One of the best things about the last couple of weeks of the year is that I don’t have editorial cartoon deadlines. Most newsrooms, especially the weeklies, are closed over the holidays or running a skeleton crew. So they need their cartoons in advance.
Big news can break in these two weeks, and some years, I’ve had to draw a cartoon on an issue that can’t be ignored, as was the case with the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami. But most often, I draw a bunch of extra cartoons in the middle of the month, then nothing until the new year. I sent my New Year’s cartoons to my newspapers on December 18th.
I enjoy painting my whimsical wildlife, so these two weeks haven’t been time off, but I spent fewer hours in my office. I’ve still been up early every day, working on paintings because, with markets and other work this month, I haven’t had the time to paint as much as I would have liked.
Last week, I finished the Meerkat, followed by this Golden Bear this week. By the time New Year’s rolls around, I’ll be well into a third painting, but that one will take longer as it features more than one animal. I don’t expect to finish it until the middle of January.I’ve also completed the bulk of my year-end bookkeeping this week and cleaned my office so I can start the new year right. I typically don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I always have plans for the coming year.
I’m already looking forward to the Calgary Expo in April, with a couple of new products I plan to offer. Fresh sticker designs are coming soon, and new puzzles launch in the next couple of months, depending on when I finish these next two paintings.
Beyond that, I’ll draw the usual editorial cartoons, paint funny-looking animals and take care of the rest of the business of art for a living.
It may sound cliché, but it’s also true, that without the people who like my art, it wouldn’t be much of a profession. So, THANK YOU for being here this year and for your continued support of my work. I mean it.
Here’s to 2024. May all its surprises be good ones.
Here’s a time lapse drawing video of my little friend Berkley when she was a cub. You may listen to the voice-over or read it below.
Most artists will experience an inspirational drought where the creative well appears to have dried up, often several times in a career. Get to the bottom and start digging, you may only find more dry dirt.
That’s some scary shit, especially when hauling that water is how you make your living.
The pandemic was a wake-up call for many. Some changed careers because they had to. Others considered returning to their pre-lockdown jobs and realized they’d rather be unemployed.
We were all confronted with hard questions.
One I keep returning to is, “What do I want?”
The easy answer is often ‘more money’ as many imagine that would solve our problems. I don’t want a sports car, a big truck, or a huge house. I’m not a ‘buy more stuff’ guy. More money means safety and security, not having to fret about the finances, now or in my senior years.
Retirement doesn’t appeal to me. To keep my existential angst at bay, I need to have something to do. Idle time is not my friend. Barring any injury, illness or a cognitive decline, a prospect that honestly scares the hell out of me, I plan to work for the next twenty-five-plus years.
But what work do I want to do?
Parents used to tell their children to get an education and have something to fall back on, but those safety jobs have become rare. The days of thirty or forty years with a company followed by a healthy pension are long gone. We read daily about massive layoffs from corporations with names that used to be synonymous with stability.
That’s one reason I opted to sail my own ship rather than shovel coal on a larger vessel where the captain can throw you overboard on a whim, most likely into shark-infested waters during a hurricane.
But even working for yourself, you must still answer to customers. The art you want to create and the art your clients want you to create are often two different things.
At my market or gift show booth, people often ask for their favourite animal. Do you have an iguana, a hedgehog, or a kangaroo? If I don’t, I’ll add it to the list and might eventually paint it. If they follow my work, they might even still be around when I complete it. It could become a bestseller but likely won’t because most people want popular animals like lions, tigers, bears, and wolves.
At one event earlier this year, somebody asked if I had a sloth. I had just painted one, so I plucked it from the bin, put it in her hands and proudly said, “Why yes, I do.”
The woman looked at it briefly, put it back in the bin and started flipping through the others, asking, “Do you have a platypus?”
I wished I had so that I could find out what she’d ask for next. When I said I didn’t, she said, “Oh, too bad, I would have bought one,” and she walked away.
This is often what it’s like working for clients. Several licensing companies rent the rights to put my work on their products. Occasionally, one will ask for a painting of a specific animal. If I can, I’ll try to accommodate the request. But without fail, as soon as I do, the client has a list of other images they want me to create.
Suddenly, licensing my catalogue has turned into their ordering custom pieces, but without commission rates or guarantees that the time spent will generate revenue. It’s somebody else gambling with my money or, more importantly, my limited time.
I recently negotiated with a puzzle company to create a few designs for them. The first was a detailed painting of three giraffes. It was my idea, but one they approved. Shortly after I finished it, the owner told me they couldn’t add any new artists this year due to unforeseen circumstances. No big surprise in this economy.
I’m disappointed but have no hard feelings because I got some valuable experienced advice about what makes a good puzzle, and I stretched my skills to create something new. And I’m also happy with the finished piece. Once I complete a couple more puzzle-minded pieces, I’ll be shopping that first painting and new designs to other puzzle companies. Failing that, I’ll produce my own. When companies are your clients, your needs are not their needs. If your art resonates with their customers, then it’s mutually beneficial. But the moment it doesn’t, you’re yesterday’s news. They’ll work with the artist who makes them the most money. They’re in business to promote their company, not your work.
On the reverse of all my prints, there is an artist bio. The last line invites people to subscribe to A Wilder View on my website, a regular email where I share news, paintings, and the stories behind them. One retailer will only sell my prints if I remove that line from the bio, as they don’t want their customers going to my website.
I’ve had a website for over two decades, and I’m easy to find, so I’m not concerned. But I am reminded of my value every time I prepare to deliver new prints because I must slice off that last line from each bio before sticking it to the backer board.
I recently severed ties with an art licensing agency that kept asking me to create new work to follow whatever trend was popular this quarter, whether it was the type of work I did or not. It wasn’t personal; they wanted all their artists to do the same thing.
If you’re a graphic designer or illustrator, following trends is often part of the job and what you signed up for. But if you’ve found that rare jewel of an established niche as I have, changing what you do every few months because somebody read a post on Facebook that robot plumbers wearing figure skates are in this year, you might as well be panhandling. The artist takes all the risk, creating new work in the faint hope the licensing agency might find a buyer for it. If they don’t, too bad.
If you won’t do it, they can find thousands of young desperate artists who will.
That’s no way to sustain a career. Nobody wins a race to the bottom. Customer service, professional behaviour and sound business practices are essential, as is compromise and accommodating your clients’ needs and wishes. People pay you to supply what they need, and delivering that often builds lasting relationships beneficial to both parties. All boats rise with the tide. Fail to realize these things, and you’ll soon be out of business.
But if you don’t write your own story, you’re just a bit player in somebody else’s. When you spend all your creative energy trying to please your clients and customers at the expense of the things that made you want to be an artist in the first place, you become bitter and resentful.
At least I have. But I’m working through it by redefining my boundaries in work and life.
An old maxim cautions, “Don’t kill yourself working for an employer that would advertise your job before anybody sees your obituary.”
If I suddenly dropped dead, my licensing clients would (hopefully) send my royalties as usual and negotiate any future licensing with my wife. Everybody else would move on.
Newspapers continue to struggle, and the question of how long I’ll be an editorial cartoonist has been front and center for over a decade.
These are things I can’t control.
So I ask again, “What do I want?” I enjoy creating my animal art, but lately, whenever I go to paint something, I think, “Will this animal be popular? Have I painted too many of these? Not enough? Will this make me any money?”
Every art decision has become about revenue. And when money is the prime motivator, the creative light dims. That leads to burnout and no joy left in the work. When the economy is down, costs are up, interest rates rising, and companies are laying people off, it’s hard to invest time in projects that might bear fruit later when other short-term work is more likely to generate income now.
Payments from clients and licensing companies are taking increasingly longer to reach my mailbox, despite their tight deadlines and demands for quick delivery.
Below the surface of every current piece of art is an undercurrent of desperation. Doom and gloom valley is not the preferred habitat for happy-looking animals.
Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
But then he also said, “The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.”
I’m gonna focus on the first quote and conveniently ignore the second one. So while I’m trying to answer the question of what I want to do, I’m working on my art book about bears. Not promising to work on it like I’ve been doing for more than six years, but working on it, as I’m well and truly sick and tired of my own procrastination and bullshit excuses.
A very patient publisher recently told me to write the kind of art book I like to buy and read. The art books I like have smaller drawings, sketches, and unfinished pieces among the fully rendered paintings.
So, I’ve been alternating between writing the bear stories and drawing accent pieces like the ones you see here. I enjoy drawing them and expect one or two will inspire future paintings, as sketches often do.
While working on these images, I realized that whenever I’m lost and trying to navigate this ridiculous profession of art for a living, I always seem to come back to bears.
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’ve painted over 100 animals since 2009, and I can’t keep them all in stock. Even five of each is a lot of inventory. So whenever I bring in new ones, I’ve got to retire some. Some paintings seem to be perpetual best sellers, while others have their day in the sun for a few years and then wane in popularity.
To ensure a reasonable price from my supplier, I have to order prints in volume. So when a print plays out its best days, it’s no longer worth ordering a large amount. That’s a good indication it’s time to let it go and give a new one a chance.
Today, I’m retiring three prints. The Bald Eagle, Black Bear and Grizzly have been removed from the store. They’re still popular on other items through my various licenses, but not as much as prints in my online store. I get attached to these paintings as each has a story and takes many hours to paint. This round of retirees is especially bittersweet as this Grizzly was the first animal I painted in my whimsical wildlife style, the bear that started it all. But I’m always painting new grizzly bears and black bears, so there’s no shortage of that subject.
As much as I like my Bald Eagle painting, I’ve taken many excellent references at The Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale, Alberta in recent years, and I’m looking to paint a new one.
With a new print order just arrived, the Beaver and Two Wolves are back in stock, so if you’ve been waiting for those, thanks for your patience. Of course, no new order would be complete without some first-issue prints. My latest paintings, Snow Queen and Duckling, are now available in the store! I love seeing the first prints of a new painting; these were no exception. There’s just something about a print that makes the work complete. .
All prints are 11″ x14″ with a white border, and it’s easy to find an off-the-shelf frame as it’s a standard size. In addition, each is hand-signed and comes with a backer board and artist bio in a cellophane sleeve.
If you have any questions about the available prints or vinyl stickers, feel free to drop me a line, and I’ll be happy to answer. Otherwise, take a browse through the available paintings and see if there’s one that catches your eye. And a reminder that all images (even the retired ones) are available via custom order, as canvas or metal prints.
One of the reasons I enjoy taking my own reference photos for paintings is that the animals often surprise me.
When I began painting these critters, before I took my own photos, I’d often have a pose in mind, and I’d go looking for it on the internet. I’d eventually find something I liked, but it would often look similar to the pose I used for a previous painting of a different animal.
If it were a stock photo, I’d pay the licensing fee for reference. Failing that, I’d contact the photographer, arrange for a high-res image and pay or barter for the use.
Australian photographer Scott Portelli allowed me to use his underwater photo for my Humpback Whale painting in exchange for a rolled canvas of the finished piece. Moose Peterson allowed the use of several of his animal images in exchange for my drawing a caricature of him and a business partner for a course they taught. We already had a connection through Photoshop World, so he was familiar with my work.
I paid a U.S. park warden $100 for his photo I found online for my first Wolf painting. He confessed surprise at my offering to pay since that image had been stolen and published illegally more times than he could count.
The problem with online reference photos is that I know that no matter what I find, there’s a good chance another artist has used the same image. Certainly, I’ll paint it with my spin and style, and it won’t look the same as another artist’s work, but it will undoubtedly share similarities.
By taking my own photos, it stands a better chance of being unique.
On a recent visit to Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail, I had another opportunity to take photos of their black bears during their presentation to the public. As I’ve known the keepers and staff for several years, they allow me into the large enclosures with them, though I’m behind a hot-wire. It’s an electric fence about a foot off the ground that the animals avoid, for obvious reasons. The keepers, however, interact up close and personal with the bears.
These animals are all orphans and rescues who came to the facility under conditions prohibiting their release into the wild. Many of them have been raised here since they were very young. They receive exemplary care and clearly have an affectionate relationship with their caregivers.
The keepers use the bear presentations each day to educate the public about wildlife. They teach how to be bear-aware while hiking, what to do if you encounter a black bear or grizzly in the wild, how to use bear spray, and keep a clean campsite so that the local fauna doesn’t learn to associate people with food.
The hope is that by educating the public, fewer orphans will end up in captivity, remaining in the wild where they belong.
One of those rescues is a big black bear named Gruff. With a genial and gentle personality, he has been hand-raised at the park since he was a cub.
Sadly, Gruff had a rough start in life. A hunter poached his mother in the Grande Prairie area, and people passed the frightened little cub from home to home.
Fish and Wildlife eventually confiscated the sick and frightened cub, and my friend Serena, the head keeper at Discovery Wildlife Park, was asked if she could take him.
He was malnourished, in shock from his ordeal, and sick from untreated pneumonia that has since resulted in permanent left lung damage. Because he was in such bad shape, Serena didn’t know if she could save him. But with proper food, medication, round-the-clock care and a lot of patience, Gruff has grown into one of the most beautiful black bears you could ever see.
He is currently eight years old and 709 pounds at his last weigh-in.
I’ve painted Gruff several times, and I expect I’ll paint him again as I enjoy his expressions and antics. The bond between him and the keepers is evident, and he never fails to put a smile on my face. While visiting in June, I was happily snapping pics of Gruff when he made a clumsy attempt to sit up from lying on his back. He looked right at me, with his tongue out, and immediately reminded me of a large guy trying to do a sit-up. With the camera on rapid-fire, I got quite a few shots of this funny situation and was delighted at the photos when I got home.
As none of them were quite right on their own, I used three different reference pics for this piece. One had the best head position, another one revealed a better overall pose and the third, while a bit out of focus, had some lighting I liked.
Could I have found these shots online, taken by another photographer? Unlikely. Would I have even thought to have looked for images like this? Not a chance.
I could list dozens of paintings I’ve created that have been inspired by situations and experiences I couldn’t have anticipated. It’s why taking the photos is as much a part of the finished pieces as the paintings themselves. Each of them has a story and conjures up fun memories.
Whether it’s a pose, lighting, or simply a look, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve discovered future paintings while sorting through photos.
When I came across the photos of Gruff, looking like he was trying to get in shape, there was no doubt of a painting. But, before I put the first brush stroke on the digital canvas, I already knew that I would call it ‘One More.’
I imagine it 10 feet high on the wall of a gym somewhere.
Five new poster prints have been added to the Shop. They are Winter Wolf, Big Boy, T-Rex, Winter Raven and Bear Hug. These new prints and the paintings I did in 2020 are regularly priced at $24.95 (plus tax and shipping). Keep reading…
....For the next two days, however, everything else in the shop is 20% OFF. That includes poster and matted prints, even prints that were already marked down.
I plan to keep creating funny looking animal paintings for as long as I can, but it’s unsustainable to keep all of them in stock. In order to make room for the new work, I have to retire most of the old stuff. For a lot of these prints, when the last one is sold, that’ll be it for that piece.
All of my prints are 11”X14”, an easy to find frame size at most stores that sell them. The poster prints have a 1” white border and look great in a black frame. So while you can mat them, most don’t.
Feel free to share this offer with anyone you like. If you have any questions, please let me know.
EDIT January 24, 2021…The sale has concluded. Thanks to all who participated.
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to focus on a whimsical wildlife painting. For those who follow my work specifically to see those, thank you for your patience.
Wacom hired me to create a video for them connected with a promotion they’re doing right now called “Find Your Gift.”
As many of you know, Wacom creates the tablets and displays on which I’ve created my work for more than twenty years. I’ve been their guest on webinars, created new product demo videos for them, represented them at an event in Calgary, presented at their booth at Photoshop World, and they generously allowed me to donate tablets to a local school.
My work wouldn’t be possible without Wacom.
So when my friend Pam asked me to create another video for them, there was only one answer.
What I like best about our relationship is that Pam lets me do my own thing. Of course, we have some back and forth to make sure my vision matches hers, but she knows what to expect from me, and I do my best to deliver.
In this case, I had the freedom to interpret the word gift and paint and write what I wanted, which allowed me to create my best work.
I spent the last three or four days chained to my desk, creating this painting, recording with the camera and screen capture, writing and recording the narration, and editing it all together a la Dr. Frankenstein. It was a lot of work, but I’m quite pleased with the result.
I realized that the three recent paintings I like best are ones I did for Wacom videos. Those include the Amur Tiger, the Ring-tailed Lemur and this one.
The model for this painting is one of the most handsome residents of Discovery Wildlife Park. Gruff was an orphaned black bear cub who had a rough start in life, but thanks to Serena and her staff’s tireless efforts, he has grown into a beautiful, gentle bear with a wonderful personality. The keepers try not to pick favourites, but they each have a special place in their heart for Gruff, as do I.
I’ve often written about how much I value my relationship with Discovery Wildlife Park. They allow me incredible access to the animals, for which I’m immeasurably grateful. On my most recent visit in September, I was able to sit inside the enclosure while they did their bear education presentation, where they teach people about bear safety, behaviour and conservation.
I took hundreds of reference shots and didn’t realize I’d be using ones from that session so soon.
One of the keepers, Jacob, was in Canmore last week, and I had a brief visit with him. I told him what I was painting, inspired by the poses I shot. He told me that Gruff almost always has a ball with him. It doesn’t need to be the same ball, but it’s kind of like his security blanket. He even takes a ball with him into his den when he hibernates.
On one visit to the park a couple of years ago, Serena sent me a text asking where I was. I said that I was watching a silly bear play with a ball. She responded, “Gruff.”
Gruff taught himself how to pose with the ball and because it was so endearing, the keepers used positive reinforcement to encourage that behaviour. It was this pose that inspired the painting. As the light wasn’t great in this shot, the sun beside and behind him, I had to use other reference photos for the details. Thankfully, I have hundreds of pictures of Gruff.
Even though I was pressed for time on this, more self-inflicted than not, this painting was a joy to create. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun painting one of my whimsical wildlife portraits. Considering the kind of year it’s been for all of us, that’s no small thing.
If you’ve got five minutes, you can see a high-speed time-lapse below of how I painted Gruff and hear some of my thoughts about the importance of finding and sharing your own gifts.
When I plan to paint a funny looking animal, the goal is usually to create a finished piece, something destined for print. That’s what I’m thinking when I go through my extensive archive of reference, selecting photos to help me create the next painting. As such, there are many images that don’t make the cut.
I’ve recently been going through those files with a different goal in mind, finding reference I still like, from which to practice sketching and drawing.
The first three I tackled, the ones throughout this post, ended up being painted pieces. Still not the level of detail you’ll find in my production prints, but images I enjoyed bringing to life. Unlikely to become prints on their own, I painted them for fun, knowing that one of these might inspire other ideas.
Years ago, while learning to create on the iPad, I painted a practice piece of an Ostrich. At my wife’s insistence, I later developed it into a fully rendered painting and it became one of my bestsellers.
While painting these three pieces, however, I began to think of another use for them.
It doesn’t seem like four years ago, but I had intended on producing a book of my artwork. I had a local publisher lined up and the plan was to have it ready for 2017. But at the end of 2016, life got complicated.
With no desire to dig through old ground, or drag any of you through it again, the short version is that I went through a bout of severe depression. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the experience was a necessary evil and I’m now grateful for that catharsis. Real change never happens when you’re comfortable.
I came out the other side with a better perspective on things, not the least of which is a much lower tolerance for toxic bullshit. Leaving Facebook and Twitter was a good first step in eliminating quite a bit of it.
It took a long time to right that capsized ship, however, and one of the casualties of that dark night of the soul was the art book.
As I’ve been doing a lot more writing this year, the blog, newsletter and fiction, thoughts have returned to that dormant project.
The kind of art book I’ve always enjoyed from other creatives, whether it’s photography, painting, or sketching, is one that talks about the stories behind the work. That’s the kind of book I wanted to produce then, and four years later, I still have the same desire.
Many of my paintings have stories behind them. Hell, just the stories, sketches and paintings about my time spent with Berkley the Bear from Discovery Wildlife Park could fill a large volume.
The thought of such a project fills me with doubt. Anyone who has ever created anything, let alone a book, has experienced imposter syndrome. Who am I to write a book and assume anyone will want to buy it?
I can easily come up with a long list of reasons why publishing an art book is a bad idea.
It’ll cost a lot to produce. Even though I may or may not have to publish it myself, there’s a significant expense involved, and books don’t sell as well as people think they do. It has long been my experience that for every twenty people who say they will buy something, only one actually does.
It’s so easy for someone to post a supportive casual comment on Instagram or drop me a line saying they can’t wait until prints of a new painting are available. And while many of my supportive, generous, loyal customers do indeed follow through, most people don’t, despite their good intentions.
If you’re a creative starting out on this journey and happen to be reading this, that’s Lesson #1 in life and in business. People talk a good game. So, what about Kickstarter or Patreon? For those to be successful, creatives have to offer different tiers of incentives to entice backers, or people will simply wait until the book comes out to buy it. Suddenly, all of the work involved with writing the book, laying it out, hiring an editor, and having it professionally produced is now paired with coming up with added incentives for the different tiers.
As I am a one man operation, already using most of my limited hours in a day, there’s no more water to draw from that well.
There are plenty of people who’ve done all of the work, launched a book, did the promotion, put in the hours and still ended up years later with boxes upon boxes of them gathering dust in their garage. I recently heard of one author who took most of her leftovers to the landfill as she couldn’t bear to look at them anymore. That must have been a hard day. I would imagine the drive home would have involved a stop for chocolate, ice cream, alcohol, or all three.
While it’s easier than ever to self-publish and produce a book today, it becomes the duty of the creator to do the lion’s share of promoting and selling it. That means gift and trade shows, events, readings, book store signings, not to mention all of the online promotion to ensure people are even aware that you have a book to sell. That’s difficult when things are normal, even tougher now that many of those opportunities aren’t possible due to COVID-19.
At this point, I wouldn’t approach the same publisher again without a finished book in hand. I’ve already abused that faith once before. While it’s a common tale in the publishing trade for well-intentioned would-be authors to fizzle out before launch, that personal failure weighed heavy on me. I wasted another self-employed person’s time, a crime I will not repeat.
As you can tell, talking myself out of this project is easily done. I have no shortage of excuses. I can come up with many more reasons why creating an art book is a bad idea.
I can also give you many reasons why creating art for a living is a bad idea, not to mention self-employment or starting any business. But that didn’t stop me or the millions of other people who’ve done the same thing, and succeeded against the odds.
Nothing good comes without risk. I’m going through the stories behind the paintings again, with fresh eyes. I’m looking through all of the work I’ve done, both the production paintings and ones like those you see here, deciding which would be good candidates for inclusion. The art books I enjoy have smaller pieces peppered throughout, and I have plenty of those from which to choose.
But I plan to paint a lot more of them as well.
Despite all of the arguments I gave against the idea, and many more that I didn’t, I still want to create an art book, whether it makes any money or not.
One thing I do know for sure, is that I can’t sell one if I don’t write one.
My fuel gauge approaches empty when December rolls around, so I spend it in hermit mode, a little more than usual. We attend Shonna’s office Christmas party, but that’s about it because I don’t have the energy to play the festive role. Celebrating Christmas seems like one more obligation, so I opt out.
In the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day, however, I do get reflective in my seasonal melancholy. I spent some time last week going through the 2019 blog posts to remind myself of the year that was.
In February, I checked out of social media entirely but then went back to Instagram a couple of months ago. I missed seeing art from those whose work I admire, but I’m still on the fence about that decision.
On the promotion and sales front, there were two significant developments this year.
The first was watching my work spread to many new places, thanks to the license with Pacific Music and Art. Seems a regular thing now for somebody to say they saw my stuff in a store in Oregon, or Alaska, all over B.C. and Alberta, not to mention the calendars and notepads in so many Save-On stores. I had lunch with a friend on Saturday, visiting from Vancouver Island and she said it’s strange walking by the gift store on Mt. Washington where she works, seeing a whole floor to ceiling corner of my art. It’s looking like 2020 will see more of that migration, but it’s my nature to be cautious. Those chickens ain’t hatched yet.
Secondly, the revival of my relationship with Wacom was a welcome surprise. With so many talented digital artists in the world to choose from, I enjoy the ego boost that comes with being a Wacom influencer. I’ve already agreed to another project with them shortly, but there’s a reason they make you sign a non-disclosure agreement. Must keep secrets.
I painted 11 finished funny looking animal pieces this past year, the latest one above. I called it ‘Sitting Pretty,’ and she’s based on a black bear named Angel, who lives at Discovery Wildlife Park. I’d like to have painted more critters, but I’ll always say that. If I had painted 15, well, it should have been 20.
While there’s something about each painting that I enjoy, if I had to pick a favourite from this year, it would be Snow Day with the three cougar cubs. That was the best of both worlds, a real challenge and a lot of fun. I should have prints of this one available soon. I painted a couple of dogs for fun, but no commission work this year until just recently. I’m not disappointed by that because I had plenty to do and wanted to focus on more images for licensing. The two dogs I’m currently painting in my whimsical style are for the same client, hoping to finish in a few weeks. They contacted me about the commissions after seeing my work in a BC Ferries terminal gift shop, a side bonus from my license with Pacific.
Two portraits of people this year, John Malkovich and Quint from Jaws, both of which I enjoyed a great deal. I’d always like to have more time for those, but wouldn’t we all like more time for the fun stuff? Taking into account all of the syndicated cartoons I did this year, plus the custom local ones I draw each week for the Rocky Mountain Outlook, I drew 419 editorial cartoons in 2019. That might be an annual record for me. I have mixed feelings about that. I wonder how many paintings I could have done with all of those hours.
As for the coming year, I’m not big on resolutions. Well, maybe just one. I intend to write a lot more. There’s undiscovered country there and I need to explore it.
There are other things I want to accomplish, both personal and professional, growth I’d like to achieve, and skills I’d like to learn. Try to keep moving forward, best I can, just like everybody else.
Of course, none of this would be possible were it not for those of you who follow and support my work, read my ramblings, and tolerate my eccentricities. We all have limited time and attention in this life, and I appreciate that you spend some of yours with me.
This painting began on the iPad in procreate as a sketch exercise. Playtime, if you will. I liked where it was heading, however, so I brought it into Photoshop and continued painting at a larger size. A departure from my style, but it was a fun experiment.
I called it ‘Roar’ but bears don’t really roar. They might make loud noises from time to time, but not the kind you hear in movies. That’s all Hollywood magic, the roaring sound added in editing.
Whenever I go to Discovery Wildlife Park, I usually watch the bear show, even though I’ve seen it quite a few times.
The bear show is kind of a misnomer and a big head fake. While people think they’re coming to see the bears just do a few tricks, they’re actually there for an education. The keepers use the opportunity to talk to people about bears in the wild.
Involving everything from how to tell a black bear from a grizzly, what to do when you happen upon either animal and how best to avoid any negative encounters, especially when camping or hiking. They also explain that the reason bears become orphaned in the first place (like all of the bears they care for) is most often a consequence of their encounters with people. By getting too close, directly feeding them, or leaving food out for them to find, we teach them bad behaviours that are difficult to break.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Park, you might think that having the bears do tricks is kind of cruel, like they’re in a circus or something. The reality is the opposite. It would be cruel NOT to teach them, as this keeps them active. It’s called enrichment.
In the wild, animals have three big priorities…finding food, procreating and avoiding predators, each requiring large expenditures of energy and attention.
The animals at Discovery Wildlife Park aren’t driven by the same priorities. They receive a well balanced diet of healthy food, have no concerns with predators, and they’re not being actively bred.
So the tricks, for lack of a better word, are designed to keep their minds working. It gives them problems to solve, tasks to complete, and they actively participate, all with positive reinforcement. There is no punishment for failing to do a trick. They can just walk away if they don’t feel like it.
One of the challenges for the keepers is coming up with new and interesting things to teach the animals. They’re so smart (the animals, not the keepers…wait, that didn’t come out right) that they learn things very fast and it becomes too easy for them. Some of the tricks serve double purpose, too.
By learning to present their paws, blood can be drawn without having to sedate them. They can also check their claws to see if there is any damage in need of intervention. They will urinate on command for samples, step up onto scales for weighing and a number of other behaviours designed to ensure they stay healthy.
One of the tricks the bears are taught at Discovery Wildlife Park is to “Be scary!”
Not only is it a standard trick of actor bears, it gives the keepers an opportunity for a dental inspection. A number of their animals have needed dental intervention, just like your own pet.
I find the “Be Scary” trick especially amusing, because I was there a couple of years ago when Berkley was just learning it and her scary bear was pathetic. If you’d like to see it, the video is available here, about the 1:15 and 3:25 marks. She now does a very impressive scary bear impression, gets her treat and then instantly reverts back to her regular adorable self.
This painting, however, is Gruff. He was raised at the park and his scary bear is top notch. Gruff is one of my favorite bears. As you can see below, I’ve painted him as a cub and as an adult, and have painted a number of roughs of him as well.
When he was first surrendered to the park, Serena wasn’t sure she could save him. He was pretty far gone, having been mistreated by a number of people who had initially found him as a cub, then traded him around. But thanks to Discovery Wildlife Park’s excellent care, he has become a wonderful gentle six-year old bear with a great personality.
On a recent visit to the park, I was invited to step inside the outer enclosure fence while the keepers and bears did the show. Sitting on a log beside one of the other keepers, I managed to get some very nice photos of the black bears, including the reference for this one. As you can see, the painting is intentionally rough. A loose, large stroke style, with plenty of artifacts, errant brush strokes and I got creative with an analogous colour scheme. Each time I found myself starting to focus on painting finer detail, I forced myself to stop, erring instead on the side of discovery.
I’ve also completed the bulk of my year-end bookkeeping this week and cleaned my office so I can start the new year right. I typically don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I always have plans for the coming year.
Parents used to tell their children to get an education and have something to fall back on, but those safety jobs have become rare. The days of thirty or forty years with a company followed by a healthy pension are long gone. We read daily about massive layoffs from corporations with names that used to be synonymous with stability.
Several licensing companies rent the rights to put my work on their products. Occasionally, one will ask for a painting of a specific animal. If I can, I’ll try to accommodate the request. But without fail, as soon as I do, the client has a list of other images they want me to create.
When companies are your clients, your needs are not their needs. If your art resonates with their customers, then it’s mutually beneficial. But the moment it doesn’t, you’re yesterday’s news. They’ll work with the artist who makes them the most money. They’re in business to promote their company, not your work.
Customer service, professional behaviour and sound business practices are essential, as is compromise and accommodating your clients’ needs and wishes. People pay you to supply what they need, and delivering that often builds lasting relationships beneficial to both parties. All boats rise with the tide. Fail to realize these things, and you’ll soon be out of business.
I enjoy creating my animal art, but lately, whenever I go to paint something, I think, “Will this animal be popular? Have I painted too many of these? Not enough? Will this make me any money?”
So while I’m trying to answer the question of what I want to do, I’m working on my art book about bears. Not promising to work on it like I’ve been doing for more than six years, but working on it, as I’m well and truly sick and tired of my own procrastination and bullshit excuses.
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?
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.
Five new poster prints have been added to the 
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