Freelancing Archives - Page 4 of 7

Posted on January 18, 2016January 19, 2016 by Patrick LaMontagne

What I Didn’t Know Then

Last week, I got an email from a fellow in Germany. He complimented me on my work, and asked, “Imagine you had a time machine and could meet the younger version of yourself. What would the number one advice be, in regards to art?”

My wife and I were making dinner at the time and I read the email to her off my phone. While Shonna is not an artist, she’s been on this ride with me since the beginning, and she knows what I know when it comes to this business.

We took turns rattling things off and within minutes came up with twenty or thirty different nuggets of truth and I wrote them all down on a scrap of paper.

Experience will always be the best teacher. If you’re an amateur artist looking for wisdom, you’ve got to earn it. But here is a small sampling from that list, some of the things I’ve learned so far.

1) Don’t work for exposure. When is the last time you saw an image, a logo, a website, design or anything creative and then thought, “I’m going to find that person and hire them.”

That’s what this type of client is promising. They want something for nothing and anybody they refer you to will want the same. I have worked for exposure more than once. I never will again.

2) Don’t work for spec. Spec work is often disguised as a contest, a call for entries or an audition piece. It often means a company asks many people to submit designs and the winner gets prizes or prize money. The company then owns whatever the winner created and gets it at a fraction of a cost they would have had to pay a professional. The company usually owns everything else submitted to the contest as well.

Spec work is for suckers. Work disguised as a contest is for suckers. I have been that sucker, more than once, and it feels dirty.

3) Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Don’t follow trends. Don’t copy someone else’s success. It just won’t work. Unless you have the exact same background as that person, started from the same place, with the same opportunities, jumped the same hurdles, had the same skills, influences, inspirations, environment, training, experiences, talent or luck, you will not duplicate another person’s success. You can still BE a success, but it’ll be YOUR success, not a poor copy. By trying to mimic another artist or ride his coattails, you are depriving yourself of discovering your own niche or voice.

Learn from everybody. Copy nobody.

4) Figure out the difference between trolls, constructive criticism and just plain bad advice. There will always be those who tell you that you’re doing it wrong. Some of them will be competitors who are threatened by you or other artists that are just plain jealous. The view has always been clearest from the cheap seats. People that never try will criticize those who do. Social media often seems to be based entirely on that premise.

Some people are genuinely supportive, want to help you, want to see you succeed and have nothing but the best of intentions. If they aren’t in your business, however, don’t know what’s involved, haven’t got more experience than you, or just don’t know what your goals are, you need to find a way to smile and say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Good people with good intentions can still give bad advice.

5) Do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life.

That is one large steaming pile of manure.

Turning your art into a business may ruin everything you love about art. You can live a satisfying creative life without ever making it your livelihood.

I’ve been self-employed full-time for over a decade now. I haven’t been a struggling artist for many years and I’m making a good living at it. The mortgage gets paid; we’re not living in debt, and have never borrowed money from our parents. And while I take nothing for granted, I haven’t had to worry about getting a real job for years.

But every day I draw something I don’t want to. Sometimes I spend my whole week drawing things I don’t want to. This is not a complaint. This was a choice. I still make my own schedule. I get to go for my hikes in the afternoon, grab some time to take photos at the zoo and myriad other activities and diversions I wouldn’t get to enjoy if I had to report to a desk during specific hours assigned by somebody else. And I’m still drawing every day, which means I’m getting better at it every day.

I work longer hours for myself than I ever did for anybody else, very early mornings, evenings, weekends, statutory holidays and have done so for twenty years. I don’t know how to live any other way now. Art for a living is hard work.

You must invoice, keep your books and accounting in order, pay your taxes first and yourself last. You need a website, social media, keep up on industry news and advances. You need to contact clients, sell whatever you produce, figure out what works, what doesn’t, read articles, read books, make phone calls. When an invoice isn’t paid, you have to track it down. When equipment breaks down, you have to pay to fix it, when your internet crashes; you have to call your provider. There is no I.T. department, no human resources, and often no immediate help in a crisis. You must make time for training and improving your skills. I could write a thousand more words without once mentioning creating anything.

All of this is time away from doing the actual work you need to do in order to get paid. I’m writing this post, I’m not getting paid. That’s OK. This sort of thing has become a small part of my brand and I enjoy writing. It is good practice, too, and a little payment forward.

Honestly, I didn’t think much about whether or not I should turn my love of drawing and painting into a business, I just ended up doing it. But we never had kids and my wife told me in no uncertain terms that she could not support us both. Not in Canmore, Alberta where the paradise tax is high. The minute I couldn’t pay my half of the bills, I had to get a job, an ultimatum to which I agreed.

This business was part-time for ten years before it was full-time. Had I tried to do it too early, I might not be doing it today. Most of the things I thought I wanted, I’m glad I didn’t get, like a full-time job with a daily newspaper, which would have meant being laid off by now. Timing matters and that leap of faith is frightening, because you have to burn a lot of security when you jump. While it was pretty tight those first couple of years, I have no regrets and can’t imagine doing anything else.

As for the best advice I would give my younger self if I had the opportunity?

He did just fine without it.

Cheers,
Patrick

Posted on December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Artistic Freedom

The greatest freedom in being self-employed is that you get to choose where you want to go. It’s one of the reasons so many creatives work for themselves and yet we too often forget that simple fact.

I’ve always felt a need to catch up, especially since I operated for a long time under the assumption that I started late. While I doodled as a kid and teenager, I never really started drawing with any intent or wanting to learn to be a better artist until my late twenties. That was when the Banff Crag and Canyon newspaper needed a weekly cartoonist and nobody else applied. It didn’t matter that I didn’t draw well or know much about politics or current events. They weren’t paying much and nobody was looking to the Crag’s editorial cartoon to set the standard. I already had a full-time tourism job and no ambition to do anything art related past this one thing. Draw one small town editorial cartoon each week for some extra beer money. Let’s face it, I was 27 years old, I had never gone to art school, and I didn’t draw very well. I never expected this to go anywhere.

Fast forward to today, I’m now 43, I’ve been doing this art gig full-time for almost 8 years and am very happy drawing and colouring for a living. It has thankfully been more than a few years since I would consider it a struggle to make ends meet. I’ve tried a number of different art related tangents, discarded the ones I didn’t like or that didn’t work, sought to become better at the ones I felt passionate about, and year after year, my focus has become sharper.

One of the best things I did this year was to begin removing myself from a few imaginary races I’ve been running. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype today that an artist’s value is entirely dependent on how many people follow you on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and that the incremental rise and fall of your Klout score will determine whether or not your business survives the end of the week. I know, because for a long time, I worried about that very thing. It’s exhausting and it’s an illusion.

Social media has been great for my business, don’t get me wrong, but it just never worked for me when I was trying too hard to get it to work for me. The scramble to be noticed by Company A, to be retweeted by Company B, and to have your site address posted by Company C becomes like an addiction. When it happens once, you try to make it happen again. When it doesn’t happen, or it happens but not as well as you wanted it to, and fails to pay the street-cred dividends you expected, you wish you’d never had the initial boost to your profile in the first place. You start to question your own value when the person who was happy to hear from you last year suddenly isn’t returning your calls anymore.

Then you end up looking to other people in your industry that you view as more successful and try to copy what they’re doing. Person A is writing articles, so I guess I need to write articles. But Person B is teaching, so I guess I should be teaching. Person C is traveling all over the place doing demonstrations at trade shows, so maybe I should be doing that, too. And I don’t know what Person D is doing but everybody is talking about them so I need to find out why.

All of that scrambling leaves little time for anything creative. While it’s true that I’m drawing editorial cartoons every day to meet my deadlines, last year I didn’t paint nearly as much as I had expected to, and not even close to how much I wanted to. The one thing I enjoy most about my work, I shoved aside so that I could promote myself. But what exactly was I promoting if there wasn’t any work?

This year, I’ve realized that the growth of my business is not tied to my connection to movers and shakers, nor is it tied to blogging freelancing tips and tricks or spending hours writing yet another tutorial on how to use brushes in Photoshop. While people may value that contribution, it has rarely translated to income or led me in a direction in which I wanted to go. I found myself looking forward and thinking, why do I feel like I’m voluntarily walking into a trap? It also left me little time to paint or draw anything outside of my deadlines.

The greatest gains I’ve seen in my business, both financially and in my public profile, have been when I produce the work I enjoy creating. The connection I make with the people who enjoy and buy my work doesn’t happen when I talk about being creative, it happens when I AM creative.

Therein lies the simple plan for the next year. Pay the bills, learn to be a better artist, and chart my own course. Spend a lot more time producing artwork and a lot less time talking about it.

Posted on September 20, 2013September 20, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Fall Reflections

This time of year finds me reflective. The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking in the fall and it somehow makes me want to slow down and find a little more peace.

Earlier this month, I found myself paying attention to the goings on at Photoshop World in Las Vegas, a conference I’ve attended for the past four years, but one I decided to take a break from this time.

It was a surprise to me that I missed being there, but I couldn’t put my finger on why, since not going was a conscious decision. The last couple of years, I’d been going for networking, socializing, and making strategic moves to further my career via different connections and affiliations. While that proved to be well worth my time, it also tainted the experience I’d had the first couple of years when I’d been taking classes and was really excited to be there.

When I first began this self-directed career, I was always hungry to become better. Having never gone to art school and starting pretty late to this business of art, I felt a need to catch up to my competitors, to prove I could hold my own, even had a chip on my shoulder about the whole thing. Over time, through a lot of trial and error, I eventually found the work I love most. But during that period, I was learning new techniques from other artists, watching DVDs, reading articles, tutorials, and taking classes.

Then there came what I thought was a natural evolution. Suddenly, I’m the one writing articles, recording videos and training DVDs, doing demos and training for companies, schools and groups, and figuring that this was what I was supposed to be doing now, moving up to the teaching level. Many friends and colleagues have made teaching a large part of their businesses and some of them are not only very good at it, they really seem to thrive on the experience.

But more teaching will involve more traveling, writing scripts, recording, and less time doing the work I enjoy most. It will also involve breaking down the work I love so much into an assembly process, evaluating it to death and sucking all the life out of it. There’s still a feeling of magic in my work when I draw and paint, a connection to something else that isn’t me, as nauseatingly artsy as that might sound. It’s what I love most about painting, the soul of it all. You can’t dissect something without killing it.

The opportunity to speak and demo at the Wacom booth last year in Vegas was one I enjoyed. Even as an introvert (not to be confused with shy), I’ve got no problem with public speaking or talking with people, and I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it. Repeating that experience now and then is something I’m happy to do. I’ve realized that I do not, however, want teaching to be a large part of my career, at least not now. I’m fine with showing how I do it, talking about what I’m thinking, and trying to inspire others to explore their own creative instincts, but breaking my work down to stereo instructions is not something I enjoy.

I’ve written in the past that one way to find out what you want to do is to start checking off the things you don’t, then look at the choices that remain.

Over the past few weeks and months, an underlying melancholy has been lurking just below the surface, this feeling that something is missing. This week, while taking one of my regular walks up Cougar Creek, on the day I took the photo you see above, I realized what has been bugging me. I miss being a student.

When you’re self-employed at anything, especially in a creative field, fear is a part of daily life. After you’ve been in the gig for a number of years and are making a good living at it, the fear can stop being a motivator, however, and can instead keep you from moving forward, a fear of losing what you have already gained. It can happen so subtly that you don’t even realize that you’ve painted yourself into a corner.

The last couple of years have found me concerning myself with marketing moves, making connections and evaluating promotion strategies, all absolutely necessary for anyone who has chosen art as a profession. But when you’re going ninety miles an hour trying not to fall behind where you think everybody else is (a race you can NEVER win), you start missing the reason you’re on the road in the first place. That’s when it’s time for a change.

I still plan to draw the daily editorial cartoons, paint my whimsical wildlife paintings and some portraits, and take illustration and painting commissions as usual. I’ll still be promoting my work the same way I’ve always done, running my booth at the Calgary Expo in the Spring, and evaluating each opportunity as it comes along. I’ve worked very hard to get to a place where I make a good living doing the work I love, and I still do have to make a living, so I’ll always run my business to the best of my ability.

But, I’ve decided to take my foot off the pedal for a little while. I’m tired of running all the time and want to slow down. There is some fear that if I stop scrambling in the promotion game, that I may ‘lose ground’ but really, what the hell does that mean anyway? Lose ground to whom?

I miss being a student, so I’m going to spend more time being one. I can’t recall the last time I sat and read an article about painting or drawing or took some lessons to become better. Lately, when I see other artists and illustrators posting teaching and training videos, I’m not thinking, “I should be doing that.” What I’m actually thinking is, “I want to learn from these people.”

When in doubt, trust your gut, and this just feels right. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Posted on August 18, 2013August 18, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Be careful what you wish for.

Got this question on my Facebook page this morning. After writing the response, I thought I’d share it here as well with a few added sentences I thought of after the fact, as I get this sort of question a lot…

Hey Patrick, is your illustrations your main income?? I’m rattling around so much with going full time with my gift of photography but afraid to take that jump.. I seem to have no time to create working a full time job and kids;)

Hi ________:

Between editorial cartooning, illustration, painting commissions, print sales and licensing…yes. I’ve made a good full-time living as an artist for the past seven years. But for nine years before that, it was a gig I did on the side while holding down a full-time job to pay the bills.

I built my business working mornings before work, evenings and weekends and finally got to a point where I couldn’t get any busier until I quit my job as an office manager for a physiotherapist. Living in Canmore (high cost of living in the Canadian Rockies) on one income is near to impossible, or at least was for us then, so the deal with my wife was that if I couldn’t pay my half of the mortgage, I had to at least get a part-time job to supplement the art income. Fortunately, my boss at the time was (and still is) a great guy, knew what I was planning from day one, and when I gave him two months notice, he suggested I go part-time first and he hired somebody else part-time to take up the slack. About six months later, I had to give notice again as I got a lot busier, but waited until he found the right person to fill my job, which took about a month. It was the best LAST job to have.

It was a real struggle for the first few years, a lot of waiting for money to come in, going into overdraft more times than I can count before I wasn’t relying on every invoice being paid in order to pay my half of the bills, but every year has been better than the one before. It hasn’t really been a struggle for about three or four years now.

I don’t want to discourage you, but your situation contains a big factor that mine doesn’t. We never chose to have kids, so the risk wasn’t nearly as much. My wife and I have often said that if we’d had children, I likely wouldn’t have been able to quit my job. I’m not saying it’s impossible, of course, lots of people do it, but it will be a lot more pressure on you. In those first few years, I had no time for anything else but working. Even now, I work almost every day. I finally figured out awhile ago why they say ‘do what you love for a living.’ It’s not because you’ll be happy all the time. It’s because when everything is hitting the fan, you haven’t slept, eaten, and the bills are overdue, if you didn’t love it, you’d toss it all out the window and quit. Loving what you do is a survival requirement.

Without knowing anything more about your situation, I would advise that before you quit your job, make sure all of your ducks are in a row. Everything from bookkeeping, accounting, taxes and some money in the bank. Get as many gigs as you can part-time first and make your big mistakes while you still have a job. Those first few years, I was on edge and scared ALL the time, feeling like I was one gig away from losing my business. You spend half of your time doing support work. In addition to bookkeeping and invoicing, you’ve got marketing, correspondence, portfolio and website maintenance, travel time, all of the little things that will take time away for your photography. So those billable hours have to cover that time, too.

I’m a big believer in doing what you love for a living, but it’s never easy. A lot of sleepless nights, chewed fingernails, and figuring things out as I went along, most often from doing a lot of things wrong. The stress WILL take its toll in a number of different ways. For however long it takes, vacations can no longer be a priority and you must go without luxuries. When you do take time off, you’re not getting paid. There is no such thing as a weekend anymore and if you don’t have a spouse whose job comes with health and dental benefits (fortunately I do), then you have to factor that into the equation. I know a number of people who quit their jobs without having any idea of what running their own business required and it’s unfortunate, because often they’ll end up giving up their artwork altogether because of the failed business. So they took what they loved and killed it in an effort to make it their job.

Having a hobby you love is not justification for doing it for a living. There are many days where the last thing I want to do is draw. I’ve invested so much of myself into my business, and honestly there is nothing I would rather be doing. Many people like the idea of being self-employed, but it isn’t for everybody. You can also count on friends and family failing to understand your choice and telling you that you work too much and should take more time off. They never stop doing that, by the way.

Whatever you decide, give it a lot of thought, but keep doing what you love. If it takes a little longer to do it for a living, and that’s what you really want, so be it, even though it’s frustrating to have to wait. I started very late to this art gig, didn’t even consider it until I was in my thirties and I know people who started even later than I did and are doing very well.

Anything’s possible, but as the old saying goes, “if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.”

Best of luck,
Patrick

Posted on April 8, 2013April 8, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Death and Cartoons

Last Friday, I was out in Golden, BC for a guys weekend at a buddy’s cabin. When I first started going out there, it was just the cabin itself on this plot of wooded land, but now, my retired friend and his wife have an art studio and a new home on the land as well. But that cabin up the hill is still there and he generously allows his friends to use it. I don’t take a lot of time off, but as that Friday was my birthday and Sunday was my friend Jim’s birthday, it was a great excuse to get away with no work. Set up on the deck of the house, the three of us enjoying the sunshine, I decided to grab my bedding and gear and hike it up the hill early so I didn’t have to do it in the dark later. On my way back down the trail, enjoying being in the woods with great weather and just starting to relax, I got an email alert on my phone. I stopped and already had an idea what it was. My suspicion was confirmed when I read that former Premier of Alberta Ralph Klein had died.

Continuing down the hill, I opened up a beer, sat down in my chair on the deck and began working on my phone. My buddies gave me grief that I was supposed to be relaxing, but I explained the situation, told them I needed a half hour and I began sending emails to the daily newspapers across Canada that would want a cartoon on this breaking news. You see, the cartoon was already done. The files had been on my phone for about a week, ever since the news came out that Ralph Klein was close to the end after years of suffering a debilitating illness. Once the cartoons were sent, I spent another half hour answering emails from editors either thanking me for getting the cartoon out so quick or a couple of others asking if I had a Ralph Klein cartoon for them.

Yes, it’s morbid that from time to time, I make my living from a product that is derived from someone’s death. When I hear that someone of note, whether political or cultural, is close to death or has died, I often feel like a vulture, sitting on a fencepost, waiting to take advantage of the situation. It’s not a great feeling. And it’s very difficult to be genuine and not come across as maudlin. There’s a lot of ‘bandwagon grief’ and crocodile tears on social media these days and I try to walk a fine line between honest respect and overt false sentimentality. There are few things I dislike more than hypocrisy and social media is ripe soil for that particular crop.

What’s even more morbid is that when I find out somebody has died, I have to decide if it’s cartoon worthy or not. I must ask myself if newspapers will find it newsworthy enough to write stories or editorials on this person. In some cases, it’s quite obvious. In the case of Ralph Klein, he was one of the most charismatic and popular provincial Premiers in Canadian history. He was beloved by many and not just in Alberta. Personally, I was saddened by his death, largely because his debilitating end seemed so unfair, given how he lived. I felt the same for former NDP leader Jack Layton when he passed, one of the few politicians I genuinely liked, even though I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics. Those cartoons aren’t as difficult because I actually feel something for who the person was, for the life they lived. While I wouldn’t call it grief, there’s a small connection and a desire to honour them appropriately, to do right by them in the cartoon.

Then there are the cartoons I must do about death that are newsworthy, but are regarding people for whom I feel little. This is not a comment on their character, their impact, or their value as a human being, simply that they are strangers to me. A recent example would be former Premier of Alberta Peter Loughheed who passed away last year. A respected leader, a man of vision whose footprints are all over the province I call home, and whose death was mourned by many. But Lougheed ended his run as Premier in 1985. I was 14 years old, living overseas in West Germany and I didn’t even start following federal politics until my late twenties, let alone that of any province. I’ve never felt a connection to the man.

The same could be said for former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who passed away this morning at the age of 87. While her influence was definitely felt on my generation, I feel little connection to her. While it’s unlikely that I would have shared her obviously right wing views while she was in office, her legacy is undeniable. Her impact on the UK and the world is clear. Up at 5:00 this morning, I was working on a cartoon about her death by 5:30 as it was obvious newspapers would be reporting and editorializing on her life and times.

Both of these previous mentions are examples of situations where my profession dictates that I must observe the contribution of these two people even though I feel nothing for them on a personal level. So, how do I do that without being cliché, falsely sentimental or hypocritical. The simple answer is that I can’t, not completely. But I do my best.

Then there are the many more people who die whose lives are not of interest to the editorial page. Annette Funicello died today as well. Roger Ebert died a few days ago. I did not feel their deaths warranted the drawing of a cartoon. There was no money in it. That’s the distinction I have to make. Can you believe that?

Often there will be a natural disaster where a lot of people have died and I have to draw a cartoon on that because there is nothing else to do. Trust me, nobody is going to print something funny or political on their editorial page when more than 200,000 people have died from a tsunami on Boxing Day. It was horrible, a tragedy and a nightmare for so many. The last thing I wanted to do was draw anything about it, because I didn’t feel my illustrative voice could possibly make anything better. My solution was to guilt people into giving.

I also have a difficult time with Remembrance Day, which is an annual cartoon about death. I’ve drawn a cartoon each year for November 11th for more than a decade, and each year it gets more and more difficult to create fresh imagery. Poppies, cenotaphs, senior citizen soldiers talking with children, military iconic images, memorials, passages and quotes about 11:11, In Flanders Field, Lest We Forget, and We Remember. Each year, I do my best to summon up hackneyed images to appear genuine, but feel like a fraud doing it. What’s worse is that I come from a military family on both sides, I grew up a base brat, and spent five years in the Reserves. Heck, I even met my wife there. But saying ‘Lest We Forget’ feels like a routine, kind of like saying Bless You when somebody sneezes. We say it, but how many really mean it?

One of the all time cliché death cartoons is that of the pearly gates. Cartoonists the world over have been showing the deceased either talking with St. Peter or being greeted by somebody who has passed away before them. There are many variations on the theme. I can honestly say that I have never drawn a pearly gates cartoon and never will. It’s an image that has been done to death, pardon the pun. But that’s not to say that mine are terribly original, either.

When I approach this sort of cartoon, if you could call it that, I’ve now developed what could easily be called my signature ‘tribute’ image, examples you can see above. Usually a painted portrait, rendered as well as I can in the short amount of time I’ve got, with either a quote, the name of the deceased, the dates they lived, or anything else I can think of. Having done a number of these over the years, even this now feels trite. Give me a week or more and I might be able to come up with something more original, but that’s not how the 24 hour news cycle works. Because I have a knack for portraiture and people seem to like and publish them, I continue to do these cartoons when appropriate and then I move on as quickly as I can.

Regrettably, it’s part of this business of being a freelance editorial cartoonist in Canada. The bills get paid by getting that spot on the editorial page earmarked for images rather than text. If I choose not to draw these memorial or tribute cartoons, somebody else will and I’ll be out of a job. Most of the time, I get to draw and colour and make smartass comments for a living. It involves long hours, it’s competitive, and it’s non-stop, even on a weekend off in the woods on my birthday. I thrive on the pace, I enjoy the work and it’s rarely boring. But while it’s a great gig and a great way to make a living, no job is perfect.

From the tone of this post, you can probably deduce that drawing another death cartoon this morning did little for my mood, today. Drawing cartoons about people dying is part of this gig I could really do without.

Posted on February 15, 2013February 15, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Survey Says!

Preparing for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo at the end of April is proving to be an exercise in anxiety. I already know that my work sells well in the right venues. I’ve had my Totem prints in four different galleries and retail outlets and while some are better than others, the response has been quite favorable. Five of the designs are currently licensed to The Mountain and I’m always working on a commission piece for somebody. While confidence in the work is usually one difficulty faced by newbies to Cons and Expos, that’s not the problem I’m facing. Even if my work isn’t popular with the crowd that shows up to the Calgary Expo, I’ll still be OK with the work, and just know that it wasn’t the right venue. I’m not even uncomfortable running the booth, talking to people, or selling, which is something else artists often have difficulty with. For many years, I worked in the tourism and retail industries, I ran Wacom‘s booth on my own for a full day at a training seminar, worked a trade show booth on my own up at Fort McMurray for a Banff hotel I used to work for, and have done live painting and training demos quite a few times in the last four or five years. While public speaking scares a lot of people, it’s honestly not a problem for me. In fact, the trick is getting me to shut up.

Where the challenge lies is knowing how to stock my booth. I could spend many thousands of dollars selling everything from cartoon prints, illustrations, paintings, portraits, cards, prints, t-shirts, posters, canvas…it’s a long list of possibilities. The key to a successful booth it would seem, is focus. And, of course, not overextending myself. I’ve got three full days to sell merchandise at an event that has become so big that with 600 vendors and artists, and 50,000+ attending, there are a lot of things to consider. I already know that I’m just going to focus on my Totem paintings, for the sake of continuity. But I don’t want to run out of stock on Saturday morning, nor do I want to be packing up a lot to bring home on Sunday afternoon.

There’s a lot of advice online from people who attend expos like this, telling artists to balance ‘fan art’ with their own work. Use the fan art to get people to your booth. That doesn’t work for me. Fan art is basically just copying somebody else’s popular characters and selling them. While illegal, most of these offenses go without prosecution, so artists keep doing it. Considering how many artists complain about being ripped off online, I’m surprised at how many still condone the practice. I intend to find out if I can support my booth on my own work alone.

As this is my first booth, I will do a number of things wrong, I’m sure. How can you learn from experience until you have some? But in an effort to put my best foot forward, I created a small survey earlier in the week to ask people their opinions on a few questions I’m faced with. Two winners were chosen from the respondents to receive 11″X14″ matted Totem prints of their choice. I received 100 responses, which was the survey limit, but the results were pretty clear when it came to ranking which of my Totem paintings people liked best, along with opinions on matted prints vs. unmatted. In an effort to perhaps help somebody else prepare for a show like this, here are my results and how I choose to interpret them.

I asked respondents to rank my Totem paintings in order of preference. While I have 16 Totems in my portfolio, I’ll only be selling 8-10, so here are the Top 10 in the order the survey indicated.

Some surprises here. The Humpback Whale is one of my favorites, and even though a few people agree with me, most do not. But for this survey, I would have included it in my print run for the booth. Many people did say in their comments that it was tough to choose and that they had a hard time ranking them because they liked them all. While I can understand that, and appreciate the compliment, the ranking was very clear for the first five, not so much for the last five. The Bighorn Sheep could have easily been shown instead of the Penguin as they were neck and neck. But I chose the Penguin because the venue will be in Calgary and with the addition of the penguins at the zoo last year, it’s a safe bet some will buy it based solely on where it’s being sold.

The Wolf Totem has long been a favorite among people who like my work. It’s a big seller and very popular. But it was done over two years ago and I’m pleased to see that my two most recent pieces are in the Top 3. Thankfully, it would appear my best work isn’t behind me, something many artists fear.

Matted prints and cost. 78% of people would prefer a matted print to an unmatted one and 73% said cost didn’t affect that decision. That was very revealing, however the people who follow me online aren’t necessarily the same demographic as those who will be shopping at the Expo. A lot of people go to the Expo to buy inexpensive prints and even at a reduced price of $30.00, it will be too much money for some, when they could buy two or three prints for the same amount of money, which means more art from different artists. If this were a Christmas trade show with an older crowd, I would go entirely matted at regular price with a lot of canvas as well, but at this venue, I’ll be doing a mix of matted and unmatted prints. But this was very helpful in helping me decide the balance.

The majority of people were interested in a discount on buying two prints, rather then three or four.

When it comes to the T-shirts available from The Mountain, the Wolf was the clear winner, the Ground Squirrel second, but it was an even balance between the other three. If I do decide to include T-shirts in my inventory, and that’s still undecided, it is obvious that I should include all five. The large majority of respondents would buy one for themselves or somebody else. One commenter suggested that she still liked the T-shirts, but wouldn’t buy one because her family just doesn’t wear shirts with designs on them. Personally, neither do I, so I was curious to see how many thought the same. Selling T-shirts as well as prints might be a little too much this year as it would require a lot of inventory in different sizes and might make for a very crowded booth. This first year, I might just stick with prints and have one of each design on hand to let people know that they’re available online from The Mountain.

Finally, more than half of the respondents left comments, which I found very valuable. Many were complimentary of my work, which I appreciated. Others told me that ranking the Totems was very difficult and a couple even seemed to worry that they were hurting my feelings by doing so, telling me I shouldn’t think they hated the last one they picked. No worries, I’ve got thick skin. Still, others were just very nice words of encouragement and nobody gets tired of hearing those, so thanks for that. Some suggested that other animals should be on T-shirts. As they are licensed and not produced by me, it’s actually up to The Mountain which ones end up on T-shirts. So while these five are the only ones at the moment, who knows what the future will hold?

Here are some other comments I found helpful, and my thoughts on each.

“Your pricing, I would do the multiples on the $10 mark… so $40, $50 etc. Just keeps things simpler.” This is good advice and something I’m going to seriously consider.

“Would it be too much work to get more mat colors than black? Black looks nice, but can take away from some pieces depending on color. A color mat can really enhance the work. Good luck!!” and another comment in the same vein “White matte and $40. I don’t like black mattes. Too heavy. Your prices are too low.” Matting is always tough. With lighter colour work or black and white, a white mat usually looks best. With darker work (such as mine), a black mat usually looks best. And you’ll easily find people who will disagree with both statements. In a perfect world, a painting looks best when matted to reflect colours in the painting and matches the decor of a room. How do you do that for every customer? Well the simple answer is that you can’t. White or black are the choices and as in all things, people prefer one or the other. For continuity in an artist’s work and to minimize cost and inventory, it isn’t advisable to offer both, because hanging together on a wall or display, they will actually look bad beside each other. As for choosing a coloured mat, that’s a minefield. A number of people said they didn’t like the purple of the Wolf T-shirt, even though it did draw out colours from the painting itself. Honestly, purple wouldn’t have been my first choice, either. But it was still the most popular shirt in the survey.

I trust the advice of my printer, as he does both white and black mattes for many different artists. After seeing these comments, I asked him what he thought and he said he thinks my work looks better with a black mat. My wife agrees and I think so, too. Art is a such a tricky business, because everybody likes different things for different reasons, and you can’t please everybody. So I’m sticking with the black mats, but wouldn’t tell somebody they were wrong if they swapped it out for a white or coloured mat. Even still, with the choice of only the black mat, the vast majority still preferred to have a print sold with the mat.

“A set of postcards of your totems on a special paper would be pretty cool.” That’s a great idea. While I was going to have postcards for promotional reasons, I hadn’t considered doing that for each animal as a little collector piece on their own. Might sell them for $1.00 or $2.00 each or two or three for $5.00. I already have art cards licensed through Island Art Publishers, but promotional postcards for the show might be a nice addition.

“Would like to see your totems on ball caps and mugs.” That’s a licensing thing and while I wouldn’t produce them myself, you never know what might come around in the future. I’m always talking to other companies and if I find the right one, you may get to see both.

A lot to consider with this survey and I would like to thank everyone who participated. The expense of this show is significant, thousands of dollars to prep the booth and stock inventory, so I really wanted to put my best foot forward. The input was very helpful and I imagine there will be other opportunities in the future for me to ask for your opinion and offer prints as prizes. As always, however, you can always share your thoughts with me on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Posted on February 3, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Comments and Choices

Just as artists discover their own style, freelance long enough and you’ll discover your business style, too. As the online world changes, faster today than ever before, so will your way of doing things. For example, when I began to post editorial cartoons on this site, I disabled comments because I knew it would turn into a melee of differing political opinions. While I agree with a person’s right to express themselves and argue their point, anybody who strongly disagrees with my point of view can send me an email or write a letter to the editor of one of the publications across Canada in which my cartoons appear. But all one has to do is look at almost any political story on a news website and you’ll see how quickly it gets turned into a free-for-all brawl. Pro-Conservatives will seize any opportunity to further their cause, regardless of whether or not the story warrants it. Pro-Liberals do the same thing. Any real discussion is lost amid the noise. To avoid that, comments have never been allowed on editorial cartoons on this site.

An argument has been made by some in recent years to disable comments on blog posts as well. While I’d never given it much thought, I’ve read some of those arguments, and recently revisited that question. When it comes to interaction with artists, freelancers, and the folks who just generally like my cartoons, social media is where the action is, at least for me. Facebook is where I get the most feedback and where people seem to like to comment the most. It’s also where I get the most questions about how I do things, requests for help, and just general discussion on cartoons, blog posts, and other links. I regularly get commission work on that platform as well.

Twitter is another form of interaction that has proven to be worth my while lately. Not only does it grant access to other people I don’t interact with on Facebook, but I get real time information in short bursts. It also forces me and others to be succinct in posting any links and comments. It took me a long time to see the value in Twitter, but I get it, now, and am using it daily.

Google+ is still an effort for me. I don’t get nearly the interaction there that I get on Facebook or Twitter and have been having a hard time finding the value in the platform. While some would argue that Google+ is where everybody is going, I’m just not seeing it. For awhile, it seemed to be taken over by photographers or at least hyped to be the place where photographers should be, but I only post there lately because it takes two more seconds after I’ve posted to Facebook and Twitter.

When it comes to blog posts, there are many who will tell you that you must keep a blog, while there are others who’ll say blogging is dead. I still believe in keeping a blog, but only because I enjoy writing. If you don’t like writing or teaching, you won’t enjoy it or keep it current.

The point of all of this rambling about my online posting practices is to show that what works for one person may not work for another. Many self proclaimed authorities will tell you the exact methods and devices you must use when it comes to self promotion, but usually they’re just validating their own choices. It’s the same reason the Apple vs. PC, Nikon vs. Canon, Coke vs. Pepsi debates still rage on. If you can get other people to do what you do, then it somehow means you’re right.

The reason so many more people are choosing freelancing as a career is that they want the freedom to make their own choices. It’s a very big reason why I chose to do it. I would much rather screw up and learn from my own mistakes, than take orders from a boss who refuses to admit he ever makes any. With that freedom of choice, it’s important to listen to other professionals and find out what your options are, but then make your own choices based on what you feel is right for your business. Weigh the facts, but trust your gut. We’re all just winging it, even the so-called experts.

When it comes to my website, I think of it like a storefront or a brochure. It’s the image of my business that I want to project. That means controlling the content, the look, and what gets posted.

I don’t get a lot of comments on this site in the first place, largely because most people choose to interact with me on social media, and to be honest, that’s the way I prefer it. While many of the comments I do get are positive and supportive, I regularly have to weed out the ones that are argumentative, ill-informed, and some that are so long, they’re blog entries all on their own. It’s a time suck, and lately, it’s just not working for me. By censoring comments, as well as picking and choosing which I want to show, it would be hard to argue that it’s real interaction, anyway. Consequently, if I allowed anybody to post whatever they want, it would quickly begin to look like a business where the front window is covered in leaflets, announcements, and propaganda for other businesses, agendas, and personal causes. I find neither of those options particularly appealing. The main reason I chose not to sell ad space on my site was to avoid that problem.

Freelancing is a tough gig most of the time, but if you try to please everybody, you’ll be miserable. Make your own choices, judge their effectiveness, make new choices. Keep what works, discard what doesn’t. Repeat ad infinitum.

Today, I’ve decided that even though blog comments used to be mainstays in online interaction, I believe that social media has replaced their usefulness, so I’m disabling them on my website.

Thank you for those who have commented on this site in the past, and just because I’m turning comments off here, doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. I’m on social media every day and am happy to talk with you there. Chances are you found this link on social media in the first place. But if not, here are the links to my social media accounts.

Facebook: LaMontagneCartoonInk

Twitter: @CartoonInk

Google+: Patrick LaMontagne

Posted on January 16, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Spec Work and why you should avoid it

When freelancers are first starting out and are very hungry, both literally and creatively, they’ll pretty much work for anybody. Almost all of us get taken at one time or another, and often more than once, by the promise of exposure, low pay now/higher pay later, or just cheap clients. Most of these lessons have to be learned the hard way, and while it’s easy to blame the client, it’s really our own fault for agreeing to the work in the first place. Spec work falls into the same category of ‘should have known better.’ In the case of a graphic designer, for example, a ‘client’ will ask you to submit a logo and if they like it, they’ll pay you for it, but if they don’t, they won’t. Basically all of the risk lands on the creative and the client gets free work done. Try doing that in a restaurant, ordering five meals and only paying for the one you really liked.

“Spec work (short for speculative) is any job for which the client expects to see examples or a finished product before agreeing to pay a fee,” a quote by Eric Miller in an About.com article.

This is also how many design and illustration contests work as well. They solicit many entries with the promise of big prizes or cash to the winner, and often second or third prize as well. What they’re really getting is a ton of submissions for their project at a fraction of what it would normally cost them. If you read the fine print for most of these contests, you’ll see that they still have the right to use all submitted images in a collection, book, future project and online with no compensation to the designer or artist as well. This is why I don’t submit to editorial cartoon contests, unless it’s work I’ve already done. I’ll frequently see ads for cartoon contests out of places like Romania or some other foreign country where you have to draw a cartoon or caricature on a theme, usually a politician you’ve never heard of. All of the above mentioned criteria apply. And while the contests are legit, and the prize money is real, the benefit is almost entirely to the company, organization, or person holding the contest.

Spec work is something to be avoided, especially if you already have a body of work where your skill can be adequately measured. If somebody asked me to paint their dog and told me they’ll only pay me if they like it, the conversation is going to end pretty abruptly.

So why did I just complete a spec project this morning?

Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, it was an interesting challenge, something I hadn’t done before. I was tasked with painting somebody else’s artwork, a cartoonist/animator whose work I greatly admire, because this person has drawing skills that I don’t. A chance to paint a character designed by this person was intriguing. Also, the company in question is well established and one I would like to work for on a contract basis doing just this kind of work. While it’s work I can never claim as my own, and likely never show on my own site, it’s good practice of my painting skills. To be considered for this work, I had to submit a painting test, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only artist tasked to do so. There was no ambiguity in what I was agreeing to. Paint the character, deliver it on a tight deadline (something I didn’t know going in), and if they like the choices I made and the look I came up with, I get paid for the work and will likely get additional work as a result painting this and other characters. It was basically an audition. And even though I have no doubt at all that I will be paid if my work is chosen, it’s still spec work.

Along with my other deadlines, I suddenly had a new one which meant working late last night and getting up very early this morning to submit the work on time. It was hours of work that I may not get paid for. As I’ve worked very hard to develop my painting skills, I have no doubt in the quality of my work. That being said, there are many painters out there a lot better than I am and they could have submitted a test as well. Also, if I don’t get chosen, it could simply be a fact that my style doesn’t suit the project. My work may not be chosen for any number of reasons and I’m OK with that. I went into this with my eyes wide open, basically expecting that I was working for free, with no assumption that I’ll ever get paid for it.

Now, all that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the test. It was a great character I was painting, the drawing of which is currently beyond my cartoon skills. And even though I’m pretty tired right now, it was a bit of a rush this morning, getting up an hour earlier at 4AM, and scrambling to get it done, not to mention I had two editorial cartoons to get done this morning as well. I feel good about the work I submitted and have divorced myself from the outcome. If I get the gig, great, if I don’t, that’s fine, too. I have plenty of work without it.

But this is a strong warning. Think very carefully before accepting any spec work. Know what you’re getting into and if it seems like you’re being taken advantage of and you’re uncomfortable with that, turn it down. If you don’t value your work, then nobody else will. And if you do choose to take the occasional spec job just because you find it interesting and are willing to do the work for free, know that you’re doing it for that reason, and have no expectations afterward.

Posted on January 12, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 2 Comments

Two By Two: The Sequel

About three and half years ago, I created the artwork for a family board game called Two By Two for Valley Games, a company out of Calgary. Around that time, I actually illustrated four titles for them and they were a lot of fun. A small company at the time, but with great momentum and their board and card games have become popular worldwide with fans. While I haven’t done anything in a couple of years for them, I recently got the call to create artwork for an expansion pack to the original Two By Two game. Here’s the original artwork I did. The box cover…

…and the animals…

My artwork in general is constantly being refined. While the look of my work years ago is still recognizable as mine, I’m always trying to improve, so while I’m still proud of the work I did on the original Two By Two, the choices I would have made if I’d done it from scratch today would likely have been different. Everything from the animal design to the colour and texture choices, not because I don’t like what I did, but just because artwork evolves. With this expansion pack, however, it had to look very much the same. So rather than designing characters from scratch, I used the old animal style as models for the new animals, and the old cover as a model for the new cover. The titles are still the same at this point, but I know I’ll be asked to change them soon. They don’t quite know what to call it yet. Two By Two 2 doesn’t really have much of a ring to it. The invoice has been sent, but I knew from the beginning that this change would be requested at some point in the future. Here’s the new cover…

…and the NEW animals…

The beauty of Photoshop files, and designing with layers is that I was able to use some of the parts of the original file for the new cover, which really helped with the continuity of the look. The water texture, sky, clouds, titles, Valley games logos were all re-used. The rest of the cover was new drawing and painting. The animals can’t be all that detailed because they go on small tokens. If you use too much texture for something small, it can look muddy when it’s shrunk. The expansion pack box is a lot smaller and has different dimensions.

One of the problems artists have a hard time getting used to when working for commercial companies is that you’re not creating art for yourself, you’re creating it for a product. Even with licensing on work already done, you have to expect that your work is going to be changed, and it’s up to you how much change you’re comfortable with. For example, my t-shirts with The Mountain are designed from my Totem paintings, but due to the look and texture of their shirts, they don’t want the backgrounds I painted, so I remove them. They may also scale, crop, mask and compose the image differently than I did it, most noticeably with my Ground Squirrel Totem, where they didn’t use the body. I am comfortable with these changes because it’s still my painted work, but they know their business better than I do, and they haven’t ruined my work by tailoring it (pun intended) to their product.

With something like this board game, however, I was hired to create specific illustrations. The work is not based on my vision. I was given a list of animals to draw and I don’t even know why these specific animals were requested. For example, there’s a bunny AND a rabbit. I’m curious as to why, but I can live without knowing. There’s also a mythical chimera, the goat/lion/dragon heads. On the cover itself, all of those elements you see were specifically ordered. Everything from the nest in the tree to the dolphin and platypus in the water.

While I still own copyright of all of these images, I’ll very likely never use them for anything else but my portfolio, because they were drawn specifically for Valley Games. When you’re a freelance artist, a lot of your work is just going to be work based on other people’s ideas. This was still fun to work on, and proved to be a challenge to get everything to look like the older game, but it’s contracted work, which is what most freelancing is about. It’s a great job, but you still have to treat it like a job. That means giving the customer what they want, making sure they’re happy with it, and moving on the next project.

In this video, you can see a review of the original game. I designed the animals for the tokens, and the cover, but not the board or other token textures. They also made changes to the cover layout, which is why I supply the finished product in layers. Changes are expected and they need to have a flexible file.

Posted on January 8, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

To thine own self be true

The last few weeks have been less than stellar. While I find winter tough to take most years, a cold snap hits my mood especially hard. When the temperature drops to -20C and below, I’m about the unhappiest camper you’re going to find. Vitamin D, sunlamps, and other home remedies, I’ve tried ’em all. Short of moving away to a warmer climate for 6 months of the year, I’ve just learned I have to ride it out. Add to that the holiday season, of which I am not a fan, and a nasty cold that knocked me down hard on my one slow week of the year, and the last few weeks have felt like I’ve been living at the bottom of a deep dark hole. Don’t get me going again on the fact that I’m supposed to be in Vegas this week.

There seems to be this ridiculous belief that if you are fortunate enough to love what you do for a living, you’re happy and upbeat all the time, and everything is right in the world, every minute of the day. Trust me, that’s not the case. While I’d much rather chart my own course than have somebody else tell me where to go and how to do it, there will always be bad days and bad weeks, just like at any job, even one you enjoy. Think of it this way, if somebody offered you your favourite food for dinner tonight, you’d jump at the chance. If they offered it to you tomorrow, you might still be happy. Now, imagine you have to eat it every night for the next year. Would it still be your favourite, or would you be willing to pay anything for a rice cake?

It is not only in an artist’s nature to keep trying new things and new ways of being creative, it’s an absolute necessity. If new challenges don’t present themselves, you have to go looking for them, otherwise what used to be exciting just becomes routine. Creativity doesn’t do well with routine. It withers and ends up on life support.

There is an elusive state of being that we all seem to be looking for called ‘balance.’ Parents try to find the balance between a fulfilling work and home life, workaholics need to balance their schedule and time off, creatives look for a balance between inspired work and selling out. I’ve come to the conclusion that this balance is an illusion, it doesn’t exist, and that to try to find it leads to a futility that only makes a person feel even worse about their situation. This is largely because your perception of balance is fluid. Find that extra hour in a week to read a book, and you’ll be looking for two next week. Manage that, and you’ll be wanting a whole day off, then two, then three and pretty soon you’re running out of money because you’re never working. Balance is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The closer you move toward it, the further it moves away.

Perhaps you’ve heard the fable about the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion needs a ride across the river and asks the frog for a lift. The frog declines saying the scorpion will just sting him. The scorpion argues that it if he did that, he’d sink, too, so the frog gives in to a logical argument. The scorpion climbs up on the frog’s back and they start off across the river. Before too long, the scorpion stings the frog, and the frog says, “Why did you do that? Now we’ll both drown!”

The scorpion says, “I can’t help it. It’s just my nature.”

Rather than listen to all of the people that tell me I should relax more and take time off and try to find some balance, I’ve decided to make peace with the fact that I’m only content when I’m working. Even when I’m not working, I’m thinking about work. With that in mind, I’ve packed my next few months, and most of it will be quite challenging, because a lot of it will be new ground. I’ll be recording a new DVD on painting portraits, something I’ve been talking about for months but haven’t actually gotten around to doing. I’ve been commissioned to paint a couple of cat portraits and have received inquiries about two more pet portraits this week. Another Totem is being prepped to paint as is another portrait, a painting of one of my absolute favorite characters in film. The last one, I’ll be trying to paint in Corel Painter. I haven’t used the Painter software since Painter Classic many years ago, and I’ve been wanting to try Painter 12, bought this past week. The best way to do so is to just throw myself into a painting and learn as I go. I have no desire to stop painting in Photoshop, but I also don’t want to be restricted to it, either.

There are a couple of online courses I’ve wanted to take for awhile, and there’s no time like the present. Waiting for my schedule to slow down is just another way of saying that it’s never going to happen.

And finally, I’m well into the planning for my booth at the Calgary Expo in April. There’s a lot to think about and organize, everything from which prints to sell and how many of each, banner design, and all of the other logistics involved with having my own booth and selling my own work at the event. It’s very intimidating, I’m likely going to be stressed about it, but at least it’s not routine.

Some of the work will be fulfilling, some won’t. Some of the deadlines will be ridiculously short, others will give me far too much time, which inevitably leads to procrastination and working at it last minute, anyway. There will be up days, low days, but mostly just middle of the road days where it feels just like punching a clock, just like any other job. That’s the cold hard truth of it and anybody who is thinking about being creative for a living should know that.

Motivation and inspiration, these are wonderful things. Sometimes it’s the kick in the ass that will get you moving when you feel like you’ve got cinder block boots on. But when everybody is telling you to be Polly Anna, optimistic, happy go lucky, and you-can-do-it, it can also wear on you. Chasing that high will eventually lead to an overdose. From time to time, you just need to turn off all of that noise and just get the work done, regardless of how you feel about it. That’s all anybody does, no matter what they do for a living.

So what’s the point of this melodramatic post? Simply put, sometimes it’s OK to feel bad even when things are good. Don’t beat yourself up about it. The pressure as a freelancer to be ‘up’ all the time is maddening and I’d bet that a lot of folks out there, the ones you think are riding high all the time, are either faking it as a marketing tool or they’re heavily medicated. Even the most optimistic of personalities has down days, too, and you’re entitled to yours. I’d rather share with you the reality of being a self-employed creative than be a complete hypocrite and sell you a bill of goods. In my experience, it can do a lot more harm than good.

But this too shall pass. For while I’m having a few down days lately, I know that two weeks from now, you’ll see me giddy with excitement when I pick up a certain painting from the printer. Bet on it. After that, there will be something else exciting, and before too long, it’ll be Spring again, my favourite time of the year. Enjoy the highs, resent the lows, but be who you are and stop trying to please everybody all the time. It’s exhausting!

You may not be happy all the time, but at least you’ll be sane.