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Artistic Freedom

CoyotePostThe greatest freedom in being self-employed is that you get to choose where you want to go. It’s one of the reasons so many creatives work for themselves and yet we too often forget that simple fact.

I’ve always felt a need to catch up, especially since I operated for a long time under the assumption that I started late. While I doodled as a kid and teenager, I never really started drawing with any intent or wanting to learn to be a better artist until my late twenties.  That was when the Banff Crag and Canyon newspaper needed a weekly cartoonist and nobody else applied.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t draw well or know much about politics or current events.  They weren’t paying much and nobody was looking to the Crag’s editorial cartoon to set the standard. I already had a full-time tourism job and no ambition to do anything art related past this one thing.   Draw one small town editorial cartoon each week for some extra beer money.  Let’s face it, I was 27 years old, I had never gone to art school, and I didn’t draw very well.  I never expected this to go anywhere.

Fast forward to today, I’m now 43, I’ve been doing this art gig full-time for almost 8 years and am very happy drawing and colouring for a living.  It has thankfully been more than a few years since I would consider it a struggle to make ends meet.  I’ve tried a number of different art related tangents, discarded the ones I didn’t like or that didn’t work, sought to become better at the ones I felt passionate about, and year after year, my focus has become sharper.

One of the best things I did this year was to begin removing myself from a few imaginary races I’ve been running.  It’s easy to get caught up in the hype today that an artist’s value is entirely dependent on how many people follow you on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and that the incremental rise and fall of your Klout score will determine whether or not your business survives the end of the week.  I know, because for a long time, I worried about that very thing.  It’s exhausting and it’s an illusion.

Social media has been great for my business, don’t get me wrong, but it just never worked for me when I was trying too hard to get it to work for me.   The scramble to be noticed by Company A, to be retweeted by Company B, and to have your site address posted by Company C becomes like an addiction.  When it happens once, you try to make it happen again.  When it doesn’t happen, or it happens but not as well as you wanted it to, and fails to pay the street-cred dividends you expected, you wish you’d never had the initial boost to your profile in the first place.  You start to question your own value when the person who was happy to hear from you last year suddenly isn’t returning your calls anymore.

Then you end up looking to other people in your industry that you view as more successful and try to copy what they’re doing.  Person A is writing articles, so I guess I need to write articles.  But Person B is teaching, so I guess I should be teaching.  Person C is traveling all over the place doing demonstrations at trade shows, so maybe I should be doing that, too.  And I don’t know what Person D is doing but everybody is talking about them so I need to find out why.

All of that scrambling leaves little time for anything creative.  While it’s true that I’m drawing editorial cartoons every day to meet my deadlines, last year I didn’t paint nearly as much as I had expected to, and not even close to how much I wanted to.  The one thing I enjoy most about my work, I shoved aside so that I could promote myself.  But what exactly was I promoting if there wasn’t any work?

This year, I’ve realized that the growth of my business is not tied to my connection to movers and shakers, nor is it tied to blogging freelancing tips and tricks or spending hours writing yet another tutorial on how to use brushes in Photoshop.   While people may value that contribution, it has rarely translated to income or led me in a direction in which I wanted to go.  I found myself looking forward and thinking, why do I feel like I’m voluntarily walking into a trap?  It also left me little time to paint or draw anything outside of my deadlines.

The greatest gains I’ve seen in my business, both financially and in my public profile, have been when I produce the work I enjoy creating.  The connection I make with the people who enjoy and buy my work doesn’t happen when I talk about being creative, it happens when I AM creative.

Therein lies the simple plan for the next year.  Pay the bills, learn to be a better artist, and chart my own course.  Spend a lot more time producing artwork and a lot less time talking about it.

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Out the Other Side

PatrickGrinIt’s ironic that I don’t celebrate calendar holidays, but the changing of the year always makes me reflective.  While I usually aim for one short blog entry for my year in review, it would appear I’m incapable of that, so this first one is less about the work and more about what’s been rattling around in my noggin this year.

It is difficult to find the separation between my personal and professional life.  Having been able to find that elusive state of doing what I love for a living, the majority of my business is work that I enjoy.  When your work and life become so interconnected, happiness in one depends on the same in the other.

Clearly a midlife evaluation of priorities and direction, I’ve been on an emotional ride the last few years, one that has included dark lows and bright highs.  Most of my college years were spent studying psychology, so I’ve always been a believer in talk therapy.  Even the most supportive family member or friend can be too close to the source and a trained therapist will often present perspectives and open doors that had not been previously considered.  With that in mind, I spent some time talking with a professional therapist over the past year and it was incredibly helpful.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with OCD, and while sitcoms and movies like to use that as a punch line, it has a much broader meaning than fear of germs or lining up everything in the fridge, neither of those being components of my particular affliction.  I don’t mention this as a ploy to garner sympathy, just to point out that it’s a piece of the puzzle that makes me who I am.  As Michael J. Fox once said about his Parkinson’s disease, “Everybody has their own bag of hammers to carry around.  This is just mine.”

I mention it, because the ironic benefit of my particular OCD cocktail is that it makes me organized, driven and introspective.  As much as it can be likened to carrying around an annoying child in your head 24/7, one that never shuts up about shit you can’t control or change, it has also been one of the largest contributors to the success of my business and my work.

While some opt for medication to take the edge off of their anxiety disorder, and I certainly won’t judge anyone who has gone that route, I have chosen not to.  I have done well to rely on my gut instinct over the years and everything in me tells me that to chemically mess with the crazy, I risk damaging the creativity.  I am convinced that it all wells up from the same place.

I realize that calling it crazy isn’t politically correct, but I’ve lived with it long enough that I get to call it what I like.

Day in, day out I am worrying about things I can’t change and trying to control their outcome.  If I don’t have something to worry about, I will make something up.  Thankfully, I have a strong-willed wife who will apply the brakes when my mentally distracted driver starts veering all over the road.  When that annoying kid in my head attempts to draw her into a no-win pointless ‘what-if’ discussion, she is fond of sighing and saying “tell your little friend I’m not playing today.”

One particular quirk that comes with this genetic misfiring of chemicals in the grey matter is that I’m acutely aware of the passage of time.  While some may think they have all the time in the world, I’m under no such illusion.  I know it could all end in ten years, in twenty, or tomorrow.  That awareness factors into many decisions I make, especially in the past few years.  Funny how your early forties will do that to you.

WacoFBCoverOn our recent vacation to Vegas, it is this awareness that prompted Shonna and I to charter a biplane to take us on a tour over the Hoover Dam and to decide over lunch that we were going skydiving for the first time the very next day.  While I’m all too often guilty of having to plan everything and worrying about the future, it was worry about regret that allowed me to seize the moment, which made the experiences much more rewarding.  It also laid the foundation for the ones we’ll have tomorrow.

There is tremendous freedom in making choices, both personal and professional, if you imagine viewing them from the end of your life. If lying on my deathbed, would I look back on the choices I’m making today and wished I’d done them differently?  This is, however, a cautionary tale.  The choices we make for ourselves, when approached from that perspective, will undoubtedly alienate and disappoint some friends, family, mentors and others with whom we are connected.  But, those people see our lives from their perspective.  They don’t usually see that if we attempted to place the same restrictions or demands on them, they would resent it.

This is not an endorsement of shirking responsibility to your loved ones or those you care about.  But just as you choose to make yourself accountable to certain people, they are accountable to you as well.  Part of that accountability is allowing each other to make your own choices, good or bad, whether you agree with them or not.   One look at social media on any given day, and it’s easy to see that most people don’t walk that talk, your choices and opinions only valid if they happen to be the same ones they’re making.  Share or like if you agree.

Accounting for available evidence, we each only get one shot at life. While an unpopular view,  I don’t believe in heaven or hell.  If there is something after this life, I don’t think we can comprehend it in this existence and I certainly don’t believe we are meant to spend this life focused on it.  One person’s belief in their meaning and purpose may be entirely different than that of the person next to them, and both may be right.  I believe that you can live a good life and choose not to hurt other people without it being about a reward at the end.  If this timeline is all we get, it makes sense to get the most out of it.

If I have been going through a midlife crisis (evaluation, introspection, change of life, etc.), then I believe 2013 is the year I started coming out the other side, and not only was the whole difficult painful experience necessary for growth, it was incredibly freeing.  If the next year follows the same course, I am excited for what’s coming, and I’m looking forward to it.

DCIM100GOPRO

 

 

 

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Anthony Hopkins – Portrait

BillParrishMy latest painting of the character William ‘Bill’ Parrish, played so brilliantly by Sir Anthony Hopkins in the film, ‘Meet Joe Black.’

I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy painting characters from movies, rather than just the actors who play them.  The primary reason is that I believe I can know characters, but despite what the tabloids would have us believe, I don’t know the actors who play them.  When Anthony Hopkins was filming ‘The Edge’ here in Canmore, however, he had a reputation of treating everyone he met with kindness and sincerity and is remember fondly around here, so I must confess, this one was also about painting the actor, simply because I like him and his work.

Meet Joe Black is a loose remake of ‘Death Takes a Holiday.’  Anthony Hopkins plays the role of Bill Parrish, a very wealthy man of character and presence who finds himself reluctantly playing tour guide for Death, played by Brad Pitt.  Knowing he is about to die and not having any real idea of how long he has to make peace with it, Hopkins expertly runs the gamut of emotions, with the character sworn to secrecy but trying to say his goodbyes, nonetheless.

The movie received mixed reviews, with criticisms that it was too long (the run time is just under 3 hours) and that it dragged in places.  As it is one of my favorite films, and I frequently disagree with critics, I’ve watched this movie a few times and have never been disappointed.  I believe the story lends itself to the slower pace and the movie contains a wealth of well played characters brought to life by a very talented cast.

ParrishCloseFor this portrait, I watched the film again and made notes in different places where the emotion of the character touched me most and I settled on six different possible references.  In the end, it came down to two, the final scene with Parrish dressed in a tux at his birthday party, or the scene when he is finally committed to accept his fate and tells Death that he is ready.  I chose the latter.

I thoroughly enjoyed this painting, listened to the musical score a few times while working on it and I was sorry to see it end, knowing I could have spent another week nitpicking every little detail and still not wanting to put it away.  But to quote Bill Parrish in his final line of the film. “Well that’s life. What can I tell you?”

For those artists who always like to know the technical details, the final size for this image is 15″X20″ at 300ppi.  Painted on a Wacom Cintiq 13HD and a Wacom Cintiq 24HD in PhotoshopCC.  Photos were only used for reference and the painting consists entirely of brush work.  No textures or photos were used in this image.  As for how long it took, I didn’t keep track, but I would guess about 10-15 hours.

 

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Cajun – A Portrait

CajunThis is another commissioned piece, a portrait of Cajun who sadly passed away earlier this year.  She lived a long life and the family wanted a painting to remember her.  I had plenty of reference photos to choose from, but only one or two that I felt would work well for the painting and thankfully the family agreed with the pose I chose.  This painting goes to proof this week and once everything looks the way I’d like, it will be printed as a 15″X20″ canvas giclée with a black shadowbox frame.  I don’t mind saying that I always get a little teary eyed when I finish these memorial paintings, which to me means I did my job.

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Photoshop Brush Maintenance

The other day I found myself wanted to do a little housekeeping with my Photoshop brushes, and I figured I’d share some thoughts.  I won’t be teaching anything about how to create brushes in Photoshop here as I’ve already detailed all of that in both of my DVDs, an article I wrote for Photoshop User Magazine and in a webinar or two that I recorded for Wacom.  Creating Photoshop brushes is an easy topic to find online and I would encourage anyone who wants to paint digitally to learn how to create and customize your own brushes.

Brush Hoarding

With an almost limitless supply of free brush sets online, digital artists of all levels seem to have a habit of downloading anything they can find on the off chance that one day; they might have use for the Valentine’s Day Zombie Cupid Brush Set.

I’ve seen artists who not only have hundreds of brush sets at the ready, most of which they’ve looked at once, but also those who have a hundred or more brushes in the set they use every day, most of those going untouched as well.  Before downloading a brush set, ask yourself if you’re really going to use it.

Stamp or Paint

There are two main brush types that I’ve come across and both have their uses.  The first are stamp brushes.  Usually it’s the type of brush that is meant to be tapped onto an image just like a stamp.  For my editorial cartoon work, my signature is a stamp brush.  As I want my brand to be consistent, it is comprised of my editorial cartoon signature (different than my actual signature), and my website address.  On every cartoon I’ve done for the last few years, my signature looks exactly the same because of this stamp brush and it’s the only stamp brush I use consistently.

Paint brushes on the other hand are ones intended to be used with a brush stroke.  With a little imagination and experimentation, a well-crafted stamp can be turned into a versatile and powerful paint brush.

Brushes004

Brush Sets

Some of the free downloads out there are really great.  You can find specific sets for holidays, environments, themes, moods, and weather.  I’ve spent many hours exploring brush sets over the years.  As time went on, however, I found that less is more and I pretty much stick to one brush set, most of which I designed myself.

Brushes001

Here’s the set I started with and what it looked like after I was done editing.  Some were even duplicates, although I don’t know how I managed that.  Some look like duplicates but because of different settings, the brush stroke is very different, even if the stamp doesn’t reveal that.   To clean them up, I just went through them one by one and asked myself how often I really used a brush.  If the answer was ‘almost never’ then I deleted it.

I still have and use other brush sets from time to time.  For example, I have a brush set that is just snowflakes, another that is just leaves, and yet another that is just lightning stamps.  But I use them very rarely, so while those brushes are not part of my main set, they’re still worth keeping.  What you see here, however are the brushes I rely on every day.

Grouping Brushes

Because I like to keep my tool and brush palettes clean and out of the way, I don’t worry too much about naming my brushes because I only view them as small thumbnails.  I do, however, like to have them grouped so that I don’t have to test a brush each time I grab it to make sure it’s what I want.  If they’re grouped together, I have a good idea what any brush is going to do when I choose it.  Here’s how mine are grouped.

Brushes003

Why I Don’t Share Brushes

I’ve been asked innumerable times to provide my brush set for people and the answer is always No.  It’s not that I have any magic brushes; it’s just that you will learn a lot more by creating your own than by using ones other artists have created.  The main brush I use for painting, however, is one you already have if you use Photoshop.  It’s a default and is my favorite painting brush, the one you see in the next image.   In articles and videos, I’ve also shown how to make my hair brushes, but don’t be fooled.  Having the tools is completely different than knowing how to use the tools.  You only get that from experience and you only get experience by painting.

Experimentation and Discovery

Brushes002

While this panel may look complicated, it’s not.  The best way to find out how everything works is to experiment with the different settings and paint on a blank page while doing it.  I actually use much less than half of the options available to me in this panel because the way I paint doesn’t require all of the bells and whistles. My brushes are pretty simple.

Cleaning up this brush set took well over two hours because I kept experimenting with ways to make each brush better and I enjoyed playing around with the possibilities.

One brush, however, kept crashing Photoshop, and I have no idea why.  Every time I tried to work with it, Photoshop CC died on me.  The first time it happened, I lost about 20 minutes work because I hadn’t saved the new brush set.  Happened three times before I realized it was the brush itself, and I ended up deleting it entirely and avoided any further crashes.  It takes very little time to save the set after each brush change.  Get in the habit of doing that when you’re working with brushes.  Save the brush, save the set.

Final Note

There are so many ways to paint digitally.  Some artists seek to emulate traditional media and do so with great skill.  Others paint in ways that traditional artists would find completely confusing.  Everybody has their own way of doing it and designing your own brushes can often spark ideas for paintings and images that you might not have considered had you simply downloaded somebody else’s tools.

Less is more, so if you have 100 brushes in your main brush set, see if you can’t whittle that down to 50.  Keep the old set on your computer and save to a new set so you can always go back and retrieve any you wish you’d kept.  Create new brushes, make changes to old ones, keep them organized and never be afraid to improve on the old standbys and eventually you’ll wind up with a brush set that is uniquely yours.

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Weighing Which Wacom

Sometimes having too many choices is just as bad as having too few, especially when it comes to technology.  What works for one person may not work for somebody else.

While I’m primarily a PC user, one piece of Apple tech that I really enjoy is my iPad, a first-gen device I bought in the summer of 2010 that I’m still using today.  With each new iOS, it gets a little twitchier and temperamental, but I have definitely got my money’s worth from it.

I’ve also been using Wacom devices for well over a decade now, from the early first generation Intuos and Graphire tablets to the Cintiq 24HD display that I use today, and I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do without one.

One of those fortunate souls who works at home every day, I have a dedicated office and spend the majority of my time at my desk, drawing and painting on my Cintiq 24HD, a display I’m very happy with.  Everything I need to be productive on a daily basis is in my office.  In the evenings, however, I like to sketch the next day’s cartoons or other images with pencil on paper while relaxing on the couch in front of the TV.  Sometimes I’ll do rough paintings and sketches on my iPad as well.

But lately, I’ve wanted to paint more detailed work or move on to the digital ink and paint stage of a cartoon without having to go upstairs to sequester myself in the office that I’ve already been in all day.

001

The newer Cintiq 13HD has abandoned the power brick of the previous 12wx, and while you still have to plug it in and connect it to a laptop, it has the resolution and screen space I want, and the ability to just prop it up on my knees to paint.  So I figured this would be my next portable device.

But then, Wacom recently announced the Cintiq Companion and Cintiq Companion Hybrid Devices.  The first is a stand-alone 13” Cintiq with all of the functionality and power of a laptop.  The Hybrid device works as a fully functional Cintiq 13HD when it’s plugged into a desktop or laptop, but becomes a portable Android device when it’s unplugged.

002Decisions, decisions.

First Option: Having just bought a very powerful laptop I eliminated the Windows 8 Companion quite quickly.  I like to write, which is one of the reasons I wanted the laptop, rather than a portable device with a peripheral keyboard.  The Cintiq Companion Hybrid, however, would allow me to work on the couch and also give me an untethered portable device to take with me on the go.

Second Option: Provided Apple doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel with the pending iPad 5, I could pair that with the standard Cintiq 13HD.  This would give me the portability I want for painting outside my office while still tethered to a laptop, plus allow me to keep using the iPad, which has many apps I rely on.  Wacom’s new Intuos Creative Stylus for the iPad (not first-gen) allows pressure sensitivity and palm rejection in some of the apps I already use for iPad painting, which means you can rest your hand on the screen and it won’t be confused with a pen stroke.  Currently, I have to wear a fingerless glove when I paint on the iPad to prevent that problem.

003Break it down, now.

Portability: The Companion and Companion Hybrid are being marketed that you can take them anywhere.  While I do enjoy working in a coffee shop once in a while and have to travel on rare occasions, most of my portable sketching is done with a pencil and sketchbook, especially since I’m usually out in the woods or in a creek canyon somewhere while I’m doing it.  The thought of taking a digital device with me to these wild places is unappealing.  Worrying about charged batteries, dirt and moisture on an expensive device, not to mention that I don’t want to be connected when I’m out in nature, is unappealing to me, which is why I even turn my phone off.  Whether it’s on a hike, camping, or out at a buddy’s cabin, I still prefer to draw in a traditional sketchbook.

When I do want a portable digital device, I already know that an iPad works very well for me and the Hybrid is too big to be a suitable replacement. With the new Creative Stylus, painting/sketching on the iPad when I’m in a coffee shop or other urban setting will do the trick nicely.

004If I lived in a city, had to commute, was constantly out and about and in need of all of the full tools I enjoy on my desktop, an argument could be made for the Cintiq Companion or Hybrid, and I’m sure it will appeal to folks who find themselves in that daily environment.  Living in the mountains, working at home, and wanting to be away from electronics when I’m out in the woods, however, I wouldn’t use this device to its full potential.

Cost: A lot of people are complaining about the cost of these new Wacom devices, but when you own the market, are leading the way in the technology and have put the R&D into creating the tech that every digital creative wants, to give it away is just bad business.  Supply and demand is as old as the hills.

That being said, budget is a factor.  Living in Canada, I have to buy from a reseller since only U.S. residents can buy from the Wacom site.  Despite the U.S. and Canadian dollars being at or near equal the last few years, Canadian prices are significantly higher than in the U.S., an angry reality that Canadians live with on clothing, books, technology, cars, and many other products.

The best price I can find on a Companion Hybrid in Canada is $1749.  That’s more than I just paid for my laptop.  The price on the Cintiq 13HD is $1089.00.

005All weighed and measured, I think I’m going to go with the Cintiq 13HD and a new iPad with the Intuos Creative Stylus.  The cost of all three of those, estimating for the iPad 5 of course, would work out to around $1900.00 and would give me the all-around best solution to fit all of my creative portable needs for a few years to come.

It’s important to understand that the reason I’m explaining all of this is not to tell you what you should buy.  It’s to illustrate the point that we all have individual needs and wants when it comes to technology.  Rather than buy every new phone, TV, tablet, computer or other piece of tech that comes out simply because it’s new, take a step back and ask yourself if what you want is really what you need.  Make a list of what you want to be able to do and buy the devices that fit you best.  Take the time to tailor your tech to your needs and you’ll be a lot happier in your work.

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Another iPad Painting

Stump01Went for a hike up to Grassi Lakes here in Canmore yesterday afternoon.  Named for noted local, Lawrence Grassi, it’s not a long trail, but if you take the ‘difficult’ route, it’s quite steep in places and is very pretty.  There are a number of relatively short hikes I take in this area when I just want to get my daily exercise, each about an hour or two in duration.  Cougar Creek I can walk to from my house, but if I have to pull the car out of the garage anyway to get groceries or run errands, I’ll head to Grotto Canyon or Grassi Lakes for a change of pace.

During the summer months, Grassi Lakes is usually quite busy.  Even in the fall on weekends, you’ll find plenty of people walking this moderate hike, especially since the ‘easy’ route, which is essentially just a dirt road, makes the trail accessible to most people, regardless of their physical fitness.  Yesterday, being a Monday, I almost had the place to myself and it was very peaceful, both on the trail and at the lakes themselves, which are really two connected ponds.  The emerald colour of the water is very pretty and it’s a nice little spot.

I’ve noticed this tree stump at the lakes on a number of occasions.  For locals, look up on your left, just after you cross the little footbridge between the lakes.  More than once, I’ve sketched it, but yesterday I figured I’d like to paint it.  Since I haven’t done much paint sketching in the last little while and didn’t want to make a finished piece out of it, I painted this on the iPad while watching TV last night.  It sort of turned into a two-colour image and I quite like the finished result.

Painting on the iPad is a real challenge because of the low resolution (especially on my first-gen device) and the imprecise nature of the stylus.  By varying the opacity of the brushes and layers in the procreate app, I manage to simulate pressure sensitivity and have developed a method that works quite well for me.  Actual size of this image is 704 pixels X 960 pixels at 72ppi, so it would make a poor print, but it’s good practice.

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Fall Reflections

Creek091813BlogThis time of year finds me reflective.  The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking in the fall and it somehow makes me want to slow down and find a little more peace.

Earlier this month, I found myself paying attention to the goings on at Photoshop World in Las Vegas, a conference I’ve attended for the past four years, but one I decided to take a break from this time.

It was a surprise to me that I missed being there, but I couldn’t put my finger on why, since not going was a conscious decision.  The last couple of years, I’d been going for networking, socializing, and making strategic moves to further my career via different connections and affiliations.  While that proved to be well worth my time, it also tainted the experience I’d had the first couple of years when I’d been taking classes and was really excited to be there.

When I first began this self-directed career, I was always hungry to become better.  Having never gone to art school and starting pretty late to this business of art, I felt a need to catch up to my competitors, to prove I could hold my own, even had a chip on my shoulder about the whole thing.  Over time, through a lot of trial and error, I eventually found the work I love most.  But during that period, I was learning new techniques from other artists, watching DVDs, reading articles, tutorials, and taking classes.

Then there came what I thought was a natural evolution.  Suddenly, I’m the one writing articles, recording videos and training DVDs, doing demos and training for companies, schools and groups, and figuring that this was what I was supposed to be doing now, moving up to the teaching level.  Many friends and colleagues have made teaching a large part of their businesses and some of them are not only very good at it, they really seem to thrive on the experience.

But more teaching will involve more traveling, writing scripts, recording, and less time doing the work I enjoy most.  It will also involve breaking down the work I love so much into an assembly process, evaluating it to death and sucking all the life out of it.  There’s still a feeling of magic in my work when I draw and paint, a connection to something else that isn’t me, as nauseatingly artsy as that might sound.  It’s what I love most about painting, the soul of it all.  You can’t dissect something without killing it.

The opportunity to speak and demo at the Wacom booth last year in Vegas was one I enjoyed.  Even as an introvert (not to be confused with shy), I’ve got no problem with public speaking or talking with people, and I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it.  Repeating that experience now and then is something I’m happy to do.  I’ve realized that I do not, however, want teaching to be a large part of my career, at least not now.  I’m fine with showing how I do it, talking about what I’m thinking, and trying to inspire others to explore their own creative instincts, but breaking my work down to stereo instructions is not something I enjoy.

I’ve written in the past that one way to find out what you want to do is to start checking off the things you don’t, then look at the choices that remain.

Over the past few weeks and months, an underlying melancholy has been lurking just below the surface, this feeling that something is missing.  This week, while taking one of my regular walks up Cougar Creek, on the day I took the photo you see above, I realized what has been bugging me.  I miss being a student.

When you’re self-employed at anything, especially in a creative field, fear is a part of daily life.  After you’ve been in the gig for a number of years and are making a good living at it, the fear can stop being a motivator, however, and can instead keep you from moving forward, a fear of losing what you have already gained.  It can happen so subtly that you don’t even realize that you’ve painted yourself into a corner.

The last couple of years have found me concerning myself with marketing moves, making connections and evaluating promotion strategies, all absolutely necessary for anyone who has chosen  art as a profession.  But when you’re going ninety miles an hour trying not to fall behind where you think everybody else is (a race you can NEVER win), you start missing the reason you’re on the road in the first place.  That’s when it’s time for a change.

I still plan to draw the daily editorial cartoons, paint my whimsical wildlife paintings and some portraits, and take illustration and painting commissions as usual.  I’ll still be promoting my work the same way I’ve always done, running my booth at the Calgary Expo in the Spring, and evaluating each opportunity as it comes along.  I’ve worked very hard to get to a place where I make a good living doing the work I love, and I still do have to make a living, so I’ll always run my business to the best of my ability.

But, I’ve decided to take my foot off the pedal for a little while.  I’m tired of running all the time and want to slow down.  There is some fear that if I stop scrambling in the promotion game, that I may ‘lose ground’ but really, what the hell does that mean anyway?  Lose ground to whom?

I miss being a student, so I’m going to spend more time being one.  I can’t recall the last time I sat and read an article about painting or drawing or took some lessons to become better.  Lately, when I see other artists and illustrators posting teaching and training videos, I’m not thinking, “I should be doing that.”  What I’m actually thinking is, “I want to learn from these people.”

When in doubt, trust your gut, and this just feels right.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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Rebuild the Calgary Zoo

PenguinThe flooding in June of this year was the worst disaster in Alberta’s recorded history. One of the casualties of that flooding was The Calgary Zoo. The closure of the zoo has resulted in layoffs of the majority of the staff, a significant loss of revenue, relocation of some animals to other cities and a massive cleanup and fundraising effort.

Some of my Totem prints have been sold in their main retail outlet over the last year, something I was quite proud of, considering how much I enjoy going to the zoo.  To be able to take reference photos for paintings, sit and sketch, and just enjoy some time with the animals is a great pleasure and I hope to go again soon.  The main reason I painted my Rockhopper Penguin Totem in the series was because of this wonderful facility and their Penguin Plunge habitat.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to sell all of my inventory of that print at a discounted rate, with all proceeds PLUS a portion of my own costs going to the Calgary Zoo. Open to residents of Canada and the continental U.S., it’s a first come, first served offer, until the inventory runs out.  All prints are hand-signed.  I’ve also discounted shipping to a flat rate, as specified in the image.  For Banff & Canmore residents, I’m happy to deliver at no charge.

To order, send an email to lamontagne@nullcartoonink.com, indicate which print you want with mailing address and I will send you a PayPal invoice.

This offer is not officially affiliated with the Calgary Zoo, but it will certainly benefit from it.  If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them, please send me an email to the previous address listed or via my Contact Page.  Thank you for supporting the Calgary Zoo rebuilding efforts.

RebuildTheZoo4

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Giraffe Totem

GiraffeTotemThe latest in my Totem series, this giraffe was a lot of fun to work on.  Well, not the whole time.  Mostly at the end, if I’m being honest.

The reason this one was a little different is that I recorded much of the process.  While I’ve done that a number of times before, the previous videos were done with screen capture software which runs in the background and you don’t really have to pay attention to it.  There’s always a fair bit of editing work after the fact, but that doesn’t affect the painting itself.  With the current video, it’s a mix of screen capture and footage from my GoPro on a tripod, which was sitting just off my left shoulder while I worked.  I’ve often shown the software, Photoshop CC in this case, but wanted to show the hardware this time as well, since the Wacom Cintiq 24HD is such a great display.  What this meant was that I couldn’t shift position and had to constantly be aware that this camera was there.  The lighting was also different than what I’m used to working with.   This changed how I felt about the painting process, but I really wanted to record this video, so sacrifices had to be made.  I’ll be editing it this week and hopefully the footage I got was worth the effort.  As always, photos are only used for reference in my paintings.  It’s all brush work.

RecordingIn a perfect world (hey, it could happen!), my painting sessions involve a hot cup of coffee, music in my headphones and a darkened room with no distractions, allowing me to get lost in the work.  With having to think about the camera all the time, I could never quite get all the way into it until I neared the end.  That’s when I forgot to recharge the GoPro for that session and the battery was dead.  Rather than ruin a perfect Saturday morning painting session by waiting, I decided to just do screen capture for the end of the painting and I had a blast!

GiraffeBlogCloseupI know I say this whenever I finish a painting, but this is one of my favorites.  I just love the expression on his (or her, your call) face.  Anybody who has followed my work on these critters for any length of time knows that I don’t take all the credit for the personality.  It just seems to show up and the funny thing is, it showed up twice while painting this one.  I thought it did a couple of days ago, it was the same great moment that always happens, but then there was another moment in the final hours of painting when something just popped and it seemed to come even more alive.  It was a bonus.

Prints will likely be available for the Giraffe Totem in the next month after I’ve done my proofing and I can’t wait to see them.