At the Banff Christmas Market late last year, I received several requests for a Highland Cow painting.
Many artists have drawn and painted this noble Scottish bovine breed, but I had never considered it. I don’t know what about Highland cattle excites people, but who am I to argue?
But of course, having never seen a Highland cow or Heilan coo, as they say in Scotland, I had to buy some stock photo reference to get it right. As I’m fond of saying, I can’t exaggerate reality without knowing what it looks like.
At the cabin my friends and I rent in the central Alberta foothills, there are often cows just over the fence in two large pastures. I have a lot of cow photos, some with their tongues up their noses. It’s a ridiculous look I thought I might use for a future cow painting, so why wait? I decided to make it more of an exaggerated lip-licking rather than a full-on nostril excavation.
I wasn’t excited about this painting, and had it not been for all the requests, I likely wouldn’t have done it. But since a hairy Highlander was in demand, I wanted it finished for The Calgary Expo. Once I got into the work, though, I really enjoyed this piece, so much that I didn’t want to finish it. I like obsessing about details, and hair is one of my favourite things to paint, so this was fun.
And still, every painting comes with challenges and choices.
Initially, it had a full background, the horns weren’t as big as they are now, and the canvas dimensions would have made the final piece 30×40. But at one point, thinking I was nearly finished, I asked Shonna’s opinion.
While she liked the face and hair, she said the horns looked “too spindly.”
Artists have fragile egos, so criticism of my work is uncomfortable, even when I ask for it. I spent countless hours alone, painting every little feature and hair, and I’ve solved a lot of the problems myself, so just tell me it’s pretty, dammit!
But I also want to grow as an artist; the only way to do that is to ask for and accept constructive criticism. Shonna has a good eye and can often spot something that isn’t working.
Just like you can read a letter three times and still miss a typo, it’s easy to stare at a painting for hours on end, over days and weeks, and still miss a problem. Once it’s pointed out, however, it seems like it should have been obvious.
So, to create my best work, I grit my teeth and ask for Shonna’s critical eye, knowing she will almost always see something. And while we have disagreed a few times, her suggestions usually improve the painting. The changes can often be so minor that most people wouldn’t notice either way, but once she points it out, I can’t unsee it.
To make the horns bigger and less spindly (?!), I had to change the composition, or else I’d be cutting off so much of the horns that one of the defining features of a Highland cow would be gone. Now, the focal point of all my paintings is the face, so cutting off the horns isn’t necessarily a wrong choice, as plenty of painters have done the same thing, and their paintings look great. But I wanted them there for the original piece, even though I’d still have to crop some for the poster prints. Here’s what that will look like.
For consistency and practicality, I size my poster prints to 11×14. It’s annoying to buy a print for $30 or $40, then spend another $100 plus on a custom frame because it’s a weird shape. One of the bestselling features of my prints is that I can tell people that 11×14 is a standard size, and it’s easy to find an off-the-shelf frame at stores that sell them.
You wouldn’t believe how often that’s the clincher on making the sale.
I sized the blank canvas to poster-print dimensions when I started this piece. Had this been a traditional piece on canvas, you couldn’t change sizing when the painting was almost finished. However, working digitally offers welcome flexibility.
I made the canvas wider and upsized the horns. I could have made them even more prominent, but that would make for a very wide painting, even more challenging to offer a poster print later. What you see here is the compromise.
I also chose to crop the background down to a smaller rectangle, which makes the horns look even more prominent and the features pop.
These changes added a few more hours of work to what was essentially a finished painting, but I’m much happier with the result. So, once again, asking for help made for a better piece.
Regarding criticism, nasty comments from the cheap seats are easy to come by, and that’s usually more about them than you. The trick is to ask advice from people you trust who genuinely want to help you become a better artist. But then you must resist the urge to bite when they point out areas for improvement.
When it comes to my painted work, I have Shonna and my buddy Derek, an excellent painter and tattoo artist. His critiques have always been good, and he has asked for and accepted my opinion on his work more than once. For editorial cartoons, I’ve often run ideas by my friend Darrel. If he doesn’t think one works, I either tweak it or toss it out.
I still have to remind myself to let a painting rest before calling it done. Yesterday morning, I thought this one was finished. But I kept nitpicking it until I eventually started to feel the whole thing was garbage.
This clearly showed that I had been obsessing about it for far too long. I wasn’t seeing the image accurately anymore and couldn’t trust my judgment. So, I let it sit for 24 hours. I spent the rest of the day working on my month-end invoicing, sketching a couple of editorial cartoons and writing this post you’re reading now.
When I woke up this morning, this cow looked much better to me. I spent another couple of hours correcting errant brush strokes I hadn’t noticed and painted more stray hairs here and there, which adds to the realism of a piece. When all the hair is perfectly smooth, running in the same direction, it can look fake. For detailed work, you must introduce flaws. That’s what makes it look natural.
I could have worked on this painting for another week, and nobody would know the difference but me. Eventually you just have to call it done, let it go, and start on another one.
I’ll have prints of this piece for the Calgary Expo, but I’ll also order a 24×16 metal print for the wider composition to show the uncropped horns.
Given all the requests for this painting, perhaps I should bring two.
Cheers,
Patrick
It’s been a busy week of post-show inventory, filling custom orders, drawing editorial cartoons and stowing my stock and booth hardware, but that’s normal after my biggest event of the year.
It still pushes the childhood buttons when a fully functional R2-D2 glides by my booth. With a rotating head, lights, whistles and sound effects, panels that open and close, and full mobility, it looks and behaves like the real thing. I even know the guy who manufactured it; I used to work for him years ago in Canmore. So I know he’s running it by remote control from about ten feet away, that it’s all mechanical gears, parts, and wires. But the illusion that it’s the beloved movie character is strong.
Several folks stopped by to tell me that their friend or family member couldn’t make it to Expo this year, but they wanted them to say Hello for them.
People walk by the booth, their eyes scan the art walls, and they smile. Then they nudge whoever they’re with and point, and the smile infects that person, too. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s like a drug. I can’t get enough of it.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be Expo without a well-meaning follower reminding me that I am long overdue on my promise of a book. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, I don’t know what my problem is there. My failure to launch bothers me more than anybody else. But the push is well deserved, Kim! Thank you for that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When I started drawing 
A couple of years ago, through an art licensing agency, 
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
After more than two years of procrastinating, I finally finished this painting of an African elephant.
Secondly, the full-size four-day 
I sent a couple of changes to Serena, and she helped me get it right. She felt bad for having to tell me about it after I’d finished the painting, but I told her better than after I had bought dozens of prints, and coasters, trivets, magnets, and other licensed merchandise had gone into production.
