Here’s a brand new painting I’m calling Peekaboo Panda.
At first glance, this one looks like a pretty simple idea. A red panda popping out of the bamboo with a curious expression. But paintings like this often come with a bit more planning than people might expect.
The inspiration for this one was a photo I took at the Calgary Zoo one day. I don’t always share my reference photos, but in this case I thought it might be interesting to show the pose that sparked the idea. For the colour, lighting, and texture, I used several other photos I’ve taken over the years.
A recurring theme in some of my posts is the difference between art for fun and art for a living.
In an ideal situation, I would just choose an animal I want to paint, find or take some reference, put a whimsical spin on it, and enjoy the process. And to be fair, that still happens often enough to keep me interested while painting my funny-looking animals.
But this work is also how I pay my bills, so I have to think about what comes after the painting is finished.
When I start a painting, I usually work at the same dimensions because I know the final print will most often be 11×14, either vertical or horizontal. From time to time I will create a square painting, depending on what I see in my mind’s eye when I imagine the character in the critter.
I keep these dimensions because it makes it easier for my customers to find a frame, and that is a selling feature.
But because I have done my best to diversify my revenue streams, which is marketing speak for not putting all my eggs in one basket, I also have to think about my licensing clients.
In simple terms, art licensing means that companies pay to use my artwork on their products in exchange for royalties. If you have ever bought a backpack with cartoon characters on it, that artwork is licensed.
The challenge is that very few products come in neat little 11×14 rectangles.
That means when I paint something like this red panda, I have to allow extra space. More background and sometimes more of the animal so the artwork can be adapted to different formats later.
Pacific Music & Art, for example, might use one of my paintings on several different products, from magnets and mugs to calendars. While my vision for this piece was the vertical print you see at the top of this post, I had to paint quite a bit more of the panda, the background, and the bamboo leaves so the image could be adjusted to fit those other uses.
Last week I finalized the images for the 2027 calendar for Pacific Music & Art. Just like other licensing contracts, there is a lot of lead time for design and printing. My vertical red panda print would not work for a calendar page, so I had to create this different horizontal version, and that meant thinking about that layout when I started the painting.
The downside is that it means more work. Even though I paint digitally and can use layers for much of the process, the final cropping still requires extra time to make sure everything blends properly and does not look like pieces pasted together.
Because my goal is to continue diversifying my work to help ensure the longevity and security of my business, I will have to make these considerations more often than ever.
But the upside is that my licensing clients get the images they need to best fit their products, while my customers get the print of the painting that I originally envisioned when the idea for this critter first popped into my head.
Art for a living. Some assembly required.
Cheers,
Patrick
