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Painting Choices and Challenges

I’m currently working on a portrait of Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield.  The reference that I’m using is from a Youtube video, so even in web HD, the quality isn’t great.  I’m used to working with poor quality reference from time to time, and it’s actually a good thing when it comes to portraits, as long as the quality isn’t too bad.  If the quality were perfect, I might rely too much on the photo and there wouldn’t be enough art in it, just replication.

A common practice in painting from photos is using the grid method.  The short explanation is that you divide your reference photo into grids, then you divide your canvas into equally proportioned grids.  This helps a person establish where the major landmarks fall on the reference photo and suggests that those same landmarks should fall in the same place on the canvas grid.  Here’s a very basic explanation of The Gridding Method if mine doesn’t do a decent job of it.

Norman Rockwell, Leonardo da Vinci and many other artists of note would use the grid method in their work.  Some artists consider it cheating, but then again, I’ve met artists who say I’m not a real artist because I sell my work commercially.  Art for a living is not a profession for anybody with thin skin and there is often no harsher critic than another artist.  I don’t have the rare skill to paint a person’s likeness from memory, so I need photo reference, as do most portrait artists.  My take on the grid method is that it is a tool that has its place, but I wouldn’t rely on it completely.  Photoshop has the ability to apply grids in any configuration over your image.  It’s under Preferences > Guides, Grids, and Slices.  When I do use it, I choose percentages, but you can choose more precise methods of measurement as well.  7 percent is pretty small, but you’ll see why I chose that at the end of the post.

Preferences I never use the grid at all when I’m painting my Totem paintings because they’re not supposed to look like the reference photos.  Nor would I use grids when doing caricature work, because exact proportions would defeat the whole purpose.

Just to prove that I can paint without the grid method, this is a portrait of James Whitmore that I did on the iPad, where grids weren’t possible.  I had a photo, the iPad, and nothing but time.  It did take quite awhile, and a big challenge was the low resolution possible with the first gen iPad,  but I’m pleased with the likeness I was able to achieve.

James Whitmore - iPad painting

I try to only use the grid method when I’m stuck on something in a realistic portrait of a person or know that something is wrong and just can’t quite see it.  For example, when I’m working on a likeness of a person, I may know that there’s something wrong with the eyes, but can’t figure it out.  I’ll flip the canvas horizontally, vertically, try all of my tricks and still be stuck.  By using the grids, I’ll see that it could be something as simple as the corner of the eye is in the wrong place or the iris doesn’t have the correct curve.  I only use the grids when a painting is in the middle stages.  Once the likeness is there, I don’t use them anymore, because I find that relying on it too much makes the subject of a portrait look wooden.  I pride myself in the personality and life in my images and that doesn’t come from accurate placement of features, but from artistic impression of the subject.  This is also the reason I paint people that inspire me or characters I feel a connection with, because that helps me with the feeling of the work.  Having the tools is easy, knowing when to use them comes from experience.

Here’s a challenge I faced this morning on the current painting of Chris Hadfield.  In the reference image I’m using, his mission patch is clearly visible on his shirt.  Because I’m trying to capture a moment, I want to include that in the painting.  I went back and forth on how to do it.  That mission patch is readily available online in pristine condition, just as the designer would have finished it.  One way to do it was just paste the perfect image in position, use the distort and warp tools, maybe rough it up a bit with a texture brush, add a little blur and it’s done, quick and easy.  Another way I could do it, was do a vector trace of the graphic, basically just using the pen tool, trace over the coloured elements, convert them to paths, fill with colour, distort, warp, place, texture, blur, done.

So why didn’t I do either of those?  With a logo in an editorial cartoon, I do that all the time, and I’m fine with it.  Usually on a tight deadline, it’s a satirical commentary, and an accurate logo that I’ve recreated with the pen tool by tracing over it is something I’m comfortable doing because of the context.  It’s part of the job and spending 20 hours on each editorial cartoon would be career suicide.  With the painting, however,  it felt like cheating.  To somebody else, it might not have, and that’s OK.  Everybody needs to make their own choices.  I just know that had I done either of those,  I’d finish the painting, would probably like the end result, but every time I look at that patch, it’s going to bother me.

HadfieldWIP04

So I decided that for the patch, I would use the grid method to help with the accuracy of the pieces in the patch, but paint it as I see it in the reference image.  It’s going to take me quite awhile longer to paint the patch, but I’ll be happier with it in the end.  As you can see from the above reference image on the left and painting on the right, I’ve got a long way to go to get it right, but it’s not like it’s wasted time because I’m still learning from every painting I do.  In the end, I’ll be happier with the painting, so it’s time well spent.

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Survey Says!

Preparing for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo at the end of April is proving to be an exercise in anxiety.  I already know that my work sells well in the right venues.  I’ve had my Totem prints in four different galleries and retail outlets and while some are better than others, the response has been quite favorable.  Five of the designs are currently licensed to The Mountain and I’m always working on a commission piece for somebody.  While confidence in the work is usually one difficulty faced by newbies to Cons and Expos, that’s not the problem I’m facing.  Even if my work isn’t popular with the crowd that shows up to the Calgary Expo, I’ll still be OK with the work, and just know that it wasn’t the right venue.  I’m not even uncomfortable running the booth, talking to people, or selling, which is something else artists often have difficulty with.  For many years, I worked in the tourism and retail industries,  I ran Wacom‘s booth on my own for a full day at a training seminar, worked a trade show booth on my own up at Fort McMurray for a Banff hotel I used to work for, and have done live painting and training demos quite a few times in the last four or five years.  While public speaking scares a lot of people, it’s honestly not a problem for me.  In fact, the trick is getting me to shut up.

Where the challenge lies is knowing how to stock my booth.  I could spend many thousands of dollars selling everything from cartoon prints, illustrations, paintings, portraits, cards, prints, t-shirts, posters, canvas…it’s  a long list of possibilities.  The key to a successful booth it would seem, is focus.  And, of course, not overextending myself.  I’ve got three full days to sell merchandise at an event that has become so big that with 600 vendors and artists, and 50,000+ attending, there are a lot of things to consider.  I already know that I’m just going to focus on my Totem paintings, for the sake of continuity.  But I don’t want to run out of stock on Saturday morning, nor do I want to be packing up a lot to bring home on Sunday afternoon.

There’s a lot of advice online from people who attend expos like this, telling artists to balance ‘fan art’ with their own work.  Use the fan art to get people to your booth.  That doesn’t work for me.  Fan art is basically just copying somebody else’s popular characters and selling them.  While illegal, most of these offenses go without prosecution, so artists keep doing it.  Considering how many artists complain about being ripped off online, I’m surprised at how many still condone the practice.  I intend to find out if I can support my booth on my own work alone.

As this is my first booth, I will do a number of things wrong, I’m sure.  How can you learn from experience until you have some?  But in an effort to put my best foot forward, I created a small survey earlier in the week to ask people their opinions on a few questions I’m faced with.  Two winners were chosen from the respondents to receive 11″X14″ matted Totem prints of their choice.  I received 100 responses, which was the survey limit, but the results were pretty clear when it came to ranking which of my Totem paintings people liked best, along with opinions on matted prints vs. unmatted.  In an effort to perhaps help somebody else prepare for a show like this, here are my results and how I choose to interpret them.

I asked respondents to rank my Totem paintings in order of preference.  While I have 16 Totems in my portfolio, I’ll only be selling 8-10, so here are the Top 10 in the order the survey indicated.

Results001Some surprises here.  The Humpback Whale is one of my favorites, and even though a few people agree with me, most do not.  But for this survey, I would have included it in my print run for the booth.  Many people did say in their comments that it was tough to choose and that they had a hard time ranking them because they liked them all.  While I can understand that, and appreciate the compliment, the ranking was very clear for the first five, not so much for the last five.  The Bighorn Sheep could have easily been shown instead of the Penguin as they were neck and neck.   But I chose the Penguin because the venue will be in Calgary and with the addition of the penguins at the zoo last year, it’s a safe bet some will buy it based solely on where it’s being sold.

The Wolf Totem has long been a favorite among people who like my work.  It’s a big seller and very popular.  But it was done over two years ago and I’m pleased to see that my two most recent pieces are in the Top 3.  Thankfully, it would appear my best work isn’t behind me, something many artists fear.

Matted prints and cost.  78% of people would prefer a matted print to an unmatted one and 73% said cost didn’t affect that decision.  That was very revealing, however the people who follow me online aren’t necessarily the same demographic as those who will be shopping at the Expo.  A lot of people go to the Expo to buy inexpensive prints and even at a reduced price of $30.00, it will be too much money for some, when they could buy two or three prints for the same amount of money, which means more art from different artists.  If this were a Christmas trade show with an older crowd, I would go entirely matted at regular price with a lot of canvas as well, but at this venue, I’ll be doing a mix of matted and unmatted prints.  But this was very helpful in helping me decide the balance.

The majority of people were interested in a discount on buying two prints, rather then three or four.

Results002When it comes to the T-shirts available from The Mountain, the Wolf was the clear winner, the Ground Squirrel second, but it was an even balance between the other three.  If I do decide to include T-shirts in my inventory, and that’s still undecided, it is obvious that I should include all five.  The large majority of respondents would buy one for themselves or somebody else.  One commenter suggested that she still liked the T-shirts, but wouldn’t buy one because her family just doesn’t wear shirts with designs on them.  Personally, neither do I, so I was curious to see how many thought the same.  Selling T-shirts as well as prints might be a little too much this year as it would require a lot of inventory in different sizes and might make for a very crowded booth.  This first year, I might just stick with prints and have one of each design on hand to let people know that they’re available online from The Mountain.

Finally, more than half of the respondents left comments, which I found very valuable.  Many were complimentary of my work, which I appreciated.  Others told me that ranking the Totems was very difficult and a couple even seemed to worry that they were hurting my feelings by doing so, telling me I shouldn’t think they hated the last one they picked.  No worries, I’ve got thick skin.  Still, others were just very nice words of encouragement and nobody gets tired of hearing those, so thanks for that.  Some suggested that other animals should be on T-shirts.  As they are licensed and not produced by me, it’s actually up to The Mountain which ones end up on T-shirts.  So while these five are the only ones at the moment, who knows what the future will hold?

Here are some other comments I found helpful, and my thoughts on each.

“Your pricing, I would do the multiples on the $10 mark… so $40, $50 etc. Just keeps things simpler.”  This is good advice and something I’m going to seriously consider.

“Would it be too much work to get more mat colors than black? Black looks nice, but can take away from some pieces depending on color. A color mat can really enhance the work. Good luck!!”  and another comment in the same vein “White matte and $40. I don’t like black mattes. Too heavy. Your prices are too low.”  Matting is always tough.  With lighter colour work or black and white, a white mat usually looks best.  With darker work (such as mine), a black mat usually looks best.  And you’ll easily find people who will disagree with both statements.  In a perfect world, a painting looks best when matted to reflect colours in the painting and matches the decor of a room.  How do you do that for every customer?  Well the simple answer is that you can’t.  White or black are the choices and as in all things, people prefer one or the other.  For continuity in an artist’s work and to minimize cost and inventory, it isn’t advisable to offer both, because hanging together on a wall or display, they will actually look bad beside each other.  As for choosing a coloured mat, that’s a minefield.  A number of people said they didn’t like the purple of the Wolf T-shirt, even though it did draw out colours from the painting itself.  Honestly, purple wouldn’t have been my first choice, either.  But it was still the most popular shirt in the survey.

I trust the advice of my printer, as he does both white and black mattes for many different artists.  After seeing these comments, I asked him what he thought and he said he thinks my work looks better with a black mat.  My wife agrees and I think so, too.  Art is a such a tricky business, because everybody likes different things for different reasons, and you can’t please everybody.  So I’m sticking with the black mats, but wouldn’t tell somebody they were wrong if they swapped it out for a white or coloured mat.  Even still, with the choice of only the black mat, the vast majority still preferred to have a print sold with the mat.

“A set of postcards of your totems on a special paper would be pretty cool.”  That’s a great idea.  While I was going to have postcards for promotional reasons, I hadn’t considered doing that for each animal as a little collector piece on their own.  Might sell them for $1.00 or $2.00 each or two or three for $5.00.  I already have art cards licensed through Island Art Publishers, but promotional postcards for the show might be a nice addition.

“Would like to see your totems on ball caps and mugs.”  That’s a licensing thing and while I wouldn’t produce them myself, you never know what might come around in the future.  I’m always talking to other companies and if I find the right one, you may get to see both.

A lot to consider with this survey and I would like to thank everyone who participated.  The expense of this show is significant, thousands of dollars to prep the booth and stock inventory, so I really wanted to put my best foot forward.  The input was very helpful and I imagine there will be other opportunities in the future for me to ask for your opinion and offer prints as prizes.  As always, however, you can always share your thoughts with me  on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

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Comments and Choices

PostitJust as artists discover their own style,  freelance long enough and you’ll discover your business style, too.  As the online world changes, faster today than ever before, so will your way of doing things.  For example, when I began to post editorial cartoons on this site, I disabled comments because I knew it would turn into a melee of differing political opinions.  While I agree with a person’s right to express themselves and argue their point, anybody who strongly disagrees with my point of view can send me an email or write a letter to the editor of one of the publications across Canada in which my cartoons appear.  But all one has to do is look at almost any political story on a news website and you’ll see how quickly it gets turned into a free-for-all brawl.  Pro-Conservatives will seize any opportunity to further their cause, regardless of whether or not the story warrants it.  Pro-Liberals do the same thing.  Any real discussion is lost amid the noise.  To avoid that, comments have never been allowed on editorial cartoons on this site.

An argument has been made by some in recent years to disable comments on blog posts as well.  While I’d never given it much thought, I’ve read some of those arguments, and recently revisited that question.   When it comes to interaction with artists, freelancers, and the folks who just generally like my cartoons, social media is where the action is, at least for me.  Facebook is where I get the most feedback and where people seem to like to comment the most.  It’s also where I get the most questions about how I do things, requests for help, and just general discussion on cartoons, blog posts, and other links.  I regularly get commission work on that platform as well.

Twitter is another form of interaction that has proven to be worth my while lately.  Not only does it grant access to other people I don’t interact with on Facebook, but I get real time information in short bursts.  It also forces me and others to be succinct in posting any links and comments.  It took me a long time to see the value in Twitter, but I get it, now, and am using it daily.

Google+ is still an effort for me.  I don’t get nearly the interaction there that I get on Facebook or Twitter and have been having a hard time finding the value in the platform.  While some would argue that Google+ is where everybody is going, I’m just not seeing it.  For awhile, it seemed to be taken over by photographers or at least hyped to be the place where photographers should be, but I only post there lately because it takes two more seconds after I’ve posted to Facebook and Twitter.

When it comes to blog posts, there are many who will tell you that you must keep a blog, while there are others who’ll say blogging is dead.  I still believe in keeping a blog, but only because I enjoy writing.  If you don’t like writing or teaching, you won’t enjoy it or keep it current.

The point of all of this rambling about my online posting practices is to show that what works for one person may not work for another.  Many self proclaimed authorities will tell you the exact methods and devices you must use when it comes to self promotion, but usually they’re just validating their own choices.  It’s the same reason the Apple vs. PC, Nikon vs. Canon, Coke vs. Pepsi debates still rage on.  If you can get other people to do what you do, then it somehow means you’re right.

The reason so many more people are choosing freelancing as a career is that they want the freedom to make their own choices.  It’s a very big reason why I chose to do it.  I would much rather screw up and learn from my own mistakes, than take orders from a boss who refuses to admit he ever makes any.  With that freedom of choice, it’s important to listen to other professionals and find out what your options are, but then make your own choices based on what you feel is right for your business.  Weigh the facts, but trust your gut.  We’re all just winging it, even the so-called experts.

When it comes to my website, I think of it like a storefront or a brochure.  It’s the image of my business that I want to project.  That means controlling the content, the look, and what gets posted.

I don’t get  a lot of comments on this site in the first place, largely because most people choose to interact with me on social media, and to be honest, that’s the way I prefer it.  While many of the comments I do get are positive and supportive, I regularly have to weed out the ones that are argumentative, ill-informed, and some that are so long, they’re blog entries all on their own.  It’s a time suck, and lately, it’s just not working for me.  By censoring comments, as well as picking and choosing which I want to show, it would be hard to argue that it’s real interaction, anyway.  Consequently, if I allowed anybody to post whatever they want, it would quickly begin to look like a business where the front window is covered in leaflets, announcements, and propaganda for other businesses, agendas, and personal causes.  I find neither of those options particularly appealing.  The main reason I chose not to sell ad space on my site was to avoid that problem.

Freelancing is a tough gig most of the time, but if you try to please everybody, you’ll be miserable.  Make your own choices, judge their effectiveness, make new choices.  Keep what works, discard what doesn’t.  Repeat ad infinitum.

Today, I’ve decided that even though blog comments used to be mainstays in online interaction, I believe that social media has replaced their usefulness, so I’m disabling them on my website.

Thank you for those who have commented on this site in the past, and just because I’m turning comments off here, doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you.  I’m on social media every day and am happy to talk with you there.  Chances are you found this link on social media in the first place.  But if not, here are the links to my social media accounts.

Facebook: LaMontagneCartoonInk

Twitter: @CartoonInk

Google+: Patrick LaMontagne

 

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Martin, Emilio, and Tom’s Road.

PromoSheenFinalSometime around the middle of December, I finished painting a portrait of Martin Sheen.  More accurately, the portrait was of his character, Tom, from the movie The Way, written for the screen and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez.  While the painting was done purely for my own enjoyment, sometimes a seemingly innocent pursuit will take on a life of its own.  Since the movie inspired me to paint the portrait, as did their father/son memoir ‘Along the Way,’ I wrote about that when I posted the painting.  Click here, if you’d like to read it.

As is my practice, I posted the link on social media and also tagged Estevez’s account on Twitter, especially since he has used that vehicle to promote the film.  I thought that if he saw it, he might like what I wrote and painted, but didn’t actually expect anything to come of it.  Twitter is a busy place and it’s impossible to keep up, so a lot more gets missed than noticed.

Imagine my surprise when just a couple of hours later on that same Saturday, an email arrived from Estevez via my website.  He thanked me for my support of the film and then asked about buying a print, with the intent of giving it to his father for Christmas.  With just five business days remaining, I had to tell him that even a rush job would have been impossible by the 25th, especially considering that I’d want to be meticulous about the proofing, given the recipient.   I told him I’d be happy to set things in motion in January, if he was willing to wait.  He was very gracious, completely understood, and we began talking about it again after the holidays.

In the meantime, his mother had seen the painting and wanted him to inquire about buying the original.  Here’s the technology hiccup when you start talking originals and digital painting.  A digital painting exists only on a hard drive and screen until it’s printed, so there really is no original in the traditional sense.  One solution is to supply documentation that certifies a specific print to be the original.  Mine are always printed on canvas and I gave Emilio the option of choosing the size.  After a month of proofing, printing, signing, and packaging, the original 18″X24″ stretched canvas shipped last Friday.  I also certified the canvas itself by writing the title of the piece and an additional signature on the back.  Incidentally, until all of this occurred, I hadn’t titled this painting, but decided it needed one before it shipped.  Yesterday, “Tom’s Road”  arrived at Martin’s home.

MartinSheenThe reason for this piece in the first place was to take a small break from the commercial work, as every image I’ve created lately has been a product.  The whole point was to get away from everything being about money and marketing, if only for a moment.  I wanted to paint my best portrait work, for no other reason than that.  I am a commercial artist, no doubt about it, and I make a good living at it.   This is my business, my livelihood, and my career.  But this piece was special, inspired by a movie I loved, which was, in a way, a light at the end of a tunnel.  My gut instinct told me that to try and make money from this would have tainted the whole experience, something that was worth much more to me than a paycheque.  So, when Emilio asked to buy the original, I chose not to put a price on the work, but still offered the painting, charging only my printing and shipping costs.

Sometime in the near future, I’ll be receiving a paper print that I’ve asked them to sign.  I’ll have it framed for my office, a souvenir of the experience, and a constant reminder that I must make time for personal work.  I’ve also asked Emilio to have Martin sign one more print, something I can reserve for a charity auction sometime in the future.  He was happy to oblige, and you can bet that I’m going to be very picky about which cause benefits from this unique item.

There is no doubt in my mind that had I attempted to orchestrate any of this, had I painted the portrait with the intention of bringing about these events, none of it would have happened.  I created this portrait for me, to remind myself why I paint, and since I truly enjoyed working on it, that was enough.   But to have it appreciated by his family, was a wonderful and unexpected bonus, not to mention a validation of my recent choices.

If all that weren’t enough, the greatest compliment I received was something offered by Estevez in one of his e-mails this past month.  He said, “…the image is gorgeous and you have captured my father in a way that few have.”

It just doesn’t get much better than that.

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A couple of hours at the zoo

Penguin2

This past Thursday found me in Calgary, running a few errands that had been piling up.  Had to exchange a faulty hard drive, buy some office supplies, and meet with the Retail Manager at the Calgary Zoo.  I’ve had Totem prints in their store for a little while now, and we’re still learning what works and finding new ways to promote the work.  I also wanted to show her the shirt samples I received recently, as the zoo sells The Mountain tees already.  So while I did get a cartoon out that morning before I left, it was largely an out-of-office day.  I had been trying to get into the city for about a week, but the roads and weather kept putting the kibosh on that.  Calgary is only about an hour drive from Canmore, but Hwy 1 can get slick and the main city routes are even more treacherous in bad weather, especially considering that many Alberta drivers are notoriously aggressive.  My rule of thumb has always been, if the weather is bad and I don’t have to be on the road, don’t bother.   It only takes one wing-nut in a hurry to ruin your whole week.

Turns out that the repeated delays benefited me a great deal.  When I finally did get into the city, the weather was downright warm for winter, thanks to Chinook winds, and a day running errands turned into a great outing.  Considering I was at the zoo already and have an annual membership, I brought my camera to see if I could get some reference photos.  I’ve said many times that I’m not a good photographer, largely because I have no interest in putting in the work required to become one.  I take snapshots.  On recent trips to the zoo, I had a borrowed zoom lens and tripod for our camera, an older Nikon D-60, which is basically just a higher end point-and-shoot, or at least it is the way I use it.  With the zoom lens, I just couldn’t take a decent shot to save my life, so this time I left it at home.  Setting the camera on automatic, I figured I’d wing it and take what I could get.

The strategy worked well.  The Calgary Zoo is very popular and is often quite busy.  Their newest exhibit, the Penguin Plunge that opened last year, can often have very long lineups in the summer months.  When you do get in, you only have a limited time to spend, as others are waiting.  It’s a great enclosure, designed so that you’re so close it would be simple to reach out and touch a penguin as it swims by, the water’s surface at chest level.  Of course, there are attendants on hand to ensure people don’t touch them, but it’s great to have that proximity.

Penguin

On Thursday, the zoo was so quiet, that after my meeting, I just walked into the Penguin Plunge, and spent almost a half hour in there just snapping photos.  The penguins were active, talkative and a lot of fun to watch.  At any one time, there were only about 10 people in the enclosure.  Must have taken a hundred or more photos, and about 10 of those ended up being great for painting reference.  While I’ve already painted a Rockhopper Totem, I’ll be painting a Gentoo at some point as well.  That’s the species in the above image.

Meerkat

Once I got to this little meerkat, she seemed to have no issues with me taking photos of her.  Turning her head this way and that, only about three or four feet away, she stood tall, crouched down, gave me almost every angle I could want.  A gentleman standing near me actually said, “She’s posing for you!”  It certainly seemed that way.

And finally, while I was hoping for some photos of the red pandas, just before I reached their enclosure, a woman deliberately changed her direction, walked over to me and said, “They just fed the tigers.  They’re all right there if you want to get some pictures.”

I thanked her (it really was a nice gesture on her part) and walked over to their nearby enclosure.  Sure enough, the mother and her three cubs, who aren’t small anymore, were lying down together eating whole raw chickens.  A real treat to see as one cub snarled at another for getting too close to his meal, the mother grooming one of the other cubs, just getting to see them so close and active on a such a nice day, with very few people around.  Even through glass, the shots turned out quite well.

KittyWhile I`d thought I’d taken 500 photos,  turns out it was around 400 as there were already a bunch on the card.  The wonders of digital cameras, taking as many shots as you like without incurring any expense.  Once I got home, I just opened up the card in Adobe Bridge and started deleting everything with bad focus, light, composition and within 10 minutes, I had about 20 photos that will serve me well for future painting reference.  I had a very enjoyable day, one of the best I’ve had at the zoo.  Not bad for an errand day in the city.

 

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Spec Work and why you should avoid it

When freelancers are first starting out and are very hungry, both literally and creatively, they’ll pretty much work for anybody.  Almost all of us get taken at one time or another, and often more than once, by the promise of exposure, low pay now/higher pay later, or just cheap clients.  Most of these lessons have to be learned the hard way, and while it’s easy to blame the client, it’s really our own fault for agreeing to the work in the first place.  Spec work falls into the same category of ‘should have known better.’  In the case of a graphic designer, for example, a ‘client’ will ask you to submit a logo and if they like it, they’ll pay you for it, but if they don’t, they won’t.  Basically all of the risk lands on the creative and the client gets free work done.  Try doing that in a restaurant, ordering five meals and only paying for the one you really liked.

“Spec work (short for speculative) is any job for which the client expects to see examples or a finished product before agreeing to pay a fee,” a quote by Eric Miller in an About.com article.

This is also how many design and illustration contests work as well.  They solicit many entries with the promise of big prizes or cash to the winner, and often second or third prize as well.  What they’re really getting is a ton of submissions for their project at a fraction of what it would normally cost them.  If you read the fine print for most of these contests, you’ll see that they still have the right to use all submitted images in a collection, book, future project and online with no compensation to the designer or artist as well.  This is why I don’t submit to editorial cartoon contests, unless it’s work I’ve already done.  I’ll frequently see ads for cartoon contests out of places like Romania or some other foreign country where you have to draw a cartoon or caricature on a theme, usually a politician you’ve never heard of.  All of the above mentioned criteria apply.  And while the contests are legit, and the prize money is real, the benefit is almost entirely to the company, organization, or person holding the contest.

Spec work is something to be avoided,  especially if you already have a body of work where your skill can be adequately measured.  If somebody asked me to paint their dog and told me they’ll only pay me if they like it, the conversation is going to end pretty abruptly.

So why did I just complete a spec project this morning?

Well, there are a few reasons.  First of all, it was an interesting challenge, something I hadn’t done before.  I was tasked with painting somebody else’s artwork, a cartoonist/animator whose work I greatly admire, because this person has drawing skills that I don’t.  A chance to paint a character designed by this person was intriguing.  Also, the company in question is well established and one I would like to work for on a contract basis doing just this kind of work.  While it’s work I can never claim as my own, and likely never show on my own site, it’s good practice of my painting skills.  To be considered for this work, I had to submit a painting test, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only artist tasked to do so.  There was no ambiguity in what I was agreeing to.  Paint the character, deliver it on a tight deadline (something I didn’t know going in), and if they like the choices I made and the look I came up with, I get paid for the work and will likely get additional work as a result painting this and other characters.  It was basically an audition.  And even though I have no doubt at all that I will be paid if my work is chosen, it’s still spec work.

Along with my other deadlines, I suddenly had a new one which meant working late last night and getting up very early this morning to submit the work on time.  It was hours of work that I may not get paid for.  As I’ve worked very hard to develop my painting skills, I have no doubt in the quality of my work.  That being said, there are many painters out there a lot better than I am and they could have submitted a test as well.  Also, if I don’t get chosen, it could simply be a fact that my style doesn’t suit the project.  My work may not be chosen for any number of reasons and I’m OK with that.  I went into this with my eyes wide open, basically expecting that I was working for free, with no assumption that I’ll ever get paid for it.

Now, all that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the test.  It was a great character I was painting, the drawing of which is currently beyond my cartoon skills.  And even though I’m pretty tired right now, it was a bit of a rush this morning, getting up an hour earlier at 4AM, and scrambling to get it done, not to mention I had two editorial cartoons to get done this morning as well.  I feel good about the work I submitted and have divorced myself from the outcome.  If I get the gig, great, if I don’t, that’s fine, too.  I have plenty of work without it.

But this is a strong warning.  Think very carefully before accepting any spec work.  Know what you’re getting into and if it seems like you’re being taken advantage of and you’re uncomfortable with that, turn it down.  If you don’t value your work, then nobody else will.  And if you do choose to take the occasional spec job just because you find it interesting and are willing to do the work for free, know that you’re doing it for that reason, and have no expectations afterward.

 

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Another iPad Painting

JeffTamagini

My  buddy, Jeff Tamagini, is a photographer and architect who lives in Boston.  While we keep in touch online during the year, we only see each other in Vegas at Photoshop World.  This past September, he and I were having lunch at The House of Blues in Mandalay Bay.  The place has kind of low lighting, like a lot of bars, so when Jeff was checking something on his iPad, the screen lit up his face from underneath and I thought it looked pretty cool.  So I asked him to hold the pose, and I took a few shots with my phone.  As the only real light was the iPad and I couldn’t use a flash, the photo didn’t end up being all that sharp for detail, but I thought it would make a good practice piece for an iPad painting.

For the tech details, I was using a Wacom Bamboo Stylus, alternating between the regular version and the newer Pocket Bamboo Stylus.  I wanted to use the very expensive Jaja stylus I just bought for close to $100 with shipping, but turns out the damn thing is a huge disappointment.  It’s supposed to be pressure sensitive by way of a triple A battery and an ultrasonic speaker that communicates with the iPad microphone.  You can adjust the volume of the pen to better communicate with the iPad, but I when I turned the volume up (because it wasn’t working right), I could actually hear it, which was annoying, and the battery life is ridiculously short.  The manufacturers recommend you don’t use rechargeable batteries.  Not exactly the most environmentally friendly device.  It was pressure sensitive, sure, but the lines weren’t smooth, the performance was twitchy, basically I used it for a half hour and then went back to the Bamboo.  You  shouldn’t have to think about your hardware while painting.  The Wacom Bamboo Stylus is still the best one I’ve used.

I’m still using the first generation iPad, bought it a few months after the initial release.  While I’ve got a lot of use out of it, and my money’s worth, it’s starting to show it’s age and it’s beginning to have performance issues.  Apps crash often enough to be annoying, despite my turning off location services, running only one or two apps at the same time, and doing everything else that’s been suggested to streamline operations.  The fact is, every time Apple releases a new iOS. it has a harder time running on the old hardware.  Pretty smart…force your consumers to buy the new tech by rendering the old tech useless.  My next tablet might not be an iPad as I’ve become aware of better options out there for a more reasonable price.  For example, the new Wacom Bamboo Stylus feel technology exists in some newer tablets, rendering them truly pressure sensitive out of the box.  The usability will depend on what apps I can get for painting on another device.

The app I use to paint on the iPad is procreate.  I’ve tried a number of them and that’s been my favorite for awhile.  It just has a great interface.  To get around the lack of pressure sensitivity, I just manually adjust the opacity of the brush with my thumb via a convenient slider on the left of the screen, and I’ll also adjust the opacity of different layers.  Anybody who is expecting their tablet to perform like a Cintiq is kidding themselves, so you make do with what you have.  Limiting your options can actually make you a better artist.  The work I’ve seen done with this app on the newer iPads that have better resolution is very impressive.

Which brings me to WHY I paint on the iPad.  The simple answer is that it’s a challenge.  With only low-resolution options, especially with the first-gen iPad, I have to work with what sometimes feels like a blunt instrument to get the likeness down.  There’s no way of painting in details later, because I’m stuck with one size.  The best I can manage is to brush in some speckled texture to suggest detail.  Also, the iPad is portable, just like a sketch book.  This painting was done almost entirely while sitting on the couch watching TV.  I started it in the Fall, but haven’t done anything on it in quite awhile.  Finally picked it up again last week and finished it yesterday morning, working on it in my spare time.  No deadline, no expectations, just practice.  I’m reasonably happy with it, but I think I could have done better if I’d had a better reference photo.

Finally, because I don’t like working with the iPad at full brightness, I always seem to paint darker than I’d like the end result to be.  My eyes get used to it, so I don’t see just how much brightness I’m missing.  Once a painting is done, I bring it into the Snapseed app, make some very harsh brightness and contrast adjustments, then bring it back into procreate on a new layer.  By adjusting the layer opacity, I get the right mix of what I like.  My iPad paintings lack the finesse of the work I do in Photoshop, they’re rougher looking and lack detail, but I find they’re still worth doing.  And it’s fun.

 

 

 

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Two By Two: The Sequel

About three and half years ago, I created the artwork for a family board game called Two By Two for Valley Games, a company out of Calgary.  Around that time, I actually illustrated four titles for them and they were a lot of fun.  A small company at the time, but with great momentum and their board and card games have become popular worldwide with fans.  While I haven’t done anything in a couple of years for them, I recently got the call to create artwork for an expansion pack to the original Two By Two game.  Here’s the original artwork I did.  The box cover…

Ship at Port

…and the animals…

AnimalSheet2009

My artwork in general is constantly being refined.  While the look of my work years ago is still recognizable as mine, I’m always trying to improve, so while I’m still proud of the work I did on the original Two By Two, the choices I would have made if I’d done it from scratch today would likely have been different.  Everything from the animal design to the colour and texture choices, not because I don’t like what I did, but just because artwork evolves.  With this expansion pack, however, it had to look very much the same.  So rather than designing characters from scratch, I used the old animal style as models for the new animals, and the old cover as a model for the new cover.  The titles are still the same at this point, but I know I’ll be asked to change them soon.  They don’t quite know what to call it yet.  Two By Two 2 doesn’t really have much of a ring to it.  The invoice has been sent, but I knew from the beginning that this change would be requested at some point in the future.  Here’s the new cover…

Cover2013

…and the NEW animals…

AnimalSheet2013

The beauty of Photoshop files, and designing with layers is that I was able to use some of the parts of the original file for the new cover, which really helped with the continuity of the look.  The water texture, sky, clouds, titles, Valley games logos were all re-used.  The rest of the cover was new drawing and painting.  The animals can’t be all that detailed because they go on small tokens.  If you use too much texture for something small, it can look muddy when it’s shrunk.  The expansion pack box is a lot smaller and has different dimensions.

One of the problems artists have a hard time getting used to when working for commercial companies is that you’re not creating art for yourself, you’re creating it for a product.  Even with licensing on work already done, you have to expect that your work is going to be changed, and it’s up to you how much change you’re comfortable with.  For example, my t-shirts with The Mountain are designed from my Totem paintings, but due to the look and texture of their shirts, they don’t want the backgrounds I painted, so I remove them.  They may also scale, crop, mask and compose the image differently than I did it, most noticeably with my Ground Squirrel Totem, where they didn’t use the body.  I am comfortable with these changes because it’s still my painted work, but they know their business better than I do, and they haven’t ruined my work by tailoring it (pun intended) to their product.

With something like this board game, however, I was hired to create specific illustrations.  The work is not based on my vision.  I was given a list of animals to draw and I don’t even know why these specific animals were requested.  For example, there’s a bunny AND a rabbit.  I’m curious as to why, but I can live without knowing.  There’s also a mythical chimera, the goat/lion/dragon heads.  On the cover itself, all of those elements you see were specifically ordered.  Everything from the nest in the tree to the dolphin and platypus in the water.

While I still own copyright of all of these images, I’ll very likely never use them for anything else but my portfolio, because they were drawn specifically for Valley Games.  When you’re a freelance artist, a lot of your work is just going to be work based on other people’s ideas.  This was still fun to work on, and proved to be a challenge to get everything to look like the older game, but it’s contracted work, which is what most freelancing is about.  It’s a great job, but you still have to treat it like a job.  That means giving the customer what they want, making sure they’re happy with it, and moving on the next project.

In this video, you can see a review of the original game.  I designed the animals for the tokens, and the cover, but not the board or other token textures.  They also made changes to the cover layout, which is why I supply the finished product in layers.  Changes are expected and they need to have a flexible file.

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To thine own self be true

SnowmanThe last few weeks have been less than stellar.  While I find winter tough to take most years, a cold snap hits my mood especially hard.  When the temperature drops to -20C and below, I’m about the unhappiest camper you’re going to find.  Vitamin D, sunlamps, and other home remedies, I’ve tried ’em all.  Short of moving away to a warmer climate for 6 months of the year, I’ve just learned I have to ride it out.  Add to that the holiday season, of which I am not a fan, and a nasty cold that knocked me down hard on my one slow week of the year, and the last few weeks have felt like I’ve been living at the bottom of a deep dark hole.  Don’t get me going again on the fact that I’m supposed to be in Vegas this week.

There seems to be this ridiculous belief that if you are fortunate enough to love what you do for a living, you’re happy and upbeat all the time, and everything is right in the world, every minute of the day.  Trust me, that’s not the case.  While I’d much rather chart my own course than have somebody else tell me where to go and how to do it,  there will always be bad days and bad weeks, just like at any job, even one you enjoy.  Think of it this way, if somebody offered you your favourite food for dinner tonight, you’d jump at the chance.  If they offered it to you tomorrow, you might still be happy.  Now, imagine you have to eat it every night for the next year.  Would it still be your favourite, or would you be willing to pay anything for a rice cake?

It is not only in an artist’s nature to keep trying new things and new ways of being creative, it’s an absolute necessity.  If new challenges don’t present themselves, you have to go looking for them, otherwise what used to be exciting just becomes routine.  Creativity doesn’t do well with routine.  It withers and ends up on life support.

There is an elusive state of being that we all seem to be looking for called ‘balance.’  Parents try to find the balance between a fulfilling work and home life, workaholics need to balance their schedule and time off, creatives look for a balance between inspired work and selling out.  I’ve come to the conclusion that this balance is an illusion, it doesn’t exist, and that to try to find it leads to a futility that only makes  a person feel even worse about their situation.  This is largely because your perception of balance is fluid.  Find that extra hour in a week to read a book, and you’ll be looking for two next week.  Manage that, and you’ll be wanting a whole day off, then two, then three and pretty soon you’re running out of money because you’re never working.  Balance is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The closer you move toward it, the further it moves away.

Perhaps you’ve heard the fable about the scorpion and the frog.  The scorpion needs a ride across the river and asks the frog for a lift.  The frog declines saying the scorpion will just sting him.  The scorpion argues that it if he did that, he’d sink, too, so the frog gives in to a logical argument.  The scorpion climbs up on the frog’s back and they start off across the river.  Before too long, the scorpion stings the frog, and the frog says, “Why did you do that?  Now we’ll both drown!”

The scorpion says, “I can’t help it.  It’s just my nature.”

Rather than listen to all of the people that tell me I should relax more and take time off and try to find some balance, I’ve decided to make peace with the fact that I’m only content when I’m working.  Even when I’m not working, I’m thinking about work.  With that in mind, I’ve packed my next few months, and most of it will be quite challenging, because a lot of it will be new ground.  I’ll be recording a new DVD on painting portraits, something I’ve been talking about for months but haven’t actually gotten around to doing.  I’ve been commissioned to paint a couple of cat portraits and have received inquiries about two more pet portraits this week.  Another Totem is being prepped to paint as is another portrait, a painting of one of my absolute favorite characters in film.  The last one, I’ll be trying to paint in Corel Painter.  I haven’t used the Painter software since Painter Classic many years ago, and I’ve been wanting to try Painter 12, bought this past week.  The best way to do so is to just throw myself into a painting and learn as I go.  I have no desire to stop painting in Photoshop, but I also don’t want to be restricted to it, either.

There are a couple of online courses I’ve wanted to take for awhile, and there’s no time like the present.  Waiting for my schedule to slow down is just another way of saying that it’s never going to happen.

And finally, I’m well into the planning for my booth at the Calgary Expo in April.  There’s a lot to think about and organize, everything from which prints to sell and how many of each, banner design, and all of the other logistics involved with having my own booth and selling my own work at the event.  It’s very intimidating, I’m likely going to be stressed about it, but at least it’s not routine.

Some of the work will be fulfilling, some won’t.  Some of the deadlines will be ridiculously short, others will give me far too much time, which inevitably leads to procrastination and working at it last minute, anyway.  There will be up days, low days, but mostly just middle of the road days where it feels just like punching a clock, just like any other job.  That’s the cold hard truth of it and anybody who is thinking about being creative for a living should know that.

Motivation and inspiration, these are wonderful things.  Sometimes it’s the kick in the ass that will get you moving when you feel like you’ve got cinder block boots on.  But when everybody is telling you to be Polly Anna, optimistic, happy go lucky, and you-can-do-it, it can also wear on you.  Chasing that high will eventually lead to an overdose.  From time to time, you just need to turn off all of that noise and just get the work done, regardless of how you feel about it.  That’s all anybody does, no matter what they do for a living.

So what’s the point of this melodramatic post?  Simply put, sometimes it’s OK to feel bad even when things are good.  Don’t beat yourself up about it.  The pressure as a freelancer to be ‘up’ all the time is maddening and I’d bet that a lot of folks out there, the ones you think are riding high all the time, are either faking it as a marketing tool or they’re heavily medicated.  Even the most optimistic of personalities has down days, too, and you’re entitled to yours.  I’d rather share with you the reality of being a self-employed creative than be a complete hypocrite and sell you a bill of goods.  In my experience, it can do a lot more harm than good.

But this too shall pass.  For while I’m having a few down days lately,  I know that two weeks from now, you’ll see me giddy with excitement when I pick up a certain painting from the printer.  Bet on it.  After that, there will be something else exciting, and before too long, it’ll be Spring again, my favourite time of the year.  Enjoy the highs, resent the lows, but be who you are and stop trying to please everybody all the time.  It’s exhausting!

You may not be happy all the time, but at least you’ll be sane.

 

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A work visa? But, I’m Canadian.

This year could have started better.  I just cancelled my flight, hotel and other arrangements for CES in Vegas next week and I’m not too happy about it.

I was supposed to be working in the Wacom booth for the Consumer Electronics Show next week, leaving Monday morning, coming home on Friday.  While I did a demo presentation at their booth at Photoshop World last year,  I wasn’t compensated for that appearance, so it didn’t pose a problem.  For CES, however, Wacom was sending me there and we overlooked something very important.

Canadians need a work visa to work for an American company in the United States.   I honestly didn’t know this and neither did Wacom, as this was a new experience for both of us.  My research over the past 24 hours has shown that most Canadians who get paid to travel to work at trade shows, do guest lectures, and speak at U.S. conferences are completely unaware that without a work visa, they’re doing so illegally.  If you’re compensated for your appearance, even if it’s just your expenses, you need a work visa.

Believe it or not, this came to my attention just yesterday while my wife and I just happened to be watching a National Geographic Channel series, “Border Security” which looks at the challenges faced by Canadian Border Services at the three different types of entry (air, sea, land) into British Columbia.  An American traveling to Canada needs a work visa for trade show work, guest lecturing, speaking, etc. as well.  One particular case sounded so similar to mine, and the person was denied entry into Canada, that I started looking around and found out that I was in trouble.

Had I shown up at the airport and told them what I was doing, completely unaware that I was in violation of Immigration Law, U.S. customs would have likely denied me entry into the U.S. and I’d be doing a quick turnaround heading right back home, my file flagged for all future border crossings.

My research, of course, found plenty of examples of people saying they just say they’re ‘attending’ a conference, rather than working it, and that’s how they get around the rules.  Then there are the people who’ve been caught lying to border security who caution against that tactic.  Border security officers are trained and experienced to know when you’re lying and I’ve always said I’d be a bad poker player.

I have an over-developed sense of ethics that has served me well throughout my life, but I’ll admit it makes me feel like a bit of a pushover sometimes when so many others regularly break laws like this and get away with it.

But here’s the thing.  If I tried to skirt the U.S. border laws by lying about my reasons for heading into the U.S. and they caught me in the lie, I’d be banned from travel to the U.S. for 1-5 years with no opportunity to appeal.  They don’t even have to prove you’re lying, they just have to think you are.  That means I couldn’t even land in the U.S. enroute to somewhere else.  And anybody who has ever had issues crossing the U.S. border will tell you that all it takes is ONE incident and you’ll have issues for the rest of your life, because they make a note of it on your file.  This would be far more damaging to my life and career than missing three days at CES in Vegas next week.

Just the fact that I called the U.S. consulate this morning to confirm all of my concerns, and they won’t even talk to you without your giving them your passport number, means I can expect that the inquiry alone is now on my file.  Any entry into the U.S in the near future will be met with additional scrutiny, I’m sure.

There is obviously a lot more for me to learn about this situation.  While the U.S. Consulate in Canada did answer some of my questions, they weren’t very helpful and seemed to have no sympathy for my situation at all.  Just getting to talk to a real person took me four or five different phone numbers and about 20 minutes playing touch-tone Olympics getting through the various menus.  Hitting zero just disconnected the call.

As it stands now, I need to talk to the U.S. Consulate in Calgary to find out exactly which visa I need (there are several kinds), make an appointment for an interview (in person), pay the fee if I’m accepted, obtain letters from any U.S. companies I’m working for, etc.  There are a couple of visas I may need, however, that require this work to be initiated by any company in the U.S. that I’ll be working for on U.S. soil.

Canadians have gotten comfortable with the fact that we are such close friends and neighbours with the U.S. that we’ve started to think that we have certain rights when crossing into the U.S. and it’s just not the case.  The United States is solely concerned with looking after Americans.  While Canadians may have a more trusted status in most cases, we are still visitors in a foreign country.  We can be refused entry for any reason deemed appropriate by the U.S. government and they don’t have to justify it to us.  In today’s charged protectionist climate, the rules are stricter now than they’ve ever been.

The same holds true in reverse, something that surprises many Americans when they travel to Canada as well.

So I’ve learned a valuable and humbling lesson this week, and as with most hard lessons, I’m paying for it by not going to Vegas next week, and worse, not working with Wacom while I was there.  Gut feeling, I did the right thing and even though I’m not a happy camper today, things could have ended up worse in the long run.

If there is a bright spot in all of this, it’s that I found out now, so I could cancel my flight and hotel and only be out a couple of hundred dollars in non-refundable fees.  Had I shown up at the airport and been denied access to the U.S. for lack of a work visa, I would have been out the cost of my flight, first night’s hotel, and the return fee for the airport shuttle I was taking Monday morning to Calgary.

There are a couple of days off in my immediate future.  Self-pity will likely be involved.