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Posted on June 11, 2013June 11, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Lizard Sketch in Painter 12

In my ongoing efforts to incorporate Painter 12 into my workflow, this is another painted sketch. As is my style, I’ve taken a lot of creative liberties with the anatomy of our lizard friend, here.

For this one, I used only the Chalk Brushes in Painter. While I fully expect to incorporate a mixture of the available mediums in the future, restricting myself to only one at a time right now is forcing me to get used to and judge each on its own merits. I really enjoyed working with chalk, especially since there are a number of different types to choose from. One of the great features I found with Painter 12 is the availability of adding paper textures while painting. In real life, the texture of the paper would be universal over the entire image, but not so in the digital realm, at least not in Painter. I can change paper textures so it only affects the brush strokes I’m making at the time, and then change again without affecting the ones I’ve already made. Adds a texture element when I need it but doesn’t restrict me when I don’t. Great feature!

Something else I’m enjoying a great deal in is the Brush Tracking feature. I’m painting on the Wacom Cintiq 24HD and even though my pen pressure is pretty consistent and I’ve got the Tip Feel set to how I like it in the Tablet Properties, different mediums in Painter require a lighter or softer touch. Brush tracking on the fly allows me to change the pressure sensitivity as often as I’d like. It’s really easy to do and takes very little time away from the canvas.

I’m really enjoying discovering all that Painter has to offer this Photoshop artist and I plan to keep at it. I have a feeling I’ve just scratched the surface.

Posted on June 5, 2013June 5, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Coyote Totem

This painting of a Coyote is the latest in my Totem series. The most recent before this one was the Bald Eagle Totem, finished in November of last year. If you do the math, that’s almost seven months, which is far too long, especially if you consider that these are my favorite paintings to work on. With the daily editorial cartoons, the portraits of people, the pet commissions, and the great deal of time spent on the preparation for the Calgary Expo this year, I’ve been busy and otherwise occupied, so the Totems were temporarily on the back burner. The next one will be coming a lot sooner than December, I assure you.

I painted my first animal in this style in November of 2009, the Grizzly Bear Totem. Hard to believe that it’s been over three years. The funny thing is that the Coyote was one of the first animals I wanted to paint but for some reason I kept shuffling it down the line, painting other animals instead. As is often the case, I may have the reference photos ready to go for months before I get to the actual painting, but this one has easily waited the longest. It also took the longest to paint if you consider that I started it in February and it sat idle for months until I started back on it last week. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, but as always, I’m already looking to the next one.

Posted on May 29, 2013May 29, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Taming Painter 12

In an effort to broaden my digital painting horizons, I recently bought Corel Painter 12 and am trying to get used to it.

Having been a digital painter with Photoshop for many years now, I’m very comfortable not only with the default tools, but with customizing and designing my own brushes so that I can paint the way I like.

By pairing and customizing Wacom’s hardware and Adobe’s Photoshop software, I’ve developed a very comfortable workflow and I know how to get the results I want with the tools at hand. So if everything is working so well, you might wonder why I’m bothering with Painter. The short version is that Photoshop and Painter are the industry standards when it comes to digital painting. Some artists use only one of them, but many use both together, taking advantage of the strengths that each offers to produce the best results. I would like to have that option.

I invested in some initial training with Lynda.com to try to learn the ropes, but it didn’t give me what I needed. The class and instructor were fine, but when it comes to software, I seem to learn best by first doing something. If I can’t figure it out by trial and error (usually a LOT of error), then I’ll go searching for articles, videos, and classes online.

The painted sketch you see above is my first attempt at painting in Corel Painter 12. It took me a few hours as I tried a lot of the different available mediums, quickly realizing which ones I didn’t like and which ones had potential.

Painter 12 is designed to emulate traditional media. If you’re a traditional artist, that’s probably great news. But I’ve never painted with traditional tools. I learned how to paint in Photoshop, so to use oil painting or watercolour in Painter was incredibly frustrating because I’ve never used them before and didn’t like the way they worked. In all honestly, there were a few instances where I tried a brush and said, “Ugh!”, disgusted at the results. When it came to the cloning tools, I abandoned them without even taking them for a spin. I’ve never like painting or tracing over a photo and those tools are designed to do just that. While some people enjoy working with that option, I’ve never done it in Photoshop and I don’t plan to start now. Photos don’t belong in my work.

Now you might be wondering if this is just a blog entry to slam Painter. Let me assure you that it’s not. While half of my drawing and painting time was spent with a furrowed brow and clenched jaw when the tools were not working the way I wanted them to, the other half was spent with raised eyebrows in surprise and even a grin or two when I discovered a few things I really liked. I might have even said, “hey, that’s cool” out loud a few times.

Once I realized that I didn’t have to use EVERY medium in Painter, I started to enjoy myself. After all, I only use a small percentage of the features in Photoshop. Painter is designed to emulate most traditional mediums so that it appeals to a wide range of artists. But it doesn’t mean that a watercolour painter now has to learn oils and charcoal just because they’re suddenly available in the same place.

I found painting with the acrylic brushes really enjoyable. They work the way I want them to and I plan to spend a lot of time painting with those. The airbrush tool offers a LOT more options than the Photoshop airbrush does, so I’m really looking forward to incorporating that into some fine detail work.

I pride myself on having a really good handle on the Photoshop brush engine but the Painter brush engine is a whole new animal. I’m bracing myself for when I tackle that monster. Taming that beast is an absolute necessity because designing and using my own brushes is a big part of how I paint.

So what do I think of Painter 12 after only using it a short time? I think it’s an impressive piece of software that I have no idea how to use. Now, had you asked me the same thing about Photoshop ten years ago, I would have given you the same answer. They do share many of the same shortcut keys and tool options, like zooming, panning, layers and other functions, but there are other operations that are completely different and therein lies the challenge.

When talking about this on my Facebook page, I said, “It’s as if somebody came into the kitchen while I was cooking and moved everything to different cupboards and drawers, changed labels, and translated the recipes into foreign languages. I can still cook, but there won’t be any finesse to it until I get used to the new layout.”

Just like anything worth doing, it’s going to take me time to become good with Painter, just as it took years to become good with Photoshop. When it comes to painting, neither one of them is a ‘press this button, press that button’ piece of software. Digital painting is an art medium all on its own. If I were learning how to paint with oils, acrylics, watercolour, charcoal or any other traditional medium, the learning curve would be just as steep, if not more so.

I’m off to a good start, but I’m under no illusion that I’ll be doing any commission or gallery work in Painter anytime soon. Probably a lot more of the type of painted sketch you see above for the next little while. But I plan to keep at it, work through the frustration and practice as often as I can.

When it comes down to it, that’s the only way to create better art no matter what medium you’re using.

Posted on May 24, 2013May 24, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Sketch Paintings

One of the things I noticed at the recent Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo is that many of the artists were selling books. Some were elaborately done with high production values (and costs, I’m sure) while others were smaller and produced on a budget, but still looked great. I’ve mentioned before that the Expo was a great learning experience and I’m still processing all of it. In addition to drawing and painting, I also enjoy writing a great deal. I’ve even got a couple of novels on the shelf I wrote years ago that I wouldn’t mind taking down and doing a rewrite with fresh eyes and a little more experience. One of them, anyway.

Sailing and fishing my personal creative ocean day to day, the idea of publishing a book that combines my artwork and writing is something that is never far below the surface of the water. As time passes, the idea keeps growing larger, is circling more often, and it’s clear that I need to haul this in pretty soon or I’m going to need a bigger boat.

While this future publication is still just in the idea stage, I do know that it will likely focus on my animal artwork. What I like most about the books I’ve bought by other artists is seeing the sketches and work that isn’t as polished and detailed. Since the goal for the majority of my animal paintings has always been to produce finished pieces for clients or galleries, I don’t actually have a lot animal sketches and paintings that weren’t destined for print. I figured I’d better make time to do more of that work since I don’t want a book that is devoid of variety.

Had I gone to art school or started drawing animals when I was younger, I might have stacks of sketchbooks of this stuff in storage, but before the late 90’s, all I ever did was doodle. After that, it was mostly editorial cartoon work and nothing I’d want to share now. This painting obsession didn’t really take hold until sometime in the last ten years, well into my 30’s. What I’d like you to take from that is that it’s never too late to learn new things and do what you love.

In an effort to create these additional sketches and paintings, there are some great side effects. One, of course, is that it’s wonderful practice. With no client to please, I can spend a half hour, an hour, two hours and just stop whenever I want. For somebody as obsessive as I am, just being able to stop and leave it alone, knowing there is plenty of room for improvement is an accomplishment by itself. Secondly, it’s like a palate cleanser, a reset button in between larger projects, very much like getting up and having a stretch. Having just finished two cat portraits for clients and moving on to another Totem piece, the meerkat sketch I did yesterday afternoon was a way of leaving one painting behind and starting fresh on another.

Finally, these are a lot of fun. Pouring rain that turned to snow yesterday, which can happen any time of year in the Canadian Rockies, gave me no motivation to go on my afternoon walk in the woods. Bored of training videos after about an hour, I just decided to make some fresh coffee (unusual in the afternoon), crank the tunes in the headphones, find a reference photo from a recent trip to the zoo and start drawing. Before I knew it, it was coming to life and I was really enjoying myself. Yes, I have deadlines right now, a long list of work I need to get done that will take me well past the summer, but making the time to do sketches like these on a regular basis is proving to be very good for me, almost like I’m taking a mini-vacation.

Expect more of these whimsical, cartoony characters in the coming months. Who knows, maybe I’ll even turn one or two of them into a Totem painting later.

Posted on May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Commissions: Lion-O and Gaia

For anybody that reads my random ramblings here on the site, it’s pretty clear that my favorite work is painting animals. Whether they’re my signature Totem style of whimsical caricatured portraits, or the more traditional portrait look, I’m having my most fun when working with furry or feathered critters. Once in awhile, I’ll even paint one that hasn’t got either (see Humpback Whale).

One of the great surprises of recent months is that more and more people want me to paint their pets, and in both styles. While the portrait style is just as enjoyable, it’s a little more of a challenge. When I painted my Wolf or Bald Eagle Totems, nobody was holding up a reference photo of one they know really well and deciding if I got the likeness right. While a tabby cat very often looks just like a tabby cat, there are specific markings and features that have to be right or it just isn’t YOUR tabby cat. Just as failing to capture the likeness of a person will collapse a portrait, the same can be said for missing the personality or likeness of a cat or dog. Their owner (family member, companion, staff) will know the difference, even with the Totem style.

This past week, I finished these two paintings of Lion-O and Gaia, in order that you see them. Each has different markings, fur textures, bone structure and personalities, so they presented their own challenges. But both live in the same household, so the paintings needed to look like they belonged together on the wall. The clients had choices to make. Separate paintings or both cats together in one? Totem style or traditional portrait style? They chose the former of both options and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, as are they.

These clients were VERY patient. We’ve been talking about this for quite awhile and they decided to go ahead with the paintings in January. As you can figure out, it’s now May, so these paintings have taken awhile to get finished, but thankfully they weren’t in any rush, which gave me free reign to do my best work. Much of that time was back and forth finding the right photos and they certainly did their part, giving me a great variety to choose from. But even still, with the preparation for the Calgary Expo last month, my daily editorial cartoon deadlines and other commitments, I spent most days wishing I was working on these paintings but otherwise occupied with other parts of my business.

While I’m always taking commission work, lately I’ve been telling people that rush jobs just aren’t possible right now. I would not be as happy with these paintings had I barreled through them and I would imagine the clients would not have been as well. Currently I have a number of other clients waiting their turn for commissions and I’m booked up until at least the Fall. I’ll be getting back to work this week on the Coyote Totem I started earlier this year and beginning my prep for the next commission of a dog portrait, this time in traditional style. More animal cartoons, sketches, and rough paintings are planned in addition to putting the focus on more Totems. It was a genuine shock to me recently when I realized that I have not painted a new one this year, despite the fact that I’ve got six of them waiting to be done, reference photos and all.

If you are interested in a commission and are willing to wait your turn, I promise I will make it worth the wait by doing the best job I can for you. Here’s a link to the information and if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message via the Contact page.

Here’s a little bit of how it’s done, too.

Posted on May 10, 2013May 10, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

The Space Between Us

A couple of months ago, I finished the above painting of Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield just before he became Commander of the International Space Station. Just painting the image was worth the effort because I really enjoyed it. But then Commander Hadfield saw it in orbit, sent me a short message and re-tweeted the link to his followers on Twitter. A tweet from space is quite a thrill and I’ve actually had the pleasure of receiving two of them, the second after I did the editorial cartoon you see below when he took command. Had it all ended there, I would have been pleased enough.

Shortly after Commander Hadfield retweeted the link to the painting, however, I got an email from Tim Gagnon, a graphic and portrait artist who lives next door to the Kennedy Space Center. Since 2004, Tim has worked with five Space Shuttle and nine ISS Expedition crews helping design their mission patches. Tim had some kind words to say about the portrait and then asked me for a little more information about the digital medium and how the painting was done. I was happy to send him some video links that I’ve done for Wacom, some time-lapses of my paintings and I shared a little more information inviting him to ask any other questions.

Tim told me that he designed a special crew patch for Expedition 34 at the request of that mission’s Commander, United States astronaut Kevin Ford, and he told me he would like to send me one. He said that it’s the first crew patch since Apollo XIII to have a motto. The expeditions overlap, so that Hadfield arrived at the ISS on Expedition 34 and then when he took command, it became Expedition 35. I was thrilled at the offer, thanked Tim for his generosity, and gave him my address. In exchange, I sent Tim my training DVDs on digital cartooning and painting to give him more information on that medium.

Much to my surprise, when the package arrived, there was not only the embroidered Expedition 34 patch, but the 35 patch as well. Tim also included a sticker of the Soyuz mission that took Hadfield’s expedition to space. I’ve had the mission patches for awhile, but haven’t posted it on my site until now, at Tim’s request. He was waiting until he had the go ahead from Kevin Ford, who arrived safely back on Earth on March 16th.

Something many of us take for granted these days is the incredible level of connection we are privileged to enjoy. Multiple daily tweets from space are exciting enough, but the simple fact that an instant message can be sent from one side of the globe to the other is truly amazing, or at least would be 100 years ago. What I find so incredible is that a painting I did for my own enjoyment went to orbit, was sent back to Earth, was noticed by another artist in Florida and now I have these very special mementos of the experience here in my hands, keepsakes that I will enjoy for many years to come. We really do live in an extraordinary time and we shouldn’t forget that. It also shows just how small our world really is.

An interesting side note that I found amusing is that Tim’s grandparents were Canadian.

Posted on May 9, 2013May 10, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Gathering Reference

I always look forward to visiting the animals at the Calgary Zoo. While it’s true that I can easily justify spending two or three hours at the zoo to take photo reference, it always feels like I’m getting away with something, because it never feels like work. Almost like I might as well be slacking off to go see a movie. If I lived in Calgary, I’d spend a lot more time at the zoo, I’m sure, but the drive there and back takes just under three hours in good traffic, so I usually try to combine it with errands that are bringing me to the city anyway. Fortunately, yesterday’s errand was a meeting AT the zoo, which was pretty convenient. Or planned. I’ll never tell.

Yesterday, I took a few hundred photos and ended up with about ten that I wanted to keep. The beauty of a digital camera is that you can just keep shooting and sort them all out later, knowing full well that the vast majority will end up in the trash. I usually try not to have an agenda, so I make the rounds knowing that the best photos will be the ones where the animals are cooperating.

It was a hot day, so the lions, tigers and bears (oh, my!) and other large animals were either hiding in the shade or just being lazy and lethargic in the sunshine. Who can blame them? So, weather does factor into it. One Totem I really want to paint in the future is a red panda, and even though they were out and active enough, and I took a lot of photos, none of them were good. Same situation with a few of the other animals I was after. Bad angles, bad light, bad photographer.

But I did manage to get a few that I like, including the ones you see here. While none of them are good enough to be the prime reference for a finished painting, I plan to be doing a lot of sketching and painting studies in the future and these will do just fine for those. It is my plan that before too long, I’ll be able to create a book of my animal work, which means I’ll need to draw and paint a lot more of it.

Any excuse to go to the zoo.

Posted on May 9, 2013May 9, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Poster Prints at the Calgary Zoo!

When it comes to this business of art, there is no manual. Most of us are just winging it, making corrections each time a mistake or miscalculation knocks us off course. Most of the time, it’s not some big disaster, it’s just evaluating the results from throwing stuff at a wall to see what would stick.

Last year, the Calgary Zoo started selling my matted Totem prints, the same ones that were sold at Two Wolves in Canmore and are currently in About Canada in Banff. The prints did well at the other two venues and also sell well in my own online store. The zoo, however, is a little different because their retail store is not a gallery, but a gift shop that complements the destination, so to sell matted prints at $44 in this venue was an experiment. While they did sell, they weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.

Regular readers will know that I recently had a booth at The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. In addition to the matted prints I normally stock, I also introduced a poster print. Not a gallery quality giclée, but still an excellent quality print with a white border. Hand signed, with backer board, in a plastic sleeve just like the matted prints, the price point is lower which allows for people who want to buy a print but aren’t looking to have the full matted and professionally framed look and expense. They sold well at the Expo and also in an online sale I had recently on this site. But since I ordered far too many for the Expo, I thought I might see if the Calgary Zoo was interested in giving them a shot, so I requested a meeting, which I drove in for this morning.

I’m happy to say that they were very well received and now all ten Totems that were printed for the Expo are now available as poster prints at the Calgary Zoo. With fingers crossed for this eventuality, I had brought full inventory of each print with me today instead of just one sample, so these should be available right away. The poster prints will retail for $25.00 each, so if you were one of the lucky ones who took advantage of the recent sale or bought at the Expo, you got a great deal on them. Here’s hoping they do well at the Zoo and they ask me to restock their supply soon.

The matted prints will still be available online and at About Canada on Banff Avenue.

Posted on May 7, 2013May 7, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Mighty? Maybe not.

With the Adobe Max conference going on in L.A. this week, there are many in the design, photography and other digital creative industries that are actively talking about all things Adobe. Most of the talk is surrounding the Creative Cloud and the subscription model. In fact, I’ve seen and participated in some heated discussions the past 24 hours about the pros and cons. Most of these arguments look very much like online political bickering, complete with name-calling, passive aggressive rants and the usual ‘my way or the highway’ arguments that are the staple of social media discussions. Having expressed my opinion already, I don’t feel the need to repeat it all here. Bottom line is that anybody who uses any of Adobe’s software will have to subscribe to the new model or eventually watch their tools become obsolete. Time marches on, adapt and overcome, deal with it. The corporate mind is made up and unlikely to change. We’ll just have to agree to disagree and move on, since we should all probably be working anyway.

One of yesterday’s announcements that caught my eye was Adobe’s introduction of Project Mighty. A pressure sensitive pen for the iPad and iPhone, connected to the cloud, allowing people to draw and take notes on the iPad. Before I talk about my impression, here’s a video that explains it, just so we’re all on the same page.

At first glance, this looks like it might be something very innovative. In fact, I’ve had a number of people send me email and private messages since this was announced telling me I must be excited about this and asking what I think of it. The only reason I assume they’re asking is that my medium for the majority of my work is digital and that I’ve also done a fair bit of iPad art over the past couple of years. So having only seen the same video you just watched, my first impression is that the Mighty doesn’t strike me as memorable, at least not in this first edition.

I’ve tried a number of iPad pens over the last year. Some of them have a plastic disc that rests on the screen, many have rubber eraser type nibs in varying sizes, and even one expensive disaster purported to be pressure sensitive, but ended up just being a waste of $80.00. The battery didn’t last and it relied on raising and lowering the volume of the device since it communicated through the iPad’s microphone. To quote Mr. Scott in Star Trek, “The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

In my experience with art on the iPad, the strength lies in a well developed app, because the hardware is a compromise. The iPad just wasn’t designed to use a pen and Apple has consistently showed no interest in answering the scores of artists who have been begging for one. As Steve Jobs famously said, “It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it.”

But with a good third party stylus and a well written app, you can still draw and paint well enough on the iPad. The best apps that I’ve used to date are procreate, artstudio, and Sketchbook Pro. I’ve been able to work around the pressure sensitivity quite well in all of these apps simply by varying the brush opacity while I paint. Coupled with a good stylus, I find painting on the iPad to be quite enjoyable, despite having to wear a light glove so I can rest my hand on the screen while I draw. The pen I settled on after trying many of them, is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus and it works quite well, despite the limitations of the iPad itself. The paintings you see here were done on the first generation iPad with the Wacom stylus.

What surprised me most about Project Mighty is that it doesn’t appear to involve Wacom at all. I’ve been using Wacom tablets and displays since the 90’s and while each new evolution is better than the last, the one consistent thing I could always count on was that there was no better name in pen and tablet tech than Wacom. I would defy any digital creative artist to challenge that statement. The industry standard for pen technology has long been Wacom and if this pen was a cooperative venture between the two, I would have expected Adobe to lead with it, so I can only assume that this was an independent creation. It was my understanding that the two companies had a symbiotic relationship as most Adobe users I know are using Wacom tablets or displays in their work. Wacom’s lack of involvement in Project Mighty (unless it’s some deep dark secret) is perplexing.

One of the biggest complaints I hear when reviewing any stylus or app for the iPad is that people want it to work like their Wacom tablet. Same features, sensitivity, and functionality. Unrealistically, many artists want the power of a robust computer mixed with a Cintiq 24HD that is light and allows them to take it anywhere. Someday, I’m sure, but I still think that perfect device is a long way off. Then again, we might see a hint of that soon.

On February 28th, this status update on Wacom’s Facebook page created quite a ripple through the digital creative world. “We’ve heard you shouting out loud for a Wacom mobile tablet for creative uses. Well… we’re listening. We’ve read your email and spoken to many about an on-the-go dream device. It will come. This summer. We’re working 24/7 on it. And yes, it has a real pressure-sensitive professional pen, smooth multi-touch, an HD display, and other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets.”

With this tease still resonating, I won’t be buying into Project Mighty. When it comes to digital pen technology, I’m willing to be patient and wait for whatever Wacom has up their sleeve. We might finally see tablet hardware that doesn’t ask artists to compromise. If Wacom’s previous track record for stealing the show is any indication, I expect many artists will consider everything that has come before it to be just an opening act.

Posted on May 2, 2013May 2, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Avalanche Movies Rolls Credits

A few years back, I found myself considering a part-time job. In my late 30’s, working full-time at home as a freelance artist, it wasn’t about the money, but getting out of the house a little more. As much as I like working for myself, I missed having coworkers, even though when I had them, they drove me nuts.

The only place in Canmore I wanted to go for an evening job was Avalanche. Make a little extra money, sure, but best of all, I got to be around movies, something near and dear to my heart. I’m hardly the type of person that can discuss great cinema, tell you anything about Fellini or discuss the hidden nuances in Woody Allen films. In fact, I can’t stand Woody Allen films. I just love movies.

But Avalanche also has a reputation. People like working there and that’s something you can’t fake, because they seem to like their jobs even when the owners aren’t around. In a business well known for hiring teenagers and young adults, I was easily the oldest guy there. Little did I know, the ownership was changing just as I was hired on, and I’ll admit that I thought I might have made a mistake. But Jeff assured me that the owners weren’t just handing it off to anybody, they were making sure that it went to people who would keep the culture of Avalanche alive.

Enter Patrick and Camille, and I had no reason to worry.

I already had a work ethic; it’s something I take pride in. But working at Avalanche, it didn’t take long to realize that everybody else there did, too. Many of these ‘kids’ worked harder and knew more about customer service than most adults I’ve met and worked with. For a lot of them, this was a coveted first job and with a lineup of their peers in this community waiting to take their place, few took it for granted.

My time at Avalanche was short, just over a year as I realized I was too busy for a part-time job, even though it was only a couple of nights a week. But I enjoyed it and am thankful for the experience, because though I left a while ago, they still treat me like one of their own. I even came back that year to work a shift with another former staff member, so everybody else could go to the Christmas party and we were happy to do it. How many employers would you do that for?

To understand what kind of environment and direction Avalanche has provided to kids in this community, you need only look to the adults many of them have become. Responsible and hardworking, they’re the type of people you want to know, hire and work with, because they know the value of doing a job well.

Customer service is a talk they walk at Avalanche. Rather than just point a finger to a corner of the store when you ask for a movie, staff will take you right to it or go and get it for you. That direction comes from the top. Even as a customer, I still can’t walk by a crooked DVD case on the shelf without straightening it.

The place always smells of popcorn, free for the taking while you peruse the store, and if once in a while a batch gets burned, it’s usually because all of the staff are helping customers and didn’t get to it in time. But a new batch isn’t far behind.

Only a fraction of late fees are ever collected. Most of the time, they’re forgiven outright. The only time you can be guaranteed to be asked to pay them is on the many occasions when they’re donated to benefit a local charity or cause. And in this community, people are always happy to give more than they owe.

Walking into Avalanche, you never have to worry that you don’t know what to get. I can’t tell you how many times Camille, Patrick or Jeff have taken the time to walk around with us, pointing out movies we should see, often sleeper hits we’ve never heard of and then thoroughly enjoy. It’s gotten so they even know what we like. One of my favorite movies is “The Way.”. This movie so inspired me that I painted Martin Sheen’s portrait from it. I may not have ever seen it, had it not been recommended to me by Camille on one of those walks through the new releases. That portrait now hangs in Sheen’s home in California.

Every dog in Canmore knows Avalanche. Not only is it one of the few places where they’re welcomed to come on in, but there’s a never-ending bag of dog cookies behind that counter. Even if you aren’t renting or buying a movie, dogs are always welcome to stop in for a treat, if they just happen to be on their way by.

For someone who lives outside of this community, you might view the closure of a movie rental business to be inevitable. In the age of digital downloads and faceless automatic rental kiosks, it might seem that this business model has seen its day. Not here. As mentioned in their release, Avalanche is only closing because “our location is no longer available to us.”

You don’t just go to Avalanche to rent a movie, you go because you might run into someone you haven’t seen in a while. It’s one of the still locally owned gems in this town where they know you and they’re happy you stopped in, even if it was just to say Hi. If this is the end for Avalanche, it will be mourned by this whole community. Small towns have a way of disappearing one business at a time and while we all want the modern big box chain convenience, nothing comes without sacrifice and we lose a bit of ourselves each time it happens.

Hopefully somebody out there will want to write the sequel in another location. If you’re that person, Patrick and Camille would like to talk to you. If you want to know where to find them, just follow your dog.