I’m happy to reveal this new painting of Berkley, a bear near and dear to my heart who lives at Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail.
I hadn’t planned on painting another bear so soon, as I have commissions I’m desperately trying to get completed, but the book needed the right cover, and the right cover needed a new bear.
After years of delays, procrastination, and perfectionism, my first book is well underway.
My publisher, Alexander, owner of Renegade Arts Entertainment here in Canmore, first started talking with me about a book ten years ago. Leaving out the details and roadblocks along the way, all of which were self-created, I finally got tired of my own B.S. excuses.
I usually see Alexander at Expo each year, as he’s always there with several of his authors, and he brought up the book again this spring. I admitted that I figured he was probably tired of hearing me say, “soon, I just have to…”
But he was his typical gracious self and told me it would happen when it happened.
So I decided it was happening now.
We went for lunch the following week and agreed on some immediate deadlines, including a full book mockup and the marketing material he’d need to begin promoting it on his side of things.
Most pressing of all, he needed a cover.
I tried several existing paintings in the mockups, but none of them seemed right. Eventually, I realized I needed to paint a new bear for the cover of my bear book.
My friend Serena at Discovery Wildlife Park helped me gather some new Berkley reference, because she’s the only bear I wanted on the cover. Fortune favoured me, and I got the shots I needed earlier last month.
As my work is all about personality and connecting with character, I had to think like a customer, and that meant a closeup of her face for the cover. The full painting, however, will appear inside the book, and I’ll have prints available before too long.
Now that this is out there, there’s no turning back.
The book will be an 8X10 softcover, around 70–80 pages. I still have a few pieces to complete, along with additional sketches I want to add. There’s also some writing and editing to do before this fall, when all of this needs to be finished.
You’ll read more about the project in the coming months, and I’m excited, and more than a little relieved, that this is finally a real thing.
Alexander knows the importance of the Calgary Expo in my world and volunteered last week that he’s planning to have advance copies available for my Expo people in April, ahead of the official book launch on May 12, 2027.
There’s still a lot of work left to do, but I’ll manage. Scary stuff, in the best possible way.
Cheers,
Patrick
