Category: Demonstration

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Stocked for Christmas, Stuck with Canada Post

It’s with mixed feelings that I can say most of my stock for the Banff Christmas Market has arrived.

My restock of metal prints came in last week, along with a large order from Art Ink Print in Victoria, who handle my 11×14 poster prints. That shipment included both my own stock for the four Banff Market long weekends and a big order for the Calgary Zoo, which I delivered on Wednesday.
Each of my poster prints is hand-signed, and the Zoo got the very first print of my latest Snowy Owl painting. It’s always a nice feeling to see a new piece in print for the first time.

Another large order from Pacific Music & Art arrived yesterday. They’ve licensed my work for several years on a wide range of products. People often tell me they’ve seen my art in stores across Alberta, BC, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest. Those are all Pacific products.
They also produce the calendar many of you look forward to each year. That means I get to sell my own artist edition while the same calendar reaches stores I could never reach myself. Some of you on Vancouver Island have even told me you already picked up your 2026 calendar before I got mine.
If you’ve ever bought a magnet or coaster from me at the Calgary Expo or the Banff Christmas Market, those are Pacific items, too. I already had several designs in stock, but yesterday’s delivery topped up my inventory for the market.
So yes, you have to spend money to make money, but placing large orders like these is a serious expense, often weeks or months ahead of actually selling anything. Anyone who’s ever kept retail inventory knows the feeling. It’s something I never get used to and it puts me on edge.

That’s the “mixed” part.

While I’m happy with this year’s calendar order and confident in my usual sales projections, the Canada Post labour dispute has thrown a wrench in everything. Normally, early calendar sales through my online store help offset these upfront costs.

Announced late last night, as of Saturday, Oct. 11, Canada Post is moving from a nationwide strike to rotating strikes, which should get some mail moving again, just not reliably. So for now, my online store will stay closed until I see what happens. But until Canada Post proves this isn’t just a temporary pause before another shutdown, I can’t risk taking online orders that might end up stuck in limbo. I’ll plan to reopen by late October. My last outstanding order, custom tote bags featuring my Christmas Bear painting, has shipped from Montreal by courier and is scheduled to arrive next week. Thankfully, that one’s unaffected and on track.

Like every other small business caught up in this dispute, I just have to wait and hope for a resolution soon… or find a way to make this year’s Christmas sales work despite it all.

So yeah, I’ve been angry and stressed. I won’t pretend otherwise. Even with rotating strikes, which should get some mail moving again, the uncertainty means gritting my teeth, clenching my jaw, and trying to accept what I can’t change while working on what I can.

On a brighter note, I’m currently working on a dog commission that’s been a welcome distraction. I’d love to focus on that full-time for a week, but for now, the editorial cartooning is paying the bills until the wildlife paintings can contribute again. And thankfully, with each Canada Post strike and job action having taught hard lessons, all of my newspapers now pay by direct deposit.
I’m also creating a project for Wacom, featuring their new Movink Pad 11, hands down the best mobile drawing experience I’ve had. Full stop. I’ll share more about it in an upcoming video, which includes outdoor sketching footage. Above is a preview: a small practice piece I’m working on to get comfortable with the included software.

Thankfully, I’ve got a short cabin trip coming up with my buddy Darrel, something we booked a while ago. It’s a pre-market reset before the long haul through November and December. I’m looking forward to a few days of quiet: playing cards, Scrabble and guitar, napping on the deck, and wandering the pastures with my camera in search of wildlife. Fall is my favourite time of year there.
Here in Canmore, we got our first snowfall last Saturday. Most of it melted in the valley by Sunday afternoon, but the mountains stayed white for a few days longer. If this isn’t the best view from any Safeway in Canada, it’s at least in the top three. Helps (a little) to soften the shock of the ridiculous grocery prices around here.
But I was biking my errands in shorts again yesterday and snapped this pic of Policeman’s Creek.

Back to work.

Cheers,
Patrick

If you missed the video I created about the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre and the creation of my most recent Snowy Owl, here it is again.


 

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Snowy Owl Painting and Video

I finished this Snowy Owl painting last week, just in time to add it to my lineup for the Banff Christmas Market. The first metal prints arrived yesterday and the poster prints will be here tomorrow.

Normally, I release new pieces soon after finishing them. This one took a little longer because I recorded the painting process, then spent another week writing the story, recording narration, and editing the footage.

I’ve been working on Wacom tablets since the late ’90s, and my current Cintiq 24HD has been with me since 2014. It still runs every day without complaint and gets me where I want to go. But for this piece, I used my newer Wacom Cintiq 16 with my laptop. It’s smaller, but I enjoy working on it, and the tabletop setup makes it easier to record.

Each video I make gets a little smoother. The workflow feels more natural, I’m learning to work with the quirks of the new editing software, and it’s far less frustrating than a few months ago. I especially enjoyed shaping the narrative for this one, weaving in photos, and talking about the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre.

I didn’t make it down there this year, too many projects kept pushing it off until their season was over. Hopefully, I’ll make it a priority next spring.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the new painting and the video that goes with it.

Cheers,
Patrick

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A Little Breather

After wrapping up the three-cat commission I’ve been working on (and talking about) for the past couple of months, I needed a reset. Not a full break—but something without expectations, pressure, or deadlines. Just a chance to paint for myself again.

This little ground squirrel was that piece.

I worked on it here and there earlier in the week; no plan for prints, products, or licensing. Just a personal palate (or palette) cleanser to clear my head and get back into the rhythm.

Here’s a closer look at some of the fine detail work, my favourite part of the process.

It also became another step in learning how to better share my process through video. There were a few frustrating moments along the way—some technical hurdles and workflow issues—but I’m learning as I go, and it’s starting to feel more natural. I’ll get there.

Watch the Video

I share a bit more of the backstory, including why I needed this piece after the cat commission, and what this kind of no-pressure painting means for my creative process.

If you enjoy it, a like or comment goes a long way. And subscribing helps bring my work to more people—which means I can keep making and sharing more of it. Thanks for following along.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Cartoons Amid the Chaos

As many of you know, my art business consists of editorial cartooning and whimsical wildlife paintings. My syndicated editorial cartoons used to provide a decent full-time living, but with the decline of newspapers, it’s now less than half of my income. Fortunately, my painted work keeps growing and carries more of the load when it comes to paying the bills.

But editorial cartooning is still a big part of my job. The images you see in this post show the different stages of each cartoon I draw, this one about the unwelcome trade war Canada now finds itself in with the United States.
Each week, I draw five or six syndicated editorial cartoons. I follow regional, provincial, national and international news and draw illustrated commentary on prominent stories. Many of my weekly clients across Canada only run my cartoons in their publications, some for over a decade. Other clients, especially daily papers, will pick and choose from submissions from several cartoonists. Despite the belief that journalism is unbiased, it most certainly is not. Some newspapers lean left while others lean right.

Prime Minister Trudeau is deeply unpopular everywhere in Canada, so most newspapers will run a cartoon that casts him in an unfavourable light. But, sometimes, I will draw a cartoon that calls out a right-leaning leader, like Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre or Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and even as I draw the toon, I know that some of my Alberta newspapers won’t run it.

Editorial cartoons are not unbiased, nor are they supposed to be. Just like a written opinion piece, the cartoon is my perspective. Some readers will agree with it; others will not.

In addition to my syndicated work, I draw one weekly local cartoon for The Rocky Mountain Outlook, the newspaper of record for Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise and the rest of the Bow Valley. I’ve been their cartoonist since day one in 2001, and it’s a point of pride that I have never missed an issue. It’s rare that the cartoon on the editorial page isn’t about an issue close to home. While the Outlook has mostly supported my work for many years, each idea is subject to my editor’s approval. I don’t own that spot on the editorial page and can’t simply draw whatever I want.

With syndication, however, I have free reign. It’s then up to my newspaper clients to decide whether they want to run a cartoon I submit. If one rubs them the wrong way, they get four or five others that week to choose from.
Years ago, I recall that somebody in Canmore came up with a proposal that each business in the community should contribute to a tourism promotion fee. Some businesses complained they shouldn’t have to because they weren’t in the tourism business.

Even if you only ever see locals in your business, if they work in tourism, then so do you. Without tourism to pay your customers, your customers can’t pay you. If tourism suddenly vanished around here, so would most businesses in town and the people who work in them.

This weekend, in an unjustified demonstration of selfish aggrandizing aggression, the President of the United States levied a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada, with 10% on energy. I won’t get too deep into why none of this makes sense, but one easy objection is that this is not about fentanyl trafficking, as he claims.

A Homeland Security Commission in 2022 concluded that “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States, a conclusion primarily drawn from seizure data.”

A 2020 DEA intelligence report stated, “While Mexico and China are the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States, India is emerging as a source for finished fentanyl powder and fentanyl precursor chemicals.”

Canada wasn’t implicated by either agency. But it’s hardly surprising, because the President changes his reasons for the tariffs with each passing day. One day it’s fentanyl, then immigration, then a wildly exaggerated trade deficit number that he calls a subsidy (it’s not), and today it’s that “Canada doesn’t even allow U.S. Banks to open or do business there. What’s that all about?”

It was another false claim that was easy to debunk, as the Financial Post did within two hours of the President’s declaration. US banks have been operating in Canada for a long time, one for more than 100 years.

You will have no trouble finding educated insight into this recent tariff issue, especially from economists and business leaders on either side of the border, who say this will be incredibly damaging to the economies of both countries.
Canada and the United States have had a unique, enviable, and friendly relationship for longer than any two countries. We’ve often referred to each other as family. We’ve had our ups and downs; every relationship does, but it has always endured.

This unprovoked schoolyard bully attack has Canadians upset and angry. The 51st state nonsense is insulting, rude and childish, especially repeated ad nauseum over the past few months. But we hoped it might pass, and the President would find other means to distract his supporters from his false promises to make their lives better. Shouldn’t at least those voters be his primary focus? Because this ain’t that, regardless of how he paints it.

Tariffs will not decrease grocery prices in the United States. Those prices are going to go up, as they will for cars, furniture, gas, heavy equipment, and many more components, parts and products that Americans import from Canada. Even the average oil change in the US will likely increase by 30%. Tariffs will impact purchases most people never even think about, and those in Congress more concerned with keeping their titles and salaries than serving their constituents know it.

But hey, their financial security isn’t in jeopardy. Not yet.

Realtors in Florida and Arizona are seeing more second homes on the market than in years as Canadians leave communities, no longer feeling welcome in the United States. My parents lived in Arizona in the winter for over a decade. A hairdresser once told my Mom she had to get a part-time job during the pandemic when Canadians couldn’t travel south.

Canadians represent 27% of all international visitors to the US, contributing $16.4 billion in 2018, according to the US Travel Association. Whether talk translates to action is anyone’s guess, but I’ve heard several Canadians say they won’t take a U.S. vacation anytime soon. Why go where you’re not welcome?

Buy Canadian stickers are now popping up all over Canada, and trade barriers between provinces will likely disappear, as they should have years ago. It’s ironic that an unwarranted attack by our closest trading partner might do more to unite Canadians than our own politicians have managed in recent memory.

The tariffs levied against Canada this week and our retaliation measures will severely impact both economies, and some experts suggest that Canada may fall into a recession. And just like businesses in this valley who didn’t think they were in the tourism business, Canadians and Americans will soon find out just how much it’ll hurt all of us when people in other professions start losing their livelihoods.

Late Breaking Edit: As of Monday afternoon, the threatened tariffs have now been delayed for 30 days following a phone conversation between Prime Minister Trudeau and President Trump. This is not a reprieve. Canada remains under the same threat.
On Saturday, I paid my deposit and applied for the Banff Christmas Market this year. While anything can happen between now and the end of the year, I’m already lowering expectations. I’m currently sourcing and buying stock for the Calgary Expo at the end of April, but I’m no longer planning on some products. I don’t think people will have money to spend on luxuries, and my work certainly qualifies.

It’s clear this manufactured conflict will continue to escalate and dominate the news for the foreseeable future. People have suggested to me, that with all this fresh material every day, I must love the return of President Trump.

I can assure you I do not.
____
©Patrick LaMontagne 2025

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A Rerun and a Reminder

If you read my last post on market tips and tricks, I wrote about the importance of staying healthy at these things. But in the best-laid plans category, I wrote it before realizing I had come home from the last Banff Christmas Market with the flu.

I don’t often get sick, but when I do, it kicks my ass. So, for a few days this week, I was in and out of consciousness on the couch, shaking and shivering, enjoying the nasty cold and flu symptoms with which we’re all familiar.

I managed to finish my editorial cartoons, but they took longer than usual, and the effort wiped me out. Most disappointing was that, after weeks of long hours of market prep and execution, I was finally looking forward to having some time to paint last week. I had even planned on recording a video. But the virus laughed at my hubris and beat me senseless.

Thankfully, I turned the corner Friday evening, and by Saturday morning, though still weak and weary, I got some work done. I’m not 100% yet, but I’m on the mend. I hope to get a full day in today.

But because I’m now even further behind than I already was, there won’t be a new Christmas painting video or a video gallery of my work this year. I’ve just lost too much painting time and I need to make that a priority.

Fortunately, I’ve got many new subscribers who likely haven’t seen this video from a couple of years ago and perhaps others who’d like to see it again. It’s a high-speed time-lapse window into my process, digitally painting whimsical wildlife. If you enjoy it, please share with whomever you like.
 

Also, this is a friendly reminder that my Stocking Stuffer Sticker sale is over tonight, so it’s your last chance to get either the Bear Pack or the Variety Pack. Those packs will disappear from the store tonight. Thanks to all of you who’ve already ordered.

I’ve only got three Wild Animals 2024 calendars left as well, so if you want one, act fast. They’re in the store while supplies last.

Cheers,
Patrick

EDIT: Calendars have now sold out. My thanks to everyone who ordered one this year.

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Long Neck Buds

While labour-intensive, this painting wasn’t especially difficult. There weren’t any parts of it where I worried I might not have the necessary skills. That comes from experience, the feeling that “it’ll take a while, but I got this.”

I wanted the piece to be bright and colourful, with plenty of detail throughout. I planned it to work well for a print and several other products, but I was also thinking about puzzles and diamond art kits.

I’m a commercial artist; this is how I make my living. So, creating a new piece can’t just be about painting for my enjoyment. It’s both a creative and financial investment; that’s the deal you make when a hobby becomes a job.

People often ask how long it takes to me complete a painting. I don’t paint an image in one sitting; it’s usually over a couple of weeks, two or three hours here and there. At the same time, I’m also drawing daily editorial cartoons, writing, answering emails and phone calls while working on marketing, bookkeeping, and managing the self-employment minutia.

So, I usually ballpark it and say it takes ten to twenty hours to complete a painting, depending on the subject. That doesn’t include my time taking reference photos. This piece, however, took a lot longer, and I can’t even begin to guess, because one morning, I painted leaves for three hours.

I began the project with several sketches and refined those into this mockup.

Then I painted the individual giraffes, creating three expressions different enough to be their own characters, but I still had to match the colours, light and shadow so they belonged together in the scene. Each giraffe could have been a single painting.
Painting the environment was the most challenging part. I could have gone with generic-looking green deciduous leaves, and most people wouldn’t have cared. Even though my style of art is whimsical, and I take liberties with exaggeration and expression, I still try for accuracy in the anatomy and environment.

Just as I had looked up the appropriate trees and foliage for my recent sloth painting, I wanted to do the same for these funny-looking giraffes. It seems they’ll vary their diet when needed, but giraffes prefer acacia trees when dining out on the savannah.

And wouldn’t you know it, in addition to their distinctive overall look, one of the most prominent features of an acacia tree is sharp spiky thorns. I included less of them in my piece than are visible on some acacia trees as I wanted them to accent the leaves rather than overpower them.

WARNING: Here’s a little tech art nerd stuff for the digital artists in the crowd.

I used to love to create brushes in Photoshop. I’d spend hours experimenting, tweaking, and adjusting brush shapes and options until I got the behaviour I was after. I’ve got brushes for sketching, inking, blocking, hair, texture, rocks, grass, skin, clouds, and more. Most of the brushes I use daily aren’t complicated because it’s not the brush that does the work; it’s the person using it.

It’s no different than a traditional painter, woodworker, sculptor or other skilled creative. They all need good tools to allow them to create their best work.

The hair brushes I use today are ones I designed several years ago. What varies is how I use them, depending on the critter I’m painting. But because I’ve perfected the ones I use most and rarely need to change them, I seldom design brushes anymore.

For this painting, however, I wanted to design three new brushes for the foliage. I created one for the branches and painted those in as a base. Then I designed several variations of acacia leaves and experimented with the brush settings to get the desired results. I realized quickly, however, that I only needed one and used that for most of the painting, adjusting the size as required.

Finally, I created a thorn brush. I set it for random rotation and spacing and erased single thorns as needed if they didn’t look right.

In the image below, the top row shows the brush design for each, the bottom row shows how the settings allow me to use it.

I don’t use any colour dynamics in my brushes. I prefer to pick and choose colour while painting, sampling from adjacent colours to get a better blend.

These new brushes allowed me to create a solid foundation, but it looked flat and lifeless until I spent several hours painting light, shadow, and detail to achieve the finished result.

New digital artists often get obsessed with buying brush packs, thinking that’s all they need to achieve the same look as more experienced artists. But professional tools won’t provide a shortcut past the years of work it takes to become good at anything.

That’s like thinking you’re ready for a National Geographic assignment just because you bought an expensive camera.

I decline to share my brushes and advise people to learn to make their own. The best way to learn how to use them is to learn to design them. I had forgotten how much I used to enjoy that until I created new ones for this painting.

Because this painting took so much longer than most others I’ve done, more than once I felt like I was running behind and not working fast enough. It was hard to slow down and accept there was no rush.

I blame the daily editorial cartoon deadlines for that state of mind. I can never take too long on a cartoon, or I miss the opportunity to have it published, which means I don’t get paid. Depending on the popularity of each image on prints and licensed products, the payment for a painting often spans several years, and it’s easy to forget that. I always feel that I need to get it done so I can start on the next one.

But I’m pleased with this finished piece and glad I spent so much time on it. It feels like a step forward in my work, and I want to invest more time in painting more involved pieces like this one.

While I called it Long Neck Buds, someone could easily interpret them as two parents and a child. People often tell me what one of my paintings is ‘thinking’ or what their expression means, and I wouldn’t dream of contradicting them. If the art makes them feel something or triggers their imagination, that’s good enough for me.

Cheers,
Patrick

P.S. A special thanks to my buddy, Derek Turcotte. I sent this to him near completion and asked for his critique. He’ll send me work-in-progress shots from time to time with the same request. It’s so helpful to have another professional artist look at a piece with fresh eyes, and offer advice to help make a painting better, especially when it’s asked for and answered without ego.

When you stare at a piece for hours, days, and weeks, it’s easy to miss something. I had initially painted too much contrast in the clouds, which distracted from the foreground detail. Once Derek mentioned it, and I made the changes, it was suddenly so obvious he was right.

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The Professional, Personal, and Paintings of 2022

Keeping a blog is handy when I write a year-end wrap-up because I don’t have to remember what happened. So here are some of the standouts from this year.

Sticker Surprise
While on a cabin trip last year, my buddy Darrel suggested my work might lend itself well to vinyl stickers people put on vehicle windows. So, I designed a few, sourced a production company, and realized he was onto something.

The ten designs have done well with regular re-orders at the Calgary Zoo, Discovery Wildlife Park, and Stonewaters in Canmore. They were also popular at Calgary Expo and the Mountain Made Markets. This week, I reordered a bunch and added two new designs. In the upcoming year, I’ll be working to get these into more stores.

The NFT boom goes bust
Earlier this year, I thought there might be a market selling NFTs of some of my paintings. I read a lot of information, entertained offers from online galleries, and eventually signed with one. They were professional and good to work with, but then the entire crypto art market fell apart.

Thankfully, I lost no money on the experiment. I never bought any cryptocurrency or paid for my own NFT minting. The time I lost was an educational experience, and I have no regrets. You will never have any success without risk. Kevin Kelly once said, “If you’re not falling down occasionally, you’re just coasting.”

Will NFTs come back into favour? I doubt it.

Cartoon Commendation
I don’t usually enter editorial cartoon contests, but I made an exception this year for the World Press Freedom Competition. I’d already drawn the cartoon above that fit the theme, and the top three prizes included a financial award. Though I hadn’t expected much, I won 2nd place and the prize money paid for most of my new guitar.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook is our local weekly paper. I’ve been their cartoonist since it began in 2001, and I’ve never missed an issue. National awards matter to weekly papers as they lend credibility to the publication, especially when soliciting advertisers who pay for it. The Outlook enters my work into the Canadian Community Newspaper Awards each year.The CCNAs didn’t happen last year because of the pandemic, so they awarded two years at once this time. For Best Local Cartoon, I won First, Second and Third for 2020 and Second and Third for 2021 in their circulation category.

Given there are fewer local papers each year and even fewer local cartoonists, I wonder if the multiple awards say more about the lack of competition than the quality of my work.  Regardless, the recognition is still welcome.The problem with local cartoons  is that you kind of have to live here to understand most of them. So the ones I’ve shared here are a random selection of local and national topics.
Between the five or six syndicated editorial cartoons I create each week, plus the local cartoon for The Outlook, I drew 313 editorial cartoons this year.Calgary Expo and the Mountain Made Markets

I know artists who do the gift and market circuit all year long. For some, it’s their entire living, and they do well. Others try it for a few years, don’t make any money, and move on to something else. It can be a real grind.

More than once, I’ve considered getting a bigger vehicle, a tent and the display and booth hardware I would need to do the fair and market circuit in the warmer months and the holiday shows in November and December.

But with daily editorial cartoon deadlines, long days away and travelling each week are next to impossible. I enjoy working in my office every day and have no desire to spend a lot of my time driving and staying in hotels.

The one big show I look forward to each year is the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo at the end of April, five long days, including a full day for setup. So when the full event reemerged from its two-year pandemic hiatus, I was excited to return.

Not only was 2022 my best year of sales to date, but it was also great fun. I’m already looking forward to the 2023 event, though I’m tempering my expectations with a possible looming recession. Then again, I didn’t think this year would be good, and I was happily proven wrong.

There were several Mountain Made Markets this year, with weekend events every month from May to December. Held indoors at the Canmore Civic Centre, it’s an easy setup close to home, so it’s worth my time.

Each market was profitable, and I enjoyed introducing new people to my work, meeting subscribers in person and visiting with customers, vendors and friends. Significant changes are coming for that event this year. Whether good or bad remains to be seen, but I hope to do more of them in 2023.

Licensing

If you’ve ever bought a face mask, magnet, coaster, or calendar from me, those come from Pacific Music & Art, just a handful of the many items they sell. I often hear from people who’ve bought a trivet in Banff, a coffee mug in Alaska, or an art card in Washington.

Licensing allows me to spend my time painting and still reach new markets and audiences. I signed a few new deals this year with Art Licensing International agency, a company that has represented my work for several years. Agencies might have many more contacts, but they take a big chunk of the royalties, so it’s a double-edged sword. I prefer to find most licenses on my own.

Sometimes companies cold call me. When Diamond Art Club contacted me about licensing my work, I had barely heard of diamond art kits.

Though there was a lead time of many months, the Otter kit finally launched this summer and sold out in days. Producing these kits involves more than simply printing the image on an item, so it took a few months for them to restock that first piece, but it’s again available on their site.

More diamond art kit designs are coming in 2023, but I’m not allowed to share which ones yet.

I signed a new contract last week for ten of my images with an overseas company for another product, but that, too, will be something I can’t share until the middle of next year. Licensing usually involves quite a bit of time between signing contracts and actual production, so it’s work now that pays later.

Come to think of it, that’s a good way of looking at commercial art in general. Every piece I paint is an investment in future revenue.

Special Projects

As I wrote about my latest commission earlier this week, here’s the link if you’d like to see and read about the pet portraits I painted this year.

Every year, I begin with great plans and expectations, but things go off the rails or new opportunities show up, and the whole year becomes a series of course corrections. All I can do for delayed projects important to me is try again.

I tend to slip into a fall melancholy or winter depression most years. When it happens, I often throw my efforts into a personal project, usually painting a portrait of a screen character. I’ve painted several portraits of people, and many result in great stories to go with them. Here’s the John Dutton character painting I did last year.I realized earlier this month that I wouldn’t get to one this year, even though I had already chosen someone to paint. While disappointed, not having the time was likely due to the work I put into the markets, something I hadn’t done in previous years. However, my latest commission of Luna almost felt like a personal piece because I so enjoyed that painting.

I still had down days this fall, especially with our brutally cold November and December. But September and October were beautiful and right before the weather turned, I had a great cabin trip with my buddy, Darrel.

So the seasonal depression wasn’t as dark as it has been in recent years, and for that, I’m grateful.

The Personal

On a sunny June day in Calgary, a woman ran a red light and wrote off Shonna’s car. While we had no immediately apparent injuries, we’ve been sharing one vehicle ever since and likely will until sometime in the middle of next year. Unfortunately, everything we can find, used or new, is overpriced, and we’ve heard many stories of fraudulent car dealers adding extra fees and playing bait-and-switch games. As if the near criminal behaviour of our own insurance company wasn’t bad enough.

But we bought Pedego Element e-bikes and love them. Canmore is easier to get around by bike than car, and it has become a necessity since they brought in paid parking. So we were both disappointed when winter arrived with a vengeance in November, and we had to put them away. While we had planned to get studded tires and ride the bikes all winter, as many around here do, 20″ studded fat tires are just one more item on the long list of global supply problems.

We had a wonderful vacation in August, glamping and kayaking for a week off northern Vancouver Island, a 25th-anniversary trip we had postponed at the beginning of the pandemic. It was one of the best adventures we’ve ever had.

I bought a silent acoustic guitar this year and began to play music again. It’s always within arm’s reach of my desk, and I’ve been playing it almost every day, sometimes for ten minutes, but most often for an hour or more. With regular practice, I’m a better musician now than I’ve ever been, and it’s a lot of fun, especially bringing it on a couple of cabin trips.Best of all, there is no chance I will ever play guitar for a living. It’s a purely creative escape with no responsibility to pay my bills.

Painting

Including the two commissions, I completed nine full-resolution production pieces this year. I wanted to paint more.

Best I can figure, preparing for and attending the additional Mountain Made Markets this year ate up a lot of time and energy, especially on weekends when I do a lot of my painting. I still had to create the same number of editorial cartoons each week but sacrificed painting time. That’s valuable information to have when considering future markets and shows. While those might give me more opportunities to sell the work, they steal from time creating it.

I’ve put together another video to share this year’s painted work. Most of these are finished paintings, with a few works in progress.

Hundreds of new people subscribed to A Wilder View in 2022. My sincere thanks to you who’ve been with me for years and those who just joined the ride. Whatever challenges you face in the coming year, I hope the occasional funny-looking animal in your inbox gives you a smile and makes life a little bit easier, if only for a moment or two.

Good luck with whatever you work toward in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Patrick.

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Crafting a Christmas Cartoon

One of the questions I get from people is, “what’s your medium?”

When I answer that it’s digital, I can expect a few different reactions because many people don’t understand it or think it’s something else.

Many people hear digital and think I’m just messing around with photos on the computer, especially because my work is highly detailed and often has a photorealistic quality. I explain that it’s all brushwork on a digital drawing display, like a cross between a TV monitor and a drafting table. Even though I take my own reference whenever I can, no photos are ever part of the paintings.

For most people, that’s enough of an explanation.

When I tell a traditional artist, somebody who paints with acrylic, oil or watercolour, that I’m working digitally, I often get disdain and condescension. A lot of traditional artists don’t like digital. It might be that they can’t do it, don’t understand it, or feel threatened that it will replace their work medium. Or they don’t like the idea that anybody creates anything on a computer and calls it art.

It used to bother me, and I’d feel insecure about defending my medium, but these days, I dismiss it and move on. I started creating art on a computer in 1998 with one of the first drawing tablets Wacom ever made. I’ve been making my full-time living as an artist for almost twenty years and arguing art mediums is wasted time and energy.

I can’t imagine any photographers or moviemakers still arguing film vs. digital these days. But when digital cameras first came out, those communities had plenty of heated discussions. It seems rather foolish as the camera doesn’t create the art; the photographer does.

It strikes me ironic that artists who are all about free expression, exploring creativity and pushing boundaries are often the first to tell another creative, “you have to stop because that’s not the way it’s done.”

Judge a piece of art by how it makes you feel. If you get nothing from my work, it’s simply not for you. Move on to another artist whose creations push your buttons.

Fortunately, anybody under 30 has grown up with digital art, so they have no stigma. They’ve seen it in movies and video games their whole life. They’ve been doodling on their tablets and phones for years. So when those people ask me about the work, they usually want to learn how to do it.

And I’m always happy to share what I know because so many generous artists gave me their time and knowledge when I was coming up.

While creating a Christmas-themed editorial cartoon this week, I decided to share the different stages of how I draw a cartoon. This isn’t a tutorial, as I don’t want to bore all of you who aren’t aspiring digital artists. Instead, it’s simply a window into the creation.

I put rough perspective guides on a layer in Photoshop for this cartoon.

On another layer, I’ll sketch out whatever I’m drawing and keep refining over and over until I get what you see here. It’s the same principle as sketching and drawing on paper, without all the mess of smudging and erasing.
Then I’ll drop the opacity of the sketch layer, so it’s very faint and create cleaner black lines on the layer above. I call this an Ink layer, even though there’s no ink involved.
I’ll delete the sketch, create a new layer beneath the ink layer and fill in sections of flat colour on different layers. This helps me establish a base colour for separate pieces and select certain painting sections easily.

On top of the flat layer, I create a layer for light and shading. The initial sketching and the painting layer are where I have the most fun.
Finally, I’ll create a painted background, add talk bubbles, my text and signature, and save different formats to send to my newspaper clients across Canada.

Years ago, I recorded a whole DVD on this process through PhotoshopCAFE. It’s no longer available, but this is the basic idea.
The painting process I use for my whimsical wildlife and portraits of people is more complicated because each painting takes many hours to complete and involves a lot of fine detail. But the tools are the same. Many artists have asked me about my painting brushes over the years, and they’re surprised that they’re not complicated. Just like in traditional art, it isn’t the brush; it’s the person wielding it.

As in any profession, creative or otherwise, skills only come from years of working on your craft, and there are no shortcuts.

I created a time lapse video of a Christmas reindeer a few years ago. It shows the Wacom display on which I work and a painting from start to finish in two minutes. Watch ‘til the end for a little digital magic.

As this is likely my last post before the 25th, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. I’ll have something else for you before New Year’s Eve.

Cheers,
Patrick

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The Hardest Part of Professional Art

Here’s my latest piece. I call it ‘Staring Contest.’ This is another painting of Berkley from Discovery Wildlife Park. I took the reference a couple of years ago, the same day I did for one of my favorite pieces, Grizzly on Grass. I love painting this bear. Spending time with her was, and continues to be, a highlight of my life. I’m forever grateful to Serena and her staff for that privilege. Below is a time lapse video of this piece, from start to finish, along with narration to go with it. The text for the voice-over is below the video if you’d rather read than listen to it. Thanks for being here.

Cheers,
Patrick


Every artist is familiar with imposter syndrome. It has now become a cliché that’s right up there with the overshared quote about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We compare ourselves to other artists and not only feel like we don’t measure up but that we never will. It’s easy to fall into the headspace that an art career is a zero-sum game, that when another artist wins, you lose. It can be somebody you’ve never met with whom you have no connection, but when they’re making headlines and you’re not, it feels like you’re failing.

Worse, news of other people’s successes is front and center all the time. As a result, we now compare ourselves to everyone else on the planet.

So-and-so exceeded their Kickstarter funding by $50,000. And there’s the guy who makes his entire living from his Patreon subscribers. That woman over there makes six figures from YouTube videos, and that other person has thousands of followers on Instagram.

That artist made millions on NFTs. Somebody else just published their 4th book. His course went viral. She’s featured at Comic-Con. That big company sponsored this guy, and that girl scored a five-figure art grant.

Some kid’s painting video goes viral, and now he’s making movies with James Cameron? He’s 18. That girl’s not even out of art school and got a gig with Disney?

Suddenly I have to start dancing on TikTok to sell my art.

What the hell?

That’s the problem with attention. You’ve got to keep coming up with something new to get more of it and find a way to stand out in a crowd of millions doing the same damn thing.

When you’re not chasing the spotlight, you need to pay the bills.

I’ve been making my full-time living as an editorial cartoonist, illustrator and digital painter for nearly twenty years, plus several years part-time before that.

And yet, I wonder if I’ll still be able to do this for a living in six months.

I’ve had that worry every month since I quit my full-time job in 2005. It has never gone away. Good stuff has happened in my career, a lot of it. But when it does, that little voice always reminds me not to get comfortable. Because as soon as you stop and smell the roses, you get a thorn up your nose.

There are plenty of articles that try to talk you down from the comparison ledge. I know, I’ve read them. Hell, I’ve written some, though I felt like a fraud while doing it.

The worst part is the longing, that feeling that you could be so much more than you are, but you somehow missed that critical memo everybody else got because they seem to know what they’re doing, and you’re the idiot still looking for the light switch in a dark room. It’s that failure to live up to your own perfectionist personal potential, that dark cloud of not being good enough that will rob you of most of the joy of creating art.

Then there’s the shame that comes from not being more successful, feeling like a joke to your friends and family, as if they’re reluctantly indulging this phase you’re going through, just waiting for you to come to your senses and get a real job.

I can’t tell you how many acquaintances I’ve run into, people I hadn’t seen for years, who ask, “Oh, you still doing that art thing?”

“Good for you.”

All that’s missing is the pat on the head.

Now, this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you to let it all go, enjoy the ride, stop trying so hard and making yourself miserable. Comparison is the thief of joy. But then I’d be a hypocrite because I’m 51 years old, and I haven’t figured out how to accept any of that.

Not long ago, I watched that ‘Light and Magic’ series about the creative minds behind ILM. For a movie and art nerd like me, it was exciting stuff. The contrast between what they created in the ‘70s and what it has become today is remarkable. From little plastic spaceship models and whole camera systems they had to invent to bring Star Wars to life to later making dinosaurs real in Jurassic Park, it’s practically sorcery.

On the one hand, it was incredibly inspiring that they just made stuff up, and it worked. But, on the other, it triggered a sense of desperation that nothing I’ll ever create will ever be that good.

I paint funny-looking animals. How important is that? It’s not! But you know what? Neither is modelling toys and playing with space aliens. But those people changed movies forever. Those people changed the world

What I liked best about the story was how those people talked about each other 40 years later.  They were like family. It was the kind of workplace everybody wants but is ultimately very rare. They gambled on a dream and turned it into reality.

It’s easy to quote, “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

But chances are better than average that they won’t. For every ILM lightning-in-a-bottle story, there are a hundred others we’ll never hear about, featuring creative types who dreamed just as big and worked just as hard.

This artist’s life delivers more than its fair share of torment, uncertainty, and feeling unoriginal like it’s all been wasted time. I wonder if I’ll still be able to draw when I’m older or if age will rob me of my dexterity and eyesight. I worry I haven’t saved enough for retirement because I’ve invested more into this creative life of risk than my financial security.

And yet, for all the fear I feel every single day, and the shame for not knowing how to make all the right business moves, it’s still one of the very few places in my life where I’m allowed to touch something magical and unexplainable. In the work is a sense of connection to something greater than myself, even though I can’t define it. It’s a feeling outside the five senses, a well I’m allowed to draw from but not one I own.

It doesn’t come in the first moments I sit down to paint, nor does it show up even an hour into it. I’m still distracted by random thoughts, checking emails, and going to YouTube to answer a question that just popped into my head, leading to three more videos. And finally, an hour later, I must remind myself to get back to painting.

Once immersed in the work, a couple of hours into a session, something happens that reminds me why I’m spending so much of my limited time on the planet painting little hairs around a silly little grizzly bear’s ear.

It just feels right, that it’s where I’m supposed to be. It quiets the angry, critical, unkind voices in my head. It’s an escape, something good in a world I’m convinced is not. It’s a fleeting thing, only sticks around for a little while, but it comes and goes in waves.

Over the years, chasing those moments, that connection, those little hairs became a painting, then another, then a portfolio, and a body of work. Before I knew it, it was a career and life as an artist.

If you are lucky in a creative profession, you never stop learning and trying to become a better version of the artist you were yesterday, which is the only comparison that matters. I thought this painting was done, but then I realized that the bear’s muzzle wasn’t long enough. Most people wouldn’t care one way or the other, but once I’d seen it, I knew I’d forever look at the painting and wish I had changed it.

So I did some cutting and pasting, a little warping and nudging, and spent a couple more hours repainting that section. It was frustrating, but I’m more content with the finished result and glad I didn’t rush it. And though it’s done, it’s still not quite good enough. I can do better, and I’ll try again on the next one.

Because that is the hardest part of being a professional artist, making peace with the fact that you will never be good enough for your own expectations and will spend a lifetime reaching for that carrot on the stick, knowing you will never get it. Even if you did, it wouldn’t be what you thought it was.

So is it all worth it? I don’t know.

Ask me in another twenty years.

____
©Patrick LaMontagne 2022

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A Christmas Bear

Whenever there was a turning point in an 80s movie, you could expect a music montage. Whether it was rebuilding a classic car, a group of rebellious teens learning to dance, or the karate tournament advancing to the final match, an upbeat song helped the story jump through time without making the viewer watch all the actual hard work.

Did you really want to see the protagonist standing in line at the auto parts store to get an air filter for the ’67 Camaro he’s restoring?

It often takes many days or weeks to complete one of my whimsical wildlife pieces, and I enjoy most of it. Drinking hot black coffee, tunes in my earbuds, I’m quite content to spend hours at a time painting tiny little hairs on a wolf’s muzzle or adding texture detail so the sea turtle’s skin looks real.

But if you were watching this work over my shoulder, I guarantee you would be bored out of your mind.

My buddy Derek is one of the most incredible tattoo artists you’ll ever see. When I hang out at the shop, I’ll often lean over his shoulder to watch. His linework is ridiculously precise, and I’m fascinated at the silky-smooth colour gradients he achieves with a tattoo machine. But eventually, it gets boring. He’ll often have clients that sit for hours all day for three days straight.

I just want to see some of the work in progress and the finished piece.

I’ve been creating time-lapse videos off and on for many years, and even though they can add hours of extra work to a painting, they’re fun to put together.

Sometimes I’ll record a voiceover, something inspirational for other artists, or relevant thoughts on the piece. Over the years, I’ve done a few of those for Wacom, the company that makes the tablets and displays I’ve been using since the late 90s. While I still love their products and will continue to recommend them, the best days of that working relationship are likely behind me now.

Most corporations are still chasing the likes and shares on social media, whereas I am not. I have no designs on becoming an Instagram influencer. I’d rather spend that time creating more art.

The time-lapse videos I enjoy most are the short ones with a musical accompaniment. These days I have a monthly subscription to Epidemic Sound, and it allows me to find the right track to go with a painting, regardless of the mood I’m trying to set.

I record the first part of the video over my left shoulder with my DSLR camera. I must keep in mind that the camera is beside me on the tripod, careful not to bump it. Because I’m recording a digital screen with a digital capture device, it also creates lighting problems.

Movies and TV shows will often add device and monitor screens after the fact in editing because it’s so difficult and time-consuming to record them with a camera.

But people like to see my hand holding the stylus, moving around the display.

For the rest of the video, I use Camtasia‘s screen capture software. I’ve been using it to record and edit since I created my DVDs ten years ago, and it works well.

But when I get down to the smallest of hairs in the painting, making subtle shading changes, and applying catchlights to the wet skin of the nose or around the eyes, it eventually becomes difficult for the viewer to follow the cursor.

And finally, our attention spans keep getting shorter. With slot machine scrolling on our phones, multiple tabs open on our desktops and pinging alerts going off all around us, holding somebody’s interest is a challenge.

I used to record four- or five-minute time-lapse videos, but most people won’t sit through those anymore, so I try to keep them under two minutes. Of course, it means there are significant jumps in the painting’s progress and detail, but it works.

People just want to see some of the work in progress and the finished piece.

Cheers,
Patrick

P.S. As always, feel free to share the video, with my thanks. That goes for anything else I post on this site as well.