bears have an interesting existence. this might be too simplified, but essentially they eat enough so that they can last the winter hibernating. prior to hibernation season, they’ll eat around 40 kilograms of food. every. single. day. once they’ve dug their dens for the winter, they spend that time resting. females use this time to birth their cubs as well. after this time, they’ll shed half the weight and the cycle repeats. i used to think that brown bears are strictly solitary creatures but they do seem to gather in alaska in the summer for salmon spawning. also, if you run away from a brown bear, it most probably can catch you. leave the momma’s cubs alone though, and you should be good. apparently. ursus arctos in moleskine.

i seem to do a lot of portraits but i do enjoy drawing the odd animal or two, among other things. i do prefer candid images or those that are simply uncharacteristic of the subject in terms of general perception. pandas always seemed to me to be rather harmless, sedentary beings so i thought that i would try one that looked, well, angry. i knew that they like to mow down on some bamboo action usually but i didn’t know that it is actually 99% of their diets. they are still taxonomically deemed to be carnivorous though and they do crave the odd bit of meat, fish, eggs or what have you.

i’m also fond of this checkered/basketweave texture/pattern as of late. i suppose i’m reminded slightly of pixels as well. in retrospect i probably should’ve tried more of a gradual enlargement of the ‘fadeout’ to the larger patches but hey. hindsight is a friend that shows up the party invited but a bit late sometimes. an angry asian ailuropoda or my boy dj panda in moleskine, 9×10″

yes this is a double post to i.f. sorry, couldn’t resist.