Tag: Wolf

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Custom Prints and Retired Images

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a woman in Alberta who had visited Discovery Wildlife Park and bought some prints for one of her sons. She told me their other son had a thing for foxes, cheetahs and wolves, and asked if I do custom pieces. She wanted them as Christmas gifts.

As regular followers know, I do take commissions, but I have a long wait list right now. Because of those commitments, I’ve realized I likely can’t take on anything new for about a year. Even without the wait list, I couldn’t paint anything before Christmas this season.

I do take suggestions for new animals and add them to my list, but I might not get to the one somebody wants for a long time.In this case, though, I was happy to tell her that I already had a cheetah and a fox. Since I’m always painting new animals, I have to retire prints from production now and then. But I can still reprint older images on request. They just cost a little more because they’re custom one-offs and they take a bit longer to arrive since everything is professionally printed.

I sent her previews of the fox and cheetah and she loved them. I quoted her a price. Since I was ordering anyway, she asked if she could change the sizes to match the mats and frames she had in mind. And since the fox and cheetah were custom sizes, she asked for a custom size of my Wolf painting as well, rather than one I had in stock.
The three prints arrived last Friday, 11″x14″ giclée prints on cotton rag paper without the usual white border, printed by the same company that does my metal and canvas work. They looked great and I signed and shipped them on Monday.

So if you ever want a print of a retired image, I can make that happen. I can also print any image I’ve created on giclée paper, canvas or metal, in a variety of sizes, framed or unframed.

If you ever want to talk about it, drop me a line.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Stocking Stuffer Sticker Sale!

For a limited time, I’m offering two four-packs of my high-quality vinyl stickers. Each sticker measures approximately 4”x5”, and is water resistant, which means you can put them on a water bottle, coffee mug, or vehicle. These popular stickers usually retail for $7.99 each, but in each of these packs, you get FOUR STICKERS for $19.99, which includes FREE SHIPPING in Canada.

In the Brown Bear 4-pack, you’ll find Waving Bear, Kodiak Cub, Happy Baby and Grizzly on Grass. Click here
The Variety 4-pack includes Bear Hug, Wolf, Sasquatch and my brand new T-Rex sticker. Click here
This offer is only good until the end of Sunday, December 10th, or while supplies last. All orders will be mailed Monday morning, December 11th. Check out all of the available stickers in the store.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Photos That Inspire Paintings

A couple of weeks ago, we drove up to Red Deer for the weekend to visit our folks and spend a windy fall Saturday at Discovery Wildlife Park before they closed for the season. I always enjoy my visits with the animals, but they’re much more fun with Shonna.
Taking photos of Berkley, Bos and Piper during the educational bear presentations never gets old. I got some nice shots of the timber wolves and lions, photos that already have me planning new paintings.

Two highlights from this visit were Koorah, their orphaned cougar cub, and Velcro, the baby porcupine (porcupette) rescued from a vehicle strike earlier this year.

While Alberta Fish and Wildlife rules prohibit the public having physical contact with the cub, I took plenty of photos of him as he ran and played in the grass. As I lay on the ground, he kept running straight at my camera lens until Serena would grab him and move him back. Then he’d do it again. It was a real gift, a lot of fun, and there will be a painting coming.

Though we couldn’t touch Koorah, there were no prohibitions about contact with Velcro, and Shonna was smitten with the little guy. He seemed to enjoy her attention, and aside from a couple of little unintentional quill pokes here and there, we came away without injury.
It was a wonderful experience, thanks to Serena, Mary and Belinda, who always treat us like family.
I took over 3,500 photos, which could be my record for a single day. A professional photographer might criticize my spray-and-pray method, and some have. It means I point the camera, hold down the shutter so it sounds like a machine gun, and gamble that one of the action shots might give me something from which I can paint.
As I’ve written many times, I do not want to become a professional photographer. I’m looking for painting reference, and there have been plenty of times when the accidental surprising shots inspire the art that follows. So, waiting for the perfect shot and then firing the trigger, as many skilled photographers do, means I might miss out on a look, pose, or head turn that inspires a future piece of art.

As for those thousands of photos, I only keep a small percentage.
There are two camera cards in my Canon 5D Mark III camera. I don’t need RAW files, so I set it to save duplicate JPEGs. It doesn’t happen often, but camera cards can fail, so duplicate cards are my insurance.

I download the photos to my computer when I get home and begin to go through them. The questions I’m asking with each pic are, “Is this a photo that makes me feel something?”, “Do I like this photo?” and most importantly, “Can I paint from this?”

Everything else goes in the trash.

Because I have other work to do each day, it usually takes me a few days to complete the first pass. From this excursion, it took me from Sunday evening to Thursday morning, and when it was all done, I had discarded almost 3,000. It could have been out of focus, poor lighting, or a useless pose; who knows?

571 photos remained in the first pass folder.
It feels great to eliminate that many so soon because too much choice is overwhelming. I let them sit for a day or two before going back to ask those same questions again.

Will I really paint from this? Really? If I was going through my folder for this animal, would I consider this at all? Is there anything of value in this photo that can contribute to a painting, like a closeup of texture detail or an expression?

It took me another week to whittle them down to 322.

I don’t like clutter, which also applies to hard drives filled with images I won’t ever need. After my aggressive weeding, I’ve got photos that will inspire paintings or provide the reference detail I need to paint my best work.

Then, I divide them into photos for reference and pictures I want to keep for memories of the experience or share in a post. These are pics of people with whom I shared the day or ones I can use to tell the story of the experience, like the one you’re reading here.
I edit the photos I’ll share, but not the ones I save for reference, aside from perhaps cropping out unnecessary background. That helps save file space.

Finally, I sort the remaining photos into my reference library, which contains over a hundred folders for different animals.

I have a custom-designed desktop PC, so every file I save is mirrored on two hard drives. If one drive fails, the other is a replica that switches over immediately. It then provides a warning for me to replace the damaged drive. Once I do, the mirror rebuilds. This system saved me a lot of time and work on a previous computer. I had two hard drive failures over six years and didn’t lose one file.

But I also have a backup of everything online with Dropbox and two portable external hard drives. My photo reference library is extensive, not to mention 20+ years of cartoons, illustrations and paintings. Strangely, my entire career fits inside a chunk of plastic smaller than a paperback novel.

Because of other commitments and projects on the go, it will be a while before I start any new paintings from the photos I shot on this trip to Discovery Wildlife Park, but I’m looking forward to that opportunity this winter.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Wilder Stickers


With the growing interest in my large vinyl stickers, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve released seven more designs into the wild.

Based on feedback at the recent gift shows and online, people wanted the option of buying them individually, so the four-pack of brown bear stickers has been discontinued. Instead, all designs are now offered individually in the shop. Adaptation is a cornerstone of self-employment.

When I first moved to Canmore in 2001, I worked for a sign shop for a few years. Every place I’ve worked taught me skills I’ve applied to my own business. From that job, I learned design techniques, colour theory and how to create vector art. I still use vector paths and Bezier curves for clean ink lines in my editorial cartoons, a skill I learned at Canmore Sign Co.

With many different jobs done for multiple repeat clients, their computer filing system was simple, efficient, and well-organized, especially when searching for reprints or creating variations of older designs. As a result, I adopted the same system for my own files and still use it 20 years later.  

While it’s not something I often need in my current work, I also learned about vinyl printing, cutting and application.

So, when designing and producing these stickers, I was unwilling to compromise on quality.
These are larger die-cut stickers than you will generally find, each around 4” X 5”. I didn’t want to shrink them down and lose the personality for which my whimsical critters are known. I also wanted people to have the option of putting them on vehicle windows, so they’re made from long-lasting, weather-resistant, high-quality vinyl. Finally, I chose a matte finish over glossy for better visibility in changing light.

Stonewaters here in downtown Canmore is a great store with a unique quality inventory of furniture, décor and artwork. They placed their first order for the four bear stickers at the end of September, and they did so well that they placed a second order not long after. After dropping off samples this week, they placed a third order that has already been delivered, so all the current designs are available there as well.

But if you’re not visiting Canmore anytime soon, you can get all these designs in my online store. They’re $8 each, with free shipping in Canada, regardless of how many you order. Unfortunately, shipping to the US is $9, and nothing I can do about that, so maybe add them to an order for prints or my 2022 calendar, while supplies last.

Too subtle? 😉

Cheers,
Patrick

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New Faces and Old Friends

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.

Have a good weekend,
Patrick

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt

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Winter Wolf

When beginning a new painting, it’s tempting to scour my photo archives for an animal I haven’t painted before. Sometimes that intent works, but often I end up sacrificing my enjoyment of the work because I chose the animal for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.

My photo reference files are well cataloged, a folder for each animal. With thousands of photos to choose from, having them all in a big pile makes life a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

I try to steer myself away from painting too many bears. I could happily paint ten of those in a row, but not everybody has the same affinity for my favourite creature, though I have no idea why.

I’ve painted three wolf images, four if you count that one of those paintings has two wolves in it. So, it came as a surprise to me that I chose to paint another one. Often I’ll decide to paint an animal because it feels right at the time.

My friend Serena, the head keeper at Discovery Wildlife Park, gave me a folder of wolf images a few years ago, a large collection of shots she’d taken over the years. These orphaned and rescued wolves had all died of old age long before my first visit to the park.

I came across one image from 2010 that inspired the above painting and asked Serena who it was. She said it was “Smith. He was a sweet wolf.”

The photo has low light, grainy, and taken on a foggy winter day. Serena is a skilled photographer, and many of the images in the folder were much better. But still, I kept returning to this one.

Rather than fight it, I decided to go with it and paint another wolf.

The finished piece looks nothing like Smith. It has a more feminine feel, and I’ve taken liberty with the eyes, expression and everything else. I used five other reference shots for the detail I needed. A couple were Serena’s photos, the others my own.

There are two or three hours of work painting fur detail that I later covered up with snow, which was the most challenging part of this piece. I had to decide between too much or too little snow and where to put it.

Leaving the background white felt uncomfortable, as I often use colour and texture to make the foreground image pop or establish more mood. I added some blue flecks to the background to take the edge off the sharp contrast and accent the eyes, but it’s still a predominantly nondescript backdrop. I did add a subtle light blue to make it softer and mute the contrast a little more at the end. From a commercial perspective, it will make it easier to adapt this painting to various licensed products.

While I enjoyed working on this piece and its challenges, I’m not sure how I feel about the finished painting. I’ll need to let it rest awhile. Still my style, not as whimsical as my other pieces and a departure from the usual composition, but the same could be said for my Roar and Sire paintings, both of which have become popular.

I can control the work, the choices I make, and the art I send out into the world. After that, it’s out of my hands.
I’m starting a new painting right away on Monday, something completely different, Mike’s suggestion at Pacific Music and Art. I’ve said no to him on this critter before, for reasons I’ll explain later. I’m a little nervous about it as it will be tough. The detail alone will double my usual painting time. But if I can manage to bring it to life, it might be a fun piece with a lot of personality.

Cheers,
Patrick

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© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
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Two Wolves

     It was with great pleasure and relief that I finally got another painting finished this morning. I started this piece over a month ago and it was a struggle to find the time to work on it.

With the daily editorial cartoon deadlines, ongoing kitchen renovations, a number of other obligations, side issues and unexpected distractions, each day that I couldn’t find the time to paint was frustrating.

This year’s new license with Pacific Music and Art has introduced my work to a lot more places. Hardly a week goes by without somebody sending me an email from somewhere telling me they saw my work in a store or bought one of my images on a product. My buddy Darrel was just on a road trip out to Vancouver Island and sent me a photo of my Bald Eagle image on some notepads in Harrison Hot Springs, BC.
A woman from Florida sent me an email yesterday telling me how much she loves the Smiling Tiger image she bought on a trivet while on vacation in Canada this summer.

It’s a little overwhelming, but also exactly what I’ve asked for.

I’ve been an editorial cartoonist for more than twenty years, self-syndicated since 2001 and a full-time artist since 2006. But newspapers have long since reached their peak and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t often looked down the road and wondered how much longer that will be a part of my career. I’m not ready for the end yet, but I’m preparing for it.

Over the last few years, I’ve lost more papers than I’ve gained, most often because some newspapers have stopped running cartoons, have reduced how often they publish or have shut down. Most daily newspapers have sacked their in-house cartoonists and are using freelancers like myself and others. I’m sometimes surprised that the ride has lasted this long for that part of my business.
While I still need that income and it’s an important part of my business, that first funny looking Grizzly Bear I painted in 2009 has led to my still being able to live and thrive in this artist life, ten years down the road. During that time I’ve created more than 60 production pieces. They’re sold as prints in zoos and parks, and licensed through a handful of companies here in Canada and in other parts of the world.

The foundation for this part of my business was laid ten years ago and has turned out better than I could have imagined, all started with a simple experiment, painting this bear.
In all of that time, the daily deadline of editorial cartoons has been priority one, because that’s the monthly income, the clients I supply each day and invoice at the end of each month. I’ve always put the painting on the back burner, to get to when I have the time away from the cartoons. Over the past year, with my painted work spreading faster and further, it has become clear to me that they are both of equal priority; because the painted work I do now will be what pays the bills down the road.

Just as that Grizzly Bear is still one of my bestsellers (and one of my favorite paintings), none of the current licensing would be possible had I not built the portfolio to offer to these clients in the first place.

It’s also tempting to stick to the formula, to paint the head-shot animal composition time after time, because that’s where it started, that’s what initially got these pieces noticed and those are proven sellers.

But that’s not where the magic happens. We too often worry so much about keeping what we’ve got that we fail to imagine what else might be possible.

With that first painting, I tried something new, took a risk on being different, and it led to the work I most enjoy. I love my whimsical wildlife critters. I am at my best when painting them, both in my skill level and how they make me feel. If the politics of editorial cartooning is the poison, these animals are the antidote.

For years, people have been telling me that what makes these images special is the eyes. It’s always how I paint the eyes, I hear this constantly. Then I painted the Smiling Tiger with her eyes closed and it’s one of my bestselling pieces. Had I paid too much attention to what I’d been told and not enough to what I wanted to paint, this image would never have happened.
I feel the same way about this latest piece. It’s a different composition, two wolves who might be sharing an inside joke. A couple of buddies or a romantic couple? It tells a story and while I’ll always be my worst critic, I really like this painting. I hope it’s popular, because right now, it’s already one of my favorite pieces. It’s different from the usual head-shot composition but a risk worth taking.

And it was fun, something I don’t make enough time for.

I took the reference for this painting at the Calgary Zoo a while ago and I felt that I had captured something when I looked at the shots. I knew instantly I would be painting this image. That doesn’t often happen.

As a professional artist, I have to keep in mind that if I don’t produce any commercial images, I don’t make a living. But I have a feeling about this direction, more animals in an image, telling a story, and still in my style. I think there’s something here.

Only time will tell.

Cheers,
Patrick
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Wolves in Progress

One of the most common questions I get about my painted work is, “how long does it take to do one of these?”

The glib Picasso rip-off answer is, “a lifetime,” most often hauled out when people question an artist’s pricing.

For one of my whimsical wildlife portraits, the answer is usually somewhere around 15 or 20 hours which is just a ballpark. I don’t really keep track because I don’t paint something in one sitting. There’s always other work being done at the same time, the daily editorial cartoons, admin work, and the like.

Something that took me 15 hours a decade ago, however, would likely take me less than half that, now, because I’ve become a better artist in that time. Concepts I found difficult then are routine techniques now, allowing for more detailed work in the same amount of time. This is why many artists don’t offer hourly rates, because the better you get, the quicker you get something done, meaning you’d make less money. It doesn’t make any sense that I should be paid more as a beginner than as an accomplished professional.

Because my licensing clients and customers like them, and I’ve now got a large portfolio that sells well, I’ll still continue to create the somewhat caricatured single head-shot style animal paintings. Like most artists, however, I get bored with my own work and want to try new things. That’s what led to my funny looking animal pieces in the first place, an experimental painting ten years ago.

From gathering the reference, to sorting through them, looking for the one or two that sparks an idea, to sketches and false starts, paintings take time. Posting a new piece every week would only be realistic if I didn’t have editorial cartoons to draw each day.

With that in mind, here is the beginning of a new painting, just started this morning. When I still had a social media presence, this is the kind of thing I would share just to have something to post, in the mad scramble for likes and shares. Now that I know that sort of thing doesn’t really translate into anything more than a higher level of anxiety, I hadn’t thought of posting work-in-progress shots on the blog. Since somebody told me recently that they missed seeing them, well why not?

Besides, it’s humbling to post stuff like this, because it has barely begun, which leaves me feeling exposed. I guess that’s the whole point, to illustrate (wink wink) that a painting doesn’t just happen. It starts with the broad strokes, the roughest of layouts, with many hours working alone, before ending with fine little hairs under the eyes and droplets of moisture on the gums. That moment when the personality shows up, that’s many hours down the road.

Incidentally, at the beginning of every painting, which is what you see here, I always(!) think that my best work is behind me, that there is no way my skills will be good enough to match the vision I have for the piece, and that it’s just going to suck. Go get a real job, you imposter hack, you’re not fooling anybody.

Every painting starts with this fear, and almost every artist I know suffers from this same panicky self-doubt. This is why dealing with internet trolls has always felt like amateur hour to most of us. The trolls who live in our heads are so much nastier, and unlike Twitter, you can’t block them.

All that said, these initial steps on a new painting, it’s a familiar wasteland of unfinished work and I’ve traversed it many times before. Turning back just isn’t an option and I’m looking forward to seeing how this piece turns out.

I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Stretching Style

A new Wolf painting and some new ideas.

One of the hardest things for artists to do when they’re first starting out is find their niche, that style of work for which they’ll be recognized and stand out from the crowd.

For those who’ve not yet found it, it can be frustrating to go looking for something so elusive that one might only recognize it in hindsight. It often comes from trying different mediums, tools or subject matter until something resonates, but you have to dig a lot of empty holes before you find treasure.

Once you find it, and realize it, there’s relief. A sense of traction, that time can now be better spent focusing and becoming really good at that one thing that defines YOUR art.

Twenty years ago, I fell into editorial cartooning. An ad in a local weekly paper in Banff, draw a cartoon once a week, did that for three years, joined a better newspaper where the editor encouraged me to self-syndicate, and before I knew it, it was a good part-time income. In 2006, however, supplying many newspapers across Canada, but with no more room to grow the business, I quit my job and it became my full-time career.

At that time, I would have said my niche was editorial cartooning and I had developed my own recognizable style. I’ve been drawing editorial cartoons for more than 20 years and I still draw seven a week, sometimes more, but it’s only one part of my business.

In 2009, I painted a funny looking Grizzly Bear. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had found my other niche.

With that side of my business continuing to grow, it’s been ten years developing and painting pretty much the same style of whimsical wildlife portrait.  A lightly caricatured head-shot, a goofy grin, sneer, or some sort of amusing expression, coupled with realistic detailed painting of fur, feathers, and features.

I have cultivated a recognizable and marketable style that lends itself to prints, products, and licensing. And while my cartoony critters aren’t for everybody, there are plenty of people who like them and hang them on their walls.

After ten years painting these portraits, and working hard to get them seen and sold, contemplating change is frightening. Once you’ve found a recipe that people enjoy, messing with the ingredients could just as easily make a dish worse instead of better. But a bored creative is an uninspired creative and it will eventually show in the work.

This isn’t about moving away from painting animals, but allowing them to evolve. These paintings often provide the brightest lights in my life, especially when the real-life shadows get a little too dark and threatening. I’ll still be doing the same painted portraits, because I’ve now got plenty of clients that depend on this style for the products in which they’ve invested. I’m a commercial artist. It’s my job.

But like this wolf, here, I’ll be painting more experimental pieces, compositions that deviate from my normal.  I think this one worked well.


My One in Every Family painting is a popular piece and that was quite different, as was my recent painting of Boston, the forlorn looking dog. They’re not the usual head and shoulders, but they’re still recognizable as my work, in my style.

I’ve got some more ambitious pieces in mind for the coming year. More animals in one image, more full bodied scenes, more story-telling in the paintings. At the risk of sounding arrogant, the head-and-shoulders paintings, they aren’t very challenging anymore. It’s just a matter of putting in the hours, but I know I’ll get there. It’s pretty safe and comfortable.

In art and life, however, there’s no growth when you’re comfortable.

Cheers,
Patrick

Technical stuff: I started this piece on the iPad Pro using the procreate app, then moved into Photoshop on my desktop with my Wacom Cintiq 24HD display. The finished piece is 30” x 40” at 300ppi.

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What’s in a Name?

For the past nine years, I’ve been creating whimsical wildlife portraits of animals, caricatures of the real thing. Sometimes they’re quite exaggerated, other times not so much.

When I first began the initial series, I decided to call them “Totems.” What that meant to me was paying homage to the animal spirit meaning of the word. The personality and character I paint in these animals makes them feel alive to me. I’ve had some unique and special experiences with animals in recent years and can’t help but feel a connection with them, so it’s for personal reasons that I decided on that name.

Over the past few years, I’ve been getting more licensing contracts, my work is being sold in more places and if things go according to plan and align with my intentions, I hope to see them in many more retail outlets across Canada and the U.S. in the coming years.

With that in mind, and knowing the underlying current of the internet, good intentions are often misconstrued as opportunistic machinations. I’m paranoid by nature, always anticipating the worst case scenario, because I see it every day while following the news. I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before somebody accuses me of cultural appropriation.

By using the word Totem, it could be perceived by indigenous groups that I did so to either pretend that I have some connection to native heritage or that I used the title to capitalize on the word for that reason.

The word Totem has a number of meanings, but clearly I am using it in the animal spirit sense and with cultural appropriation such a sensitive subject (and rightly so), it would be naive of me not to imagine that some members of indigenous groups might see it as just another white guy trying to make money from their culture.

That isn’t the case and has never been, but I’ve got about as colonial a background as you’re ever going to find. Any argument I made after the fact would just look like I was just trying to cover my ass in the face of controversy, rather than ceasing the practice because I chose to.

On one hand, given the fact that I’ve regularly faced controversial opinions and arguments against editorial cartoons I’ve done for the past twenty years, I don’t like caving to opposition in an age where anyone who is offended is perceived to be correct simply because they’re offended.

On the other hand, a phrase I learned in my five years in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve comes to mind often in my life.

“Is this the hill I want to die on?”

I paint my funny looking animals because I enjoy them, they make people smile, and it’s a nice way to use my talent and skill to make a living creating art. I certainly don’t want these paintings to be tainted with a controversy that’s easily avoidable. The paintings are important to me, the names are not. It doesn’t change how I feel about them or whether or not those who like my work will continue to follow it.

It was only the portrait style caricatured head-shots that were called Totems, but I’ll no longer be continuing that practice. Some might not agree with my reasons for this change, but I believe we’re supposed to grow in this life and this feels like the right thing to do.

I have removed the word from the portfolio and gallery titles and will be going through the blog to do the same to the titles of those posts. While it will be impossible to remove all references to them online, the point is that I won’t be doing so in the future.

Cheers,
Patrick