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And the award goes to…

Over the past week, I’ve received some pats on the back from a few people I’ve run into, in addition to emails from readers and editors congratulating me on my second place for editorial cartooning for the Canadian Community Newspaper Association awards announced recently.  This is not about my syndicated work, just the local cartoons that are published each week in the Rocky Mountain Outlook, here at home.

While I simply said, “Thank You,” and went about my business, I’m going to be politically incorrect and honest about how I feel about it.   Second place is not winning.

I’m sure an Olympic athlete who has won a silver or a bronze medal would disagree with me, and while they’re entitled to their perspective, I don’t share it.  In our current short-sighted cultural climate where every child gets a participation ribbon, competition is discouraged in case our fragile selves be scarred in some horrible last place finish in a potato sack race.  When did the topic of winning and losing become so taboo?  People don’t celebrate the team that almost won the Stanley Cup or the politician who almost won the election.  With the exception of CEOs who get bonuses just for waking up, the corporate world doesn’t reward or function on ‘self-esteem before profit,’ despite what we’re teaching in our schools.

Only one team or individual can win in any competition.  Everybody else loses and is invited to try harder next time.

Even though I enter very few competitions, I do like it when I reach the finals.  Two of my paintings have qualified for Ballistic Publishing’s Exposé 10 book due out in June.  As a digital painter, this is a very prestigious book to be in and I’m thrilled that my work is being considered.  It’s also great for business, because of who sees it.  I want this, but being a finalist doesn’t mean a damn thing if the book comes out and my work isn’t in it.  Aside from the fact that I’ll be encouraged to submit again next year, qualifying or a nomination just means graduating to a higher level of consideration.

In the grand scheme of things, awards are good for two things.  One, they’re validation of a sort that you’ve achieved a level of recognition placing you at the top of your profession, if only for that moment, in the eyes of whomever was judging for that year.  A panel of people come to a collective opinion that your effort was the best of the bunch for that moment in time, and still only compared against the other people who entered.  The other value in an award is that it’s a great marketing tool.  As far as the CCNA awards go, it is in the Rocky Mountain Outlook’s best interest to publicize the 2nd and 3rd place finishes awarded to the staff because it establishes a reputation for being a newspaper of achievers.  That sells advertising and that’s how a newspaper makes money and stays in business.  While I chose the cartoon to be entered in the CCNA awards, I wouldn’t have bothered if the Rocky Mountain Outlook didn’t want me to.

The first awards that I considered significant enough to celebrate were the Guru Awards at Photoshop World in 2010, where one of my paintings won the Illustration Category and another won Best In Show.  Regular readers already know about this, I won’t bore you with more details, aside from saying it meant a lot to me only because I consider my Totem paintings to be my best work.

Let’s be honest, though, it was two years ago.  The moment has most definitely passed and if I were still posting weekly updates and screen shots of those paintings with the express purpose of  bragging about the awards as if they were yesterday, it would be time to consider some serious therapy.  That being said, I’ll put the words ‘award winning artist’ in every promotional bio I write from here on out.  From a marketing perspective, I’d be stupid not to.

There’s a line I love from the movie ‘Superman Returns,’ where Daily Planet editor Perry White says, “Lois, Pulitzer Prizes are like Academy Awards, nobody remembers what you got one for, just that you got one. ”

That’s how I choose to think of the Guru Awards today.  Winning the awards put me in contact with some influential people, resulted in some lucrative commissions, and opened some big doors, but it’s now my job to keep them open.  I realized last year that I don’t need to win another Guru Award.  While I was nominated in 2011,  I didn’t win, and nobody cared.  Seriously, nobody really cared that I didn’t repeat the win, including me.  Doors didn’t close, and people didn’t suddenly stop returning my calls or emails.

As long as my business keeps moving forward, I keep making decent money at it, and I enjoy the work, then I’m happy.  Of course, an award once in awhile will certainly put a shine on the day.  I haven’t yet met an artist that doesn’t enjoy an ego boost.  But I’m not unrealistic when it comes to their importance.   If I win an award, I’ll very likely tell you about it, because that’s what you do when you’re in the business of self-promotion.

Second or third place, however, you’ll most likely hear about from somebody else.

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Risk and Reward

Bighorn Sheep Totem

Fortune favours the bold or err on the side of caution?  Will fast and furious win the race, or is it better to be slow and steady?  These are the constant internal arguments of self-employment.

Freelancing for a living is a risky proposition in the first place.  There is an inherent illusion of security with working for somebody else and a continuity that most people thrive on.  The paycheck twice a month, two or three weeks of vacation every year, and if you’re lucky, a benefits and pension plan to make some of life’s expenses a little easier.   Despite what many aspiring entrepreneurs think, especially creative ones,  just being good at something is not reason enough to quit your job and go into business for yourself.  As much as people complain about their jobs, having somebody else make the decisions is a safety net that most people rely on.

A short time ago, I decided against getting a booth at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, which starts today.  The justification for doing so was two-fold.  First, the cost was pretty significant for the inventory I would have to buy and bring with me, and second, I really haven’t done enough research in order to know what I’d need in my booth so that I didn’t come off looking like an amateur.  My wife and I, along with a good friend of ours will be heading to the event today and tomorrow to check it out, both for enjoyment and to gather information.  I’m still not convinced it’s the right venue for my Totem paintings, so I need to get a better look at some of the other merchandise being sold.

This event is going to be huge this year.  Somehow they managed to get the entire principle cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation to attend, the first time they’ve done so as a group in 25 years.  With those and many other big name guests, they’re expecting 50,000 people this year.  While I’ve never been one who goes after celebrity photos or autographs, I still expect to be standing in a few lineups this weekend, for everything from entering the event each day to using the bathroom.  That’s a LOT of people at an event like that.

Cougar Totem

The questions that have popped up in the last couple of months more than once are, “Did I make the right decision by not getting a booth this year?  Am I missing out on a big money making opportunity or was I smart not to overextend myself?”

These are the types of decisions freelancers are constantly faced with, and the choices made can make or break a business.  On one hand, I could have doubled my workload over the last month, and spent close to four thousand dollars getting and stocking a booth, sold out everything I brought and made a tidy profit.  On the other, I could have come home with a ton of inventory that would sit in the basement, selling over a much longer amount of time in the galleries.  Meanwhile, the debt incurred buying too much inventory all at once would be shrinking my profit margin on each painting until it was paid off.

This week, I placed an order for the largest number of prints to date from my supplier in Calgary.  For a Spring launch of four new paintings, (the ones you see throughout this post) into the galleries in Canmore and Banff, I needed to buy new canvas prints and matted paper prints in various sizes.  The cost was fairly significant, 70 prints in total, and it is inventory that may or may not sell quickly.  We’re approaching the busiest season in this area, however, so this is a risk well worth taking.  My work is already selling in the Bow Valley, and the style of work is proving popular with tourists and visitors.  Past evidence shows that there is a market for my paintings in this area.  While the money spent on this inventory isn’t necessarily a ‘sure thing’, it’s an investment that shows more promise than a brand new venue with a much different demographic.

Magpie Totem

The money spent on the local inventory was still a bit of a financial hardship, but it’s also funds I can recoup relatively quickly, and it doesn’t cripple my other plans and obligations in the long term.  With a couple of new computers to buy in the next few months, my budget will have to stretch, but it won’t snap.  Had I added in the more significant expense of the Calgary Expo on top of that, and sales didn’t materialize, the bills would still get paid, but it would be a very stressful year and other plans would be sacrificed.

But then again, if I’d had great sales, it could have made the rest of the year a little easier and broadened my customer base, too.  There’s just no way of knowing.

You occasionally hear of those entrepreneurs who risk everything and the wheels come up all 7’s on their gamble.  Director, writer and actor Kevin Smith financed the movie ‘Clerks’ completely on several maxed out credit cards, and it paid off very well for him.  He now says that wouldn’t work in today’s movie industry, so it was very much a matter of his timing, too.  But for every one of those, there are thousands of people who lose it all.  Some research shows that 8 or 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first two years, and half of those remaining businesses fail in the first five.  Those individual stories don’t make the news because nobody wants to hear them.  We want to be inspired that just having a dream will guarantee success.

Great Horned Owl Totem

The harsh reality is that motivational  quotes won’t carry you through the dark times when you’re wondering if your mortgage is going to get paid or if the noise outside one night is the repo man coming for your car.  Each person has to make their own decisions about how much they’re willing to risk, despite the frequent unsolicited advice from friends and acquaintances who think nothing of saying, “you should just go for it.”

Those folks are usually working a 9 to 5 job with weekends off, by the way.

For my own part, I seem to be taking enough risks that my business does better every year.  As I’m now in my seventh year of full-time self-employment, and have beaten the start-up odds, I’m obviously doing something right.  I sleep at night, the bills get paid, and I move ahead.  Still, there are times when I wonder about the really big gambles, the ones that could pay off huge, if only I had the temerity to step up and put it all on the line.  There is a massive grey area in between the unknown blackness of total risk and the bright white light of safety.

The best and worst part of it is that with every decision you make, you’ll just never know if you missed the boat or dodged a bullet, and you have to make peace with that.

 

 

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Cartooning on Election Day

Today is the day after the Alberta provincial election.  To set the stage, there were four parties, the right-wing Progressive Conservatives who’ve been in power for 41 years, the Wildrose Party, a very new party even more right-wing than the PC Party,  the Liberal Party and the Alberta New Democrat Party.  The last two didn’t really stand a chance of winning, and all of the polls were indicating the the Wildrose Party could not only win, but might get a majority.

Alberta’s election was making headlines nationwide, because this province has huge deposits of natural resources which makes it a very wealthy province in that department.  Many in Canada were watching this one closely.  For example, a cartoon I did about Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Party, a couple of weeks ago was published in a number of my Ontario papers.  I didn’t expect that.

Again, ALL of the pollsters were predicting that the Wildrose Party was going to take the election in a big way.

Without getting into the reasons why, the results last night had the PC Party win their 12th consecutive majority, taking 61 seats.  The Wildrose Party got 17, making them the Official Opposition, the Liberals and the NDP each got 4 seats.  It wasn’t even close and nobody saw it coming.  There is an article in the Vancouver Sun this morning (obviously gone to press before the results were in)  by Andrew Coyne that reads, “Unless something astonishing happens, the Wildrose Party will form the next government of Alberta.”

As a syndicated cartoonist, my job yesterday was to put out cartoons that would cover almost any reasonable outcome.  Many of my papers publish weekly, and a number of them publish today.  They needed to have a cartoon to put onto the editorial page at the last possible moment, right before going to press.  No time to draw something once the results were in at 9:00 last night, so I had to anticipate different outcomes, knowing that most of these cartoons would end up in the trash.  Considering this led to a 12 hour day at my desk plus a couple of hours on Saturday when I was taking a weekend off at the cabin, I worked for very little money yesterday.

It’s part and parcel of the profession, however, and while none of the cartoons addressed the sweeping majority, there were still a couple that would have been ‘good enough’ to do the job, even though I don’t consider them really ‘good.’  Let’s take a look at what I sent out yesterday.

This cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with the election.  Even though Canada was watching this one, many of my weeklies in other provinces were wanting a cartoon on something else.  I knew this without their having to tell me, so this went out first to cover them.

There was some talk that there could be a minority government, and if that happened, there had to be a cartoon for it, because the others were all talking about who won. This cartoon went out second.

A lot of people were doing a lot of talking over the past month, and everybody sounded like they were sure of the outcome.  Happens in every election.  The day after, however, stories change and everybody boasts that they knew it all along.  That’s about as predictable as politicians breaking election promises.  This cartoon was pretty easy to swap out.  Change the name and…

…this is one of the cartoons that works.  Premier Alison Redford is the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and won her seat, so any of my papers could have put this one in and it would have been appropriate.  Not a great cartoon, granted, but if I’m being honest, I was more concerned with it being right than great.

If the Wildrose Party had won, I would have liked to have seen the above cartoon printed in a number of papers.  I kind of like it.  Seemed an appropriate theme for our western province, especially if a Wildrose win upset 41 years of rule by the previous ‘brand.’  Unfortunately, this took me a couple of hours to paint and nitpick, and the results rendered it completely useless.  That being said, I didn’t want to see the Wildrose Party win, so I’m fine.

This is the last cartoon I sent, just after 5:0o yesterday evening.  Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Party had promised (there’s that word again) to give every Albertan a cheque for $300 from the Alberta Energy Dividend Fund once the province was boasting a surplus again.  It was dubbed ‘Dani Dollars’ by the press and ended up being a significant part of the campaign, one met with mixed reviews.  This cartoon works for today as well, although I’m not sure how many papers will actually use it.

As an Alberta citizen and voter, I was relieved with last night’s results.  As an editorial cartoonist, I know I didn’t hit any home runs with the usable cartoons. More like base hits.  But my papers were covered, so I did my job.  I’ll still do a couple of post election toons this week, but none will be wasted as we now know the results.

It was an interesting election and I don’t say that often.  Most importantly, voters were involved and I’ll be anxious to hear what the official turnout numbers were, because it’s expected to be significantly better than the dismal 40% from 4 years ago.  That being said, I’m glad it’s over, as my illustration contracts and painting commissions have had to simmer on the back-burners this past month.  I’m happy to get back to those this week.

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Of Paint and Penguins

Seems strange that I was excited to have a day to do nothing but paint this morning and then woke to find little motivation to do so.  Just wasn’t feeling it.  While it’s true that drawing and coloring for a living (I love saying that) sounds like the greatest gig going, and it really is, there are some days that it just feels like work.  Editorial cartooning often feels like that, especially when I’m cartooning about a political topic that I really care nothing about, but if it’s making headlines, I have to address it.  Painting, however, is usually the dessert after eating all of my veggies, so it’s rare for it not to be a welcome experience.  This morning, it felt like work, but just as I have to do with cartooning, I plowed through and managed a couple of hours, anyway.

I was inspired to put on the headset and record ten minutes of painting and talking about whatever popped into my head while doing it, though.  None of it was scripted or prepared ahead of time, although I did throw up a quick DVD ad at the end of it.  Hey, we all have to make a living, right?  Obviously, I haven’t shown the full painting here, just a closeup of the head.  At one point, I mistakenly said, ‘radial wheel’ when describing the touch ring on the Wacom tablet.  Like I said, not scripted.

Anyway, hope you get something useful out of it.  Cheers!

 

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Wacom Intuos5: The Radial Menu

Here’s the third post about the new Wacom Intuos5 tablet.

I tried to show how to customize the tablet in one video, but it ended up being over 30 minutes long.  Since most of us have trouble sitting still for that long these days, I figured I’d break them up.  The previous one was on the Express Keys and the Touch Ring, while this one is about the Radial Menu.  The third one will be all about the new Touch features on the Intuos5, saving the best for last.

So here’s the second video, hope you like it.  It’s all technical stuff, but if you’re using Photoshop and a tablet in your work, this might give you a couple of tips and tricks to customize your tablet and get the most out of it.  Probably best to watch it at full screen, too.

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Cartoons and Catastrophe

Somebody asked me if I was going to be doing a cartoon about the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

It’s important to understand that the Titanic has long been one of the most overused clichés in editorial cartooning.  Although I’ve never actually drawn the iconic ship, I’ve put a Prime Minister at the front of a ship referencing the ‘king of the world’ line.  in 2004, I put a submersible at the bottom of the sea, with lights illuminating the words Liberal Popularity on the hull,  talking about the difficulty of raising it.  The ship obviously wasn’t the Titanic, but the reference could be interpreted that way, so I’m willing to concede that as ‘a Titanic cartoon.’

There are many clichés in editorial cartooning, another being ‘the pearly gates’ cartoon.  Somebody passes away and they’re almost always drawn exchanging words with St. Peter at the gates of heaven.  While I have been guilty of picking the low hanging fruit from the idea tree, and using clichés from time to time, I’ve never actually depicted anyone at the pearly gates, and it’s doubtful I ever will.

I’m very fascinated by the story of the Titanic, and have been ever since I was a kid.  While skiing in Kitzbuhel, Austria on a family vacation, (we lived in Germany for many years) my father, sister and I were stranded at the restaurant/chalet at the top when a wind storm rendered the cable car unsafe to take skiers down the mountain.  I think I was 13 or 14.  It became a party atmosphere and we ended up skiing down by torchlight later, but I remember sitting with some very kind University students from Southampton and being fascinated that they were from the same place that had launched the Titanic.   Where the interest came from, I don’t know.

I’ve been to the Titanic exhibit twice, once in Las Vegas, and again when the traveling exhibit came to Calgary.  I’ve seen a number of the movies more than once.  I’m one of the few guys who will admit to seeing the movie in the theatre, not once, but three times.  It just fascinated me to see it all unfold on the big screen, and I’ve always enjoyed James Cameron as a film maker.   While I’m not obsessed with every detail of the story, I do know quite a bit of the trivia.   I’ve got the DVR set to record all of the National Geographic specials this week, and watched James Cameron and crew dissect every last detail last night on how the ship ended up on the bottom looking the way it did.  A forensic archeological  deconstruction of the event, that even had him admitting he got a few details wrong in his larger than life movie.

The London Bombings, July 2005

When bad things happen, it’s difficult to draw cartoons about it.  Even worse is the pressure to get it out quickly, because after all, the goal is to be published in that empty space before a competitor can snag it with another cartoon, one they’re also feverishly drawing at the same time.  I often feel like a vulture picking over the fresh carcasses of whatever unfortunate souls perished in the news event.  Sounds pretty morbid, doesn’t it?  That’s how it feels, too.   How does one draw something appropriate, respectful, and sincere with very little time to mull it over?  When the disaster or event is fresh and acute, that’s the time to get the cartoon done.  I remember drawing a cartoon about the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas, because it was big news.

Hurricane Katrina. Found out later that Bourbon Street was largely spared.

If it’s a big enough disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, there will be many cartoons in the days and weeks following, but that first cartoon is the most difficult.  The other goal is to avoid the ‘yahtzee’ as it’s come to be known.  That’s when two or more cartoonists come up with the same idea for the same situation at the same time.  When the twin towers fell on 9/11, a number of cartoonists drew the same images.  The towers as the number 11, with smoke coming from them was one.  Another was tears in the eyes of the Statue of Liberty.  Two of Quebec’s most celebrated cartoonists, Terry Mosher (Aislin) of The Gazette and Serge Chapleau of La Presse, drew the very same image.

I began my syndicated career at the end of September, 2001, so I never had to draw a cartoon about 9/11.

Situations like this, people are hurt, suffering and dying, and I have to draw a cartoon about it.  It’s never supposed to be funny in a situation like that, but the goal is that it be moving, if only a little.  If it’s a major news story, if an editorial is likely to be written, then an editorial cartoon needs to be drawn.  It isn’t something I want to do most of the time, but it’s part of the gig, one I dislike very much.  When somebody famous dies, I have to make the unenviable distinction between whether it’s newsworthy enough to warrant a cartoon.  Was this person important enough that a newspaper will want to highlight it?

These are not my proudest moments.

So what about the Titanic?  The disaster itself was one of the worst of its time.  It shook the world and haunted the news pages for a long time.  Countless books have been written on it, and historians still debate to this day, what happened on that night in April, 1912.   But let’s be fair.  It was 100 years ago.  Had the ship made it to port in New York, everyone would still be deceased today.  A tragedy, yes, but one that needs to be put into the proper historical perspective.

Each year, I have to do cartoons about Remembrance Day, to commemorate the Canadian men and women who’ve lost their lives in this century’s armed conflicts.  It gets more and more difficult with each passing year.  It will often be a respectful image, perhaps of a cenotaph or other memorial, an image of a poppy, and a quotation or a couple of lines.  Over a decade of Remembrance Day cartoons and I’ve realized that I am unlikely to come up with anymore original ideas.  It feels incredibly insincere, and definitely not the tribute owed to the sacrifice.

Remembrance Day, 2011. The cenotaph in Victoria, BC.

If I have a hard time mustering the sincerity for something as important as that, due to the fact that it has become routine, anything I draw to commemorate the Titanic tragedy, will simply be paying lip service, and rehashing imagery that others have already thought of.  If you don’t believe me, do an image search on Google.  I still have a lot of interest in the story, the details fascinate me, but not because I feel anymore for those people than I do for those who perished on the Hindenburg or in the Civil War.  It happened a century ago to people for whom I feel no connection.

The hubris of those involved in the Titanic’s conception, construction and operation caused the demise of the ship.  There is a lesson we’re supposed to learn from the arrogance of believing we can ever conquer the forces of nature.  Aside from a few changes to maritime law, those people died in vain, and therein lies the real tragedy of the event.  We continue to choose to ignore the lessons of history.

I did wrestle with possible images on the subject.  An image of the name of the ship in dark water with an appropriate memorial quote, something nautical perhaps.  Maybe the flag of the White Star Line and some cautionary words about humility.  Took me a couple of days to realize that everything I came up with made me feel like a hypocrite, trying to create an image to stir emotion about an event for which I feel none.

While I don’t always have the luxury of ignoring a news story,  I think I’m just going to let this one go.

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Wacom Intuos5: Express Keys and Touch Ring

Here’s the second post about the new Wacom Intuos5 tablet.  While my original intent was for these videos to just be reviews, I figured I’d make them more of a tutorial style.  If you’re looking for a review of the new features, I’ll just be up front and tell you that there’s really nothing I don’t like.  In my opinion, Wacom hit it out of the park with this tablet.  I’m really pleased with it.

I tried to show how to customize the tablet in one video, but it ended up being over 30 minutes long.  Since most of us have trouble sitting still for that long these days, I figured I’d break them up.  This one is on the Express Keys and the Touch Ring, while the next one will be on the Radial Menu.  The third one will be all about the new Touch features on the Intuos5, saving the best for last.

So here’s the first video, hope you like it.  It’s all technical stuff, but if you’re using Photoshop and a tablet in your work, this might give you a couple of tips and tricks to customize your tablet and get the most out of it.  Probably best to watch it at full screen, too.

Cheers!

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A portrait of Jim

My buddy Jim and I have been good friends for over 15 years, and last night was his 50th birthday, so another good friend of his and I threw him a party.  Not a huge affair, about 25-30 people, I think,  but a good time sharing laughs with friends.  Whenever I go camping at a lake in B.C.  or to my buddy’s cabin, it’s usually Jim that I’m going with.  He loves taking snapshots of his friends and road trips, and has collected many memories on film over the years.  As he recently bought a new computer, a digital camera wasn’t going to be far off, so my wife and I, along with two other couples went in on a very nice camera, a Canon Powershot SX40, a higher end but user friendly camera, great for high quality point and shoot photos with a fantastic 35X built-in zoom lens.  Came very close to getting him a DSLR, but this was a better choice for someone who just wants to capture memories of people and places, without requiring a ton of photography knowledge.  Along with some other accessories we bought him, he was very pleased with the gift and I’m sure he’ll get a lot of use out of it.

One of the great things about my profession is that on rare occasions, I can create a gift that is unique to me.   While he would have been pleased with the camera alone, I decided that I wanted to paint a portrait for Jim’s 50th as well.  Fortunately, those times you can count on me having a decent camera with me is when I’m out camping or at the cabin, so it turns out that I’ve taken quite a few photos of Jim over the years, and had many to go through.  Only a couple were good candidates for reference photos, however, and I count myself lucky that the one I ended up using was only two years old.

Painting a portrait like this has a few challenges.  Over the years, Jim has had a mustache, a goatee, a full beard and will often alternate between them.  So even though he doesn’t have a full beard right now, he did in the reference photo and he will again in the future, I’m sure.  He’s got a little more grey now than he did a couple of years ago, but I only added in as much as I had to.  After all, he was supposed to like the painting.  While the little details are important, creative license is as well.  My intent was to capture his likeness, but more importantly, his personality, and I think I did that.  As is my nature, I obsessed over the details on this one, as I’ll have to see it for years to come, but I was very pleased with the finished work, and it looks great on canvas.

As much as I’d love to be able to paint portraits for a few other people, the reality is that Jim is probably the only one for whom I could have done this, as most of the time, I’m not snapping photos of people on a day to day basis, and certainly not with anything better than my phone.  If I suddenly started taking head-shots of my friends with my DSLR, it would be pretty obvious to any of them why I was doing it.  This is also the reason I had to rely on photos I already had, so as not to give it away.  This was a unique gift that I was happy to give, and one I’ll unlikely be able to do for anyone else, at least not anytime in the near future.

The background for the portrait is Cleland Lake in B.C., a forestry lake that we’ve been going to for many years, Jim for over two decades.  That particular view is from his favorite spot on the lake.  The painting was printed at 12″X16″ on canvas and framed, and he really seemed to like it.

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A nice mention in Photoshop User

It was pointed out to me yesterday that I received a mention in the April issue of Photoshop User magazine regarding my article on brushes in last month’s issue.  Pete Collins, one of the NAPP Photoshop Guys and an all around great guy (don’t tell him I said that) was kind enough to give a tip of the hat to my tutorial in his current feature, “What Would MacGyver Do?”  (April issue, Page 46)   Pete’s article is a very interesting read that talks about different resources and solutions available to designers in Photoshop when faced with a tight deadline and a limited budget.

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Welcome to the Wacom Intuos5 Touch

One of the things that sometimes irks me about product reviews is that they can often end up being many pages long and nobody really has that kind of time anymore.  With that in mind, I thought I’d talk about my new Wacom Intuos5 tablet in a few different blog entries, this being the first, partly because I need to use it for a little while before writing about the new features in detail.

Anybody who reads this blog, has watched my DVDs or heard me talk about my work knows that I’m a big fan of Wacom tablets.  In fact, without a tablet, I couldn’t paint the way I want to paint.  I’m usually pretty ‘live and let live’ when it comes to painting software and when people ask about Painter vs. Photoshop or other choices out there, I’ll usually say to try a few of them, and see what you like best.  But when it comes to hardware, you absolutely need a tablet to draw or paint digitally, and Wacom is the gold standard.

I’ve had a number of different tablets over the years, my first one in the late 90’s.  That was the first generation Intuos 4X5 tablet, and it worked so well, that despite changing nibs and a couple of transparent overlays, the only reason I upgraded was because I’d bought a new computer.  The original Intuos had a 9-pin connector and the new computer only had USB ports.  But that original Intuos tablet never failed me over many years.

In addition to that tablet, I had a 4X5 Graphire for my laptop.  Since then, I’ve had a medium Intuos3, a medium Intuos4, a small Intuos4, and a Cintiq12wx.  The Cintiq12wx  may be smaller than the latest massive 24″ HD Cintiq (which I am currently saving up for), but it’s a great tablet for live painting demonstrations.  Sometimes, when I’m tired of working in my home office, I’ll often set up in front of the TV in the living room with the Cintiq and paint while watching a movie, too.  The small Intuos4 has always been a great travel tablet, and since I worked on that size for years at the beginning of my career, I’ve never felt hindered by the smaller work space.  If I needed to, I could still do all of my work on the small size tablet today, even the paintings.

But the tablet that fits right into the Goldilocks zone (just right!) is the medium sized Intuos.  A few years ago, when I heard they were launching the Intuos4, I remember thinking that my Intuos3 was just fine.  Why would I bother upgrading?  Of course, once I saw the  new configuration of the Express keys and the Touch Ring, not to mention those pretty blue LED lights, I knew I’d be getting one.  The Intuos4 medium has been my day to day tablet every day since it was launched in 2009 (has it been that long?) and to be honest, I’m a little sad to see it go.  It has now been relegated to my laptop bag, and I’ve donated my small Intuos4 tablet to a graphic designer friend who didn’t have one yet.

I’ve been watching videos online and read some reviews about the Intuos5 before mine arrived, so there were really no surprises about the new features.  However, hearing about it and watching somebody else talk about it pales in comparison to actually using it.  Even though I’m not going to show pics of me un-boxing the thing, because it’s already set up, one of the things I do like about Wacom products is the packaging.  The devices themselves have always felt sturdy and I’ve never questioned the quality of the materials.  But when a product arrives in slick looking packaging, it makes you feel just a little bit better about your purchase, and this tablet came in a very nice, well designed box that almost looks like a case.

All of the individual pieces, as few of them as there are, were well wrapped and configured inside.  The tablet, connection cord, pen, and pen holder (which contains ten spare nibs of different design), along with the documentation, are all that you need.  The physical look of this tablet has changed, as should be expected, but the texture of the materials is also different, although the pen itself feels pretty much the same.  The main body of the tablet now has a bit of a rubbery feel to it.  Not as pliable or spongy as the pen grip, but not the typical hard plastic of most computer components either.  This rubbery surface now completely covers the express key buttons and most of the touch ring, and the LED lights are absent.  A little disappointed those are gone, because I kind of liked them, but I really like the look and feel of this new design.

The main drawing area feels different to me as well, a little more textured, but still smooth enough for easy pen movement.  Not that I’ve ever disliked a tablet surface, but I think I prefer the way the pen feels on this surface over any that I’ve used before.  I’ll reserve my final opinion on that until I’ve spent some real time painting with it.

Apparently I’m a slow learner.  When Wacom first announced the Intuos5, I once again thought, “What could they have possibly done to make it better than the Intuos4?”

Well, they added touch features.  In my mind, that changes everything.  After downloading the new driver from the Wacom site, and restarting my computer, all of the new touch features on this tablet came to life.  I’ve never really liked track pads on laptops, as I found them too small.  What the touch features have done on this new tablet, however, is turned it into a BIG track pad, and it’s great.  I normally use the pen to navigate my way around the computer, no matter what program I’m using.  Now, I’ll only need to pick up the pen when I’m drawing and painting.

After an initial exploration of what each of the touch features does in the Tablet Properties and testing them out in Photoshop, I don’t mind admitting that I might have giggled a little.  I’m such a nerd for this stuff, and I can see having a lot of fun learning how to incorporate these new touch features into my workflow.  The whole goal with a tablet, at least for me, is to eliminate using the keyboard at all.  I’ll have to spend some time configuring and using the new features, but that’s what I’m aiming for.  I’ll talk about setting up those features in the next blog entry on this tablet, and I’ll include some video.

First impression, I love this thing, but I never expected not to, having never been disappointed by a Wacom tablet.  More later once I get a better feel for it, but right now, I want to get painting.

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