15th July, 2025. Probably along with many other communities, our village puts unused, grown-out-of, unwanted items out onto our driveways or walls for other people to take and a little while ago a small bear appeared on a wall down the road from me, along with a number of other giveaways. I walk past that point every day at least twice and watched as the small collection gradually diminished. I thought the bear would have been first to go, a little cutie with no signs of wear and tear, but no. So, a day or two after everything else had gone, I brought him home, the words of Caroline Ahern as Mrs Merton asking Debbie McGee what first attracted her to millionaire Paul Daniels, morphing in my head to a question about what it might have been about this little black bear that meant people decided to leave him where he was.

This is about visibility.

I drew out three bears in watercolour pencil on black card, varnished them within their outlines, then enlarged them with a flat brush and white acrylic. I added tissue to the first one and set it with varnish.

The next step was to pull out texture by lightly brushing black acrylic across the surface of each. Middle bear comes off best in this exercise and I think my next step will be to add a tiny bit of highlight – like a spotlight – to him while washing the other two into the background.

Wiped out the peripherals to keep the central character. This left a lumpy mess

Chopped it. Theoretically, this is a square but for some reason I am totally incapable of measuring anything accurately. It’s square-ish.

What’s he there for, though, and where is that light coming from?

The tiny area of white is a collaged door which can be folded to various open/closed positions. This is where the light is coming from.

For once, the camera reproduced the expanse of black with no need for digital corrections.

I have used no AI in the making of this image or the accompanying creative writing text below. Finished piece is 48cm x 48cm

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Invisibility

I wonder what it’s like to be an unloved Teddy bear sitting waiting, eyes button bright, arms hug ready, and ears big enough to hear secrets that your two-stitch mouth will never tell.

I wonder who left you there with the sink plunger, the set of Christmas cracker screw drivers, a pocket sewing kit, a string of fairy lights, and a decorative plate with a glued-up crack across it.

I wonder where you came from because you look new. Who chose you and then gave you away because somehow, they reasoned, you weren’t quite right for them?

I wonder how you ended up here on a wall with rain threatening and nothing left to keep you company.

What was it, I wonder, about being a little black bear that made it so hard for someone to love you?

All images and text (c) Suzanne Conboy-Hill, 2025