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Posted on January 13, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Another iPad Painting

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.

Posted on January 12, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 2 Comments

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…

…and the animals…

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…

…and the NEW animals…

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.

Posted on January 8, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

To thine own self be true

The 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.

Posted on January 2, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 2 Comments

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.

Posted on December 29, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Top 12 of ’12

It’s that time of year when editorial cartoonists and other creative types compile their ‘Best Of’ collections. To be honest, I have no idea if the following cartoons are representative of my best work for 2012. How it works in the world of freelance and self-syndication is that I follow the regional, national and international news each day, decide which stories are big enough or interesting enough to comment on with a cartoon, and then I send the images off to newspapers across the country. If editors like the cartoon, they print it, and I get paid. If they don’t, I try again the next day. At the end of each month, most papers simply tell me how many cartoons they used, but only a few tell me exactly which ones. Preferences vary from region to region, so while a cartoon may play well in Ontario, it might be a dud in Western Canada. That’s the nature of this business, trying to please everybody.

So, when it comes to picking my ‘Best of’ cartoons for 2012, I’m just showing you the ones I liked best out of the 275-300 syndicated cartoons that I drew this year. Could be because the commentary still made me smile when I was going through the archives, or that I remembered enjoying working on the drawing. For example, the Pac-man cartoon has no editorial or political value at all. It’s a seasonal cartoon. But for some reason, I really like it, so it made the list. There are a few that take shots at Prime Minister Stephen Harper in here as well. The other party leaders have no power right now. They’re just noise in the wind. So naturally, the blame is placed at the top, the guy with the power. And considering how much he abuses it, there were a number of cartoons about that this year. Pardon my candor, but that guy just pisses me off.

All the rest were on topics that made me laugh, made me think, or in a perfect world, accomplished both, which is what an editorial cartoon is supposed to do in the first place. For those of you who follow my daily cartoon posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, thanks for your continued support this year. I will do my best to keep you interested and amused in 2013.

To get a better look, click on the page and it’ll allow you to zoom in.

Posted on December 28, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Best of the Outlook Cartoons

Many cartoonists will do a ‘year in review’ this time of year, a selection of what they, their editors, or their readers viewed as their best cartoons of the year. It looks good on the editorial page of a daily newspaper. Since all of my daily work is syndicated and freelance, any selection of my best national cartoons won’t be printed on an editorial page anywhere, although one or two of mine have shown up in dailies where a number of cartoonists have been represented. I’ll have a selection of MY favourite syndicated cartoons here on Monday. But for now, here is the ‘Best of 2012’ selection for the Rocky Mountain Outlook, the local weekly I draw for that covers the communities of Exshaw, Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. We’ve lived in this area for quite awhile, 7 years in Banff, 11 in Canmore, and while we talk about leaving every winter (even just for a few months), I’m pretty sure it’s all talk, at least for a few more years. This is home.

A few notes…we have a bunny problem in Canmore. I could have filled the page with bunny cartoons and had some left over. Banff National Park has a problem with tourists feeding wildlife, especially bears. They’re not tame, people. It’s not a petting zoo! Bottom left, the dogs in the window, refers to a dog attack in March by a cougar in Canmore. A LOT of people told me they loved that cartoon, so I guess it hit home for locals. Bear deaths on the highway is an ongoing issue as well, as people refuse to obey the speed limit. And finally, Banff has an ongoing battle with providing economic stability and growth for a tourist town, located inside of a national park. Never easy, but always fodder for cartoons.

Click on the page to see it larger.

Posted on December 24, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 1 Comment

Miss Moneypenny

This was my last commission painting of this year, a little lady named Moneypenny. She’s a young pup with a great personality and I was given the option of painting her in a realistic portrait style or Totem style, artist’s choice. Believe it or not, there is no exaggeration in this portrait. She was really smiling like this in the reference photo, so I didn’t see the point of painting her in the Totem style.

Moneypenny’s portrait was finished earlier this month, but I wasn’t able to show it ’til now, just in case the recipient happened to see it online. Since I know both the client and the recipient, there was a chance somebody would let it slip, so it was best to hold off. It was printed and stretched on canvas at 12″ x 16″ and framed.

I found out last night that the gift has been given and while her owner loved it, Moneypenny herself was a little freaked out, thinking there was another dog in the house. Apparently she barked at it. Either that was a harsh critique or a wonderful compliment.

Here’s a closeup of the details.

Posted on December 22, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 2 Comments

Looking back on 2012

One of the great things about regularly keeping a blog is that it’s like keeping a journal. I find that each year, I’m actually surprised at how much went on while I was drawing, colouring, and trying to keep from losing my mind.

Here’s a quick recap of the ups, downs, and other stuff that happened in 2012.

This Business of Art.

At the beginning of the year, I canceled my booth at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo because I realized I wasn’t prepared for the April event. In retrospect, and after attending as one of the hoard, it was a good call because I would have done a number of things wrong. It wasn’t the best of times for that particular event this year as they did a number of things wrong as well, a casualty of their own growing popularity. But I’m booked and ready for 2013 and I’m really looking forward to it.

It’s no secret that I enjoy working with Wacom . I had the pleasure of demoing at their booth at Photoshop World in Vegas in September, was a guest on another of their webinars in November, and recorded a few videos for them throughout the year. They’re also sending me to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the second week of January, so it’s clear that Wacom has become a significant part of my life this year.

I’m fortunate to have been invited to be one of the artists represented on Insivity.com, a new site designed to inspire and motivate artists. Still in its infancy and only officially launched this week, I look forward to writing and recording some exclusive material for it. I’ll also be looking to be inspired myself, as we can all use a regular dose of that to keep moving forward.

Hardware and Software

Another Wacom highlight this year was the introduction of the Intuos5 tablets and the new Cintiq displays. Every time I think they can’t make these products better, I’m happy to be proven wrong. Both the Intuos5 medium and the Cintiq 24HD display are now tools I use every day and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

After 6 years using a great computer, it was time to bite the bullet and have a new one built this year. While the last one worked great, it was Windows XP, only had 250GB of hard drive space, and was starting to have trouble running the big files. I more than got my money’s worth from it, so no regrets. Without boring you with the details, the new computer is top of the line and a real pleasure to use.

Photoshop CS6 was launched this year and while there were no particular ‘must-haves’ in the features for me, when you record training materials, you need to be using the latest software.

What with a complete upgrade of all of my software and hardware, anything I can’t accomplish in 2013 will be a failing in my skills, not my equipment.

Speaking and Training

I’ve been speaking to schools on digital art and editorial cartooning for a number of years, but with my ever increasing workload, I’ve had to be selective about how many of these I agree to. Locally, I consider it part of my obligation to contribute to the community I’ve lived in for almost 20 years. Outside of the Bow Valley, however, there is a fee for my time and travel expenses.

I enjoyed spending an afternoon with a group of art teachers in Red Deer a couple of months ago, introducing them to the entry level Wacom tablets and hopefully inspiring them to spend more time with the technology. I found out that more of their students are requesting training in digital art. A fledgling medium has now become main stream and I thought it great that traditionally trained art teachers were so willing to embrace it for the benefit of themselves and their students.

I had hoped to have recorded my next DVD for PhotoshopCAFE by now, Painting Portraits in Photoshop, but I had to keep putting it off in favour of more pressing obligations. One of the obstacles was the technology. I needed Photoshop CS6 and a new machine to run it. Now that I no longer have that excuse, recording the DVD has been bumped up the priority list and I look forward to having it done in the first quarter of 2013.

Prints and Products

In a sad turn of events this year, Two Wolves Trading Co. closed the doors in September. It was the exclusive venue for my limited edition Totem prints and matted paper prints in Canmore. The owners, Andrea and Michelle, did a lot for promoting my work. Between their fun personalities and kindness, including that of their staff, it was a pleasure to have had my work sold in their store.

While the closing of the store did have an impact on my business, it was more disappointing to see friends close up shop. A walk downtown always involved stopping in to Two Wolves to say Hi and kid around. I still miss that. Even though my work is available at About Canada in Banff, I’ll be looking for a new venue in Canmore in the new year, but it won’t be the same.

My prints were added to the inventory at the Calgary Zoo retail store this year. Just a few paintings to start, but I plan to add fuel to that fire in the coming year.

In the meantime, I continue to sell the prints online through my own store. I recently sent an email to my web designer, Erik Bernskiold, thanking him again for the great job he did on my site. Everything works flawlessly. A sale I had earlier this month was a lot of fun and worked very well. It’s something I plan to do again sometime in the future.

One of the highlights of this year for my work was licensing five of my Totem paintings to The Mountain Corporation out of Keene, New Hampshire. Their T-shirts are everywhere around the world, from retail outlets and zoos, to big box and online stores. I was very pleased to have my work added to their catalog and I’m optimistic that these five will just be the beginning. Having received my samples just this past week, I was very impressed with the quality of both the shirts themselves and the printing.

A lot of other little moments and events throughout the year, but through it all, there were well over 300 editorial cartoons, more than a dozen illustration gigs, and 15 paintings. While going through my work this year, it’s amazing how much of it I thought I’d done LAST year or even the year before.

With the exception of one commission piece I’m still waiting for permission to post, these are the paintings I completed in 2012. Clicking on any of the names or images will take you to the original blog post.

The Pets

In order, here are the commissions I enjoyed painting this year. We’ve got Gilly the Pomeranian, Chase, the German Shepherd with the titanium tooth, Mocha the horse, and a portrait of Brisby, Australian Shepherd/Red Heeler cross.

The People

Again, in order of completion, the first is Jim, one of my closest friends, and a portrait I did as a gift for his 50th birthday. Then there’s Russell Brown in his Abe Lincoln getup, Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth from the movie, Young Frankenstein, and Martin Sheen as Tom, from the movie The Way. I’ll have an update on the last painting sometime early in the new year.

The Totems

In order of when they were completed, here are the Cougar, the Rockhopper Penguin, the Bison, the Otter, and Bald Eagle Totems.

So, all in all, pretty pleased with my body of work this year. Most of what you see above wasn’t planned out at this time last year, so it’ll be interesting to see what I end up painting in 2013. Obviously more Pets, People and Totems (oh my!), but other than that, there are no resolutions for the next year. I’ve just decided to wing it and see what happens.

To you regular readers, those who follow my work on social media and are an endless source of encouragement throughout the year, you have my sincere thanks. The only way I know if my work is making people happy is because you tell me, and it is greatly appreciated. If you are an artist yourself, I hope you have found a little inspiration here, and believe in yourself enough to find your own style of art, something that speaks to you and makes you want to create even more.

Best to you and yours in the coming year!

Posted on December 20, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 1 Comment

Totem T-Shirts have arrived!

Was pleased to receive my first samples of the Totem T-shirts from The Mountain. While there are two others yet to come for the 2013 line, the Wolf Totem and Ground Squirrel Totem, I’ll receive those soon, once they’re up for sale on their site. As the Ground Squirrel Totem went up just recently, I would expect I’ll see the remaining two in January.

I received three shirts of each design in different sizes and was very impressed with the quality of the shirts themselves and the printing, not to mention my name clearly visible on every shirt. Images will always vary in how they look, depending on what surface they’re printed on. Paper looks different than canvas, so I was a little anxious to see how well they would reproduce on fabric. I wasn’t disappointed.

As mentioned before, one of the things I like best about my Totem paintings being licensed to The Mountain is their commitment to being environmentally responsible and their business ethics. I know that we get a little cynical about believing that these days, but I’d invite you to check out their claims at the following link, The Mountain: America’s Greenest T-Shirt Company.

If you’d like to purchase one of these shirts, you can visit their online shop. Here is the link to the four shirts that are currently available, and coming soon, the Wolf Totem will be available as well.

Posted on December 16, 2012February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 1 Comment

Martin Sheen – The Details

Martin Sheen - Portrait Yesterday, I wrote about why I painted this portrait of Martin Sheen’s character, Tom, from the movie ‘The Way.’ Click on this link, if you’d like to read it. Today, I figured I’d write a little bit about the how, as there are always artists out there who want to know the technical details, and I’m happy to oblige.

This painting was done entirely in Photoshop CS6 Extended using a Wacom Cintiq 24″HD display. No photos were used in the painting, aside from reference. I didn’t keep track of how long it took me to complete it because I wasn’t on deadline or in a rush, so while I could easily say 20 hours, it was probably more, over a few weeks. Without a deadline, I was able to nitpick it and get it as close to perfect as my current skills will allow. At some point, however, I just have to call it done, because any changes become so minute that nobody will see them but me.

With all of my previous work, it has become my practice to start a painting at low resolution, usually around 9″X12″ at 72ppi. Then, as the painting progresses, I will keep bumping up the size and resolution. I teach this method in my PhotoshopCAFE DVD, “Animal Painting in Adobe Photoshop” and it’s the same practice I use for painting portraits of people. There used to be two reasons for doing this. First, when you’re working at low-res, you can’t get distracted by putting in too much detail because the size just won’t allow any. This forces me to well establish ‘the bones’ of a likeness before working on wrinkles, skin texture, and hair. The other reason for starting at low-res was that my computer had reached the end of it’s efficient life for this type of work and at full-size and full-res, the brushes just wouldn’t move well enough to make broad strokes across the digital canvas. A completed painting was never more than 18″X24″ at 300ppi, because at that size, I could only work on the fine details without experiencing some lag.

Recently I had a new computer built and I’m back to working on a very current, high end machine. Running 64bit Windows 7 with 64bit Photoshop, 16GB of RAM and a 4GB video card, everything is running incredibly smooth. I could have started and finished this painting at full-res, without any problems at all. BUT, I’m going to continue using my low-res to high-res workflow for the first reason I mentioned. It forces me to get the likeness right and it works well for me. That being said, I decided to push this painting to see if I could make it larger, which also allows more attention to detail. This final painting is 32″X24″ at 300ppi. At that size, the brushes were working just fine, and I could have bumped it up even more, with no issues in performance.

I’m still using the regular brushes in Photoshop and haven’t used any of the Mixer or Bristle brushes in my paintings. Those brushes are designed to simulate traditional media and I honestly don’t feel the need to do that. Digital painting is a medium all on its own, and I don’t try to make it into something it’s not. I do intend to give those other brushes a try in the coming year, however, simply to see if they’ll offer me some choices to make my work better. While I’m pleased with the quality of this painting and very much enjoyed working on it, there will always be room to improve.

Thanks for stopping by.