Category: Inspiration

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Whose Art Is It Anyway?

In 2008, I hosted the Canadian Editorial Cartoonists Conference in Banff. Several industry veterans who attended came up in a culture where busy unionized daily newspapers hired editorial cartoonists for impressive salaries, benefits, and pensions. I began my career at the end of all that.

I put a lot of work into the conference and preparing a Photoshop drawing class, trying to impress and curry favour with the more established cartoonists in this exclusive club. But, unfortunately, I realized too late that nobody cared. They were simply looking for an excuse to visit Banff, hang out and talk shop. It was about nostalgia, politics, and competitors fishing for information.

I wanted to improve my skills and artwork and learn how to adapt to a struggling industry, but many of them were focused on avoiding having to change. In fact, in the wrap-up, one of the more senior cartoonists loudly promised there wouldn’t be any Photoshop drawing classes at the next conference.

Clearly, I didn’t belong in this group.

In 2009, I attended another conference, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals in Las Vegas. I had been a member of this supportive online community for several years. Critiques were constructive, questions were answered with enthusiasm, and I learned more from that association than any before or since.

Fresh off that first Photoshop World conference,  inspired to try something new, I painted a funny looking grizzly bear, my first whimsical wildlife portrait.

I went to that conference five times between 2009 and 2014. In 2010 and 2014, I won multiple Guru Awards for my animal paintings, including two Best in Show awards. The classes and instructors, the community of friends and colleagues, it was time and money well spent.

At Photoshop World, I made valuable business connections. For a long time after, I had a welcome working relationship with Wacom, the company that makes the drawing tablets and displays I’ve used for the past 25 years. I recorded two training DVDs for PhotoshopCAFE, and NAPP helped me form a strong foundation for my creative skills.

Eventually, social media killed the forum, and the organization rebranded. As a result, NAPP no longer exists, and the Photoshop World conference is a ghost of its former self.

Time spent pining for the way things used to be is a waste. Adaptation is the most useful skill a self-employed artist can have.

While licensing and retailers are essential for my business, those customers each have their own ideas of what they want from my work. One retailer wants more bears; another wants more wolves. One agency wants me to follow seasonal trends; another client wants more realistic animals. Some products sell better with brighter, more colourful elements, and some without a background. Some items work better with a vertical layout, others horizontal.

Most artists have heard they should find their niche, the work that makes them unique and different from everybody else. It’s the key to survival in a crowd where a lot of art looks the same. But if you work hard and are lucky enough to discover the work that defines you, the next piece of advice you hear is that you need to make it appeal to everyone all the time.

Well, which is it?

How do you create work you enjoy enough to keep doing it year after year and continue to make it pay? How do you serve your customers and clients and allow their input and direction without changing your work so much that it’s no longer yours? Is it artwork or factory work?

When it becomes a grind or just about pumping out more images, it can take all the joy out of it. Lately, finishing some paintings has brought the same sense of accomplishment I get from cleaning the house. That’s a telltale sign of burnout. I’ve been here before, more than once. It’s a common experience with anyone who creates anything, especially if it’s their job, a warning that something’s got to give.

I know how to paint a single animal. I’ve put almost fifteen years into it. Each takes hours to paint, and the work I’m doing now is better than I’ve ever done, but it’s still the same style and (shudder) formula. It’s not as challenging or fulfilling as it used to be.

I’ve taken a new approach with the trio of giraffes, already titled “Long Neck Buds.” I don’t know if it will work the way I imagine it, but if it does, it will be the first of several I plan to paint this way.

This latest individual giraffe isn’t quite a finished piece, but it’s close. It will also be the middle giraffe in the painting based on the group sketch above. With the simple background, it’s a solid painting on its own. I’ll paint the other two individually, like this first one, with my usual high detail, then I’ll place them all together. Finally, I’ll paint the sky, clouds and leaves around them.

I’m a commercial artist, it’s how I make my living. I don’t pretend otherwise. But this is also supposed to be fun. I want to paint more detailed and elaborate images I’ll enjoy while also leaving options open for clients and licenses with different needs.

I want to create more paintings this way—a troop of meerkats, several burrowing owls, and a waddle of penguins. I could paint different species in an image. However, with each critter as detailed as my usual work, these will take longer than a single painting, requiring a more substantial investment in each piece.

I get nervous when spending too much time on one painting, likely due to many years of drawing editorial cartoons. Twenty years ago, when almost nobody was publishing my work, I would spend many hours nitpicking a cartoon, trying to get a caricature right or fussing with perspective. Shonna and I referred to these as Sistine Chapel cartoons. I had to train myself to say, “good enough.”

Most political cartoons have a short shelf life, so speed is essential. Get it done, get it out, and get started on the next one. My cartoon work pays monthly bills.

With a painting, however, the income can come anywhere from next week to next year. Pieces I painted ten years ago are still paying today. Paintings are an investment in future prints, products and licensing, income that often comes later.

This year, I’m making time to play and experiment.

I’ll share works in progress, sketches, and thoughts along the way, but fewer finished pieces. The ones I do complete will be bigger and hopefully worth waiting for. Of course, I expect I’ll still paint a single animal here and there if the mood strikes me.

11” X14” poster prints will come out only a couple of times a year rather than as I complete them. With higher shipping costs, I imagine that it won’t be a problem for collectors of my work to be able to order two or three new pieces at a time with one shipping cost.But I’ll still welcome custom metal and canvas special order prints. You can order those by email anytime. The above 18”x24” sloth on canvas and 20″x20” Blue Beak Raven on metal below are two custom orders that arrived this week.The puzzles I launched this year felt like a considerable risk, but I sold a lot of them and have received requests for more. I’m suddenly motivated to plan paintings that will work as prints, puzzles, stickers and more. I’m also exploring puzzle licensing opportunities.

In the meantime, my collection of more than 100 paintings will continue to pay the bills with prints and licensing, as will drawing daily editorial cartoons, for as long as newspapers hang on.

I’m not having any fun. That needs to change.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Tarantula

One evening when Shonna and I were first dating, we watched the fun comedy horror movie Arachnophobia with her mom and stepfather. The movie over, I sat in front of the TV to rewind and remove the rented VHS tape. Yes, it was a long, long time ago.

With my back to the room, I didn’t notice Shonna’s cat, Princess, walking up behind me, looking for attention. After two hours of spiders on the brain, I jumped when her whiskers touched my bare arm. To this day, Shonna swears I levitated. Her late stepfather Ivar was crying from laughing so hard, and the cat looked at me as if to say, “what’s your problem?”

Spiders. They certainly push the phobia button for many people, including me.

Multiple legs propel them at seemingly impossible speeds as they find their way under shirt collars or up pant legs. They lie in wait, between sheets and sleeping bags, hiding in dark corners and crevices, waiting to sink their dagger-like fangs into our flesh and inject their killer poison. Or worse, they can’t wait to lay their eggs in our ears.

At least, that’s the nightmare we imagine.

Reality is a lot less frightening, though not for them. Many households have a designated spider killer. But, like most natural creatures, they have much more to fear from us than we from them.

Spiders are fascinating creatures. They keep more invasive insect species in check, including aphids and caterpillars that can decimate crops. They help control the populations of other insects that spread disease.

According to the Boston Children’s Hospital, “It is estimated that less than three deaths per year occur from spider bites. However, most victims are children. Most of the 20,000 species of spiders found in the United States are poisonous, but their fangs are too short or too fragile to break through human skin. The bites of most spiders cause only minor, local reactions.”

Mosquitoes kill a million people each year. While they’re annoying, we hardly fear them to the extent we do spiders. The bite from a tarantula is comparable to a bee sting in both pain and repercussions. If you’re not allergic, it’s unlikely even to make you sick.

The other day, Shonna came home from work and mentioned she’d seen a little spider on the wall inside our front door and wondered what had happened to it. I had seen the same spider earlier in the day and told her it was too cold to put it outside, so I left it alone. It was likely still in the house somewhere. Yet, miraculously, we both keep waking up each morning. Surely we should be dead by now.

For many of us, our first reaction is revulsion and shivers. But, just like with every other animal that scares me (BEARS!), knowledge rarely cancels out irrational fear.

In the fall of 2021, the Calgary Expo had a much smaller mid-pandemic version of the event. Like it was for many people, it had been a financially challenging year, and I didn’t think paying for a booth would be worth the investment, given the reduced attendance.

As a vendor, I usually only have a limited time to look around if I arrive early each day before the doors open. So, it was fun to buy a ticket and attend the event with my buddy, Derek, who brought along his daughter and her friend.

For a small fee, I had the opportunity to hold a tarantula. Of course, I had visions of this hairy little beast running up my arm and sinking its fangs into my neck (why my neck?!) or crawling across my face (OK, that one comes from Aliens), but I knew that in the real world, I had little to fear.

Once in my hands, I was amazed at how light she was. They’re quite fragile, so I knew the spider would die if I dropped it. Suddenly, my biggest concern was not to hurt this delicate creature, and I loved the experience, one I would repeat without hesitation.
Derek took some photos for me, and I’ve wanted to paint this tarantula ever since, though I doubt it will be a popular print. I just wanted to try it.

But how would I make this hairy little nightmare appealing? I know it’s possible because animator Joshua Slice did it several years ago when he created Lucas the Spider, a character based on a Jumping Spider.

As an aside, those two words together are terrifying for anybody with even a little arachnophobia.

Lucas the Spider is adorable and became a series of animated shorts and eventually a show on the Cartoon Network. However, a large part of his appeal was his movements, toddler’s voice and that he blinks. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to achieve any connection with a painting.

A tarantula’s mouth is on the underside of its body, so I couldn’t very well have it smiling. The character had to be in the eyes. But with no eyelids or bone structure to help with expression, I wasn’t sure if any personality would appear.

And yet, the natural features below his eyes suggested a moustache and maybe the illusion of a mouth. Humans are geared to see patterns. It’s called Pareidolia, just one of the weird ways our brains are wired. It’s why we see shapes in clouds, the man in the moon, or a religious figure in a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s suspected to be tied to survival and recognizing environmental threats.

I didn’t see the imagined face in this spider until the last few hours, but once I did, I couldn’t unsee it.

I showed the finished painting to Shonna yesterday morning, convinced she wouldn’t like it. But the first thing she said was, “he’s cute.”

I wonder if anyone else will feel the same way.

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Laughing Bear

I’ve lost track of how many animals I’ve painted since that first grizzly bear in 2009, but I know it’s more than a hundred.

Each animal I paint comes with its challenges and rewards because I always learn something new. That’s a big part of why I enjoy the work so much. I’ll never know enough, and there will always be room for improvement.

Though there are many species in my portfolio, I’ve painted more than 30 bears.

And then there’s Berkley. This new piece is the eleventh time I’ve painted her, plus all the sketches and unfinished renderings.

If you’ve followed my work for longer than five minutes, you’ll know all about her. An orphan rescued from the US in 2017 by my friend Serena at Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail, I’ve known Berkley since she was a few months old and have been painting her ever since. Here’s the first one.I sometimes get flack for supporting places like Discovery Wildlife Park, the Calgary Zoo and the Birds of Prey Sanctuary because they house captive animals.

Ideally, no animal would live in captivity, but we’re not the intelligent species we pretend to be. There are few places left in the world where animals can truly be wild. Even then, they’re likely national and provincial parks, sanctuaries, and conservancies. And of those places, the ones that admit tourists wage a constant battle against our bad behaviour.

Unless those places are fenced, animals don’t know about park boundaries. Their migration routes and natural habitats may take them in and out of protected areas. Once they leave those places, they easily fall victim to hunters and trappers. Sometimes, it’s reluctant ranchers protecting their herds from predation; other times, the animals have been lured out of parks by bait.

So while it’s easy to sermonize on social media that all animals should live in the wild, we’re not willing to sacrifice what it would take for that to happen. We’re the biggest threat to pretty much everything on the planet.

Even without people in the equation, we like to imagine that life in the wild is a happy ending Disney matinee. But nature is often violent, brutal and cruel, and survival is anything but a passive exercise for most species.

Animals are often orphaned and need rescuing. While some facilities exist that minimize human contact and release them back into the wild, truly noble work by dedicated individuals, many animals are rescued too late.

Once an animal has been fed by people or has found too many opportunities to get into unsecured garbage at homes or campsites, they can’t unlearn that lesson. So relocating animals rarely works as they will almost always find their way back to reliable food and familiar territory. Or animals that have already claimed the region will kill this new intruder.

So the choices left to deal with a spoiled bear are a home in a wildlife park or zoo, or they’re destroyed.

I know; I started this post with a happy-looking brown bear, then things got dark. Not my intent to bring you down, simply an explanation of why I support reputable zoos and parks that take care of animals.
Serena regularly sends Shonna and I texts and photos of the animals, and we visit Discovery Wildlife Park as often as possible. Not so much the past few years, for obvious reasons, but I intend to change that once the warmer weather arrives.

I’ve painted several animals Serena has raised, often those who had a rough start in life. Some haven’t made it past infancy, others have had challenging health issues, and many have died after living much longer than they would have in the wild. Serena and her staff have often raised these animals from cubs, pups, and kittens. Saying goodbye to them is always painful, often after expensive preventative or emergency veterinary care. Some of the stories have been heartbreaking, and I don’t know how they do it.

Supported by dedicated staff, Serena works seven days a week, often spending late hours at the park when an animal needs extra care. It’s rare when she gets a day off to spend with her husband and family, let alone take a real vacation. A T-shirt and sticker I’ve seen in a few places reads, “I do this for the money, said no zookeeper ever.”

Getting to know Berkley and spending close contact time with her the first couple of years, she always seems happy, though she did go through an amusing terrible-twos phase. I’ve watched her race up trees in a natural area on the grounds, splash through the creek and puddles, and gorge herself on berries in the fall. A favourite memory is Berkley helping herself to Shonna’s water.
It’s a wonderful feeling that Berkley still knows me each visit and comes to say hello, no matter where she is in her large enclosure.

Whenever I paint one of the animals Serena has raised, I send her the first look. When I sent her this finished Laughing Bear painting, this was part of our text exchange. Even in my whimsical style, she knows her own bears.

Bos and Piper are two other brown bear cubs the park rescued in 2021, and I’ve taken plenty of photos of them, too. I’ve painted Bos once already, but more will be forthcoming, as they both have big personalities and are natural hams.

But it’s obvious I have a favourite.

I’ve joked with Serena that she rescued her, raised her, nursed her through illness, fed her, trained her, played with her, and sacrificed all her free time for her.

But Berkley is my girl.

She allows me that delusion.

________

 

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Bugle Boy

Whenever I’ve gone to Ucluelet on Vancouver Island, I’ve walked down a large staircase to the government dock to take photos of sea lions. To locals, they’re unremarkable, even a nuisance. While I’m happily snapping photos, those working on the nearby fishing boats are likely rolling their eyes at this silly tourist.

For Banff and Canmore locals, elk are like those sea lions. We see them all the time. It can be a herd on a soccer field or a handful walking through an intersection, holding up commuter traffic.

Locals shake their heads and sigh, “come on, hurry up,” while tourists lose their minds trying to grab a photo.

When I first moved to Banff, seeing these big animals all over the place was fantastic. Thirty years later, I’m more than used to them. Last week, I saw several hanging out next to an overpass on the secondary highway. When a herd of elk suddenly decides the grass is greener on the other side of the road, it’s a hazard.

I sent Shonna a text to warn her, as she’d likely take that route home later in the dark.

A little while ago, my next-door neighbour, Chris, told me a herd was hanging out in the ballpark next to our condo complex. He knows I’m always on the lookout for reference photo opportunities. I thanked him, but I was busy, so I asked, “any bulls?”

There weren’t, so I kept working. I have plenty of cow pictures.

That’s how common they are around here.

A local urban legend tells of a tourist who tried to put their child on the back of one for a photo. I’ve never met anyone who actually saw this, it has always been a friend of a friend, but if there’s any truth to it, it wouldn’t shock me.

Everyone around here has seen someone get too close to an elk for a close-up photo, especially in Banff.  Worse, they’ll often attempt a selfie, putting their back to the animal. More than once, I’ve warned somebody that it was a terrible idea, and the response is usually, ‘mind your own business’ or a four-letter version of the same sentiment. Many seem to think ‘national park’ translates to ‘petting zoo.’

When you have to warn people not to get out of their cars to take photos of grizzly bears, it’s not surprising they have even less respect for what might seem like a bigger version of a deer.

Elk are incredibly unpredictable, especially during spring calving and fall Rut. It’s not just the males with the big racks but the cows protecting their young. Or one could decide to charge you for no reason, something many around here have experienced, including Shonna and me.

The only thing to do is duck into any available open door or put a car or obstacle between you, and hope the elk moves on. A hoof to the head is guaranteed to ruin your day.

I remember walking home on Banff Avenue from a night out at the bar in the late 90s. A raised lawn in front of an apartment building put the grass about hip level. I couldn’t see the large bull elk lying on the grass until I walked past the fir tree hiding him. By the time I realized he was there, I could have reached out and booped him on the nose.

Thankfully, having had a few drinks, I didn’t jump and startle him but kept walking, the whole time thinking, “don’t get up, don’t get up, don’t get up.”

A sobering experience, if there ever was one.

Their popularity with visitors is why the third whimsical wildlife painting I ever did was an elk in 2009. It did OK but was never a bestseller. And frankly, it’s among a handful of paintings I’ve done that I genuinely don’t like. I made poor composition choices, and the rack was only suggested.

Having painted more than 100 pieces since then, I’ve learned a lot from my early mistakes. People want to see that rack on the bull elk, and I don’t blame them. It’s taken me more than ten years to try it again.

Many don’t realize that bulls grow and lose their racks each year. As a result, it’s not uncommon to find shed antlers around here, though removing them from provincial and national parks is illegal, a crime that wardens will prosecute with substantial fines.

Ironic that rather than take the reference for this piece in my own backyard, I took the pics at Discovery Wildlife Park in the fall. Their bull, Donald, was bugling away, inspiring this composition I hadn’t considered, allowing me to paint the whole rack.

Males bugle to attract females to their harem and to warn other bulls. Even though Donald doesn’t need to worry about competition, he still shows off his pipes in the fall.

While it’s not a common experience near our place in Canmore, I used to love hearing the bulls bugle when we lived in Banff. It’s a beautiful sound to hear in the mountains. I’d put it up there with wolves howling, though I’m sure many locals would disagree with me. But then, I Iove the sound of coyotes yipping away at night, too.

This video doesn’t do the live experience justice, but here’s some bugling for you. Hope you like the painting.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Poke the Bear

When you find work that resonates with people, any deviation is a risk. People like the happy animals, so why upset the apple cart? Shouldn’t I create another image with a better chance of print sales and licensed images?

In 2009, my work was editorial cartoons, painting caricatures, and the occasional illustration gig. I was getting bored and painted a funny-looking grizzly bear to try something new. That small experiment changed my life and career for the better.

I painted this angry bear for the same reason, to do something different.

For the last while, I’ve been angry, frustrated, and afraid. We’re human, we have emotions, though we often deny or quash them for fear of others’ reactions. If you’re not dying in a ditch from cholera or a bullet wound in a third-world country, you’re not allowed to feel bad about anything. Don’t be so negative. Cheer up.

It’s called toxic positivity, and many use it as a passive-aggressive weapon to make themselves feel comfortable or righteous. How dare you be grumpy, sad, or depressed when things could always be worse?

Several years ago, I had debilitating lower back pain. It hurt to sit, drive, walk and lay down. It would wake me almost every night and begin as soon as I got out of bed each morning. It wasn’t long before Advil couldn’t touch it.

Shonna suggested I go to yoga with her, and that helped. We’ve been doing that together one night a week ever since, a healthy practice for flexibility, balance, and strength. But it wasn’t enough to eliminate the pain.

While googling incessantly for options, reading about compressed and bulging discs, spinal defects, and worse, I came across a book called Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by Dr. John E. Sarno.

Sarno’s theory of Tension myositis syndrome (TMS) explains that for those with perfectionist and people-pleasing tendencies, the subconscious mind can create chronic pain to distract a person from dealing with repressed anger, fear, and stress.

Here’s where I lose most of you, and I knew that going in.

Before you post angry comments and send me emails telling me about your genuine bone, nerve, or systemic issues, I wouldn’t dispute anybody else’s pain. I’m not a doctor. Plenty of people require back surgery, have hip and knee problems, arthritis, and other physiological issues related to identifiable causes, especially with age. Stuff breaks down. Parts fail.

But this began in my late thirties. I tried the doctor, physiotherapy, and massage, and there was no reason for this dramatic physical failure. Anything that worked was a temporary fix with no lasting effect.

This was my experience; if it sounds familiar, it might be yours.

In a 1999 segment of 20/20, John Stossel profiled it well and said Sarno cured his back pain. Howard Stern credits Sarno with saving his life and talks about it often.

There were no courses or programs, no supplements to buy, and no up-selling. It was just a book; one I’ve since read and listened to several times.

If you want to call it one, the cure is realizing you’re doing it, acknowledging the anger, and bringing it into the light. It sounds simple, and it is. And it isn’t. Because after a lifetime of bad habits, the pain comes back, especially in times of stress, and not just in the lower back. It often moves around the body and manifests in other places. So when one distraction is realized, the subconscious finds another, somehow convinced that physical pain is preferable to emotional pain. That’s TMS.
Roll your eyes, shake your head, wave it off, and call me crazy. I don’t need to convince you. All I know is I went from near-crippling back pain for several months to having almost none over a decade later. You’d think a genuine bulging disc, spinal defect, or structural deformity would worsen with age, not disappear.

After the back pain left, however, other physical ailments would pop up over the years. I had sciatic pain in both legs that would come and go. I developed migraine headaches in times of stress. I had severe neck and shoulder pain. I once had jaw and tooth pain so bad I thought I needed root canals. At its worst, I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to eat a hamburger. That went on for months.

These aren’t hallucinations. This was all real excruciating pain, and Sarno explains the physiology of it in the book. But it would fade once I recognized that it was simply another manifestation of the back pain in a different location. Then another pain would show up, and I’d have to realize it again.

In 2016, when the physical distractions no longer worked, I fell into a deep depression, as dark as you can go, and that means what you think it means. Thankfully, Shonna was supportive and urged me to get help. I didn’t want to take drugs, but I went into therapy, and over a few years, I retreated from looking too long into that abyss.

While the darkness is always there in the background, I’ve thankfully never fallen that far back again, though it permanently changed me. You can glue a broken vase, but the cracks remain.

I’ve sought the approval of others for most of my life. When I should have stood up for myself, I held my tongue to keep the peace, and all it got me was pain. The recovery taught me to no longer accept bullying, gaslighting, and criticism from those who would never take it from me.

The most important lessons are always hard.

But every so often, it’s easy to fall back into a bad habit, especially with the stress of the pandemic. Things have built up again over the last year, and I developed stomach issues. I eliminated one food from my diet, then another, then another. Tough for Shonna as she’s such an excellent cook.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this one, I’d finally had enough of this not making any sense. Realizing I was more affected than I thought by the stress of our car accident last year, higher interest rates, inflation, mounting business expenses, financial fear and uncertainty, I went back to the book and a TMS forum site. After some healthy reminders of what I already knew, it made sense that this was just another way my mind was distracting me from acknowledging my fears and anger—sneaky bugger.

I began a new habit of rapid-fire writing on the advice of one post I read.

I open a blank Word file and type a stream-of-consciousness rant about anything scaring me or making me angry. It’s the things we don’t like to admit, the selfish thoughts, the petty, bitter stuff we don’t say to other people for fear of their judgment. It’s Freud’s Id, that fussing toddler in all of us that wants what it wants.

It’s the part of you that wants to scream and rant in a grocery store lineup or start smashing back and forth in your car to get out of a traffic jam or punch your boss in the face when he makes you feel small and unappreciated. It’s acknowledging what we feel but aren’t allowed to express.

So, when I’ve been feeling ticked off or afraid, I’ve taken five minutes to write this stuff down, with lots of swearing, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and no editing.

“I’m angry I have to draw another sleazy politician. I’m afraid I will never make enough money to feel secure. I’m angry that the demanding client won’t shut up and go away. I’m angry that my neighbour’s dogs are barking again. I’m afraid of getting old. I’m afraid of getting dementia. I’m afraid that none of this effort matters. I’m afraid people will think I’m whining with this self-indulgent post.”

And when I’ve had that childish temper tantrum on the page, I close the file without saving it. I’ve been doing this once daily for the past month whenever the mood strikes me.

My stomach issues are almost gone.

When we deny our emotions, we deny ourselves. When we allow others to assert their wants and needs over us at the expense of our mental health and we bury the resentment, there are consequences. When we let other people mistreat us and we stuff that down inside, it doesn’t just go away. It will show up somewhere else.

Eight billion people on the planet, and everybody has a different view of the world and their place in it. To live in a community means hiding your darker, baser instincts for everyone’s mutual survival. But it’s much healthier to still admit and acknowledge them privately and give that primitive self a voice. That part of you needs to speak, even if it’s to an empty room or on a blank page.

So this angry black bear was a little art therapy, another way to put some rage on the page, pour it into a painting of the animal I have feared and loved most.

I enjoyed it and I’ll do it again.
____
©Patrick LaMontagne 2023

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Some Assembly Required

A couple of years ago, through an art licensing agency, Spilsbury licensed four of my paintings on puzzles. But they’re a US company that doesn’t ship to Canada, which annoyed several subscribers.

When a company buys limited rights to put my art on a product, they decide which images they want, how many to create, and when they want to produce them.

I’ve received so many requests for puzzles, however, that I’ve decided to create some of my own. Of course, that means investing in production up front, but then I control which images and quantity to make.

I wanted to source them from a company specializing in puzzles rather than one printing many different products. I wanted sturdy, uniquely shaped puzzle pieces with excellent printing and packaging.

Based in Victoria, I liked what I saw and read on the Puzzles Unlimited site. I talked about pricing and production with a sales rep, uploaded an image and paid for a sample 504-piece puzzle. It arrived between Christmas and New Year’s Day. While the sample box is basic, the company will design a branded box featuring my name, website, and any other details I want to add.

Shonna and I were supposed to spend Christmas up north with her family, but the nasty roads and weather that weekend made that a bad idea, so we stayed home. Shonna was off the whole week, and my workload was light, a perfect window for product testing.
We laughed at our own arrogance, thinking this would be an afternoon diversion for a few hours. Instead, it took us several hours each day for three days to assemble it. Neither of us remembers the last time we put a puzzle together, so it’s unlikely we’ve done one as adults.

I sent snapshots to a couple of friends, and both asked the same question. “Is it easier to put together since you painted the image?”

NOPE! Not even a little.

More than once, while trying to find a piece, I complained to Shonna about the artist.

“What kind of psychopath puts so much detailed fur and grass in one painting?!”
It became an obsession for both of us. After dinner last Thursday night, I asked Shonna what she wanted to watch on TV. She said she’d much rather work on the puzzle, and I agreed. I was pleased with the whole experience, though we were disappointed when it was over. We did, however, learn a valuable lesson on this one. Don’t assemble a puzzle with a lot of brown and beige texture on a surface with a lot of brown and beige texture. Newbie mistake.

We finished it on New Year’s Eve. Clearly, our neighbours will never have to complain about the noise from our wild partying lifestyle.

This is a quality puzzle with sturdy pieces and clean printing. I want to have four designs available in the spring so that I have them for the Calgary Expo.

These are specialty items rather than generic mass market products, so they’ll retail between $35 and $39 each. From what I’ve seen at markets, plus information from the supplier and others, that’s about right for a niche product purchased directly from the artist.
This puzzle is 16″ X20″ with 504 pieces, which will be the dimensions and count for the first orders. For casual puzzlers like us, it’s the perfect size and difficulty. However, it wasn’t too easy, and we could get it done and still enjoy it.

I know that hardcore puzzle enthusiasts prefer 1000 pieces or more, but I don’t know if that’s who’ll buy these. Will it be diehard puzzlers or those looking for an entertaining pastime a couple or family can do together?

Now I must decide on the first four images. Spilsbury has the exclusive puzzle license for my Smiling Tiger, Bald Eagle, Wolf and Great Horned Owl. So those are out of consideration.

The most popular prints won’t necessarily be the best puzzles. The image must be one people like but also fun and challenging to put together without too much frustration.

Grizzly on Grass is one of my most popular paintings, and it was a fun puzzle, so that’s one of the four. The Otter is one of my best-selling prints but has a big blue background, which might be a problem in a puzzle.

So for all of the images you see here, I reimagined them as puzzles rather than prints and cropped and sized them accordingly. If I chose four right now, I’d go with Grizzly on Grass, Otter, Sea Turtle and T-Rex.
I’m also considering these cropped versions of the Flamingo, Parrot, Squirrel, Ring-tailed Lemur, and Snow Day.

But I’d love to hear your opinion.

  1. Would you want to buy one of these puzzles?
  2. In order of preference, which four would be your favourites on a puzzle?

Please let me know in the comments, and feel free to add any other thoughts you’d like to share.

Thanks!
Patrick

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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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‘Tis the Season

Near as I can tell, it was the seven years working in the tourism industry in Banff that exorcised the spirit of Christmas from this here cartoonist and painter of whimsical wildlife.

When you work in a hotel, restaurant, bar, retail store or other service industry in one of the busiest tourist towns in the world, you don’t get time off during the holidays. Tourism is a lifestyle agreement many around here have signed at some point.

But too often, tourists who don’t get their picture-perfect Canadian Rockies Christmas tend to get cranky and take it out on the staff. Year after year that takes a toll.

After playing Christmas all day for the tourists, it always felt like more work to come home to your overpriced apartment and play Christmas there as well. So, we gave it up a long time ago with no regrets.
Shonna and I have not had a tree or decorations in more than twenty years. Aside from a few extra blankets on the couch, our home looks the same on December 25th as on July 25th. We don’t exchange gifts, and we don’t make a big meal.

We still attend Shonna’s office Christmas party, and that’s usually fun, as she works with nice people.

Some years, we are obligated to travel to see family because Christmas and guilt go hand in hand. Every year while living in Banff, we would have to explain to a couple of family members that we had to work on Christmas (just like the year before), so we wouldn’t be coming home.
I welcomed the excuse not to travel. In the darkest month, with the best chance for the worst weather and most treacherous driving, while we’re all under peak stress, everybody hits the road at the same time. And if the highways close for a winter whiteout, and the RCMP tell you to stay home, well, that’s just too bad. Find a way; otherwise, you’ve ruined Christmas for everybody.
Even before the pandemic, ‘tis the season when we’re all contagious. So, we get together with as many people as possible, cram ourselves into crowded spaces, shake hands, hug and kiss and then eat a bunch of finger food.

Why can’t we do this in July when we can camp or hang out on a beach? Those lucky Australians.

Despite my irredeemable inner Scrooge, I have no desire to ruin anybody else’s Christmas. If somebody says Merry Christmas to me, I’ll return the greeting. If they choose another festive Hello-Ho-Ho, I’ll return that too, unlike some who lose their minds and shriek, “IT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS, DAMMIT, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”

I have a return greeting for those people, too. Two words, no hints; you’ll only need one guess.
But here’s where it gets weird.

I like drawing holiday season and Christmas cartoons.

I enjoy drawing Santa Claus, reindeer, ornaments, ribbons, and bows on presents. I don’t know if it’s the bright colour schemes, warm subjects on cool backgrounds, snow on trees, or mythical critters. It’s just strange.

True, there’s always a cynical tone to these cartoons, making fun of the season and my issues with it, but that’s a pillar of the editorial cartoonist profession all year long. I usually come up with far too many ideas this time of year, more than I can draw in December.

But the themes are evergreen. An idea that didn’t get used last year might still work next year. The politicians and issues change, but I can put a seasonal twist on most things, and many cartoons are variations of ones I’ve drawn before, without apology.

Traditional imagery is just that. People don’t want a new twist on Santa Claus. Nobody is deciding stockings on the mantle are passé this year, so let’s hang Levi’s from the dishwasher.

However, what will change is that, hopefully, I’ll be a better artist than I was the year before, as I’m always trying to improve my skills. If I can manage that, that’s all the gift I need.

Whether you celebrate the holidays or not, it’s a tough time of year for many people. Try to be a bit nicer to anyone who must work through the season. It’s not the grocery clerk’s fault that you had to circle three times for parking or that the eggnog is sold out. Nor are they to blame that everything is expensive this year. They’re paying more, too, just like you.

Give some money or groceries to the food bank, drop some cash in the Salvation Army kettle, or donate some clothes or blankets to a shelter. Giving to those less fortunate feels good.

If you’re travelling, please don’t drink and drive. Go a little slower and allow more time to get there. As someone who had a vehicle destroyed this year by somebody else’s carelessness, even if you don’t get hurt, insurance will not make you whole, and the experience seriously inconveniences your life. We’re still looking for a replacement vehicle. It can happen to you, and it will ruin your Christmas, and anyone else’s who gets caught in the chaos.

Advice I can give, but I’m bad at following; try to go a little easier on yourself. You don’t need to be perfect, and neither does anybody else. The golden rule is timeless.

I hope you enjoyed this small selection of cartoons from Christmas past and present, and with tongue firmly in cheek…Bah Humbug!

I mean, Merry Christmas.

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Grump

We’ve had fantastic fall weather this year in the mountains. The leaves took a long time to change, and there are still plenty on the trees. It’s been almost like summer, right up until last week, with our first snowfall. A warming climate is a growing concern, but it has been hard to see that big picture lately while still biking in shorts in the middle of October.

And yet, despite the excellent weather, I’ve been depressed and angry. I’m not the type to put my fist through a wall or throw things; instead, I hold it all in and ruminate. One could argue the latter does more damage in the long run.

This melancholy happens to me this time of year, but usually a little later. I suspect it’s a combination of several things.

I’m weary from the last three years. But, unfortunately, rather than getting easier, this difficult period in our collective history seems to keep compounding. As if we all haven’t had enough, inflation is up, spending is down, and even more financial stress is on the horizon.

Then there is the constant deluge of negative news. Editorial cartooning, the other half of my business, requires I turn my daily focus to bad actors with nefarious agendas, lying and cheating their way into powerful positions. Around the world, people dissatisfied with their current leaders seem content to vote for any alternative, even when a second’s reflection quickly reveals that the new boss is far worse than the old one. Most of these button-pushing zealots’ plans stop at ‘get the power.’

I’m not sleeping well, I have no appetite, and under all of it is a growing sense of futility, especially as a self-employed artist. More than once in recent days, I’ve considered chucking it all and going back to a real job. Last month, a complete medical checkup revealed I’ve no physical health issues. All numbers are in the green, with no red flags.

Mentally, however, I’m struggling.

This is not a ploy for sympathy because, seriously, who among us hasn’t got reasons to feel blue and lost lately? Another local business closed last week. A friend had two close family members die this year, one after another. So everybody is struggling in one way or another.

What weighs most heavily on me is how so many are taking it out on each other. Thankfully, I don’t have to see it on social media anymore. Killing those platforms was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. But people are becoming bolder and more abrasive in real-world interactions, and I find it profoundly disturbing.

Anyone who takes out their frustration over a long lineup, on the grocery store clerk who actually showed up for work, should have to return to the back of the line.

Ironic that so many of us hated the lockdowns, being told we couldn’t go anywhere or socialize. Now that everything has opened again, I’ve found I prefer to stay home and avoid people by choice.

No, I’m not special. Neither are you. We’re all going through some tough shit.

I’m just explaining the source of this latest painting.
I have been working on another cute, happy painting of a grizzly bear for the past couple of months. I’m recording the process and writing a narrative to go with it. These videos take a lot more time than a regular piece. Recording the painting, writing the text, recording the voice-over, selecting the music, and editing it all add hours to the work.

I don’t want to rush it, but I didn’t want to go too long without a new painting to share and add to my licensing. While perusing my extensive library of reference images, looking for a subject to paint, the happy, genial photos weren’t resonating with me.

Then I came across a series of photos I’d taken of Griffin, a lion at Discovery Wildlife Park. In a couple of shots, he looked a little annoyed. Considering my present dark cloud perspective and frustration, it felt right.

Naturally, I exaggerated the expression to make him look downright grumpy, hence the title. The more I painted, the more it felt like a self-portrait.

I know that people who buy and license my work are looking for happy, whimsical wildlife paintings to make them feel good. I also know my role in this relationship, and I’m delighted to play it most of the time. I get a lot of satisfaction and joy from my work, and I’m glad many of you enjoy it, too.

But art is often cathartic and a means of expressing our emotions, whether for the person creating it or those it touches.

Though this lion’s expression isn’t happy, I can still see some comedy in it. But make no doubt about it. He’s pissed off, unimpressed, and wants to be left alone.

As with every painting, once released into the wild, I have no control over how people feel about it or whether this grump will connect. But I have a couple of other paintings that aren’t so happy and cheery, and they’ve found their audience, so who knows?

When I’m at the Calgary Expo or a Mountain Made Market, people often repeat the same lines I’ve heard dozens of times. So I’ll confess to having a few stock responses at the ready. It’s impossible to avoid once you have phrases you know connect with people.

While standing at the booth or table, gazing at the wall of paintings before them, some will say, “they’re all so happy!”

I’ll agree with them but offer, “Well, maybe not the Ostrich. He’s got a bit of an attitude problem.”

Or I might advise caution around the Ring-tailed Lemur. “He’s not quite all there.”

Sometime down the road, I’ll undoubtedly have some more advice if I stock prints of this latest painting. “Careful around that grumpy lion. He’s having a bad day.”