Grizzly Bear Collage

I'm having a bit of a bear moment. 

Consider yourselves fortunate that I'm fighting a temporary fascination with gorillas! 

The great thing is that my dear auntie was 

after a bear card so I got to indulge my whim.

First I ripped up
'The World of Adventures',
an Edwardian boy's annual type book with thrilling accounts
 of battles and travels, and some very fine illustrations.
 Which made perfect bear fur.
The soldier who was nobly 'hunting an american boar' 
is now suspended upside down in the belly of the bear.
 Branches now hint at claws.
Leaves are fur.
Its almost like the thick dark forest has come alive, is the spirit of the bear.
Very Grimm's Fairy Tales, with a little Cherokee thrown in.

Aunt and I spent a happy evening
making a custom card for her beloved.
It went like this....
how shall we make the bear into a card?
...Lets give him a prarie background
from the book from which he came
....and we'll layer the pages,
which have gaps where the forms were cut,
to add some texture. 

Open it up and...
'inside every man is a bear waiting to get out'.
 Grrrr, rugged!

p.s. I happen to know that one of my dear readers

 has EATEN bear - best to beat them to it isn't it?