Bear, boat, tea

I'm loving the naturalistic artwork of Lieke van der Vorst, a young artist from the Netherlands. In a cut-out and block-print style, she depicts wondrous scenes often involving forest animals in some communion or activity with humans, often children. Her site is a delight to page through, including samples of her work and photos from her earthy but stylish realm.

She uses the bear a lot, often shown as if it were an imaginary friend, and of course I'm drawn to this scene of a young woman having tea with the bear — on a boat, of course.

Somehow it took me back to one of my favorite novels of all time: The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor, an elegantly written tale of a complicated bear who plays jazz saxophone — some of the best writing about music ever.