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Much ado at the zoo

With my focus on painting animals the past couple of years, my thoughts are often on trying to figure out the best way to sell the prints and the images themselves.  While I’m pleased with where the paintings are sold here in Canmore at Two Wolves Trading Co. and at About Canada in Banff, I’m now looking for venues in Calgary and for licensing opportunities.

With that in mind, I sent off an inquiry email to the Calgary Zoo.  I figured if there was one place in the city that people were looking for animals, that would be it.  While it took me a few tries to get to the right person, I eventually did get a meeting yesterday morning with the Retail Manager who liked my work,  and I learned a few things.  First, they don’t currently license images in the manner in which I was hoping, so for the time being, that one is out.  Second, they’re just beginning to sell art prints like mine in one of their venues.  I had brought in a 12″X16″ canvas print of the Wolf Totem, a small wolf matted print and a large moose matted print as samples.  To my surprise, I was asked to leave them there on consignment, which is a pretty standard arrangement for art for many venues.  I honestly didn’t expect that right away, or I might have brought more.

So, my foot is in the door and a small sample of my work is now for sale at the Calgary Zoo.  I mentioned that I was going to be painting a penguin or two as part of the series, and chances are that when it’s done, they’ll be hanging one or two of those as well.  Penguins are very hot (cool?) right now at the Calgary Zoo as they just opened their ‘Penguin Plunge’ habitat, right next to the store where my art is hanging.  For purely commercial and obvious reasons, my next Totem painting is going to be a penguin.

Throughout my career, I’ve often had things turn out better than I’d hoped by not getting exactly what I wanted.  I have a good feeling about this first step, and I think it’s going to lead to something very positive, even though I have no idea what that will be.  I’m certainly pleased that I took the shot, which leads me to the other shots I took at the zoo.

It’s no secret that I find photography frustrating.  Aside from enjoying capturing moments and memories with point-and-shoot snapshots, how I feel about the technical aspects of photography is close to how I feel about doing my taxes.   It’s very clear to me that I already know how best to express myself with images and it’s not with a camera.

I know a little about what it takes to be a photographer, mostly because I hang out with a lot of them.  I see what they have to learn, how much dedication is required, and how very much more it is than just pointing a ‘good camera’ and pressing a button.  Still, I naively headed for the zoo thinking I’d get some really great reference photos, because I just needed decent light and  sharp detail, not great composition.  My buddy, Joe, gave me an old zoom lens of his recently, because it has sand in it, so a few grains end up in shots.  Bad for him, fine for me.  Attaching it to my very basic Nikon D60, I figured the lens would make all the difference.  The actual difference was that my shots were worse than they normally are.   I couldn’t use auto-focus, I had it fully extended with no tripod, was using a flash, and there was one other thing…oh yeah, I have no skills with a camera, whatsoever.  A common joke among photographers is people who shoot with the automatic setting.  That would be me.

A little sidebar here.  I spent a beautiful morning watching animals.  The new penguin habitat is a wonderful addition to the zoo, and I got there early, so no lines to contend with.  Had a great conversation with one of the staff about the care and feeding of the penguins, and wandered around in the sunshine for a couple of hours.  Despite what follows here,  I really did enjoy myself.

I shot over 250 shots of the penguins, a giraffe, a meerkat, and red pandas, all with the intent of getting GREAT reference to paint from.  After pressing the delete button far too many times in Adobe Bridge, I ended up with about 5 good shots of the penguins and one of the meerkat.  Not great shots, not even very good shots, but good shots.  That means, good enough for reference, not good enough to publish anywhere except here.  It was a very humbling experience.

Like I said, I already knew that photography was difficult.  This being my first time using any lens but the one that came with the camera, however, I learned the hard lessons you only learn through experience.

When mentioning my tale of woe on Facebook yesterday, a number of my supportive photographer friends chimed in with advice and observations.  Here were two of my favorites.

My talented photographer friend, Christine, said, ” Practice, practice, practice. I remember a post you put out the other day about the same concept with your paintings, and the work involved.”

My friend Lu Douce, whose husband Craig is another talented photographer, right here in Canmore said, “250 photos? There’s your problem right there! Craig would have taken at least a thousand!”

Both of them are absolutely right.  A real photographer will often take many more shots than I did just to get ONE good one they can use.  My 250 was nothing.  And when I read the comment about practice, I thought, ‘touché.’  Why I expected to get great (not good, but GREAT) reference photos first time out, just because I could zoom in closer with the lens,  is beyond me.  Chalk it up to enthusiastic shortsightedness.

A few others on Facebook graciously offered advice on shutter speeds, lighting, stabilizing the camera and other helpful tips that made me realize that even though I have no interest in photography, I should still  learn a lot more of the basics if I want to take my own reference shots.

I’m a good painter.  I’m confident that I can say that without it sounding arrogant.  The reason is that I love doing it.  It’s fun, it’s a challenge, I feel at home while painting.  I’m very passionate about my work, and that’s why I’ve gotten skilled at it, because I don’t know how NOT to put the time into it.  This is also the reason I am unlikely to ever be a good photographer.  Passion is a key ingredient to becoming good at any creative pursuit, and I just don’t have it for photography.  The spark is absent.

Up until now, I’ve relied on buying or trading for reference photos from photographers who really know what they’re doing, with great appreciation.  That’s unlikely to change.  But I anticipate many more trips to the zoo in the coming year, trying to learn more of the basics and about my camera.  While I have no ambition to be a photographer, I am willing to put in some book learnin’ and practice time to become at least good enough to take some photos that will help me with my paintings.

To my photographer friends out there who do enjoy their work, and have that passion, you already had my respect.  Now you’ve just got a little more.

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Tough Decisions

Regular readers will know of my plans to have a booth at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in April.  Sounds like it’s far off, but it’s not.  In the past month or so, I’ve been doing a lot of research into what it takes to set up a booth at a trade/art show and I’ve been reconsidering.

There are pros and cons to everything.  I’m fond of saying that ‘fortune favors the bold,’ but the opposite side of that coin is that ‘fools rush in.’  Considering the latter doesn’t make you a pessimist, just realistic.  In the past 10 years, I’ve made a few business decisions that ended up making my life very difficult, one or two that took a couple of years to recover from financially.  Now that I’m in a better position,  I’ve learned the lesson, and I don’t care to repeat mistakes.

I’ve talked to a few people that have made very good money selling their art at shows.  For all intents and purposes, if your work is in demand, you can do very well at them.  Risks are part of the business, and I think I’ve got a pretty good track record for taking them.  Some have turned out less than ideal, many have turned out well, but I’m starting to recognize which are more likely to bear fruit and which have a greater potential to be barren.

I awoke on Saturday morning with this conundrum rattling around in my head, asking myself a tough question.  “Am I thinking of backing out simply because I’m afraid of this new challenge or are my reasons legitimate?”

Now, they say in business you should always be wary of your image, and put forth the persona of someone who is successful all the time.  I’m finding that feels a little too hypocritical sometimes.   I found out these past few years that many people whom I thought were wildly successful were just skilled at the image they project.  Good for them for managing that and I try to do the same, but on occasion, I wouldn’t mind revealing a little behind the curtain to help somebody else who might be facing the same struggles I did on my way up.  I sure would have liked to have seen some of the real world, instead of thinking I was lagging far behind all the time, when I really wasn’t.

While I do consider myself successful, it’s a relative thing.  I haven’t had to worry about paying the mortgage each month for a very long time, and when my car needs a repair or a big expense comes up, it definitely screws up the budget, but it’s manageable.  I make a good living, but we’re far from being able to have dinner out every night,  take a tropical vacation whenever we feel like it or walk in and buy an 80″ TV on impulse.  And I have a love hate relationship with my credit card.  Years ago, I carried a very nice size balance for quite a long time, and after digging myself out of that hole, I refuse to ever be in it again, so I rarely put anything on credit.

They say you have to spend money to make money, but the caveat should be that you have to HAVE money before you can spend it.  Racking up credit card debt and spending money we don’t have is the whole reason the world is in this economic mess in the first place.  Many businesses have failed because of a ‘spend now, worry about it later’ attitude.  Looking at my upcoming expenses for this Spring, alarm bells have been going off.

Let’s talk about some of the expenses involved with having a booth at a trade show, and I’ll likely forget a few.  There’s renting the booth, electricity, parking, hotel for two nights, credit card transaction software, hardware and fees, and meals.  Things I have to buy include banner and hardware, display hardware, wall racks, easels, and promotional material.   Then the largest expense shows up, and that’s inventory.  Talking to people I know who’ve done trade shows, they all say bring more than you need.  While I wouldn’t bring prints of all of my animal paintings, I would probably bring prints of 7 or 8 of them.  That’s small matted prints, large matted prints, 12X16 canvas prints and a few 18X24 canvas prints, framed and unframed.  Plus art cards and DVDs, which I still have to buy, too.  Canvas prints are expensive.  I would estimate that I would have to bring about 20-30 canvases for three days, not knowing which are going to sell or not,  and many more matted prints of both sizes and LOTS of art cards.  Some people (who don’t do trade and art shows) have suggested that people could just order one if you don’t have it on hand.  People buy at the shows on impulse.  Buyer’s remorse is very real.  I know because I’ve done it, and been there, and multiple sites I’ve read about art shows confirm it.  If you don’t have the product on hand, don’t expect to sell it.

So, while I’m not about to give you my whole art cost structure, let’s just say the cost here is now more than a few thousand dollars.  Here’s the argument I get from others,  “Yes, but think of the money you’ll be making.  You could make twice that.”

That’s true.  The other arguments are that anything I don’t sell, I just bring home and hold onto it for the galleries, and that it’s a great learning experience, and it could be wildly successful, and, and, and…

In the grand scheme of things, it may hurt for awhile, but that expense isn’t all that much, and an investment in the business.  I get that.  But here’s the other shoe.  My work is still selling well in the galleries, but these days, art is not flying off the shelves.  Despite what the stuffed shirts on CNN say, we’re still very much in an economic crisis, and art is a luxury.  Is this the right time to gamble a great deal of money on it?

It should also be noted that this expense doesn’t exist in a bubble.  I’ve also recently realized that I will need to buy TWO new computers this year.  A desktop and a laptop.  The current ones have gotten too old, and with Photoshop CS6 likely to come out this Spring, I’ll need hardware that can run it, especially given that I want to paint larger paintings.  On top of that, there’s likely a not-insignificant tax bill coming in April, despite the fact that I pay installments all year.  I’m also releasing four more paintings this Spring in limited edition canvases (both sizes) and matted prints (both sizes) and have to stock the galleries with those.  And finally, there are those expenses that show up that you don’t expect.  You can’t put out a fire if you’ve drained the well.

Do I think this show would be a valuable experience and benefit to my business?  Absolutely, but I no longer think this is the year to do it.  I’m unwilling to cut corners to save money and have a skeleton bare bones booth.  Putting forward the wrong image with my work would be worse than not being seen there at all.  I’ve spent too many years becoming skilled at my profession to look like a kid with a lemonade stand.

Timing is important in business, and unfortunately, there is no way to know if this is the right decision or not.  I believe in taking risks and being willing to fail,  I’ve done it a lot in the past decade,  but there is a difference between smart risk and foolhardy impatience.   Gut instinct plays a large part in business.  While it was that instinct that told me to take a chance on being a cartoonist and artist in the first place, it was also that which told me not to quit my full-time job until my business could pay my half of our bills.

I plan to attend more trade shows this year, but not as a vendor, so that when I am ready for it, hopefully this time next year, I’ll be armed with more information.  Sometimes the best way to keep moving forward is to not only knowing what to do, but knowing what not to do.  Right now, the timing for this just doesn’t feel right, and as much as I don’t like it, my instinct is telling me to wait.

With all of that in mind,  I’ve decided not to have a booth at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this year, and I’m comfortable that it’s the right decision.

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The best laid plans of mice and me.

At the beginning of 2011, there were a number of things I set out to do that didn’t get done, primarily because I was busy on projects I hadn’t anticipated.  Nothing monumental, by any means, just some projects I would have liked to have taken on that I never made the time for.  Every success manual you ever read says that you have to have goals and you should write them down, to make them real and remind you of your intentions, but it would seem that whenever I do that, it never turns out quite the way I want.  If I’d held firmly to many of my goals over the years, it would have been self-limiting, because it would have meant saying no to opportunities that drastically changed my career for the better.

I’m an obsessive planner and control freak even for things I know are uncontrollable (which is most things).   Just ask anybody who knows me, spontaneity is not one of my strong suits.  But it’s something I do want to change a little because the alternative takes a lot of effort and energy.  It’s really exhausting and not one of my finer qualities.  About a month ago, my wife and I were in Calgary to do some shopping on a Saturday, and out of the blue, I suggested driving home to Red Deer instead, (another hour each way) to shop there so we could hang out and have lunch with my folks.  Called them up, and they thought it was a great idea, so we headed north on a whim.  The fact that it shocked both my wife and my parents was a bit of a wake-up call for me, that something this minor had become completely out of character for me.  Planning, looking ahead, mapping things out and trying to see all of the variables is a great asset to have when working on projects and deadlines, but it’s an undesirable trait for living life.

I’ve been working my ass off for the past ten years trying to get my business and career to a point where there is enough forward momentum, so that every foot of ground gained, is not simply held because my fingernails are dug into the dirt far enough.  These days, I’m finally able to let go a little without sliding backward, which is giving me a chance to look around and figure out what to do next, without an overwhelming sense of panic.

So what have I got planned for 2012?  Well, there are a few things I know for sure.  First, I’ll be painting.  Animals, people, maybe an experiment or two, but always painting.  I am fortunate to be filled with a deep satisfaction that, right now, that’s the work I’m supposed to be doing and it gives me the most joy.  Editorial cartoons are another given.  Despite what I thought a few years ago, that part of my business is still going strong, and while following self-important, overpaid, blowhard politicians around with a shovel all year annoys the hell out of me on a regular basis, I do like drawing cartoons and the bills must be paid.  There will be at least one more DVD from PhotoshopCAFE coming in 2012, maybe even two.  I’ll definitely be selling my wares at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in April, and depending on how that goes, I might book another trade show for the Fall as well.  And so that I am free to say ‘Yes’ to whatever right opportunities show up, I’ll be saying ‘No’ a lot to those I’m certain are the wrong ones.

Of course,  I’ll work long hours, will still plan a little too obsessively, and will continue to work hard all year.  After all, as the scorpion said to the frog, “it’s just my nature.”

When it comes to the rest of 2012, however,  I’m just going to take deep breaths, keep moving forward, and see what happens.

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A DVD in the hand

My DVD’s arrived in the mail this week, some of my promotional copies from PhotoshopCAFE.

While it seems like quite awhile ago that I finished the challenging task of recording my first training DVD, it really hasn’t been that long at all.  At the time I was working on this project, it felt like a monstrous undertaking.  In retrospect, I wouldn’t change the experience, because I can now look back on it with a great sense of accomplishment.  Holding the finished product in my hand is made all that much sweeter because of the difficulty and stress I went through recording it.  Many times during the process, I thought to myself, “there is no way I’m going to finish this, and if I do, it’s going to be an incoherent mess.”

I’m now working on my second DVD for PhotoshopCAFE, and while it will still be a challenge,  I find myself without any of the anxiety I felt while working on the first one.  Without challenges forcing you to step out of your routine, there is no growth.  Even though I already knew that, it would appear that I need to be reminded of it once in awhile.  This DVD did just that, and I’m grateful for the lesson.

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The Week After


My wife and I gave up celebrating Christmas a number of years ago. After years of working in the tourism industry, the holiday became something we dreaded, not looked forward to. One of the hardest things new staff in this area have to get used to is that you do not get Christmas off to go home and visit your family. This valley is run on tourism, so all of the hotel rooms are full of people coming to the mountains with their families. Those hotels, restaurants, and ski hills need to be staffed. Unfortunately, few of these families seem to be having a stress-free vacation and that usually lands on the staff as well.

While neither of us work in that sort of job anymore, we never reignited the ‘Christmas spirit’. Our home looks the same on Christmas Day as it does in the middle of July. We don’t decorate, exchange gifts, or do anything remotely Christmas related, aside from attend a couple of parties. And really, it’s just because we enjoy seeing friends, although this year, neither of us were much in the mood for that, either.

A few years ago, we convinced our parents not to give us any presents, so there is no swapping of the gift cards or cash, or blowing our budget on things none of us need. For a couple of years there, it was almost like putting in an order…tell me what you want, and I’ll go buy it. We don’t have children, so Santa doesn’t need to come to visit, anymore.

This year, we did go home to Red Deer for the weekend, and it was nice and quiet. Friday with my wife’s family, Saturday with my folks, then home Sunday afternoon. A couple of nice dinners, but very quiet and relaxing, and no gifts exchanged. Played a few games, had a few laughs, and enjoyed each others’ company.

While I wouldn’t try to convince anyone else to give up Christmas, especially if they have children, it is definitely time for a lot of people to put on the brakes. Whether it’s for the obvious religious reasons or simply for spending time with family, each person should figure out what exactly it is that they’re celebrating.

I’ve watched in disbelief these past couple of weeks as every single day, there was at least one segment on the news about our current debt crisis, how people are living beyond their means with massive credit card and household debt, and advice from experts on how to curb holiday spending. All the while, many retailers are reporting record sales at the malls and online. The same will happen this week, no doubt, as big ticket items (and everything else) are on sale. Remember when Boxing Day was just a day? Now it’s a week. Judging from the footage we see on the news each year, people aren’t thinking about their fellow man when they’re pushing and shoving and rushing those doors to get 20% off a 3D TV.

Sure, you can call me Scrooge or Grinch, and you’d be accurate. While many people talk a good game about the holiday spirit and the true meaning of Christmas, there seems to be less and less evidence of it with each passing year. We keep buying more and more stuff trying to make ourselves happy, and when it doesn’t work, we just buy even more stuff. It’s the same reason a cocaine addict needs to keep taking more and more of the drug and never manages to get back to the initial high.

It’s as if everyone has gone mad and forgotten the lessons we were supposed to have learned the past couple of years from a near-depression economy. But it’s Christmas, and nobody wants to hear it, even though the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ credit card bills will show up soon enough.

I sincerely hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that it was free from pain or tragedy. But now that it’s over, ask yourself what you didn’t like about it, remind yourself throughout the year that YOU control your holiday, not the media, and not Big Box retailers. If you want to cut back next year, tell your family about it in July, before anybody has bought anything. Warn them that you won’t be buying as many gifts and ask them to do the same. And if you’re met with anger over the mere suggestion of it, that should be your first clue that something is seriously wrong.

If you really believe in the ‘true’ meaning of Christmas, whatever that may mean to you, put your money where your mouth is.

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Pros and Cons.

“There’s a mark born every minute, and one to trim ’em and one to knock ’em.”

According to Wikipedia, “The earliest known appearance of the above phrase in print is in Opie Read‘s 1898 novel A Yankee from the West,” even though the more common, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’ is often wrongly attributed to P.T. Barnum.

Freelance artists, in my experience, can be a naive bunch, and there are plenty of people out there willing to take advantage of them. I’ve been guilty of falling for a few empty promises on more than one occasion in my career and even though somebody can warn you of giving in to temptation, you most often learn the best lessons from experience.

Many of us just want our names and our work out there, to repeatedly have those Sally Field moments when you can stand on stage and say, “You like me, you REALLY like me,” when in fact, those moments are few and far between if you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. There are plenty of con artists out there willing to promise the world, and it’s easy to let the dollar signs in your eyes blind you to the fact that you’re selling your work (and often your soul) for bargain basement prices.

I’ve recently had a couple of life lessons handed my way in that area, and I’m grateful for them, primarily for the fact that I was able to learn from them, without any great financial cost or significant loss of time.

Without going into great detail of one of the situations, I’ll simply say that I ignored a gut feeling. I’d said that I’d required a written contract, but still began work without one. Then when push came to shove, and I insisted on it, I was told that the contract for this sort of arrangement would come at a later point, that this is how things were done ‘in the real business world,’ and that I was a rank amateur if I didn’t know that.

The worst part of it was that, for a very short time, I almost believed it. The situation went south fast, the deal fell apart, and ultimately, I was threatened with a lawsuit (later recanted, sort of). After consulting a lawyer, I was told not to give it a second thought as nothing was ever put into writing.

There were a number of things I could have done better in this bad arrangement, but in the end, I wouldn’t have changed anything, because I won’t fall for the same trap again. Having done more research after the fact, talked to other illustrators with more experience than I have with this sort of arrangement, I’ve confirmed that I really was setting myself up for a very big fall. While a contract can always be revised, I shouldn’t have put one pencil stroke on paper without at least a written understanding of the agreement, signed by both parties.

Too often, artists will ignore their own instincts in order to prevent the boat from rocking. Concessions are made that should never even be considered, in an effort to be ‘a nice guy.’

After you agree on a price, get a deposit of half of the money up front. If somebody gets angry when the subject of money enters into the conversation, then they don’t have any. You wouldn’t have gotten paid, anyway, so you’re no worse off.

If they get angry or try to avoid the question of a written agreement, then you’re better off parting company because you weren’t likely to get what you thought you were, anyway. Once again, you have nothing to lose (and everything to gain) by walking away.

In retrospect, the experience was very unpleasant, but it could have turned out worse. I learned from it, and am moving on, better prepared for the next offer that sounds too good to be true.

Some suggested reading for freelancers, to better protect yourself.
Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines

Photographers’s Survival Manual: A Legal Guide for Artists in the Digital Age

Licensing Art 101