Bear With Us ballpoint pen ink sketch by Ralph Perrine June 2012.
Bear With Us ballpoint pen ink sketch by Ralph Perrine June 2012.

While staying at Great Wolf Lodge this past summer with the family, I found a ballpoint pen and scrap of paper and doodled this drawing of a bear. I surrounded it with stick letters that read “Bear With Us”. There is something about ballpoint pens that makes them great for drawing. You can hold them at an angle and scratch out very fine light lines, or bear down hard and get that solid glossy black.

Later I took the kids to one of those pottery stores where you paint your own pottery. I painted a similar bear on the side of a big cookie jar and added the same words.

People seemed to like the bear drawing, and now its available at my store on a selection of sweatshirts, zip hoodies, organic women’s and men’s t-shirts and other products, like bags and water bottles. You can order the products with or without the “Bear With Us” motto.

Here are a few of the items with the bear and the “Bear With Us” motto:

 

 

 

 

And here are some with just the bear:

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Here’s the entire set of my Bear With Us Merchandise.