Canadian Landscape Series - Painting 8 of 13: Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba

This is a post about Northern Lights, Northwest Territories - 1 of 13 paintings in my 2024 Canadian Landscape series. If you would like to read about the series as a whole, you can find that post here. ​

Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba

Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba (2023) - part of my Canadian Landscape series

​Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba was the eighth painting I completed from my Canadian Landscape series. It was completed in October 2023. 

​My goal for this series was to capture the essence of each province and territory in a painting. When I was researching interesting things about Manitoba, the polar bears in Churchill caught my attention. ​

Photo Credit: Hans-Jurgen Mager (Unsplash)

Churchill is a small town in northern Manitoba known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World". Polar bears can often be seen roaming through residential areas - a sight that draws several thousand tourists to the area each year.

Even though I had never painted an animal before, I knew right away that the polar bears in Churchill was what I wanted to paint for Manitoba. ​

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​This was my very first time painting a "barcode landscape" animal. I needed a reference photo to give me some good guidelines, and I used this photo from Unsplash taken by Hans-Jurgen Mager. Full disclosure, the photo was taken in Alaska not Churchill, which I'll probably catch some heat for. It was important to me to paint a mama with her cub and this photo had the perfect bones. ​​

Painting the bears took me a few tries before I was happy with them. My lovely children (with their unfiltered honestly) told me the baby bear looks more like a monkey, and the bears feet look like pom-poms - haha! They kinda do... but I still think they're cute.

Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba (2023)

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​After completing this painting, I was ready to take a break from painting snowy forests and northern lights skies for a while. 
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The next painting I completed from this series was Moraine Lake, Alberta.

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