Category: Totem Paintings

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No Strings Attached

The Wacom Intuos5 tablet is a welcome evolution to the line, and while I never felt that the Intuos4 was lacking in any way, it has quickly become apparent that I didn’t know what I was missing.  The new design, heads-up display for the Express Keys and the Touch Ring, along with the improved pen response are reasons enough for me to love this tablet.  The Touch features just ended up being a bonus.

One of the best new features of the Intuos5, however, is the add-on Wireless Accessory Kit.  Even though one or two of the previous tablets had wireless capability, this is the best solution I’ve seen for the feature and it’s impressive how well it works.

The instructions for using the kit couldn’t be simpler, and after charging the battery while I worked, I was anxious to try it out.  My whimsical wildlife paintings hang in galleries in Banff, Canmore, and Calgary, Alberta.  From time to time, I’ll do painting demonstrations, to coincide with a long weekend or the launch of new paintings, both of which happened in May.

The basic setup of the demo is that of me sitting behind a table with the laptop and tablet, and a large secondary display facing outward so that viewers can talk to me, but also see what I’m doing.  With the Wireless Accessory Kit installed, I was able to come out from behind the table, stand beside some of the viewers, and even let them try the tablet right out in front of the secondary display.  It was a very interactive experience for the viewers.

While that would have been enough of a successful test, I recently found myself with another opportunity when I was asked to give presentations to a couple of 7th grade classes at the local school.  This is something I do from time to time, and it usually consists of my running a PowerPoint slideshow presentation from the classroom computer, while the students watch on the peripheral smart-board.   A smart-board is an interactive blackboard sized display screen that many schools are using now.

At the end of the slideshow and talk about editorial cartooning and painting, the students always want me to draw, and I usually end up showing them some rudimentary cartoons on a dry erase board.  While it works well, there’s really no ‘wow’ factor, and I can’t show them how I paint.

For the recent presentation, I hooked up my laptop directly to the smart-board, connected the Intuos5 tablet and was able to wirelessly control the slideshow from anywhere in the room.  The range of the Wireless Accessory Kit far exceeded my expectations.  With the laptop in one corner, I could stand by the door at the opposite corner of the room and there was no performance loss whatsoever.  It was easily 25-30 feet between connections, and I could paint as if I was sitting directly in front of the laptop.

While I was well aware that I would be able to control Photoshop with the tablet, I knew that controlling PowerPoint with it was going to free me up even more.   In the Wacom Settings, I customized the Functions specifically for PowerPoint.  I programmed four of the Express Keys for the operations I would need.   In order from the top, I chose Next Slide, Previous Slide, Start Slideshow, and End Show.  While you can see a screen shot of the ‘Express View’ here, I disabled it during the show, so that it wouldn’t pop up over my slides, and I could just keep my finger on the ‘Next Slide’ button.  Under the Touch Options, I had the touch features disabled for the length of the presentation.

I use the Keynote app on my iPad for a duplicate of the slideshow with my presentation notes, and I saw no reason why I couldn’t be free of my laptop for the entire session.  Since I only needed the Express Keys for the slideshow, I put my iPad on the tablet and carried it around (with both hands, of course) activating the slide buttons with my left thumb.So I had my notes, my slideshow, a controller for the presentation and freedom to move around the room.  It is true that the iPad has apps that can control presentations like this wirelessly, but in my experience, they’re pretty twitchy, especially when connecting to unfamiliar WiFi.

As I was using the tablet for multiple applications during the presentation already, this was a great plug-and-play solution, with no problems.  When the slideshow was finished, I removed the iPad, sat down at a desk in the center of the room in front of the Smart-board, launched Photoshop and proceeded to show the students a little on how I draw and paint digitally.

The two presentations took about three hours of my time, and with the Intuos5 tablet and wireless control of the smart board, I never once needed to go back to my laptop.  The integration was flawless, and this is how I’ll do presentations and demos from now on.

If you’d like to know more about how I setup the Express Keys, Touch Ring and Radial Menu for Photoshop, check out these videos.

 Wacom Intuos5 – Express Keys and Touch Ring

 

 Wacom Intuos5 – The Radial Menu

 

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Rockhopper Penguin Totem

This ornery looking fellow is a Rockhopper Penguin, the latest Totem in the series and one of my more challenging paintings to date.  While I usually have a lot of fun with these, this one was a roller coaster of frustration.

The main reason I added this animal to the series at this point is because the Calgary Zoo had expressed interest.  With their recent addition of The Penguin Plunge habitat to their facility, penguins are a pretty big deal in Calgary this year.  While they have already taken a chance on my Wolf and Moose paintings, I’d like to have more of my Totems for sale at the zoo, so the decision to  paint a penguin right now was a commercial one.  I sent the finished image to my contact at the zoo this morning within a short time of finishing it, and it was well received.  They’ve already ordered a significant number of prints in a variety of sizes, so they should be available at their retail outlet soon.  Right outside The Penguin Plunge.

So why was this so frustrating?  Honestly, with the exception of the Ostrich Totem, I find birds incredibly difficult to paint.  Perhaps it’s because their body structure is so different from mammals, a beak instead of a mouth, usually only one eye visible instead of two, also that they’re very stiff looking…honestly I don’t know what it is.  It wasn’t the detail, because the feathers were a lot of work, but not difficult to paint, just time consuming.  When I’m working on a painting, I start at low-resolution, then as more and more detail gets painted in, I’ll bump up the resolution until it’s around 18″X24″ at 300ppi.  When it gets to this point, the painting is really close to being finished, it’s just a matter of painting in a lot of tiny details.  With this penguin, however, I was trying to fix structural issues at full size, something I would rarely do.  But I’d painted so much detail in a lot of places that didn’t need to be fixed, so I couldn’t go backwards without losing that.

My wife Shonna is not an artist, but she has this uncanny knack of looking at a painting I’m working on and instantly seeing what’s wrong with it.  It’s very annoying, but also very helpful.  When I ask her opinion, I brace myself for what I know is coming, because there is always something.   With this penguin, she saw more than a few problems.  The eye wasn’t in the right place, the yellow feathers didn’t look right, the beak was shaped wrong.  It was brutal.

All of these issues were addressed and repainted, adding at least another five or six hours to a piece I’d already been working on for many more than that.  The personality didn’t even seem to show up until the last few hours, which is very unusual.  So while there’s nothing more I could do to this painting to improve it, I had a hard time ‘feeling’ it while I was doing the work.  There were still times when I was really enjoying myself, but not as much as I normally do.  The Bighorn Sheep Totem was like this as well, and while I love that painting now, I didn’t immediately after I’d finished it.

So what did I learn?  Well, sometimes you just have to plow through and git ‘er done, even when you’re not feeling it.  The finished painting may feel a little different to me at the moment, but anyone buying it doesn’t know the frustrating back story (unless they read it here), so it now stands on its own merit.  It’ll either be popular or it won’t, and time will tell.  Also, I took most of the reference photos myself, and they were average.  For the pose and general features, however, they were good enough.  For the fine details,  I decided to go and buy some stock photos.  After reading their licensing agreement that permits this usage for work like mine, I’ll be doing that more often.  Some great closeup detail reference on stock photo sites, and reasonably priced, too.  This is going to make future paintings a little easier for me.

While I’ve been working on commissions the last little while, turns out this is the first Totem I’ve added to the series since the Cougar in January.  I’ve got a couple of other painting projects up next, but I’m hoping to have another Totem done before the end of the summer.  And no, it’s not a bird.

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How much is that doggie in the painting?

Every time I post a new commission piece, as I did last week, people ask me what I charge for custom work.  For some reason, there used to be this grey area among artists about whether or not to post your prices.  I’ve read some compelling opinions on both sides of the argument, but one thing I’ve learned lately is that eventually you have to pick a side and stick to it.  That, and everybody has an opinion.

When it comes to editorial cartoons, illustration work and commercial painting gigs, each one is negotiated individually, because every client, usage, and situation is different.  Commissions for the animal paintings, however, are pretty straightforward, as long as the client is looking for the same style of image that can be seen in my portfolio.  An animal portrait painting, whimsical Totem style or not, is a lot of work, but it’s straightforward and there are usually no surprises.   In the interest of pulling back the curtain, I thought I’d just post the standard commission information.  This will also enable me to link to this post in the future whenever the inquiries come in.  There are always little differences in each inquiry, but consider this the foundation on which all of my painting commissions are built.  These are the current prices and details.  While they’re unlikely to change in the very near future, prices will go up over time, and with demand.

Whether it’s the Totem or realistic style, the price is the same.  For 1 (one) animal, commissions start at $600.00 (CDN), which includes a 16″X20″ signed matted print, with free shipping anywhere in Canada or the Continental U.S.  There are additional costs for other printing options as there is a significant difference between an 8″X10″ paper print and an 18″X24″ framed canvas print, both in production and shipping fees.  The time to complete a commission will vary, depending on my workload, but usually it’s around 4-6 weeks from the time I receive the reference photos.  If you live in Canada, there is GST or HST added to that price, depending on the region.  You can blame the government for that.  I require a 50 percent non-refundable deposit on all commissions once an agreement has been reached, the remainder due upon completion.

One request I’m getting more and more of these days is for the full-resolution digital file.  While I used to be on the fence about this, as many artists and photographers are when it comes to their images,  I now give the digital file to every client.  I still retain the copyright, but these days, clients want to be able to post something like this on a website and social media and maybe print a few extra copies for themselves. As long as they aren’t trying to pass it off as their own work, or sell copies of the images, I feel that’s fair.  They paid for the work, just as if a company might have paid me for an ad illustration.  That way, if they want to put the painting of Fido on their Christmas card that year, they’re free to do so.

While no photos are ever part of the paintings, I can’t very well paint those little freckles you love so much on your cat’s nose if I don’t know what they look like, so I need good photos to work from  Some of my clients have been photographers.  As a result, many of the reference photos I’ve had to work with have been great.  Since not everybody can be a photographer, it’s often a challenge to find the right photos.  The better the photos I have, the better the painting will be.  In a perfect world, the photos should be sharp, good lighting, fairly close up of the face of the animal, a straight on or 3/4 pose, at eye level, and looking at the camera.  The more photos to choose from, the better.  Problems that occur with some animal photos is that their eyes are highly reflective, and a flash can completely wash out the detail.  If your dog or cat looks sad in all of the photos provided, it can be tough to make him or her look happy, without the risk of losing the likeness.

Let’s use fictitious Fido as an example.  Fido is a shaggy dog that is dirty and in desperate need of a haircut.  Can’t see his eyes, he’s looking elsewhere, it’s dusk, the photo was taken from far away, and the only copy available  is a 4″X6″ low resolution image on Facebook.  The client’s instructions are, “his hair is usually a lot shorter than that, he has big brown eyes.  When we go to our cottage in the woods, he always likes to put his paws up on the window and look out, so I’d like to see him like that.”

Based on this, I’m going to ask for more photos and negotiate that pose.  If this were all I had to go on, I would decline the opportunity, because the client wouldn’t be happy with the finished work, anyway.  Having done a number of these commissions of people and animals over the years, I can usually tell quite quickly if it’s going to work out or not.

Suppose, however, that the client has given me fantastic photos of Fido to work from, great lighting, sharp detail and is flexible on the pose, but then adds, “I’d like him to be wearing his collar with his name tag on it.  He also likes to sit with his favorite fifteen stuffed animals and toys.”

The collar would be no problem and would not affect the cost.  The same would apply to maybe sticking a bow-tie on Fido, or even a comical pair of glasses if that’s what the client wanted.  Some of that I can make up, and  I would consider that part of the foundation.  All of those toys, however, very specific toys, well, that’s going to definitely be an added cost, as would any other additional specific details that the client would like to include.  Any additional animals would also affect the cost.  While a few have asked, I decline the opportunity to paint a person and an animal in the same portrait.  My styles for both are very different, and they just don’t go together.

Painting these animals is a joy most of the time and I find that I like hearing the ‘back story’, too.  We sure do love our animals, and hearing folks talk about the personality of their furry, hairy, or feathered friend is something I enjoy very much.  I’ve no doubt that it helps me paint a better likeness and hopefully capture some of that personality in the painting.  One of my favorites was Chase, the happy German Shepherd with his titanium tooth.

Chase

I’ve been hired to paint a couple of memorial portraits of furry loved ones, too,  and the importance of that isn’t lost on me.  Titus the cat, who lived to the very ripe old age of 24, sitting in the scrap paper bin he apparently enjoyed so much at their printing business.  I’m told the painting now hangs above the bin.  Then there’s Gilly the Pomeranian who passed away last year.  The client told me his wife cried when they got the painting home, but they were tears for happy memories.  I guess I like the stories after the paintings are done, too.

I enjoy these commissions, and will continue to do them as long as folks keep asking me to.  If you’ve been thinking about a commission, or just have any questions that weren’t addressed here, please do drop me a line, either on Facebook or by email, and I’ll be happy to answer.

 

 

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Prints and Painting Demos

This is the half page ad that will appear in this week’s Rocky Mountain Outlook, for the launch of the four new Totem paintings.

On Friday, I picked up a very large print order in Calgary, a mix of matted paper prints and canvas prints.  While the majority of these were the four newly released Totem paintings, there were also a number of replacement prints for ones that have sold, and prints for online orders that I’ll be packing and shipping today.

For the matted prints, they come assembled and in a plastic sleeve.  All I have to do is insert a bio sheet into each one, sign it and seal the packaging.  For one or two, it doesn’t take much time.  For ninety-five, however, it took a couple of hours, and thankfully, no issues with the paint pen.  Paint pens are finicky.  I’ve tried a number of them and just when you think everything is going well, they can spontaneously spurt a couple of drops of paint on a print, essentially ruining it.  On a matted print, it’s a disappointment.  On a canvas print, you end up holding back tears.  I test the pen on a scrap piece of paper before I sign each print and make sure there is no excess paint built up around the nib.  You only have to lose one canvas (and I have) to never make that mistake again.  And even with the utmost care, it can still happen.

I’ll be signing the limited edition canvas prints today.  In addition to that, I have to print up numbered certificates of authenticity for each one, and enter each on a ledger.  When you’re offering limited edition prints, it’s very important not to double up the numbers.  People are expecting that the number they buy is the only one with that designation, and it’s up to the artist to ensure that nobody ever buys the same print number.

The new prints look incredible, and I’m very pleased.  All of the proofing that I did last month with my printer was well worth it.  While I know that I can always improve on my work, I love these paintings.  It’s been over two years since I painted the first one, the Grizzly Totem, and it’s still one of my favorites, and not just because it’s one of my best sellers.

With a number of critters waiting in the wings, there will be more paintings coming this year, all of which I’m excited to get started on.  The current Totem-in-progress, a Rockhopper Penguin, is well past the halfway point, and I’ll be working on that this Saturday at Two Wolves.

Painting demos are kind of fun.  Not only do I get to educate people about digital painting (“no, I am not manipulating photos”), but I enjoy the company of the people who work at Two Wolves, and just talking to the customers and answering their questions while I paint.

I don’t get out much.  It’s a nice change.

 

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Risk and Reward

Bighorn Sheep Totem

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

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

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

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

Cougar Totem

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

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

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

Magpie Totem

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

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

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

Great Horned Owl Totem

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

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

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

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

 

 

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Of Paint and Penguins

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

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

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

 

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The proof is in the printing

Spent a couple of hours at ChromaSurge in Calgary yesterday morning.  This is a small business print shop that handles all of my canvas and matted paper prints.  Kelly (the owner) was recommended to me by another Canmore artist.

There’s a lot to learn about printing, even when you’re not doing it yourself.  There are so many different types of machines, canvas, paper, coating, stretcher materials, and frames.  As I have no interest in trying to be a jack of all trades, I don’t do any of my own printing.  Recently, my printer (the guy, not the machine) bought some new equipment, canvas, paper, and inks.  Part of me, the part that doesn’t like change, was thinking, “Hey, my prints looked great, why are you messing with the formula?!”

The other part of me, however, was thinking, “He who refuses to adapt, dies!”

That is true of so many professions these days, and I plan to be doing this for a long time.   I made an appointment with the printer (again, the guy, not the machine) to reproof all of my current prints, and set to seeing how I could make them better on my end, in preparation for them being better when they came out of the printer.  One of the things I noticed with my prints was that some of the shadows were a little too dark, not something many people would notice, but when you spend as much time painting the details as I do, you don’t want to see them lost.  So I lightened them all up a bit, just some simple adjustments in Photoshop.  The lighter versions don’t look the way I want them to on the screen, but they look just right on paper.

Many digital artists and photographers become frustrated that their images don’t look the same in print as they do on their screen.  No matter what they do, they can’t make it happen.  Even with a professional color calibrator, the right printer profiles, and technical adjustments up the wazoo, it never quite gets there.  The reason is that a screen is back-lit while paper and canvas are not.  Therein lies the difference and it’s a HUGE difference.  Took me years to make peace with that.

As in all things, you do your best, and you make compromises.  You get your images to look as good as you possibly can and let go of perfection.  Those of you who know me well probably don’t believe I can do that when it comes to my paintings, but when it comes to prints, I actually can.  I know that nobody sees the imperfections the way I do when it comes to my own work, and that’s true of almost every artist I know.  We’re our own worst critics.  That’s a good thing, because it means you’re always going to try to become better at what you do.

One of the ways I try to compensate for the back-lighting  issue while painting digitally is that I have two monitors.  For Photoshop, one is my painting screen, and the other is for all of my tool palettes.  My Wacom pen is set to just go between them, so it actually acts like one big monitor.  The painting monitor is calibrated.  I use the Eye-One calibrator but there are others out there just as good.  The brightness on the monitor is also set to 13.  Yes, that’s 13 out of a possible 100.  If that seems way too low, trust me, you get used to it.  It minimizes eye strain for long periods of computer work, and also allows me to paint in more subtle shades and tones because I’m not dealing with harsh contrast.   When a painting or cartoon is done and looks good, I’ll often move it over to the other monitor, which is set a lot brighter and is NOT calibrated.  This way, I know how it’s going to look on other screens.

It’s a cheat, and one that works very well for me.  Because of working this way, there is much less of a screen vs. print shock.

My printer (the guy, not the machine…do I need to keep saying that?) takes the time to make sure I’m happy with the product he’s delivering, and good service is worth paying a little more for, especially now that it seems so rare.  When I told him that I wanted to reproof everything, and that I wanted to do it while I was there in his shop so we could talk about the results and I could ask some questions, he was fine with it.  I had all of my current paintings copied and pasted to one image that measured 18″X36″, which meant each image was around 5″X7″, just large enough to see what I needed to.    First it was printed on canvas, after which Kelly spray coated it so I could see what it would really look like when it was done.  Then he ran the same file on paper, because I sell matted prints in the galleries as well.

The difference between the two materials is that canvas has a natural texture to it.  It’s bumpy because of the weave of the fabric.  That adds a little more light and shadow, as does the protective coating.  The colours appear more saturated and richer, and there appears to be more depth in the image as a result.  I love my work on canvas, even more than on screen.  The paper prints have a flatter look, and although there isn’t a ‘shine’ to them like canvas, the quality is great, the colours are very nice and I’m very pleased with them.  With a sharp looking black mat, they pop.  But canvas is better, which is why it costs a fair bit more, both for me to have printed and for the customer to buy in the gallery.  And neither of them look like the other or like they do on screen.  Not better or worse, just different.  This photo doesn’t even capture what the canvas really looks like.  It’s just something you have to see.

I was very pleased with the prints and glad I took the time to go in and get the proofs done.  Cost me a bit of money for the ink and materials, not to mention taking the morning off from drawing and painting, but in the long run, it was a valuable use of my time.  My printer (really?  again?) also knows for a fact that I’m happy, so that likely makes him feel that he’s done right by his client.  Even better, he printed off a copy for himself so that whenever I order prints, he now has an approved standard to compare against, and so do I.  We have a baseline with this canvas, paper, ink and machine.

Like I said, I was already happy with my prints, but these new ones have just a little more spark in them.  I doubt that others will notice it, but I do, and that matters because it makes me feel better about the product I’m selling in the galleries and to my commission clients.  When new and better materials come along, we’ll have to do it all over again, and it will be worth it.

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Chase

Meet Chase, a German Shepherd who was an absolute joy to paint.  Chase spent his youth in Schutzhund Training.  I had to look it up, but according to one site, “Schutzhund is a German word meaning “protection dog.” It refers to a sport that focuses on developing and evaluating those traits in dogs that make them more useful as breeding dogs and happier companions to their owners. “

Chase has a stainless steel hip and two titanium teeth, apparently due to the competitions and excesses of his youth.  He is now happily retired, but according to his owner, ‘studly-looking nonetheless.”  It is obvious this dog is well loved and all of the reference photos showed a happy looking 10 year old dog, who is quite big when shown beside other dogs.  The client wanted one of those titanium teeth to be visible in the painting, and rather than a portrait style, he wanted my signature Totem style that I use for my wildlife paintings.  I was more than happy to oblige.  In the end, the client was very pleased with the final painting, as was I.

I hear from a lot of people asking about how I paint fur, and which brushes I’m using.  The brushes themselves aren’t complicated.  I go through the process in detail on my painting DVD from PhotoshopCAFE and recently wrote an article explaining their construction for Photoshop User magazine.  As much as I would like to say that the secret to these paintings is in the fur, I honestly don’t find that part of it difficult, anymore.  Having done many animal paintings, I’m very comfortable with using the fur brushes.  While it still takes many long hours to get it right, painting the fur is the easy part.  Getting the likeness is tough.

Sure, it’s a dog, but anybody who has shared their life with a pet, will know that each one’s face is as distinctive as any other family member. The owner will know if it’s wrong.  Dark and light areas of fur, lines in the right places, shape of the head (even in caricature), and a number of other little nuances contribute to whether or not the painting is going to be accurate.

It is likeness that causes me the most stress when working on a portrait or caricature of an animal.   Throughout the painting process, I alternate between feeling like I’ve got it right, and knowing that I’ve got it completely wrong.  When it’s wrong, it’s incredibly frustrating because I’ll often have difficulty seeing where the problem lies.  That’s often a cue to walk away from my desk, even if just for an hour, in order to let my mind reset.  When I come back, I’ll often instantly see what the issue is, and then I can get to work fixing it.

I worked on this painting off and on for the last month, in and around my other daily deadlines.  After a nine hour session on Saturday, I got through the best of it.  When I decided to call it a day,  I couldn’t save copies of it to my external drives fast enough, just in case the unthinkable happened.  A couple more hours very early Sunday morning, and it was signed, saved and delivered.

For the technical folks, this was painted in Photoshop CS5 using a medium size Wacom Intuos4 tablet, and photos were used only for reference.  The final image dimensions were 18″X24″ at 300 ppi, and at one point the working file size was just shy of 500MB.   As for how long this took to paint, I honestly have no idea.  But I do know that most of it was a lot of fun.

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The upside of 2011

Bighorn Sheep TotemAll things considered, 2011 was a great year.  While every year will have it’s challenges, I’ve been fortunate that I’m honestly able to see each year of the past decade as having continual forward momentum.  The work I’m doing is far beyond what I had hoped for when I first started in this profession and I’m very grateful for it.

I became nationally syndicated in September of 2001, sending cartoons out across Canada each week, and got very few bites.  For two years, I had no more than three newspapers, paying the bare minimum rate, and I will admit to almost giving up on it more than a few times.  With a full-time job to pay the bills, I had to get up at 5:00am each morning to get a cartoon out before I went to work.  When I came home, I had to sketch in the evening and work on the weekends in order to manage it all.  Finally I started making progress, got a few more papers, took advantage of other opportunities, and about six years ago, I was able to leave my job and play this game full-time.

Through it all was my ever supportive wife, Shonna, and I’m incredibly grateful that she never told me not to do any of this.  The only caveat given when I went full-time was that if I couldn’t pay my half of the mortgage and bills, I had to go back to work.  Canmore is an expensive place to live and we couldn’t do it on one income.  Fortunately, it never came to that, and each year has been better than the one before.  At the time, it was an incredible struggle, but in retrospect, I’m glad I had to go through it because it makes the present all that much sweeter.

If my 2001 self could see the work I’m doing now, he’d be pleasantly surprised, and I try to think about that when I’m having a bad day or feeling sorry for myself because of a heavy workload or when money is tight.  So far, I’ve not only gotten what I wanted, I’ve gotten much more.  Best of all, I discovered that I loved getting up at 5:00am to work, I still sketch in the evenings, and being self-employed means you often work weekends anyway, so I was already used to the routine.  Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Here’s a recap of my professional highlights of this past year, some of which I’d forgotten about until I went back through the blog entries month by month.

iPad Painting: Started playing around with this in January, and damn if it hasn’t been a lot of fun figuring it all out.  Ended up trying four different styli and half a dozen apps.  It would seem that I’ve finally settled on the Wacom Bamboo Stylus, the Nomad minibrush, and the procreate app.  The combination of those three gives me the best results, and while I don’t consider anything I paint on the iPad to be finished work, I would go so far as to call it advanced sketching, and I plan to keep doing it.

PhotoshopCAFE DVDs:  In March, I finished my first DVD, called Cartoon Illustration Techniques in Photoshop.  Easily one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever worked on.  Having only done a little bit of sound and video editing for a failed Flash animation project a few years back, it was a struggle.  But I finished it, it went into production, and is selling well.  I’ve heard from many who bought the DVD that have learned a lot from it and complimented me on my instruction, so I’m guessing I didn’t do so bad a job.

The second DVD, Animal Painting in Adobe Photoshop, was a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable as I wasn’t teaching raw Photoshop beginners.  It was more about the painting than the software and while it was a challenge, the difficulty I went through with the first DVD paid off while recording the second as there were few problems I hadn’t already solved.  Recording one DVD this year would have been enough of a milestone, but I never expected to record two, and to be very pleased with both of them.

Cartoon Ink: While my old website was ‘fine,’ it had become difficult to use and it was no longer the image I wanted to project.  While I had always done my own website in the past, this time I realized one of the most important business practices that so many have learned before me.  Hire professionals to do their job, so you can focus on doing yours.  With that in mind, I hired Erik Bernskiold of XLD Studios in Sweden to create a new website for me.  I knew Erik’s work and know him personally, so I was confident he would deliver much more than I could create myself.  With the help of Elizabeth Gast at Design by Firgs, another colleague and good friend who consulted on the site, and created an improved evolution of my logo, I was very pleased with the final logo and website and would highly recommend both of their work.  The time I saved was well worth the money spent and reduced stress.

Wacom: I began to form a relationship with the great folks at Wacom at Photoshop World in 2010 after I won the Guru Awards for two of my Totem paintings and I couldn’t be happier about it.  Having used their tablets since the late 90’s, you won’t find a bigger fan, so I’m very pleased to be working with them from time to time.

Over the course of the year, I’ve been featured in the Wacom eNews, have represented the company and demonstrated their products at one of Scott Kelby’s seminars in Calgary, and have been a featured guest on two of their one-hour Wacom webinars.  The people I’ve worked with at Wacom have been incredibly supportive and are absolute pros at what they do and I look forward to a continuing relationship with them.

The photo shown here is Joe Sliger demonstrating the new Wacom Inkling for me at Photoshop World this year.  He is also one of the moderators of the webinars.

Island Art Publishers: In July of this year, I began a licensing deal for some of my Totem paintings to be produced on art cards.  These are distributed throughout Western Canada and the northwestern U.S. and time will tell whether this arrangement bears any fruit.  An artist friend once told me that art cards are often your best advertising, because not only does the person buying it see your work, but so does the person receiving it.  You may not make much money early on, but it’s enough to get your work out there to a market that otherwise might not see it.  And the cards look really good.

Photoshop World: While it’s true that I didn’t learn much about technique or improving my work at this year’s Photoshop World in Las Vegas, I still think it was worth attending because of the networking opportunities.  Having recorded two DVDs for PhotoshopCAFE, it was great to finally meet the owner of the company in person, and see their operation on the Expo Floor.  I was able to meet a few more of the Wacom folks in person, and talk with other industry professionals I otherwise might not have had the opportunity to talk to.  Online interaction is fine, but it doesn’t compare with face-to-face conversations.  So while I won’t be going back as an attendee, I still think this year’s trip was well worth it.

knmadventuresAt the time, I was doing some illustration work for wildlife photographer and instructor, Moose Peterson as well, and being able to go over sketches with him in person was a real treat, as most of the time this would have all been done online.  The other benefit of the Photoshop World conference is that I get to meet with so many talented photographers, many of whom I consider close friends.  For somebody who relies on great photo reference for my painted work, their skills and talent are often one of my most valuable resources, not to mention their generosity with their work, and the support they offer for mine.

Paintings: Saved the best for last.  I am so very pleased with the progress I’ve made on my painted work this year.  The first half of the year, I was so busy with the DVDs and other work that I only painted one animal in my Totem series, the Great Horned Owl.  When I realized this in the latter half of the summer, I was ticked off.  The work I love to do most, I had placed in last priority.  In retrospect, however, I’m glad it happened because when I realized it, I vowed it would never happen again and it stoked the fire.  The end result is that from September to December, I’ve painted a number of new images and I feel they are my best work to date.

I had been becoming bored with painted caricatures of people in the past couple of years, but recently, I’ve realized that it wasn’t people I was bored with painting, just caricatures of them.  Beginning with a couple of iPad paintings, I’ve discovered how very much I enjoy painting portraits, and I’ve done a couple of pieces recently that I’ve really enjoyed.  Inspired by the work of Drew Struzan and others, I think I’ll be painting a lot more portraits of people, if nothing more than for the sheer enjoyment of it.  While style is always evolving, I think my paintings now have a definitive look that is mine, whether it’s people or animals, and it’s one I want to continue to develop and refine.

I’m now getting commissions to paint pet portraits and caricature this year, and it’s really enjoyable work.  The painting of Don Diego that I did for my DVD, the memorial to Titus the cat, and to being able to finally create a real painting for my folks of their dog, Bailey, it’s looking like this could be a big part of my work in the coming years.  Working on another commission at the moment, and having fun with it.

My real passion, however, is still the Animal Totems.  Nothing I’ve ever done in my career has filled me with as much joy as that I get from painting these whimsical caricatures of wildlife.  Not only are they fun to work on, but they sell well in the galleries which means others like them, too.  I’ve been fortunate that a number of wildlife photographers I know have been willing to sell me the license rights to use their photos as reference, or have enjoyed my work enough to want to trade me the use of their images for canvas prints of the painting when it’s done, both of which I’m more than willing to do.

Humpback Whale TotemEach of them is my favorite for different reasons, but the one I was most happy with this year was the Humpback Whale Totem.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve wanted to paint it for so long or that it was such a challenge to paint an animal with no fur or hair, and the end result lived up to my expectations.  Either way, these paintings are the only work I’ve ever done that I still enjoy months and even a year after I’ve painted one.  That alone tells me this is the work I’m meant to do, at least for now.

As you can see, I’ve had a very good year, and I’m grateful for it.  For all of you that follow my work, your messages of support here on the blog, through social media, and email are all appreciated.  It’s a solitary existence, this freelance lifestyle, and it’s nice to know that others are getting enjoyment out of the work I do.  And if you’re struggling with your own creative endeavors, whether you’ve just begun or are just trying to keep going, I would urge you not to give up.  It may not seem like it in the moment, but I assure you, if it’s something you love to do, it’s worth the effort.