Someone Built a Bear Around This Tree (10 Photos)

Everything here is made of snow

A bear hugs a tree, a mailbox grows a face, and a steam locomotive stands still in the snow. These 10 examples of snow art range from playful front-yard sculptures to enormous carvings at Harbin’s winter shows.

More: Fun With Snow Sculptures (10 Photos)

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🐻 The Bear Hug

A snow bear wraps both arms around a tree trunk and holds on. It looks like it has been there all winter.

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📬 The Mailbox Monster

The mailbox became the mouth, and two branches became angry arms. Bills go in at your own risk.

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🚂 The Snow Train — Harbin, China 🇨🇳

A steam locomotive carved from snow, wheels and all, at the Harbin winter festival in 2009. The person by the front shows how big it is.

💡 Snow Fact: Harbin’s carvers shape the snow with saws, shovels, augers and sandpaper, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

📷 Photo: Rincewind42 from China / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🦉 The Impostor Owl

On the left, a real snowy owl. On the right, a snow copy with amber eyes and a red beak. The real one doesn’t look impressed.

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🤸 The Headstand

Real boots on top, scarf in the snow. The coal smile is upside down too, which makes it work.

💡 Snow Fact: Snow sticks best near 0°C (32°F), when the crystals melt a little and clump together, Scientific American explains.

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🏛️ Venus in the Street — By Daniel and Miguel Ángel in Alcalá de Henares, Spain 🇪🇸

A headless, armless Venus de Milo in a snowy street at night, taller than the car parked beside her. Lifelong friends Daniel and Miguel Ángel set out to build a snowman during Storm Filomena in January 2021, and when the pile reached three meters in the Parque del Ángel neighborhood of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, they carved Venus out of it. They took their time on the drapery.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsVenus de Milo de nieve2021 · Alcalá de Henares, SpainStorm Filomena, Jan 2021Parque del Ángel3 m snow pile (Ciudad)1According to Dream Alcalá, two lifelong friends meant to build a snowman, then carved for six hours after two hours piling up snow.Dream Alcalá2According to Time Out Barcelona, one of the pair runs an osteopathy and sports-massage centre and the other is a firefighter.Time Out Barcelona202111 JanMakers interviewed · Dream Alcalá202112 JanCovered by Time Out Madrid202113 JanIn Time Out Madrid’s roundup of Filomena snow sculptures202115 JanReported collapsed the day after it was made · Ciudad (DPA)Read the full file →

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🎶 The Flute Player — Harbin, China 🇨🇳

A giant calm face plays a bamboo flute while a flock of snow sheep walks past below. Photographed at the Harbin snow festival in January 2010, under a hard blue sky.

📷 Photo: Dayou_X / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🐈‍⬛ The One-Eyed Twin

The black cat has one eye, so the snow cat got one too. A small detail that turns a snow cat into a portrait.

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🦶 Two Feet of Snow

Someone heard the forecast say two feet of snow and took it literally. The toes are the best part.

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👴 A Face in the Snowbank — By Arkadiusz Andrejkow in Sanok, Poland 🇵🇱

A man’s face sprayed straight onto a snow mound, bare branches poking through the top. Arkadiusz Andrejkow is a mural painter from Sanok. When heavy snow came in December 2022, he used the snow as a “white sheet” while waiting for spring.

💡 Artist Fact: Andrejkow was born in Sanok in 1985 and still lives there, In Your Pocket notes.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsSnow portraits (December 2022)Arkadiusz Andrejkow · 2022 · Sanok, PolandSpray paint on snowMade December 2022About 15 min each (TVN24)1According to TVN24, he paints snow that has capped jutting concrete, so the paint settles on concrete rather than soil after the thaw.TVN242In his own words, quoted by eSanok, he was impatient for spring and new wall works, so he painted on winter’s “white sheet”.eSanok202218 DecReported · eSanok202225 DecReported · TVN24Read the full file →

More: More Snow Portraits by Arkadiusz Andrejkow

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