Inspiration Archives - Page 14 of 17

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

A Change of Place

It’s easy to become so accustomed to your surroundings that you fail to see the forest for the trees. Living in Canmore, we often forget to look around and realize that we are so incredibly fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. You can get used to anything, no matter how idyllic.

Sure, I go on my hikes, sketch and take photos and appreciate the beauty, but when you’ve lived in a place for a long time, you never quite recover the feeling of seeing it anew. It’s only when we happen to hear a visitor exclaim with awe and wonder how majestic and beautiful our mountains are, that many of us stop, look around and think, “yeah, they’re pretty spectacular, aren’t they?”

I found this sense of wonder this morning in Ucluelet. Wandering the small craft harbour, socked in by fog and low hanging cloud. With a camera ’round my neck, a sketchbook in my backpack and my first cup of coffee of the day in hand, I marveled at the sights, sounds and smells, experiencing my first morning in this place.

At 6 AM on a Monday, there are low conversations and murmurs from the boats, as men get ready to head out for a day of fishing. Some of these are surely tourist charters, but clearly there are those that aren’t. Having been a local in a tourist town for many years, it’s easy to spot the difference.

In a broad sense, these locals are no different than any others. Just another morning at work, they’re likely oblivious to the little nuances that are making me smile, take in a scene, or breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t have to work this morning. Anyone who has been in fog knows the sound is different, and I quite like it. Seagulls and ravens criss-cross the harbour, some with little morsels in their mouths, others bitching at the ones who got some when they didn’t.

At home, ravens calling and squawking outside my window is annoying, and I often wish that they’d just shut the hell up. But here, they add to the scene, the immersion in the experience and the change of place has me welcoming their racket.

Sitting at the small table in my cabin as I write, I just looked up and saw a bald eagle fly by in the distance, the details hazy in the lifting fog, but unmistakable with his white crown and tail feathers. It’s a little exciting, because I don’t get to see them often, they show up so rarely at home.

This is how the tourists in Banff and Canmore feel when they see an elk, or if they’re fortunate, a whole herd of them. For locals, the elk are easily viewed as a hazard to avoid while walking or driving. We have our little condescending smiles when the tourists go gaga over them and start snapping pics like crazy. I imagine a local here might have felt the same had they spied me on a dock yesterday, where I spent twenty minutes happily taking photos of a bald eagle high in a tree, silly tourist that I am.

This is clearly why I’m here and why a trip like this is necessary. While calling it an artist retreat sounds haughty and pretentious, it’s really just a change of place to adjust my focus. I’ve no doubt that I’ll return home with a renewed sense of inspiration to paint, write, and sketch. It happens after every vacation, so it’ll no doubt be doubly so after this one.

Finally, it strikes me that I am incredibly blessed. Not only to have the means to take a trip like this, a purely selfish excursion, even politely telling a couple of friends that they could not come with me, but that I have the support of my wife, and those same friends who said, “Go. Have fun. Do what you gotta do.”

Someone once said, “They’re always making more money, but nobody has figured out a way to make more time.”

It’s the fear of squandering my own time, even though I’ve no idea how much of it I’ve got, that had me seeking a temporary change of place. I’m not often at peace, it’s just not in my nature. But this is close.

Ucluelet, BC. June 2, 2014

Posted on March 8, 2014March 8, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

Painting Elephant Rock

This is my first landscape painting, a formation near Ucluelet, B.C. called Elephant Rock.

A few years ago, my wife Shonna, and I took a vacation to Vancouver Island, the first time there for either of us. While many find the long drive to be part of the experience, we’re destination types, so we flew into Comox, picked up our rental vehicle (reserved a car, got a massive truck, which was quite a lot of fun), and spent the week touring around. We visited some friends and family, spent a few days in Victoria, then drove out to the west coast of the island where we rented a cabin in Ucluelet for a few days. It ended up being one of our best vacations to date.

The drive out to that part of the island is beautiful. Coastal rainforest, a roller coaster highway that’s not for the faint of heart, with a lot to see along the way. At the end of the road you’ll find Long Beach, hiking trails, spectacular ocean vistas and two little towns. On one end is Tofino and on the other Ucluelet, where we’d booked our cabin. Friends of ours used to live there and loved it and after visiting both towns, we’re glad we stayed in Ukee. We’ve lived in a tourist area for two decades and to us, that’s what Tofino felt like, a tourist town. A couple of hours there and we were happy to head back to Ucluelet, more of a working fishing village, but still a tourist draw as well. It’s only a 30 min drive between towns, but we stopped along the way for a hike through the rainforest on an elevated boardwalk, complete with staircases and bridges that emptied us out onto a beach at low tide, where we could wander among the rocks looking at sea life in the tide pools.

One of the highlights of this island trip was a whale watching cruise through the Broken Islands group, something we’d booked in advance with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises. Al and Toddy live aboard their boat and take tourists out to see the abundant wildlife and incredible landscape and it truly was one of the best days we’ve had on any vacation. We saw Grey Whales, Humpbacks, Sea lions, Bald Eagles and more, and I was happily snapping photos left and right. Now, none of them ended up being good reference for my Totem paintings, but this wasn’t work, it was a vacation.

On the way back, Al drew our attention to Elephant Rock. I recently sent him an email asking for a refresher on the history of the rock and he sent back this explanation. “The rock marks a boundary between the Ittatsoo tribes and the Toquart tribes. The boundary goes beyond the time of tribal memory. Essentially boundaries marked shore rights. If a whale washed up it belonged to the tribe with the rights to that shore line. Within living memory this was a peaceable boundary until the government drew official lines between the various tribes in the area, probably all over the province. They didn’t use that rock, the official line is somewhere between Elephant Rock and the existing village in Ucluelet Harbour. The tribes on either side have never come to agreement over this official boundary.”

Once again, government intelligence rears it’s ugly head. But that’s the other part of my business and I’ll leave that alone right now.

I remember taking the photo and thinking, “I’d like to paint that,” even though I consistently tell people that I don’t paint landscapes. For three years it has laid dormant in my archives until I recently got the urge to give landscape painting a try. While I’m fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, spend a lot of time outdoors and taking photos of the Rocky Mountain landscape in my backyard, it’s funny that my first landscape isn’t from around here. People come from all over the world to visit our neighbourhood and see the sights we get to experience every day. But, you get used to it and as wonderful as it might be, you like to experience something different once in a while, which is why I enjoyed the area around Ucluelet so much. I’m sure if I lived on the island for twenty years, the mountains I see every day here would have a similar draw for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this landscape painting, although it did have me frustrated at times. It took a LOT longer than I thought it would and presented me with challenges I haven’t experienced before. The detail I put into my animal paintings just wasn’t possible here because of the distance in the image, not without making it so massive that even my powerful computer wouldn’t have been able to handle it. It’s still one of the largest paintings I’ve done, the full resolution file measures 40″ X 40″ at 300ppi. I painted it on both the Wacom Cintiq 13HD and 24Hd displays using Adobe Photoshop CC (photos only used for reference). The square composition was unusual for me as well. But it was a personal piece, an experiment, and well worth my time and energy. I’m quite pleased with the finished result and there will be more landscapes in my future.

One epiphany I had while painting this was that I wasn’t just painting a place, but capturing a moment in time. I was trying to get each branch right, the height of each tree to match its neighbour, the small ripples in the waves, and the light just right. But, the reference photo was taken three years ago. I realized that this island wouldn’t look like this, now. The rocks would, sure, but trees grow, they die and landscape is ever changing. I rather liked that idea, that this was a moment that is gone, but I could still go there in the painting. And it really felt like being back there. As I painted, I saw things that had previously gone unnoticed. Painting in a shadowy spot in the brush, I realized “hey, there’s a tree trunk in there.” or working on part of the rock formation and having a mental shift that made it feel more like sculpting than painting.

As odd as it might sound, this painting was a bit of a spiritual experience, one that I’m grateful to have had. I’m going back to Ucluelet on my own later this Spring, an artistic retreat just to sketch, paint, write and take photos. I’ve booked a little cabin right on the harbour. I’ll be going on another cruise with Al and Toddy and I’m looking forward to seeing Elephant Rock once again in person. Having spent so much time with it in this painting, I believe I’ll see it with new eyes.

Click on any of these images to see them larger.

Posted on December 15, 2013December 15, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Out the Other Side

It’s ironic that I don’t celebrate calendar holidays, but the changing of the year always makes me reflective. While I usually aim for one short blog entry for my year in review, it would appear I’m incapable of that, so this first one is less about the work and more about what’s been rattling around in my noggin this year.

It is difficult to find the separation between my personal and professional life. Having been able to find that elusive state of doing what I love for a living, the majority of my business is work that I enjoy. When your work and life become so interconnected, happiness in one depends on the same in the other.

Clearly a midlife evaluation of priorities and direction, I’ve been on an emotional ride the last few years, one that has included dark lows and bright highs. Most of my college years were spent studying psychology, so I’ve always been a believer in talk therapy. Even the most supportive family member or friend can be too close to the source and a trained therapist will often present perspectives and open doors that had not been previously considered. With that in mind, I spent some time talking with a professional therapist over the past year and it was incredibly helpful.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with OCD, and while sitcoms and movies like to use that as a punch line, it has a much broader meaning than fear of germs or lining up everything in the fridge, neither of those being components of my particular affliction. I don’t mention this as a ploy to garner sympathy, just to point out that it’s a piece of the puzzle that makes me who I am. As Michael J. Fox once said about his Parkinson’s disease, “Everybody has their own bag of hammers to carry around. This is just mine.”

I mention it, because the ironic benefit of my particular OCD cocktail is that it makes me organized, driven and introspective. As much as it can be likened to carrying around an annoying child in your head 24/7, one that never shuts up about shit you can’t control or change, it has also been one of the largest contributors to the success of my business and my work.

While some opt for medication to take the edge off of their anxiety disorder, and I certainly won’t judge anyone who has gone that route, I have chosen not to. I have done well to rely on my gut instinct over the years and everything in me tells me that to chemically mess with the crazy, I risk damaging the creativity. I am convinced that it all wells up from the same place.

I realize that calling it crazy isn’t politically correct, but I’ve lived with it long enough that I get to call it what I like.

Day in, day out I am worrying about things I can’t change and trying to control their outcome. If I don’t have something to worry about, I will make something up. Thankfully, I have a strong-willed wife who will apply the brakes when my mentally distracted driver starts veering all over the road. When that annoying kid in my head attempts to draw her into a no-win pointless ‘what-if’ discussion, she is fond of sighing and saying “tell your little friend I’m not playing today.”

One particular quirk that comes with this genetic misfiring of chemicals in the grey matter is that I’m acutely aware of the passage of time. While some may think they have all the time in the world, I’m under no such illusion. I know it could all end in ten years, in twenty, or tomorrow. That awareness factors into many decisions I make, especially in the past few years. Funny how your early forties will do that to you.

On our recent vacation to Vegas, it is this awareness that prompted Shonna and I to charter a biplane to take us on a tour over the Hoover Dam and to decide over lunch that we were going skydiving for the first time the very next day. While I’m all too often guilty of having to plan everything and worrying about the future, it was worry about regret that allowed me to seize the moment, which made the experiences much more rewarding. It also laid the foundation for the ones we’ll have tomorrow.

There is tremendous freedom in making choices, both personal and professional, if you imagine viewing them from the end of your life. If lying on my deathbed, would I look back on the choices I’m making today and wished I’d done them differently? This is, however, a cautionary tale. The choices we make for ourselves, when approached from that perspective, will undoubtedly alienate and disappoint some friends, family, mentors and others with whom we are connected. But, those people see our lives from their perspective. They don’t usually see that if we attempted to place the same restrictions or demands on them, they would resent it.

This is not an endorsement of shirking responsibility to your loved ones or those you care about. But just as you choose to make yourself accountable to certain people, they are accountable to you as well. Part of that accountability is allowing each other to make your own choices, good or bad, whether you agree with them or not. One look at social media on any given day, and it’s easy to see that most people don’t walk that talk, your choices and opinions only valid if they happen to be the same ones they’re making. Share or like if you agree.

Accounting for available evidence, we each only get one shot at life. While an unpopular view, I don’t believe in heaven or hell. If there is something after this life, I don’t think we can comprehend it in this existence and I certainly don’t believe we are meant to spend this life focused on it. One person’s belief in their meaning and purpose may be entirely different than that of the person next to them, and both may be right. I believe that you can live a good life and choose not to hurt other people without it being about a reward at the end. If this timeline is all we get, it makes sense to get the most out of it.

If I have been going through a midlife crisis (evaluation, introspection, change of life, etc.), then I believe 2013 is the year I started coming out the other side, and not only was the whole difficult painful experience necessary for growth, it was incredibly freeing. If the next year follows the same course, I am excited for what’s coming, and I’m looking forward to it.

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Out Among the Living

The key to being creative is to find a way to break out of your routine. By staying where you are, by taking comfort in the walls you build around you, you don’t free your mind, you enslave it.

Working at home, I feel safe. This is my domain, the place I own and control, even if it’s only an illusion. I can turn off the phone, close the blinds, lock the doors, and cut myself off from the world. In that environment, I can create in complete solitude and safety, uninterrupted, exploring my imagination. And I like that. Most of the time, it works for me, especially when the goal is to get work done.

But even though silence and isolation can bring peace to a busy mind, allowing the elusive quiet thoughts to be heard and explored, imagination needs stimulation, too. For that, one needs to go out into the world.

Draw from life. I’ve heard that so many times from so many artists that I can’t even give credit to any one person. If you ask me to draw a tree, a dog, a building, a lamppost or anything else, you’ll probably get a rendering that will look pretty much like what you ordered. Everybody knows what a tree looks like. But no two trees are the same. The only way to see that is to go look at them.

Draw from life. That means going out among the living.

I like coffee shops, especially ones with corner booths or seats. If I can put my back to the wall, make myself small, become unremarkable and unnoticed, then I can sketch people as they go about their business, natural and unaware. Propped up on elbows, heads in hands distorting faces, scowls or smiles while they read, backs hunched, faces quiet in thought, legs crossed or up on chairs, heavy sighs, changing positions, settling out of their routine. No posturing. No posing. Just there. That’s life.

Shopping malls, especially in the food court. Up high, looking down on the unsuspecting masses walking by. On a bench removed from the crowds, but still on the periphery, able to observe without being observed. Laughing, talking, tired, driven, meandering, texting, kids tugging on parents, parents clinging to that last nerve, couples holding hands, husbands sitting on benches looking bored as they wait for their wives to come out of a store. Sketches have to be quick in a mall. People don’t stand still for long. It’s all about catching the feel of what you’re looking at, not so much the details of every fold of clothing, every wisp of hair, but the shapes and structure, the lights and darks, the hard lines. You see them, take a mental snapshot, sketch and they’re gone.

Airports are wonderful. People are just waiting and most often they don’t really want to be there. No matter what people say about the journey vs. the destination, few people enjoy killing time in airports. But they sit, they stand, they drink coffee, they read, they doze off, they browse in little shops for things they don’t need and they watch the time. And artists draw them.

Parks, lakes, hiking trails, campgrounds, people hold themselves differently in natural places. A little less rigid, time to think. You’re less likely to see them texting or talking on their phones, at least you hope so. Ties and collars loosened, jackets open. Bagged lunches open on a picnic table, eyes a little glassy. Heavy sighs releasing the tension, enjoying the sunshine. Throwing a ball for the dog. Arm draped over a bench, legs crossed. Lying on blankets. People use natural places to escape, sometimes only for a few minutes. But it’s better than nothing.

I like zoos, too. Where else do you get to see animals from the other side of the world? A lion basking in the sunshine, his face suddenly erupting in a yawn as he falls over for a nap. There’s a feel to that scene you don’t see in a photo and it helps to sketch that live, in person, breathing the same air and trying to share the same feeling.

My buddy has a cabin in British Columbia. For years, he has allowed his friends to use it and it never fails to inspire me, even if sometimes I don’t realize it until after I’ve returned home. Up in the woods, rustic and most importantly, quiet. Little curiosities and knick knacks adorn the place, gifts left by guests, photos tucked into mirrors, half melted candles stuck into wine bottles that were probably opened and enjoyed in that very place many years ago. I love being there because it’s a change of scenery and it’s peaceful. When I draw there, it’s almost always something different than I would draw at home. So a change of scene is sometimes all that’s required to reveal those hidden creative alleyways and roads less traveled.

I’m rarely without a sketchbook. Many times it may stay in my pack or in the car, but too many times to count, I’ve been able to steal five minutes in one place or another to draw what I see. It’s just not the same thing to snap a photo with a smart phone. Later, when you download the photo and try to sketch it, you won’t be able to put yourself back into the place, and feel what you felt that compelled you to take the photo in the first place. You might come close, but it won’t be the same.

The trick to drawing from life is to try to be removed from the scene. If the person you’re sketching sees you and has even the slightest inkling that you’re focused on them, they will change and you will have lost the natural posture that drew your attention in the first place. When that happens, move on. The moment is gone, but another is close by.

Sketching is practice and need not be shown to anyone else, and it certainly doesn’t need to be finished. Different perspectives, capturing moments, opening yourself up to possibilities you might not have considered. You can’t do that by existing in the same place day after day. It’s not always easy. I’m just as guilty as the next guy of being too busy to take an hour or two to just sketch. It takes effort to change habits, and if at first you don’t succeed. Well, you know.

Gestures, sketches, drawings, paintings. All of these can be done in the studio. But if the studio doesn’t change or grow, neither will your art.

Posted on June 14, 2013June 14, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Another Day at the Calgary Zoo

Had to pick up some prints in Calgary again yesterday which gave me another excuse to go to the zoo. The forecast was pretty dismal, so I was prepared for rain, expecting I would just hang out in the indoor enclosures. As usual, however, the forecast was less than accurate and the sun came out for a few hours. It ended up being quite warm and enjoyable and with the couple of hours I’d budgeted to take reference shots, I managed to cover quite a bit of ground.

As I want to spend more time on sketches and practice work, instead of every effort needing to be a fully detailed painting, I’m finding a lot more useful reference than I used to. While I did finally get some decent reference shots of the meerkat for a Totem painting, everything else will end up being reference for less finished work. Should I find that a sketch or practice painting has potential for something more later, I know where to go for more reference. For now, however, sketching from some of these pics will serve as resources to help me improve my skills.

I took hundreds of photos yesterday, but ended up keeping about fifty, which is still a lot. Roughly thirty or forty of those were of one meerkat. He (or she) just kept posing for me and I’ve got plenty of reference to do a nice study of the little critter sometime in the near future. He was just fun to watch. With many school children at the zoo yesterday, there just wasn’t any room to sit and sketch for an hour, nor would I have enjoyed it with the constantly moving (and shrieking) crowd. It’s likely that I will wait until September or October for another trip to the zoo, when it’s a little quieter. Until then, I have plenty to keep me busy.

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

Gathering Reference

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

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

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

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

Any excuse to go to the zoo.

Posted on March 26, 2013March 27, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Wacom Cintiq 13HD

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending an online briefing for the new Wacom Cintiq 13HD Pen Display. For those familiar with the Wacom line of tablets and displays, the 13HD is the replacement for the Wacom Cintiq 12WX. Let me tell you, this might just be the one you’ve been waiting for.

Let me preface this post by saying, if you’re expecting an unbiased critical ‘pros and cons’ review, you’re not going to find it here. I’m a big fan of Wacom tablets for the simple reason that I make my living as a digital artist. The computer is my medium, but only if a Wacom tablet or display is connected. I would not be able to sketch, draw or paint with a mouse, and I’ve yet to meet a professional digital painter who is not using a Wacom device at some level.

Over the past ten years, I’ve used all versions of the professional Intuos line of tablets, a few of the entry level Bamboo tablets, the Cintiq 12wx, and my current go-to display is the Cintiq 24HD. Each has had unique features that distinguishes itself from the others and from the previous models. For my daily work, I’m using the Cintiq 24HD. It’s a joy to create with, and it excels in quality and performance. Combine that with the fact that I can customize all of the features and I find it does everything I need it to. Well, except for one thing. It’s a monster and you can’t take it with you! With the Cintiq 24HD, you find a place for it and you leave it there. Since I work from home in my office at my desk everyday, it’s all I need most of the time.

But from time to time, I like to do painting demos in galleries, instructional presentations, or give lectures at schools. The Intuos5 tablet works very well for that and I can still do all of my work with that tablet without a problem. But let’s face it, I’m not only used to working on the screen now, but I really enjoy it. The Cintiq 13HD paired with a laptop will now give me the portability and performance I need, not to mention the HD quality I’ve become used to and thrive on.

So in the briefing today, there were a few things that really caught my eye, features that made me sit up and take notice. Or should that be, sit up and beg?

They’ve gotten rid of the connector box that came with the 12WX. That box meant that every time you wanted to hook it up, you had to deal with plugging and unplugging what seemed like more cables than were really there. To be honest, it was a pain to cart around and I didn’t like that very much. Of course, the Cintiq 13HD still has cables, but they’re a lot neater. In fact, it’s a 3-in-1 cable. It also comes with an AC adapter to plug into the wall, as it’s unrealistic to expect a state of the art HD display to run on the power from a USB cable. For those who want the VGA connector, you can easily find adapters at most electronics stores.

Obviously, Wacom has tried to find the balance between portable and performance with this device, because the Pro Pen that comes with the Cintiq 13HD also comes with a handy carrying case, complete with the interchangeable nibs and other accessories that Wacom pen users have come to expect and appreciate. One of the best features with the pen is that it is compatible with the Intuos 5 tablets and other Cintiq displays so you don’t have to keep switching pens if you’re using multiple Wacom devices. I love that! One pen to rule them all.

The display stand is ingenious. With three different settings to allow you to adjust the height and angle, there will be a workable position for anyone. But if you’re the type of artist that likes to work with it on your lap or flat on the table or desk, the entire stand is removable, leaving you with just the display. Incidentally, the whole thing is less than 3 pounds!

One of the greatest features with any Wacom tablet or display is the ability to customize the Express Keys, Touch Ring and Radial Menu. With the Cintiq 13HD, they’ve replaced the Touch Ring with a Rocker Ring, which now gives you four more programmable buttons. As someone who usually has a hard time deciding which features win the coveted Express Key status, I’m pleased they gave me more options to choose from. The ability to make my tablet or display my own is a very important feature for me and I use these features in every image I work on.

Until I get my hands on one of these little wonders, I’ll just have to drool from afar, but it has definitely made this year’s technology wish list and I’m looking forward to getting one. The Wacom Cintiq 13HD will be shipping very soon, sometime in the middle of April.

Posted on March 14, 2013March 14, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

A Look at the Books

For some reason, I had an overwhelming urge to clear out the books that I was no longer using. I’ve currently got three bookshelves in my office. A couple of them hold novels, magazines, binders, some photo albums, and even a couple of novels I wrote years ago that I never published. Most of what I cleaned out was from those shelves. My wife cured me of any hoarding tendencies many years ago and now I hate clutter and hanging on to things I don’t need. When it comes to art books, however, it’s tough for me to let those go and all of those reside on the bookshelf right beside my desk. Sure, it was easy to recycle the Photoshop World class notes book from 2009 and a Tips and Tricks book from Photoshop CS3, but most of that bookshelf stayed.

Over the years, I’ve seen other artists share insight into what sort of books they have on their shelves, so I thought I’d do the same. First of all, I like reading books and magazines on my iPad, but when it comes to art books, I still like being able to grab one off the shelf, pour a cup of coffee and spend a half hour on the couch leafing through it. It’s just not the same with an e-reader. These are the books I still reference, look through for inspiration, or just enjoy revisiting once in awhile, especially if they’re artists whose work I admire. While I’m not going to go through these book by book, I’ll tell you a little bit about them. I’ve picked these up at the Calgary Expo, bookstores, or online. Some I’ve gone looking for, others I’ve just discovered.

Forgive the badly stitched first photo, but this is the top shelf.

In no particular order since you can find the ones I’m talking about. Drew Struzan is easily my favorite artist and I find endless inspiration from his work. The days of illustrated movie posters are behind us now, but he was the best at it. He still does one or two when fans like Writer/Director Frank Darabont ask him to, but he’s mostly retired, now. Many of these books are instructional by cartoonists and animators I admire and still learn from. Bruce Blitz, Chris Hart, Tom Richmond, Jack Hamm, Tom Bancroft, Richard Williams. Both of Bert Monroy‘s books on Painting in Photoshop are here and those are great. Bert’s style is very photorealistic and while very different from my own work, I’ve learned a lot from him over the years, both in person at Photoshop World and online. There are a couple of books on sculpting with polymer clay, something I’ve always wanted to try but haven’t yet made the time for. A lot of great photo reference books here. Mark Simon‘s Facial Expressions is a fantastic resource. He has one for adults, and another for Babies to Teens. I would recommend these books to any cartoonist or animator. There are a couple of Virtual Pose books, different positions of poses in print and on CD. The Artist’s Photo Reference Series, and not surprisingly, a number of photo reference books for animals. Jill Greenberg’s Bear Portraits and Monkey Portraits are two of my favorite books. She is a master photographer of posed animals and I love her work. Skin by Lee Varis is a cool book for photographers, all about lighting and retouching faces in photos. A lot of applied theory in this book directly relates to painting skin as well.

The second shelf consists mostly of books that feature the work of other artists. The first two on the left are beautiful photo books of faces. Celebrities, actors, well known people of accomplishment. While I’d never use these photos for main reference for a portrait, they’re wonderful for seeing detail in human features, skin texture, lighting. Love these books. Tangled is a favorite animated movie for the artwork. Rustboy was a one man 3D animated movie that never got finished. But the artist had some great ideas, the book is excellent, and he’s moved on to other things. Some artists represented on this shelf are Stephen Silver, Frank Cho (Liberty Meadows cracks me up!), Greg Horn, Luis Royo, Joe Chiodo, Jason Seiler, Bobby Chiu, Joe Bluhm, J.M. Linsner, DPI Studios, Jenn Llewellyn and Tom Bancroft again. A few collections from The Calgary Expo, CrossGen Comics, Ballistic Publishing. Two favorite artists on here that specialize in animal character design are David Colman and Joe Weatherly. Their work has been a great inspiration to me. One book on this shelf, Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair is a must have for cartoonists and animators. I can’t count how many times I’ve referenced this book over the years. And finally, there are books on the right side that I keep within easy reach. Fowler’s Modern English Usage, The Complete Color Harmony, Selling Art 101, Licensing Art 101 and the Graphic Artists Guild bible; Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. While the prices in here aren’t always accurate, due to market fluctuations and the economy, there are great benchmarks for all sorts of freelance artists to base their pricing structures on.

And finally on the third shelf down are the comic strip and editorial cartoonists. Collections of Canadian editorial cartoons by Aislin, Macpherson, Elston, Rodewalt, De Adder, Innes and Raeside as well as a few years of Portfoolio books. Uderzo’s Asterix books have long been favorites, I’ve always loved his artwork. Trudeau’s ‘Doonesbury’, Darby Conley’s ‘Get Fuzzy‘, Berke Breathed’s ‘Bloom County‘ (easily my favorite comic strip of all time), Larson’s ‘The Far Side,’ Scott and Borgman’s ‘Zits‘, Lynn Johnston’s ‘For Better or Worse‘ and Watterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes.’ On another shelf, I have four books of Frank Cho’s ‘Liberty Meadows’, which I consider a close second or third to Bloom County.

So there’s a vast amount of useless information for you, a look at which books and artists rev my creative engine and inspire me to want to be a better cartoonist, illustrator and painter. There will always be artists better than you are and it’s in your best interests to seek them out and learn from them. I’ve always found that the best way to do that is to get to know their work.

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Working for Free and Clearing the Air

This topic seems to be floating around a fair bit lately and that’s a great thing. Too many artists are doing work for free because many companies expect them to. While I could write a long post about this, and I have in the past, Stephen Silver says it best in this video below. If you are a freelance artist and aren’t yet aware of Stephen’s work, I would suggest you follow him. He is respected for good reason. He has great advice, is very inspirational and has been working in the animation and design business for a long time. I’ve even taken an online character design course from him years ago and learned a lot. While I don’t consider myself as accomplished a cartoonist or character designer as he is, my work is definitely better from having learned from him. Now this video below is an angry rant, and this is out of character for Stephen, but he’s passionate about protecting artists from being taken advantage of, and you can see that in the video. If you’re easily offended…well you wouldn’t be here, so never mind.

Before I get to the video, however, I’d like to address something I’ve been taking a bit of flack for the past couple of months, something that has direct bearing on this topic, and that’s the fact that I gave Emilio Estevez the painting of his father for free. While I could easily dismiss the criticism as ‘some people are just angry at everything,’ I feel it’s important to address this because it’s not just me being slighted in the criticism, it’s Estevez as well. While I’m sure he has thick skin and is used to being criticized for anything and everything in his profession, it bothers me that some think he got the painting for free because he expected it for free, simply because he’s a celebrity. That’s not the case.

Throughout our correspondence, he was always offering to buy the painting. He never expected me to give it to him. When I explained that I couldn’t sell it because of why I painted it (you can read about that here), he then offered me other incentives from which I could make money from the print and I still declined. My decision to give the painting was always mine. I make a good living as a commercial artist, I do not do commission work for free, and nobody is taking advantage of me. I wasn’t asked to do the painting. That would have been something entirely different and I would have charged appropriately for my time and effort, just as I would have if the painting was going to be used commercially.

Let’s say that I had been in the same head space I was in when I painted that image of Martin Sheen, but had instead been inspired to paint somebody on the street in Calgary. Let’s say I took a photo, and painted that person for my own enjoyment. Let’s also say that person’s son or daughter saw the image and wanted to give that image to their father, the subject of the painting. I can honestly say that I would have done the same thing, charged them only the printing and shipping and given them the painting, the same arrangement I made with Estevez. The decision was not about celebrity. It was about me, where I was at a couple of months ago, and what my instinct told me at the time. The difference was that the inspiration came from a film, so the painting ended up being a character played by a well known actor.

Estevez was nothing but gracious and genuine throughout the experience and in addition to the signed prints I requested, and paying for the shipping and printing, he even gave me a copy of the memoir written by him and his father, signed personally to me by both. Some have suggested I should have gone for the big money grab because he was a celebrity. That’s just not me. While the story did get a fair bit of press in Canada and a little bit in the U.S., the experience doesn’t mean anything in the long run to anybody but me and the recipients of the painting. It’s already long over, as most stories of this nature so quickly are. To do it all again, I would change nothing. While I have some very nice souvenirs of the experience, I’m back to doing what I do best, drawing cartoons, illustrations, and painting funny looking animals for a living. Throw in the odd portrait for fun and inspiration and that’s where I want to be.

Hopefully that clears a few things up for a few angry people out there. If not, feel free to continue to wallow in it. It’s your problem. For the rest of you, take a look at this video by Stephen Silver. If you’re an artist, it might inspire you to believe in your own worth. If you’re not an artist, but someone who might hire one, perhaps this will enlighten you as to the struggles being faced in the industry. We’re all building our own individual careers, but we also need to look out for one another as well.

Posted on January 31, 2013August 28, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne — 10 Comments

Martin, Emilio, and Tom’s Road.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It just doesn’t get much better than that.