Because I haven’t released a new painting in a while, I did not want to publish yet another post promising something new down the road. So, here’s a new piece: a weary-looking grizzly bear in the snow. I’m calling it Bedtime.
I had planned on sharing a different painting this week. Here’s why that changed.
Over the past twenty-plus years of my art career, both as a syndicated editorial cartoonist and a digital painter, there have been plenty of times when something I’ve drawn hasn’t worked out the way I had planned.
The beauty of digital drawing and painting is that it’s often easier to fix mistakes. I can create a new layer, play around and experiment; if I don’t like it, I delete it and try a different direction. Most creatives are familiar with happy accidents, something unexpected that improves an image. It happens all the time.
There’s always an element of discovery in any illustration or painting.
On the flip side, an image can sometimes become an exercise in frustration. Years ago, a bighorn sheep painting had me pulling out my hair. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the curl of the horns to look right. They were either too flat, distorted, or just wrong, and every time I messed with them, I’d have to spend hours repainting the detailed texture I ruined.
It’s hardly a unique story. Every artist I know goes through this. For traditional artists who paint with oil, acrylic, watercolour or airbrush, it’s even worse. Sometimes, they try to fix something that isn’t working and get to a point where they’ve just ruined any chance of recovery. The canvas ends up in the trash, and they start over.
I began a painting of a group of Ring-tailed Lemurs months ago. I thought it would be finished this summer and again this week. I can’t begin to estimate how many hours I’ve spent on this painting. It has been one disappointment after another. But I finally got through the other work and deadlines holding up my progress and recently spent several mornings on it.
I was within what I thought was two or three hours of finishing, then realized I didn’t like it. That’s a hard truth to admit when I have invested so much time into a piece.
On my iPad, I took it to my buddy Derek at Electric Grizzly Tattoo. He’s a talented and skilled artist, and we sometimes ask each other for an unbiased eye. I can always count on his constructive criticism and willingness to help me produce a better piece of art. I do my best to return that generosity in kind, and when asked, offer my own thoughts on his paintings.
While Derek liked the individual faces, he agreed that the composition had problems. It was tough to hear, but it confirmed what I already knew.
After I got home, I spent a couple of hours messing with it, still trying to save it. But it was a gut-punch realization that I’d almost have to start from scratch. If I released the painting as is, knowing the obvious problems, even if others like it, I would hate it every time I looked at it.
So, while I’m not quite back at square one, it’s close. I’ve been sketching over the piece and trying new things, and I’m already much happier with the composition.
Reworking it, however, meant destroying what I had already painted. I must redo all the fur and hair, the detail in the muzzles and eyes, and add other elements that weren’t there before.
Whenever I finish the newer version, I will share more about this process, including what specifically I didn’t like and my thoughts on what I needed to change. I will also show you the piece I showed Derek and share why we both felt it didn’t work. But I don’t want to do that until I reveal the finished piece so you can see the comparison.
Anytime you do something creative, there’s a chance it won’t work. Authors have had to discard whole chapters and rehash plotlines when an editor has their way with a novel. Chefs have prepared complicated and ultimately inedible meals from experimental recipes. Filmmakers have spent years creating box office bombs.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “I didn’t fail the test; I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
If you’re not prepared to fail, you’ll never succeed.
So, I set the lemurs aside this week and began this bear piece on Tuesday as a palate cleanser before I jump back into the other works in progress I have yet to complete, including those lemurs.
Because when life hands you lemons, paint a grizzly bear.
That’s the saying, right?
Well, it works for me.
This Thursday, I’ll be one of 150 vendors setting up for the Banff Christmas Market. That evening, a locals’ preview event is already sold out. After that, from Friday to Sunday for the next four weeks, you’ll find me in my booth at the Banff Train Station, offering prints, calendars, coasters, magnets and stickers. Tickets are only available in advance on their website, and they go quickly, especially on Saturdays. I hope to see you there.
Thanks to so many of you who have purchased calendars already. I’ve been getting those orders out as soon as they come in, so if you’re waiting for yours, they’re on the way. If you still want one (or two, three, four…you get the idea), you can get them in the store while supplies last.
Cheers,
Patrick
I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
With a lot to do and feeling like I was way behind, a cabin trip seemed like a low priority. But it’s an inexpensive getaway, a relatively short drive, and I needed a break.
Not the most exciting critter encounters, but I got some good squirrel pics. This amusing little chatterbox might very well inspire a painting.
I took photos of wind-broken tree stumps where I might place an owl or eagle. A natural doorway created by curved and fallen branches has potential. You never know what might spark a new piece.
Though we had visited with them earlier, the owners texted us Sunday evening that the Atlas comet was barely visible over the pasture. It had been brighter and more evident days earlier, but this was the last chance to see it. We walked out in the dark, not wanting to use flashlights that might ruin our night vision and found the faint anomaly among the sea of stars. Darrel took this shot on his newer phone. I couldn’t get a good capture with mine. You can just see the comet tail on the left.
We had nice fall weather for most of our time there, but it got cold and windy Sunday night and Monday. A snowstorm hit Calgary and Canmore, and given the road reports and Shonna’s texts, I was thrilled I didn’t have to drive back until Tuesday.
My order from Pacific Music & Art was waiting for me when I got home, and it contained 
On the one hand, it shows that this side of my business continues to grow. As it’s the work I enjoy most and has the best chance of ensuring my financial future, I’m grateful. But it’s a significant investment of time and money that comes with no small amount of anxiety.
With a website and 
While I had lunch with my zookeeper friend, Serena, a couple of other people arrived. Coincidentally, they were also longtime friends of the park. Rather than the usual bear education presentation we’d seen several times, Serena gave the three of us a behind-the-scenes personal tour and visit with the bears.
Cold, dark, and windy, the rain at least let up for a few hours. While the pictures I got weren’t impressive photographs on their own, some of these shots will be amazing for reference. I’ve written before about how sunny days aren’t great because they can wash out detail in the highlights and shadows, but an overcast day provided some very exciting photos of bear fur and features.
If that weren’t enough, Serena has been hand-raising an orphaned raccoon since he was tiny. Shonna I got to see him earlier this summer, but on this day, he was getting his first look at a much bigger world, as he was let loose for a bit to run and play in a large enclosure. If you’ve ever seen a cat or dog with the zoomies, imagine that with a raccoon. He was having a very good time.
After the park, I took my parents out to dinner in Red Deer and spent the night at their place for a nice, albeit short, visit.
Several years ago, a local photographer told me about
Their primary motivation is food, so they’re usually en route to one of the small patches of grass and vegetation among the rocks, where they’ll stuff their faces before running back to their stash. It’s fun to watch.
It can get cold up there at 2200m (7200 ft), and I always pack extra layers, but it was a pleasant fall morning, and I only needed a light jacket. On a few visits, there’ve been ten or 12 other people, often photographers with much bigger lenses than my 70-300mm, doing the same thing. But on this visit, I spent an hour and a half crawling over the rocks and snapping pics with the whole place to myself. Nobody else stopped.
On each drive up to Rock Glacier, I usually see black bears or grizzlies, but none this time. They’re likely still low in the valleys, eating as much as possible before winter. But they can show up anywhere around here, and on these excursions, I’ve always got bear spray on my hip. Aside from the above pic of a line of bighorn sheep walking the top of the ridge, I only saw the wildlife I came for.
Though I have kept dozens of pika photos over the years, I’ve always felt I hadn’t quite got the one I wanted, that perfect photo to paint from. I finally got one on this trip, but I haven’t shared it in this post. It’ll just have to be a surprise.
Though Sarah and her spouse live near Edmonton, and I could ship the painting, she and her Mom had planned for a couple of nights in Canmore this past weekend, and I delivered the 18”X24” stretched canvas to their hotel. I took them outside into the sunlight for the reveal so they could see the bright colours and the details. Whether on paper, metal or canvas, my work always looks better in print than on a screen. People have been saying that to me for years. Sarah said it, too.
But I’ve also been working on the group of bears I’ve been chipping away at for some time now. The original plan for this piece was five adult bears sitting at a log in the woods, like a group of friends hanging out and chatting. I drew six of them separately to give myself options.
However, when I dropped and dragged them together into one image, the digital canvas was very long. A long horizontal canvas has appeal for a canvas or metal print. However, from a commercial perspective, it would limit what I could offer for licensing and paper prints.
Once I was pleased with the group layout, I dropped the layer’s opacity and traced over the shapes and basic features. I did this several times, refining with each pass.
Then, I got to work on the shading, detail, expressions, and character. I do that right up until the end of every painting, as personality is the most essential part and is where I have the most fun. And with this painting, I’ve got five faces to discover instead of one.
This piece seems like a family posing for a Sears portrait or the opening of a sitcom like Family Ties or Growing Pains. I’m going to call it ‘The Grizzlies.’
Despite the bright sun, I got some shots of the two black bear cubs. There might be inspiration for a painting or two in the few photos I kept, but I will let them simmer and review them in a few months. My mood and circumstances can colour my perception, so shots that don’t inspire me in August might push the right buttons in January.
Although I prefer to take my own reference photos whenever possible, I am not interested in becoming a professional photographer. Connecting the dots between aperture, shutter speed and ISO and understanding how they work together, it just seems like math and bores the hell out of me.
I know that hook because I have it for drawing and painting. I can spend hours detailing little hairs or working to get the texture of a bear’s nose just right. I am confident that would be incredibly dull for most people.
So, while I revel in learning a photography trick or technique that helps me take better reference, like 
At the end of July, on the day I sent 
Though most of Alberta had been dealing with heavy wildfire smoke that week, it completely cleared up by the time I got to the cabin and stayed that way the whole four days we were there. The temperature even dropped to a comfortable level and we got some welcome rain. In fact, on the first night, it cooled off so much that we wondered if we might need a fire in the wood stove. Given the oppressive heat we’d just escaped, we had no appetite for that. But wearing long pants and a hoodie seemed strange that evening, given how uncomfortable the past month had been.
Even though I couldn’t turn off my busy brain, it was good to get away. We did what we always do: sat around talking, napped on the decks in the afternoon, walked around the large property, and played guitar, cards and Scrabble. Yes, we’re boring old men.
It was a very pretty and delightfully cool morning, and I knew there would be plenty of time to nap on the deck later in the day, so my mood improved. I wandered up the road, spooked a few deer and watched them take off across the neighbour’s newly cut and bailed hayfield. I kept my eyes peeled for other wildlife, hoping for an owl or coyote.
The base of the tree she ran up to escape was twenty feet below me down the steep bank, so her ‘safe height’ now put her at eye level with me as I stood on the road. And she was NOT happy about it.
Though I had done what I could to boost my exposure compensation to account for the dark area in which I was shooting, I needed to keep the shutter speed high to try to capture this quick little marten. In the end, none of the pictures I got were very good, but I enjoyed the moment. I don’t know if I have ever seen a pine marten in the wild, but I was pleased with the early morning treat.
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