Category: Digital Painting

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The Calgary Expo 2025

Artist Alley is part of most Comic Cons and Expos. As the name suggests, it’s a section for artists and independent creators. Each space is often a single, no-frills table, ideal for smaller budgets or those who fly to shows with only their product and a banner or two.

At my first Calgary Expo as a vendor in 2013, that’s where I planned to be. But a vendor I knew talked me into spending a little more money to get a Small Press booth. It had a bit more space and a pipe and drape backdrop between the booths. It was great advice, and I was in Small Press for the first five years.
This was my first year setup, and I was thrilled I got enough sales to cover my expenses. Shonna helped me out the first couple of years, but I’ve long been able to handle this show solo. She works hard at her own job, so I don’t need her to come and do mine, too.

While most of these paintings are retired, a few are still popular today in prints and with licensing clients. Nobody is more surprised than me.

Shonna and I laughed this week, talking about those first years. There were no YouTube videos to tell you how to prepare for a show or what equipment you’d need. There were no pay terminals connected to our phones; it was all cash sales. You had to learn by watching other vendors, looking at their setups, and asking for advice from anybody and everybody.

Fortunately, other vendors had been where I was and freely offered tips, tricks, advice and supplier info. I do my best to pay that generosity forward when newbies ask for help.

The Expo grew yearly, and Artist Alley moved to the Big Four building. As part of that redesign, they eliminated the Small Press section. I had to decide if I wanted to step backward and leave the main building or invest in more space, equipment and inventory and become a retailer with a full-sized 10’x10’ corner booth.

To this day, I still get people asking me why I’m not in Artist Alley. The simplest answer is that I like having more space and professional pipe and drape dividers. An artist in the retail section stands out more than one squeezed in among many others. I also pay an electrical fee each year to power my lights, a service not available in Artist Alley.
The BMO Centre has been under renovation for several years, and the show’s footprint has kept shifting. With the convention centre expansion and renovation completed this year, it’s a massive change, and Artist Alley is finally back with the rest of the show.

The other day, I chatted with a subscriber who works for a wholesale customer. She’s more involved in the online Expo community than I am and shared that some of the Artist Alley vendors were disappointed or upset that the show is now under one roof.

I understand their fear of change, especially if the divided venue is the only thing they know. They’re likely unaware the show only split when it got too big to contain itself. Putting Artist Alley in the Big Four building was a compromise, and back then, many were upset and disappointed at the split. This year, it’s a welcome reunion for those who remember the good old days.

As this is my tenth year, having experienced both options, I have no doubt that having the whole show back together will be an advantage for vendors and attendees alike. With no requirement to leave one building and enter another, people will spend more time in one place, which means everyone will get to see everything.

I hope the Artist Alley vendors find out it’s probably a good thing for them, and I want them all to do well.

Five days in one location means you can get to know your neighbours during the slower periods and before opening each day. I always learn something from other vendors, even if they’re new. I’ve had mostly good neighbours in my ten years of Expos, but occasional challenges have occurred.

Two years ago, a collective of three or four young women selling their costume jewelry had boundary issues. They pushed into my booth several times, threatening to knock my art off the walls. They hung out in front of or IN my booth with their friends, or they cranked up their club music, making it difficult to talk with my customers.

Last year, however, I was next to a couple of young guys from Grande Prairie who were friendly and fun to be around. They politely asked if they could hang a banner off my grid wall on their side, and I was happy to accommodate them.
This was my booth in 2019, one of my best spots ever. During setup, the booth next to me was a no-show, and the vendor on the other side of the gap asked the organizers if he could take some of that space. They agreed. He excitedly came to me and said he’d only take half of it, and I could have the other half, a generous gesture on his part. We both expanded our booths and even had storage space between us.

Another reason I loved this spot was that it was next to one of the widest aisles beside a wall and a straight line to one of the loading doors. On teardown, it was pouring rain that year. The vendors around me cleared out quickly. After I packed everything and it was time to load out, one of the show staff offered to let me bring my car inside. I parked beside my booth, loaded up comfortably, and drove out the door.

This was likely the only time that will ever happen at this show, but it sure was a treat.

The most familiar faces at the Expo are my wonderful subscribers, customers and collectors who come back year after year to support my work. I see several of the same vendors, too, but I only know a few. It’s a busy show, with 100,000 people attending over four days, so spending time outside my vendor neighbourhood is impossible.

One vendor I know has been at this show for about as long as I have. Brock is a talented scroll saw artist with pop culture and entertainment-themed work that fits this audience perfectly. We chat each day of the show, before opening, or when he and his family come by my booth to get some new prints and stickers.

Because I’m usually at the show by myself, they’ve always been so kind to offer to watch my booth if I need a bathroom break. Several of my long-time collector friends do that, too, and it’s greatly appreciated. I bring my food, so that’s the only time I need to leave my space.

This week, the Expo updated its Exhibitor List to reveal booth numbers. I was delighted to discover that, for the first time, Brock and I are next-door neighbours, our corner booths forming the end of an aisle block. What a great start to the event.
Though everything I need for Expo is here and mostly ready, I’m still working on last-minute prep and drawing editorial cartoons to keep my newspaper clients supplied while I’m away. The Monday after the show is Election Day in Canada, so I must also have that morning’s cartoon done in advance.

To you diehards who attend every year, I look forward to seeing your smiling faces once again.

If this will be your first Calgary Expo, please stop by and say Hello. I love seeing the shell-shocked expressions on people who have never been to this circus. You’re in for a real treat.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Three Weeks ’til Expo!

April, already. Where did the time go? The Calgary Expo is three weeks from today, and even though this will be my 10th year, I still obsess about the prep.

I keep detailed spreadsheets that allow me to look back on every show to see how much I sold of each item, which informs how much I order the next time. Knowing that my Smiling Tiger, Otter, and others are bestsellers is not enough. I need accurate numbers, otherwise I might order 20 of one print, though I only sold 10 the year before. Multiply that by dozens of paintings, and it soon gets costly.

Each year, I try to bring enough stock so I don’t sell out early, but not so much that I have a lot left to bring home. With tariff threats and an uncertain economy, people will still be there, but will they buy?

Late spring and summer aren’t big months for my online store, but they’re the busiest times for my wholesale clients. Because of my editorial cartoon commitments, I don’t do summer markets. So, if I have too many prints the Calgary Zoo, Toronto Zoo, or Discovery Wildlife Park don’t sell, they can sit in the closet for months. For example, none of those venues want a Raven, Orca, or Panda.

Immediately after this year’s Expo, I have two commissions on deck, one featuring three cats and another with three dogs. It’s bizarre they both arrived at the same time from different clients. Those are significant commitments and top priorities for the next few months. Both clients have been collecting my work for years and were willing to wait until May for me to start.

Sadly, I dropped the ball on a video assignment last month for a client I never want to disappoint. But I bit off more than I could chew and had to bow out. I’ve been learning a new camera setup and editing software, and editorial cartoon commitments have increased with the rapidly changing daily news, not to mention marketing efforts that have taken days away from productivity.

While the client understood and let me off the hook, it’s a professional failure I have not yet accepted.

There aren’t enough hours in the day right now, and I’m floundering.
Fortunately, everything I need for Expo is already here or on the way. I placed a large print order earlier this week to fill orders for The Calgary Zoo, Discovery Wildlife Park and this event, which will arrive next week.

My stickers, magnets, coasters and metal prints are fully stocked for the show, but I’m waiting on tote bags. As with any new product, you learn the most from the first order.

While the first two tote bag samples arrived quickly, this much larger order took longer. It’s been five weeks, but they finally shipped a few days ago. Quality takes time, but that was unexpected. Thankfully, they’ll still arrive before Expo.

I didn’t anticipate the enthusiastic tote bag interest from all of you. Even though I asked for feedback before I ordered, inquiries have continued to come in. I checked with the company to see if I could add more to the order, and they said it wasn’t possible because they were already in production.

So, while it’s great that people are excited about them, it has presented a dilemma. I won’t have enough for the event if I offer them for sale before the Expo. The best sales are in person, and I can’t test a product at a live event if I don’t have enough to make it through the weekend. How the bags perform at Expo will determine how many I order for the four weeks of the Banff Christmas Market, which is a much more significant financial investment.
Additionally, the next three weeks will be some of the busiest of my year, and the bags won’t even be here for another week. I don’t have the room to add hours and days of shipping and delivering tote bag orders on top of all the prep and drawing cartoons.

Creating the art is the easy part. Promoting and selling it is the work.

For those of you who have expressed interest in the tote bags, I greatly appreciate it, but I’m going to ask for your understanding and patience for a little longer. I need to take the whole order to Expo.

After the event, I’ll immediately put any remaining stock in the store and let all of you know when they’re available. If I don’t have enough to fill the demand, I’ll launch a preorder for subscribers and do what I can to add a little bonus incentive to reward your patience.

Three months into the year, I have yet to find my groove. I’m always working, but it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere. Something has to give, because if there were a report card that listed all the plans, projects, and paintings in progress, there would be a big INCOMPLETE next to most of them.

I need to figure that out.

In the meantime, I’m focused on Expo. It really is a good time, and I look forward to it every year. There are so many subscribers and collectors I only see in person at this event, which is what makes it so much fun.

I’ve painted seven new paintings since the last Expo, which isn’t as many as I would have liked. But two of these paintings were a lot more work than any before, so it’s understandable. Those Grizzlies and Lemurs felt like several paintings in one. And since I will still have 39 other available images at the show, I won’t worry about it.

Stickers do well at Expo, and because so many asked for it at this event and the Banff Christmas Markets, I’m looking forward to introducing my new Highland Cow sticker.
But every year, even if they follow A Wilder View, people always ask, “What’s new this year?”

So, if you’re coming to the Expo but haven’t come to the Banff Christmas Markets or ordered anything online, here’s a refresher of the paintings you most likely don’t have yet. Of course, I’ll be happy to remind you in person.

Cheers,
Patrick

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A Pouty Bear, Commissions, and Tote Bags

A post in three parts. Here we go.
First, here’s a painting I just finished yesterday called Pouty Bear. Even though most of the animals I paint are smiling and happy, I occasionally change them up, even if I know that a different expression may not appeal to people.

My Angry Bear painting is not popular, but it’s still one of my favourites because I enjoyed the work. The grumpy lion, on the other hand, is a pretty good seller, and that surprised me. The Ring-tailed Lemur creeps some people out but definitely has its fans.

Will this pouting brown bear connect with people? Time will tell.
Commissions and Comic-Con

I’ve enjoyed most of the pet portrait commissions I’ve done. Each has a unique story. I like the back-and-forth with clients and am usually happy with the results.

I only paint two or three commissions a year, sometimes only one, so they’re not a big part of my work. I’m OK with that because custom paintings are labour-intensive. Each begins with initial client emails, vetting photos, and discussing expectations. This leads to the actual painting, printing and delivery, which takes several weeks at the best of times. That’s in addition to my daily editorial cartoons and paintings and running my business.

A whimsical wildlife painting takes several hours, too, but each of those paintings has the potential to become a popular print or licensed image that sells for many years. Although every commission advertises my skills to future clients, the painting itself is one and done. It’s unique and specific to the person who hired me. Very few people want a painting of somebody else’s dog.

For my clients, a commission is not an impulse buy; it’s an investment in a very personal and meaningful custom painting. Most people hire me after following my work for a while and becoming familiar with my art style and process. They’ve had time to think about a commission, decide they want one, and only then do they contact me.
At the Calgary Expo a few years ago, Jeremy asked me about painting his dog, Luna. It was several months later before he reached out and got the ball rolling for a Christmas present for his wife, Jenny. Luna is one of my favourite paintings. I enjoyed the experience and look forward to seeing them each year at the Expo. Jeremy and Jenny even visited the Banff Christmas Market this year and brought their dogs along.
I am asked about commissions at shows all the time. For the past couple of years, I have displayed an 18” X24” metal print of Luna in my booth, with a little sign in the corner that reads, “YES, I DO paint commissions. Ask me for more info.”

Since advertising the service with Luna’s painting, I get a lot more inquiries. But here’s the thing: Jeremy was the exception to the rule. Almost nobody hires me for a commission after meeting me at shows. And I’ve realized that talking about commissions is usually the quickest way to get somebody to leave my booth.

Whether it’s at the Calgary Expo or the Banff Christmas Market, here’s how that usually goes. While they scan the metal and canvas prints hanging on the grid walls that define my booth, they see the Luna painting and the commission sign. They get excited that I might paint their dog, and the first question is usually, “How much would that cost?”

I’ve used various talking points to try to soften the sticker shock. I mention that a custom painting is an investment and personal to them. I explain how much work is involved, including printing and shipping/delivery. But as soon as I mention it’s $1900, the disappointed look on most people’s faces is unmistakable.

The price surprises those who are used to buying underpriced art on Etsy, which is often generated AI or photo manipulation. I don’t know how much they thought a custom original painting would cost, but it was much less than what I just quoted them. Because even though very few will flat out say, “I can’t afford that,” it’s evident in their reaction, and that makes them feel embarrassed, even though they shouldn’t. I don’t drop two thousand dollars on anything without planning and careful consideration, so I don’t expect anyone else to.

But now they’re uncomfortable. Their initial enthusiasm for my work, which attracted them to my booth in the first place, is tarnished, and they want to escape this negative feeling as soon as possible. They’ll often ask for a card and say they’ll be in touch, leave the booth, and I know I’m unlikely to ever hear from them.

They never got around to flipping through the 40-50 different prints in the bins, nor did they see the magnets, coasters, stickers, or postcards. I’ll never know how many sales I might have missed if the commission price hadn’t scared them away.

As much as I love showing off that Luna painting, I won’t bring it to shows anymore. I’ll still get commission inquiries at The Calgary Expo, but I won’t advertise them. I’m likely to say that I’m not taking any right now with my current workload.

Like a commission, The Calgary Expo and Banff Christmas Markets are big investments, which I hope will result in excellent sales and allow me to introduce my work to new people. And when they see my happy, smiling animals, along with the occasional pouty bear or grumpy lion, I want to invite them in and show them around my booth rather than give them a reason to leave.

If they sign up for A Wilder View, they can always look into a commission later and decide on their own time that they want to talk about it.

As with all self-employment, art-for-a-living is about adaptation. When something isn’t working, it’s time to make a change.

Tote Bags

Thank you for all the positive comments and emails about the new Otter and Smiling Tiger tote bags I’m ordering for the Calgary Expo. These vibrant printed bags are 100% polyester textured canvas, machine wash and dry, and will withstand everyday use while looking great. Each measures 16” X 13” X 3”.
Several people emailed me asking if I’ll have them in the online store. As with any new product, I must guess how many I might need for the show. Production and delivery timelines mean I won’t get these for more than a month, so I need to order them on Monday to have them in time for the end of April.

While I think they’ll do very well, they’re a significant investment, and I’m erring on the side of caution, which means I hadn’t planned on ordering extras for the online store until I see how they do. And if I added them to the store first and they do very well, I won’t be able to order more in time for Expo.
But I’d love to hear your thoughts.

At $29 plus $5 shipping (in Canada) for one bag, would you buy one if I stocked them on my site? Depending on the feedback, I may increase how many I order tomorrow to accommodate online sales. Please let me know in the comments.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Banners and Bags

For years, I’ve been using the same vertical banners at the Calgary Expo, featuring my Smiling Tiger and Rat paintings.  While the old banners are still in good shape, they have my old website on them, www.cartoonink.com. And even though I rebranded to LaMontagne Art some time ago, I haven’t worried about the other address, because it will still take you to my site. I also know that most people aren’t looking at my banner and going to my site while standing right in front of me at my booth. In hindsight, it wasn’t necessary to ever include that info on the banner.

The banner stands I’ve used for years are made of heavy steel posts, cross beams and a base. They’ve done the job well, but they take extra time to set up and are awkward to load into an already packed car.
This year, I have replaced them with these retractable banner stands which are more compact and set up in seconds. While I could have gone with new images for both banners, I opted to keep the Smiling Tiger. It’s still one of my bestselling images, but more importantly, it’s part of my Calgary Expo booth and brand identity. People tell me they look for that banner. For the second image, my Rat painting is now retired, and I was happy to use my new Polar Plunge painting in its place. I think it fits this format well.

I had these printed at Vistaprint Canada and I’m pleased with how they turned out.

Shonna has been urging me to get tote bags for a long time, but I’ve never been enthused with the idea. There are many different products on which I could print my art, but that would mean buying, storing and transporting them as well. Having too many products gets expensive and complicated, and I wasn’t sure if tote bags would be the best investment.

At the Banff Christmas Market this year, I made a point of arriving early some days to check out other vendor booths. One vendor I know had her artwork on canvas tote bags and I was very impressed with the printing. She told me they sold well and I asked where she had them done. She generously shared the details for the Montreal company and said they were great to work with.
I created these designs for two of my bestselling paintings, and I am thrilled with how great they look. The print quality is better than I could have hoped, as is the construction and stitching. This vibrant printed bag is 100% polyester textured canvas, machine wash and dry, and will withstand everyday use while looking great. Each measures 16”X 13” X 3”.
I designed each bag as a wrap; the same image on both sides, with no text or advertising. I’ll have these two bestselling painting designs, my Otter and Smiling Tiger, available for this year’s Calgary Expo. I haven’t yet decided on how many I’ll bring, but they’ll retail for around $30.

Cheers,
Patrick

 

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The Ringleader

Some paintings come together easily. A reference photo may immediately inspire an idea, I’ll sit down and mock up sketches, and it will almost feel like the image creates itself.

This was NOT one of those paintings.

I’ve had more than a few frustrating experiences painting where the work didn’t seem to want to come together. I’ve beaten myself up about it, wrung my hands and thought, “Well, I used to know how to do this; I guess I don’t anymore.”

Eventually, I’ve made it through, and some of those paintings became bestsellers.
This painting has been something entirely different. Even though I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like, I couldn’t get it to feel right. It was inspired by a photo I took at the Calgary Zoo, and I even had the name of the piece before I painted the first brushstroke.

I came very close to calling this piece finished a couple of months ago. But I showed it to my artist friend Derek, who kindly told me what I already knew. It wasn’t working. The faces were laid out too uniformly, like a tic-tac-toe grid, and the personality wasn’t there.

So I went back to the beginning, discarding dozens of hours of work to start over again. The difference this time, however, was that I looked at it as one piece containing several characters rather than several characters I created separately and then assembled into one piece.
The first go round, I used a specific reference for each lemur I painted and drew them all individually. Even after I assembled them, I kept going back to the individual references for each, and it wasn’t easy to keep track of it all. I made it far too complicated.

When I started over, I abandoned the individual reference. I focused on the expressions and characters without worrying about making each look like a specific reference because I didn’t need it. Lemurs are lemurs; they don’t look all that different from each other. As long as the central character had the most personality, the others were the supporting cast, even though their details were still necessary.
The key to getting this piece back on track was to stop painting individual trees and just paint the forest. Even though this was a challenging painting, with a lot of redrawing and direction changes, I learned from the frustration. These kinds of lessons always contribute to better work in the future.

On Marc Maron’s WTF podcast this week, director James Mangold talked about lessons he has learned in filmmaking. He said that even though you need to start with a plan, if you hold it too tightly, you don’t leave any room for discovery in the process.

The finished piece still doesn’t quite match my original inspiration and vision. And while there are still the same nine lemurs as before, they’re more dynamic in their placement, different angles, placed higher and lower. There are more tails here and there, and I added hands for the ringleader as the central character.

But when I spend too much time with a painting, I can’t see it with fresh eyes anymore, so I don’t know if it’s any good.

What’s worse is that January and February are tough for me, as they are for many people. We’ve been enduring a period of bitter cold the past couple of weeks, and that always sucks the life out of me. I’ve forced myself to go for a few hikes and bundled-up bike rides to get out of the house and exercise, but it’s been a slog.

It’s also a time of year when I spend a lot of money on my business. From the final 50% booth installment for The Calgary Expo, the deposit for registering for the Banff Christmas Market, my first quarterly tax installment, paying for new promotional items, test prints for new products, plus restocking prints for anticipated spring client orders and Expo, and all the materials that go with that, it’s a part of self-employed stress I never get used to. It’s a maxim as old as time that you must spend money to make money, but nothing is guaranteed, so it’s always uncomfortable.

Finally, with the editorial cartoon side of my work, I must follow the deluge of bad news that breaks daily because he-who-shall-not-be-named continues his insane barrage of verbal and economic attacks on Canada. As much as I’d like to turn off the news to preserve my sanity, I can’t do that and still do my job.

All of this, aside from the 51st-state bullshit, is business as usual for this time of year. But when it piles on, it usually puts me in a pretty dark place.
Under these circumstances, my perception of how any finished piece looks is distorted. I have no idea how I feel about this painting and probably won’t for a while. I feel more relief that it’s finally over than satisfaction with the result.

I’ve done several paintings in my career where I’ve felt indifference for them upon completion but grew to love them over time. Maybe this will be one of those, but I have no way to know. Artists tend to put too much pressure on themselves and make more out of their work than they should, and I am no exception. Ultimately, it’s just a painting of some funny-looking lemurs, and I have spent enough time on it.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

Nobody knows if Leonardo da Vinci really said it, but it’s an oft-repeated quote because of how much it resonates with artists, that there is always room for improvement, and perfection isn’t possible.

With that in mind, I’m moving on and will start a new painting in a day or two.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Collectors from Across the Pond

Rich and Jill have been coming to the Bow Valley from their home in the UK every year for over a decade. While I don’t remember our first encounter in 2010, I had delivered an out-of-stock print of my first wolf painting to them at the Two Wolves gallery in Canmore.

I miss that place. The owners gave my whimsical wildlife work a shot at the very beginning, when I had only painted a handful of them and knew nothing about this part of the business. (Hi, Andrea!)

During other trips, Rich and Jill bought my art prints in Banff at About Canada under the previous owners. In those days, I offered black matted giclée prints on consignment, which means I supplied them to the gallery, and they would pay me when they sold. These days, my wholesale customers buy my prints outright, and I no longer offer matted prints.

But Rich and Jill liked that look and still wanted the giclée prints in that same size. So, in recent years, they have kept up with new releases through A Wilder View. And before they come to Canada to ski, they place a special order for the prints they want to take home. They order in the fall so I have it ready when they get here in December or January. I provide the prints in a roll and they have them framed in the UK.

This year, Rich told me in November that they wanted some coasters and a special order print of Spa Day in the usual 11″ X14″ size. He joked, “We just bought a larger house, mainly so we had more wall space for your pictures.”

But he also said, “Ideally, we would get a large format of the grizzlies, but I guess that’s not finished yet.”
Up until then, the above work-in-progress image was all they had seen. I had shared it in August, along with an unfinished series of sketches. That they wanted to order the painting before they’d seen the finished work was flattering and a little frightening.

Even though there was no pressure, I suddenly wanted to have that print ready for them, especially since this was the first time they wanted larger than the usual size.

After the Christmas markets, I focused on The Grizzlies and finished it for New Year’s Day. Rich and Jill decided on an 18″ X24″ print, giving me three weeks before they arrived, which was plenty of time. This was the first time I’d seen the new painting in print and I was pleased. While I’m proud of my poster prints and Art Ink Print in Victoria does a great job, a giclée fine art print has a texture to the paper that often results in richer colours and enhances the detail. The photos here don’t do it justice.
I met them at a local brewery for a drink to deliver their order this weekend. We haven’t had time for anything more than a short exchange on previous deliveries due to weather or distancing during the pandemic, so it was nice to sit and chat with them.

With this most recent delivery, they now have 16 prints of their own, plus trivets, coasters and prints they’ve bought for friends. As a self-employed artist, there is no bigger compliment than somebody who enjoys my work that much.

I’m grateful for anyone who buys my art, whether it’s a sticker, magnet, coaster, calendar, print or commission. Still, there are a handful of collectors whose ongoing support is sometimes overwhelming. Hopefully, I have told each of you how much it’s appreciated.

Because I had a little more time to get to know them on Saturday evening, I asked if they had any requests for animals I hadn’t yet painted. Though they own several other animal paintings I’ve done, they said they’re happiest with the bears, and I assured them there’s no chance I will stop painting those anytime soon. But Rich also took the opportunity to say, with an implied wink and a nudge, that he’d really like to buy a copy of my book.

I laughed nervously and hung my head in shame.

Maybe next year, Rich. Maybe next year.

Sigh.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Polar Plunge

In June of last year, I painted my Big Bear on Blue polar bear painting, which is now a popular print. Pacific Music & Art used it as the cover of their 2025 calendar featuring my artwork. I like that painting and didn’t feel the need to create another polar bear image, at least not right away.

In July of last year, however,  I shared the following sketch painting, the term I use for unfinished experiments. Because I had just painted a polar bear, I didn’t see the need to take it any further.
But it had received a positive response, and a few people sent me emails asking if I would finish it. So, over the last week, I put the time in to complete it, and I think Polar Plunge will be a nice addition to my print releases for spring.

At the beginning of this year, I spent a few days looking through unfinished paintings. There are a couple I had forgotten about that I’d now like to dust off and complete, and I’d like to finish as many paintings in progress as I can before I start anything new.

I also created a 2025 list of folders with reference files, so I don’t have to wonder what’s coming next.

There’s always a short-lived high whenever I finish a painting. Years ago, it used to last for a week. Now, it lasts for about an hour, followed by a bit of a crash, for anywhere from a couple of days to a week. If I look through my reference files during that post-painting hangover, hoping to find the next idea, nothing inspires me.

This year, I decided to eliminate that problem. Art for a living is a job, and when one painting is finished, I need to start another, regardless of whether I feel like it. Thankfully, I now have 28 new folders containing reference images for paintings I can start right away. Some are paintings I need to finish, like the group of ring-tailed lemurs I’ve been working on. As I complete a painting, I’ll choose another folder and start the next one. And even if I’m not ‘feeling it,’ that will pass soon enough as I get into the new piece, because lost in the details of a painting is about as happy as I get.

I have never painted that many images in a year, but that’s not the goal. I simply now have 28 options and no excuses not to start a new piece.

When I’m not feeling especially creative, it helps to think of each painting as a commission. When clients pay me to paint their pets, I have a deadline or know that I’m wasting their time and money if I don’t work on their painting. Guilt is a strong motivator.

I’m trying to shift my perspective regarding my own paintings where I’m the client, and by not working, I’m wasting my own time and potential revenue.

I’m also working to create a new portfolio this year to attract new licensing clients. Even though many of my licenses aren’t exclusive, some companies are still reluctant to use an image on similar products if another company uses it, even if the market conflict is minimal. Anything can happen, and relying on only a few clients risks future income security. The loss of newspaper clients in recent years illustrates that point well.

While editorial cartooning is still a large part of my business, newspapers have experienced a steady decline for years, so it no longer provides a full-time income on its own. If I hadn’t had the whimsical wildlife side of my business, which is now the most significant portion of my income, I would have had to get a part-time job a few years ago.
Last week, I delivered the year’s first print and sticker order to the Calgary Zoo. It was warm, with plenty of sunshine, and there weren’t many people. Even traffic was light, so I had an enjoyable day. When I got there, I chatted with the retail manager and the staff I know, then wandered through Canadian Wilds, my favourite part of the zoo.

I texted my friend Kayla, one of the zookeepers, asking if she was working and where she was. She said she was in the North American porcupine enclosure, so I went there. Kayla was one of those who asked me if I was ever going to complete this new polar bear painting, so I was happy to tell her the finished painting was imminent.
Porcupines are nocturnal, so they’re not active during the day, but like any animal, they’ll make an effort when food is involved. Because Kayla was inside the enclosure, feeding the cute and prickly resident, we had a nice chat while I got some decent reference shots. Add those to the ones I’ve taken at Discovery Wildlife Park, and there is now a Porcupine folder in my list of paintings I’d like to get to this year.

Though I took many more photos of different animals that day, most weren’t worth keeping. Bright sunny days and photography don’t usually mix. No matter how you compensate with camera settings, the lights end up too bright, the shadows too dark, and you can only fix so much in Photoshop. The sun is also low in the sky this time of year, which doesn’t help.

Normally, I’d be disappointed, but there have been plenty of days I’ve come home with dozens of shots worth keeping, and it often takes me years to get to them. And as I’ve explained, I have no shortage of paintings to get to this year. Hey, I delivered an order to one of my best customers, got out of the office, and had a nice day outside in the middle of winter. I have no complaints.

While I’ve recorded the occasional high-speed video for YouTube, it’s been quite a while, and I want to get back to using that platform to help promote my work. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately learning to use new recording software and hardware. Something many artists don’t realize when they want to turn their hobby into their work is that the business and promotion side of self-employment requires constant adaptation and continuing education. While it takes time away from creating art, it’s necessary for career longevity. Just because something worked well ten years ago, doesn’t mean it will today.

While I’m learning the ropes of these new tools and preparing to create more videos, I’ve got a few more paintings in progress to complete, and as I do, I look forward to sharing them with you.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Raptor Rain

Painting the wet look in this one was challenging because I had to decide where to draw the line. I could have added more rain in the background and foreground, but I’d risk it looking too busy. The same could be said for the water droplets I painted on the feathers. More definition might equal more distraction.

Had I made the eagle wetter, it would mean flattening the feathers, making a dome out of the crown of its head. More accurate, perhaps, but I like painting fur and feathers, so I kept the wet look but still showed the definition. Maybe it had just given its head a shake.

Ultimately, I chose to go with what I do best: the detail in the face, expression and personality. Too much time spent on painting the forest might mean nobody sees the tree. A painting is not defined only by what you include but also what you choose to leave out.

I already have a bald eagle painting that’s been popular for many years in both prints and licensing. It often feels that if I paint more than one of an animal, the second might not be as good as the first, or at least as well received.

That’s foolish, of course.

People like both of my Snow Leopard and Snow Queen paintings. I’ve watched snow leopard fans choose between them at markets, and neither is the consistent winner. I’ve also painted more bears than any other animal, and there’s no chance I’ll stop anytime soon. I’ve also heard no complaints.

Jackie and Shadow on the FOBBV webcam in their nest in Big Bear Valley, California

I’ve seen plenty of eagles on several trips to Vancouver Island and on visits to the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale. A few years ago, a subscriber (Hi, Eileen!) sent me a link to a wildlife cam near her home in Big Bear Valley, California. Ever since then, right around this time, I enjoy checking in on Jackie and Shadow as they try again for another viable clutch of eggs. Nothing so far, but fingers crossed.
Though we romanticize eagles, imagining them soaring high in the sky for the sheer joy of flying, they’re experts at energy conservation and efficiency. Flying takes a lot of effort, and unless it’s for food or mating, an eagle is most content sitting in a tree all day. That’s also why some scavenge and eat carrion when available rather than hunt for fresh prey.
They have exercise runways at the Birds of Prey Centre, and the flight training is fun to watch. Though they try to release most rescued birds back into the wild, it’s not always an option and some become residents. The staff weigh the birds to keep them hungry enough that food is still a motivator. When it’s time for exercise, food rewards entice the birds to fly back and forth on the runways.It doesn’t take many trips for the eagles and hawks to get tired, and bald eagles and other raptors will overheat if they fly a lot. They cool off by holding their wings open and panting like dogs. After training sessions, especially on warm days, the eagles return to the open aviary for a shower. Placed on a perch, the staff hose them down, and the eagles obviously enjoy it.
I’ve taken several wet eagle photos on multiple visits, and had the idea for this painting a few years ago. My recent trip down there this summer reminded me to paint this raptor in the rain.

Cheers,
Patrick

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The Grizzlies

“How long does it take you to paint one of these?”

It’s one of the most common questions I get.

Do I include all the time and travel? Taking, sorting and editing reference photos? How about sketches and roughs? What about the paintings where I took the reference a few years ago but wasn’t inspired by them until much later?

I’ve never completed a painting in one sitting. It’s usually one or two hours at a time. When I’m not painting, I draw editorial cartoons, do my bookkeeping, admin work, format and order products, email clients, and try to have a life, none of which is on a schedule. Sometimes, I start a painting and don’t return to it for a week. Right now, I have at least five paintings in different stages of completion.

So, technically, I have no idea how long it really takes to complete each painting.

But rather than bore a market booth customer with a complicated, existential answer to a simple question, I usually ballpark it and say, “Somewhere around 15 or 20 hours.”

I don’t know if that’s more or less than what they expected.
The spark for this painting was reference photos I took at the Calgary Zoo in June of 2023. I enjoyed watching long-time grizzly resident Skoki straddle a log while resting his arms on another log across it. It reminded me of somebody bellying up to a bar to order a drink.

He sat there for a good long while and I took dozens of photos of him turning this way and that. The painting that first came to mind was four or five grizzlies sitting at the log, like buddies at the bar. I even figured I might call it Grizzly Bar.
I did some drawings shortly after that and returned to them whenever I had the time. While Skoki was the inspiration, I used several bears in my photo archive as reference for the bodies and faces. If nothing else, I figured they would be good sketches for the book I’ve been talking about for years, but to my eternal shame, never deliver.
Once I had several sketches, I pieced them together, trying to find a composition I liked. The five grizzly bear buddies soon became five members of a family. It reminded me of a grizzly bear version of a Sears family portrait photo shoot. Refining the shapes so they fit together, and reimagining the expressions meant losing a lot of the sketch detail I had already drawn, but that’s just part of the process.
Many paintings begin as one idea but take on their own life while I work. I have no idea how many hours I’ve put into this piece, but it’s more than any painting before.
Rather than work in colour from the start, as with other paintings, I started this one in greyscale because I wanted to play with the values and experiment with the scene. Once I had a good starting point, I painted colour in the background and foreground, leaving the grizzlies for last.

I’ll confess I don’t much like painting landscapes or scenery, so I wanted to get that out of the way to get to the part I love most — the bears, of course.
Initially, the berries in the foreground were bright red. But when I showed this work-in-progress image to my buddy, Derek, at Electric Grizzly Tattoo, he suggested they might be a distraction from the bears. It was a helpful critique. So, I toned down the berries and made them a deeper burgundy and blue.
As brown bears come in many shades, from dark brown to red to blonde, I had initially planned to have a more noticeable colour difference between the five. But it looked weird, and I didn’t like it, so I erred on the side of more subtle variations in fur colour.
One of the nice things about working digitally is that at the end of each painting session, I can look back at the image when I opened the file and compare it to progress at the end of a session. It’s often a big difference, and that’s satisfying. However, when a painting nears completion, two hours of work may be barely noticeable before and after. That’s usually how I know it’s time to call it done.

For you digital painters, this was a very big file with a lot of detail. The finished dimensions are  30″X40″ at 300ppi. Near the end of this piece, with seven layers, the working file size was over 1.5GB. Thankfully my computer can handle it, but I still closed and reopened the program every half hour or so to prevent any lag. With a file this big, a crash can happen and losing an hour of work is a real risk.
Deciding whether I like a piece or not takes time, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I liked my Meerkat piece when I finished it, but it took four weeks of it hanging on the grid wall beside me at The Banff Christmas Market before I realized it’s one of my personal favourites.
Because of the current uncertain economy, I’m not yet committing to doing puzzles again right away. But when I do, I think this grizzly family is worthy of consideration.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Open for Business


I woke this morning to news alerts that Canada Post will return to work tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. That’s good news, but unfortunately, not soon enough to save the holiday season for most retailers and small businesses whose online sales are critical this time of year.

I suspended my store over a month ago, but with the news that shipping may resume, I’ve updated my stock, reactivated each product, and am ready to resume taking orders, with one very important caveat: anything I ship won’t get there by Christmas.

It will take Canada Post some time to get through the enormous backlog of mail that’s likely bursting at the seams all over the country. I imagine that will be the priority before any new mail.

But we work with what we have.
I still have plenty of 2025 calendars available, plus various prints, postcard sets and large vinyl stickers in my regular stock. So, if you’re still looking for your 2025 calendar full of funny-looking animals and don’t need it shipped for Christmas, you may place your orders.

FREE DELIVERY FOR CANMORE RESIDENTS

With decent weather this week and no out-of-town plans, I’m happy to deliver orders anywhere in Canmore, but with two minor conditions. It’s a minimum $25 order for free delivery, and I’m only taking payment by e-transfer. Please email me your order with the address to patrick@nulllamontagneart.com, and I can reply with a total and set up a convenient delivery time.

My thanks,
Patrick