to stop and rest. We didn't see any deer, typical for us. We also didn't see any bears. I could just see them, "in my head". When hunting I always see things to paint even if I don't see anything to hunt. Actually, I prefer painting to hunting now. Sonny would rather watch the wildlife as well.

I imagined a big mama black bear still searching for food before hibernation. She is showing her two cubs, (one is up in a tree, look for it), how to turn over old logs for finding tasty termites. Yumm! I think I must have scratched-out the little bear's face in the tree a half a dozen times before I got it to look like I wanted! He almost didn't make it! If I'd had to re-do him one more time, he would have been extinct! Sometimes painting is like that! Frustrating! I titled the piece, "Ursa Major and Ursa Minors", for the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, (big bear and little bear constellations).  "Ursa" is Latin for "bear".

The Bible Scripture title on this scene is:

"Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly."

- Proverbs 17: 12