Ucluelet Archives - LaMontagne Art

Posted on September 16, 2018September 16, 2018 by Patrick LaMontagne

Vancouver Island 2018

Why am I writing a blog post on my week away from the office? Because it’s pouring! But considering that the whole week on Vancouver Island was supposed to be like this, I’ve got no complaints. We lucked out on the weather, as the rain held off on all of our wildlife excursion days.

At the moment, we’re in a cabin on the harbour in Ucluelet, one of our favorite places.

While many end up on this side of Vancouver Island to visit Tofino, we’ve long preferred taking the left turn near the end of Highway 4, rather than continuing on to what to us seems like a Pacific version of Banff. No offence intended Tofino, but a busy tourist town is what we’re taking a vacation from. Ucluelet just feels more like a place you could live.

Rather than chew up four days driving to and from Vancouver Island, we’ve always flown into Comox and rented a car. If it costs more, it’s only by a small amount when you factor in the ferries, hotels, and gas. We’re not road trip people. Screw the journey, give me the destination.

On Saturday upon landing, we picked up our rental car (free upgrade to an SUV!), met up with our ex-Banffite friend Robyn for coffee, and stayed with long time family friends for a night. My buddy Darrel is my oldest and closest friend, and his parents always make us feel so welcome. Unfortunately, there are other friends we always like to see when out here on the Island, but with only a week away, after an incredibly busy summer in Canmore, we opted to be selfish and offered our regrets ahead of time.

Shonna decided we should try AirBNB and VRBO this year for our accommodations and it was a great plan. She found us a nice, albeit small, condo in a renovated historic building on the harbour in Victoria, a place called the Janion, right beside the brand new Johnson Street Bridge. An impressive piece of engineering.

Victoria has a beautiful downtown with plenty of restaurants and things to see within easy walking distance. We parked the car on arrival and didn’t use it again until we left.

The main reason for going to Victoria this time was for Orcas. Shonna has long wanted to see them. I’ve wanted to paint one as well, but this was something we’ve missed out on every previous trip to the Island so we were on a mission.

We booked with Eaglewing Tours, their floating office on Fisherman’s Wharf. A number of years ago, the owner licensed the use of my Humpback Whale Totem painting for a mural on the side of their building, and this was the first opportunity I had to see it in person. They’d combined it with another artist’s painting of orcas and whoever stitched it together did a fine job of it.

Given their reputation, we booked with them for our best chance to see Orcas.

Without subjecting you to a play by play, on our five hours in the Salish Sea, we saw over a dozen Humpbacks. At one point, with a dark sky and storm on the horizon, we could see the spray from their exhalations on all sides, an incredible and surreal sight.

On the way back, it was looking like Shonna wasn’t going to luck out on this trip, until the Captain spotted what we were after. In the end, we saw three family pods of Orcas, including two babies. One was almost a newborn, its white markings still orange.

One even swam right up to the boat, turning over to take a look at us. The experience surpassed our expectations and made the three days in Victoria well worth the drive down Island.

While in Victoria, I visited Art Ink Print for the first time, the company that supplies my digital poster prints sold in the zoos and parks. They’ve consistently exceeded my expectations when it comes to quality and service so it was nice to see where it all happens. Typical of Victoria, their shop was only a few blocks from where we were staying and I was able to see the first proof of my latest painting, Happy Baby. Prints will be available soon.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find my Otter Totem shirt in a couple of stores, those licensed and sold through Harlequin Nature Graphics in Cobble Hill. With conflicting schedules, we didn’t visit them this time, but have in the past.

After Victoria, we headed north and west to Ucluelet for four nights. For the most part, we’re creatures of habit out here. Breakfasts at The Barkley Café and dinners at the Floathouse Grill, often more than once. From the beach in front of our cabin at low tide, I was able to watching a Great Blue Heron fishing and even saw seven River Otters go by one morning.

On Wednesday, I went out on a wildlife tour with Archipelago Wildlife Tours owned by our friends Al and Toddy, on the hunt for reference pics. Shonna’s been out with them twice, so she opted to spend the day being pampered at the Black Rock Spa, but she still got to visit when we took them out to dinner Thursday night.

This was my 7^th time touring the Broken Group Islands and this go round, we saw bears, seals, sea lions, sea otters, eagles, and plenty of birds, not to mention some of the most beautiful scenery to be found anywhere in the world, all from the comfort of the boat.

Thursday found Shonna and I at the Thornton Creek Hatchery on the road to Port Albion, where they’re working to increase salmon numbers in this area. We’d never been there before, but likely because we’re usually here in June and this is our first visit in September when the salmon are spawning.

One of the bonuses is that black bears frequent the river for the easy salmon meal. There is a boardwalk above the river, where for a limited time, tourists like us can see the bears without there being any danger to either species.

We headed down the dirt road through the thick growth rain forest to the gate, arriving at around 9:30, where there were already three cars ahead of us. By the time they let us in at 10, there were about a dozen vehicles waiting. Happy to pay the suggested donation of $10-$20 for the privilege, we were ushered into the enclosure where we lined up along the boardwalk rail and waited.

After about 25 minutes, the first bear showed up, plucked a salmon out of the river and went back into the woods. Over the next hour, four more bears came to visit, including two cubs. Got some great close reference photos from our vantage point, and it was wonderful to be see the wild bears feeding without any concerns.

Today is an unscheduled lazy day doing nothing in our cabin, watching the rain come down outside. Shonna and I really don’t do enough of that in our day to day. While sitting enjoying a beer in the cabin’s outdoor hot tub this afternoon, we realized we had taken no pictures of ourselves the whole trip. So looking our absolute best, we took a very rare selfie.

We’ll drive back to Comox tomorrow morning for our flight back to Calgary in the evening, back to the grind on Sunday which is when this will be posted.

Rested, inspired, and ready to draw, paint and write.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Posted on June 16, 2016June 16, 2016 by Patrick LaMontagne

Romeo and Juliet

In 2011, my wife and I took our first trip to Vancouver Island. We flew into Comox, rented a car and got a massive truck instead. After brief visits with friends, we drove down to Victoria for a few days and finally ended up in Ucluelet near Pacific Rim National Park. While many end up on that side of the island to visit Tofino, I fell in love with Ukee. There’s something very special about the place and having now been back twice with a couple of years between each visit, I plan to return as often as I can, although I probably wouldn’t like living there year round.

On our first trip, we took a tour with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises. A visit to the area without at least one cruise around Barkley Sound and The Broken Group Islands with Al and Toddy would now leave me feeling like the trip was incomplete.

We’ve become friends with them over the years and seeing them again was a highlight of our latest visit. It’s funny climbing aboard their 53 foot yacht ‘The Raincoast Maiden’ only to be greeted with my own artwork. Not a lot of wall space when you’re living aboard a boat, but they’ve got a few of my pieces framed and even some postcards tucked into nooks and crannies here and there.

My trip to the area a couple of years ago was solo and I went out on the cruise three times to gather reference photos of wildlife. While pulling into the dock one day, literally seconds before Al cut the engine, I noticed two gulls perched on one of the many posts around the harbour. Technically, they were Glaucous-winged Gulls, but seagulls will suffice.

I painted the pair and called it Ukee Locals. A framed print now hangs aboard the boat.

In our run up to the latest visit to Ucluelet, I talked to Toddy fairly often over email. On one of the last ones before we left, she told me about a seagull couple that live near their dock. She told me that seagulls mate for life and that the two are very ‘lovey-dovey.’ Always touching beaks, cooing and sitting close to each other. They named them Romeo and Juliet.

We stopped at the dock on our first day in Ucluelet to say Hello to Al and Toddy as their boat pulled in from that day’s tour. We waited until their guests departed and went aboard for a very quick visit as we know they’re always busy right after a trip. After making quick dinner plans, we left the boat. Before we were back at our rental car, however, Toddy called out to me.

I turned back to see her pointing to Romeo and Juliet nestled together in a fish station on the dock. Toddy told me in her email that she wasn’t sure if it’s the same mated pair that I painted.

I choose to believe that it is.

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Posted on June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 by Patrick LaMontagne

You are your own guide

The view from our deck at He-Tin-Kis Lodge in Ucluelet

My wife and I don’t travel a lot, but when we do, we like to stay in unique accommodations and take a lot of half-day or day tours and excursions. While at dinner the other night in Ucluelet, we were laughing as we talked about the travelers we’d like to imagine we could be and the ones we really are.

You’re unlikely to find us hiking the Inca Trail in Peru. At one time, that was a serious discussion, but we’ve stopped kidding ourselves. It’s just not us. Same goes for reaching the top of Kilimanjaro, a week on the Amazon River or living off the land in deepest darkest Borneo. We’d like to go on African Safari one day, but it’s unlikely we’ll be roughing it much when we do.

We all like to have this image of who we could be but at some point you must realize that you can still stretch your boundaries without becoming Indiana Jones. I know some of those people and I admire their sense of adventure. Preparing for months in advance to climb Everest or hiking the Appalachian Trail? Good on ya. I think that’s cool. But it’s not my cup of tea.

On the other side of the coin, we are not cruise ship people, going from port to port with thousands of others, sticking to a rigid schedule. While we have stayed at all-inclusive resorts in Mexico and Costa Rica and that works for us from time to time, we are also not lie on the beach for two weeks people. We’re usually bored of that after Day 1 and have to get out and do something.

A highlight of a past vacation was a private tour to the Mayan ruins in Coba, something we booked with Edventures in Tulum, ‘cause the guy’s name is Ed. And while he didn’t offer the specific tour we wanted, he said, “My Mom will take you.”

That’s how we ended up spending the day with Judy, who drove us out there in her own SUV, and got us a private walking tour with the oldest guide who had been with the original National Geographic survey of the site. Shonna and I love history, so this was quite special, especially since he talked to us more like we were university students than tourists. Talking to Judy for three hours in the car about real life in Mexico was fascinating, too. You want to learn about life somewhere else, talk to the locals, not the information centre.

Add to that jet skiing in Costa Rica, an open cockpit biplane flight over the Hoover Dam and Shonna’s out of the blue “let’s go skydiving” over lunch one day in Vegas and this is our best selves on vacation. We’re not testing the boundaries of adventure or blazing new trails. We’re not doing anything that hasn’t been done before. Pretty much everything is rather safe, but it’s usually just different enough that we’re living a little more of life than we’re used to, and having a good time doing it. A couple of workaholics seeing and trying new things while still making paying off the mortgage a priority.

BrokenGroup The Broken Group Islands with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises

This past week was pretty close to our idea of a perfect vacation. I booked this trip in January, a repeat of my artist retreat two years ago. The goal was to go out to Vancouver Island, take a ton of reference shots for future paintings and get out of the office for a week. Full stop.

But as the year wore on, we planned some home renovations, and a loosely planned trip to Europe in the fall was cancelled because neither of us is feeling it this year. Shonna was able to get the time off work, but to her credit, she gave me the option of continuing to go away alone to get what I needed, without any bad feelings. She’s never been the guilt trip stereotype, so I knew if I chose to go away on this trip by myself, she’d be fine with it. We’d do something else together later. I enjoy her company more than anybody else’s, however, so the idea of her coming along added to my trip and I was happy to have her join me. In fact, she’s probably the only person with whom I could do this trip.

Driving to Vancouver Island is also something that we have never felt inclined to do. We’re not really road trip people. So we flew to Comox from Calgary.

Spirit Sphere near Qualicum Beach

As this was no longer just my trip, we started looking for some extra things to do. She wanted to see if we could find the elusive white ravens in Qualicum Beach, an idea I was on board with, since we were already staying nearby in the Spirit Spheres for one night. We never found any, but it was fun wandering around forest trails in places they’d been spotted and photographed before.

On the other side of the island, the accommodation I’d booked in Ucluelet was fantastic and we were both quite happy at He-Tin-Kis Lodge. With an incredible view, it was a great place to wake up and come back to each day.

Salamander Eggs in their gelatinous casing on Meares Island

Something I hadn’t planned on doing this week was sea kayaking in Clayoquot Sound out of Tofino. We added that when Shonna decided to come along. Quite a pleasant surprise as it was one of the highlights of the week. A four hour tour, we ended up on Meares Island walking along a rough looking boardwalk through an old growth forest among massive cedars and other natural wonders.

The next morning we ended up bear watching in Clayoquot Sound at low tide for a few hours. It gave me a ton of reference photos I hadn’t expected to get and was still a fun excursion for both of us. Seeing black bears in the wild, doing their thing on the beaches, oblivious to the silly tourists snapping shutters just meters away on boats was really quite special. We weren’t bothering them and they showed no sign that we were intruding on their day at the office.

Shonna looking for marine life in a tide pool.

Back in Ukee, we spent the afternoon hiking along the Wild Pacific Trail, looking at anemones and little crabs in the tide pools, snapping photos and enjoying the area. I’ve hiked the trail a few times before but enjoyed it most this time around. Pretty sure it was the company.

Finally, on our last full day in Ucluelet, we went out for a wildlife tour with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises through Barkley Sound and the Broken Group Islands. Five and a half hours on the water, we saw bears, eagles, grey whales, seals, sea lions, deer, raccoons and more birds than I can name.

I can’t say enough about this tour. Shonna and I took it on our first visit to the area in 2011. Then I went out with them three times on my artist retreat two years ago. This time around, I had planned to go twice but they were fully booked for most of the week and Thursday was the only day available. Had that not been the case, we would have missed out on the bear tour in Tofino, so it worked out very well.

It sounds cliché, but if you’re ever out in that area and can only do one tour, Archipelago is the one to do. I could go on at great length about why, but trust me on this. There’s a reason they’re ranked the number one wildlife tour in Canada on Trip Advisor, and they don’t take it for granted. Al and Toddy are still working hard to make sure everybody has a great experience.

Having just come home from a great vacation, I would offer a bit of unsolicited advice. Figure out who you are and what you want from your limited time off. If your idea of a perfect vacation is camping in an RV with power and a swimming pool, then do that. If you’re more at home visiting theme parks, do that. If it’s Napa Valley vineyards, mountain biking in Moab or backpacking through Thailand with no reservations but the plane ticket, then do that.

Find the experiences in life that make you feel like you’re living it well. Stretch your limitations when you can, sure, but be who you are, too. This is a limited time experience, so make it your own.

Posted on August 4, 2014August 4, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

Ukee Locals

I titled this painting, ‘Ukee Locals’ as that’s how residents in Ucluelet refer to their town. Having lived in two tourist towns (Banff and Canmore) for the past twenty years, I often feel a kinship with locals in other tourist towns, knowing what it’s like to make your living from visitors. It’s a love-hate relationship with the tourists sometimes so I have to fight the urge to tell every server, tour operator or staff member, “It’s OK, I’m not one of them, I’m with you!” which I’m really not, since I don’t live there.

When you think of wildlife paintings, a seagull is hardly the first animal that comes to mind. The fact that we’re so used to seeing them in urban environments makes many of us think they’re practically domesticated. Expert scavengers, opportunists and thieves, they’re not usually someone’s favorite animal. I kind of like ’em.

While out on my wildlife cruises in that area in June, something you’re likely getting sick of hearing about I’m sure, I saw plenty of different species of wildlife and took a lot of photos. I’ll be painting animals from that trip for quite some time and each one I do just makes me want to go back for more. While pulling into the dock one day, literally seconds before Al (with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises) cut the engines, I noticed two gulls perched on one of the many posts around the harbour. What I was really aiming for was a shot of one of them flying, but when I got home and started sorting through my photos, I realized that this was the scene I wanted to paint and I used three different pics as reference, not including the one you see here.

Originally this was just going to be a sketch painting, but the more I worked on it, I just couldn’t put it away. Even when it was finished, I found myself still wanting to work on minute detail that nobody was going to see. The wood on the posts, the aluminum caps, the feathers, the light…each presented another challenge and I had a lot of fun with this painting. It turns out that I learned a little about the birds themselves, too.

As I was painting them as a couple, I realized that I didn’t know if males and females of this species looked alike or not. Birds of different gender will often have different plumage. It would be embarrassing to paint them as male and female only to have somebody point out that females look completely different. Keep in mind that I’d already done a lot of work on these when this popped into my head. Fortunately I found out that the only visible difference in this particular type of gull is that the female is a little bit smaller, which also worked for the painting. I also found out that the type of gulls in the Ucluelet area, all up and down the northern west coast actually, are called Glaucous-winged Gulls, something that isn’t going to matter to most people. They’re seagulls.

For the technically minded, this was painted in Adobe Photoshop CC on a Wacom Cintiq 24HD display. Photos were only used for reference and all of the detail was achieved using relatively simple brushes without any texture overlays.

Incidentally, I did get the shots I needed of one of them taking off from the post, so there might be another seagull painting in my future.

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Posted on July 19, 2014July 20, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

Totems, Tourists, and Taking Chances

Gallery owners know their business. If you check your ego at the door and are willing to listen and learn, you’ll find out there’s a lot of middle ground between artist expectations and the reality of the business of art.

In recent years, my prints have sold primarily at About Canada Gallery in Banff and at the Calgary Zoo, in addition to my online and trade show sales. The owners at About Canada have been wonderful to work with and I told them early on that they didn’t have to spare my feelings when it came to what they were willing to stock. Thankfully, they took me at my word, give me honest feedback and are receptive when I reciprocate.

If something isn’t selling well in Banff, I replace it with something that might do better, without any ill feelings. One person’s favorite painting might not be that of others and when it comes to limited space, majority rules.

Limited edition canvas prints are at a higher price point so they don’t sell as quickly or as often as matted prints do, but they’re well worth having. They look great on the wall and attract a lot of attention, but it’s the 11”X14” matted prints that sell best and consistently, simply because they’re still great quality, but at $44, they’re priced well for an impulse buy and are small enough to fit in a suitcase. The 16”X20” matted prints will eventually be discontinued because they’re a pain for tourists to carry home or ship. These are the things you learn along the way.

Initially, About Canada only wanted animals that were found in this area, many of which are my most popular, including the Grizzly, Wolf, Moose, Raven, and Great Horned Owl Totems. But with the Otter selling well online, I suggested they give it a try. It didn’t take long for my little sea otter to become a best-seller in Banff, joined shortly by a few other non-mountain animals, including the Giraffe, Parrot, and Cows.

While the matted prints do very well in Banff, they weren’t flying off the shelves at The Calgary Zoo , despite a lot of interest. The retail manager and I figured that the $44 price tag might be a little steep for a souvenir of a day at the zoo. With that in mind, I swapped out all of the matted prints and introduced a line of Poster Prints I have done at Maranda Reprographics and Printing in Calgary. Printed on a satin finish paper, resembling a high quality magazine print, they look great and are popular sellers at the Calgary Expo. As they’re not archival giclée prints like my others, I’m able to offer a lower price. At $25 with backer board, artist bio and in a plastic sleeve, it didn’t take long to realize that our assumption was correct and they now sell very well at the zoo, even prints of the animals they don’t have in residence.

While on Vancouver Island last month, I figured it was a good opportunity to scout galleries in the Ucluelet and Tofino area. Knowing the area I was going to, I packed 11”X14” matted prints of the Totems I thought would best get me in the door, including the Bald Eagle, Otter, Wolf, and Humpback Whale.

After making inquiries of my hosts aboard the Raincoast Maiden on my wildlife tours and others around town, it became clear that the best venue to approach would be Reflecting Spirit Gallery. With locations in both Ucluelet and Tofino, it would be an ideal arrangement to work with one owner in both communities. I also remembered that my wife and I enjoyed our visit to that gallery on our last trip to the area.

It’s a daunting exercise to cold call a business. With nothing to lose, I went in with a positive attitude, but ready for rejection. The owner wasn’t in, so I talked to one of her staff about the gallery and showed her my work. An artist with work in the gallery herself, she was very nice, encouraged me to come back the next day and I left with a little more information, better prepared for a second visit.

It’s important to keep in mind when cold calling a business, especially one that’s owner operated, to treat everyone you encounter with respect. You could be talking to a member of the owner’s family or one of their closest friends.

The next day, I returned and spoke to the owner. A talented artist herself, she looked thoughtfully at the work I brought and gave me honest feedback. I opened my portfolio to show her the rest of my Totem series and she pointed out others that she thought would do well there. The Raven is significant for the native people of that area and there are plenty of cougars in and around Tofino and Ucluelet. Again, gallery owners know their market.

We discussed price points, consignment rates, and numbers. Before too long, she agreed to take my prints for both of her galleries. Needless to say, this Albertan was thrilled, especially since Reflecting Spirit primarily sells the work of Vancouver Island artists. Rather than order specific numbers of each, she left it up to me to give her more of the best-sellers and less of the others, based on my experience with my own work.

By Canada Day, a large order of matted prints had arrived safely, are on display and for sale in both of the Reflecting Spirit Galleries. It won’t be long before I find out how the prints will do in this new market, but it was well worth the investment of my time and money to give it a shot.

Many artists spend years waiting to be discovered, figuring that if they produce good work, supporters and customers will simply show up. “If you build it, they will come,” was a wonderful premise in ‘Field of Dreams,’ but in real life, success requires that you stick your neck out and do so often. As unpalatable as it is for many creative types, especially those who think it beneath them to sully their creative passion with talk of money, art is a business and it requires sales skills. You not only have to sell your work, but yourself as well.

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Posted on July 2, 2014July 2, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

Aboard The Raincoast Maiden

A few years ago, my wife and I vacationed on Vancouver Island for the first time. As neither of us is big on really long road trips, primarily because we’d like to stay married, we opted to fly into Comox and then rented a car. We visited a few friends and family, drove down along the inland coast to Victoria for a few days, and then ended up in Ucluelet and Tofino for a couple of nights. We wanted to take a whale watching tour and visit arguably one of the most beautiful parts of Canada.

I think we booked with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises because of the incredible reviews we’d seen on Trip Advisor, but also because it was an owner/operator small business rather than a factory tour. A few years prior in Mexico, we’d taken a tour with Edventures (go ahead, look ‘em up) and were so pleased with the personal service that we decided to always go with a smaller tour when available, even if it cost more. They just try harder.

It was on that first trip to Ucluelet that we met Al and Toddy Landry, who live and work aboard their 53 ft. yacht, the Raincoast Maiden. Visit their site to read their bios and then browse around. It explains their tour and operation far better than I can.

That tour was easily the highlight of the whole vacation and we kept in touch with our hosts. Toddy had graciously given me access to her photos for reference, one of which I used for my Otter Totem, and I sent them a print of my Humpback Whale Totem, which they told me was hanging aboard their yacht. Considering there’s not a lot of room for artwork when you live on a boat, I took that as quite the compliment.

Fast forward to my recent trip to Ucluelet, (my artist’s retreat, working vacation, whatever you want to call it), I had already planned to book a tour with them again. I had recently completed a landscape painting of White Face Rock, based on a reference photo I’d taken on my previous trip with Al and Toddy, and they had said they really liked the painting. The rock is a feature they see every day as they return from their tour. As I couldn’t surprise them with a print if they had nowhere to hang it, I offered to bring one to them if they liked, but understood if they didn’t have room. Toddy gave me the measurements of the available space and I brought the print with me.

Even though I’d only spent time with them that once, about five or six hours, it felt like I was going to visit old friends. That’s how welcome they make you feel when they take you around Barkley Sound and the Broken Group Islands. On this return trip three years later, Toddy greeted me with a hug. I gave her the framed print, and it was hung aboard the boat the day after.

I’ve never lived by the ocean and haven’t spent much time on the water, but I loved it, cruising around the islands, taking photos of wildlife, and smelling the salt air. With no agenda for my five days out in Ucluelet, it was soon evident that one day on the water wasn’t going to be enough. I ended up going on the cruise three days in a row and I’m so glad I did. Having lived in a tourist area the past 20 years, I intentionally booked my trip in the shoulder season of that area so it would be less busy. Had I not, they might not have had the room for me on such short notice.

With coffee and tea on all day in the galley, freedom to move around as you like, binoculars for every guest aboard, it was an incredibly relaxed environment. Both Al and Toddy would alert us over the speakers to points of interest, recount stories and history about the area, and set us up for an abundance of wildlife sightings.

At lunch one beautiful sunny day, anchored in a quiet sheltered bay off one of the islands, I found myself reclining at the rear of the boat on the lower deck. Looking out at the water with a cold beer in my hand, I thought, “Perfect. Just perfect.”

With whale sightings seeming to be hit and miss in the area this year, at least in June, I didn’t get to see any this trip, but we saw four on my first tour three years ago, so I wasn’t too disappointed. It’s just one of those years. The whales follow the food and according to the local fishermen, they were seeing them further out at sea while I was there. Wildlife doesn’t punch a clock, so it’s a gamble no matter where you go and it was the same story for all of the tour companies in the area.

But with Al and Toddy working hard to find as many wildlife opportunities as possible, we saw plenty of sea lions and seals, countless bald eagles, many different bird species, sea otters splashing and playing, a black bear foraging on a beach and some of the most spectacular coastal scenery you’ll see anywhere in the world.

If you’re ever on Vancouver Island, make the time to head out to the Ucluelet and Tofino area, and if you know you’re going to be there, book a tour with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises. You won’t be disappointed.

I came home with a treasure trove of reference photos from which to paint, both for wildlife and landscapes. I can’t wait to go back for more.

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Posted on June 21, 2014June 22, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

An Island Retreat

Last year, I had the idea to go away on a little bit of a working vacation, an artist’s retreat, for lack of a better term. Intending to start small, I was just going to drive down the road to Kananaskis in the fall, stay at the Lodge for a few days, and just sketch, draw, paint, and write.

True to my nature, I found a reason to cancel a couple of weeks beforehand with the excuse that I was too busy. Then I beat myself up about it, angry at my habit of talking a good game when it comes to stuff like this, and then playing it safe and chaining myself to my routine. It’s an odd quirk, considering that I had no problem quitting my safe full-time job eight years ago to freelance for a living.

Thankfully, my wife and I took an impromptu vacation to Vegas around the same time, did a whole bunch of fun stuff (biplane tour over the Hoover Dam, skydiving, gun range, saw some shows) and my failure to take the retreat was temporarily forgotten.

As winter wore on, overwhelmed with work, plus planning for the Calgary Expo, the thought of getting away started to creep in again. When I brought it up to my ever-supportive wife that I was thinking of going back to Ucluelet, somewhere we’d vacationed three years ago, she gave her blessing and I started planning.

I’d fly into Comox on May 31st, rent a car, drive across Vancouver Island, rent a cabin and for four or five days, I’d just sketch, draw, paint, and write. Shonna told me to save myself some money and use the Air Miles for the flight and car. I didn’t figure out why until later.

As the trip grew closer, and I realized how much work I had to do to, I started to once again consider that perhaps I was too busy to take this time off. But if you cancel a trip made with Air Miles, you lose them. That’s pretty much what kept me from finding a reason not to go. She’s sneaky, that wife of mine.

As a chronic over-planner, I tried my best to remain open to the adventure while still keeping my eye on the ball. I fought my urge to please everybody and declined a number of offers of visits with people I know on the Island. But I did make time for one night in the Courtenay/Comox area. Had a BBQ with good friends who use to live here in the Bow Valley, spent the night with long-time family friends (their son is one of my oldest and closest friends), and planned to see my uncle and his wife on the way back to the airport on the last day. That was all I had time for unless I removed the whole reason for taking the trip. Selfishly, and without apology, this was all about me.

The mountain road out to Ucluelet and Tofino is winding, narrow, and a little hairy in places. I’m not a road trip kind of guy, I don’t like driving much in general, but that drive was a lot of fun thanks to the zippy little (and bright green) Mazda 2 the rental company gave me. Heading out early, I avoided any traffic and arrived in Ucluelet on Sunday morning before noon, to an ideal little cabin right on the harbour. It was bright green to match the car.

The plan was to sketch, draw, paint, write and be creative. Shonna and I took a wildlife tour three years ago with Archipelago Wildlife Cruises and it was a highlight of our trip to the Island. I wanted to spend another day on the water with them again. I was going to walk along Long Beach again, spend at least one day in Tofino, and hike some trails in between there and Ucluelet. I wanted to be productive, make the most of my time and get stuff done. In no time at all, the best laid plans of this obsessive over-planner were tossed out the window.

I didn’t sketch at all. Not once. I didn’t paint. I only wrote one blog post. I wasn’t creative in the slightest.

Hiked every day on the Wild Pacific and other trails, including a very creepy, but exhilarating walk through the rainforest to Half Moon Bay at twilight, where I didn’t see another soul for more than two hours. I spent three days on the water with people I now consider friends, and that’s an upcoming post all on its own. I was still up before 6:00AM every day, out with the camera and a coffee in my travel mug. I wandered the harbour and docks, smelling the salt air, and ignored the news of the world. I took a ton of photos. It was perfect.

Talking to Shonna one night, I confided that I really didn’t feel like going to Tofino. I didn’t even feel like going to Long Beach, as there was plenty for me right around Ukee. But, I felt like I was supposed to go to these places because I was already in the area. She told me to do whatever I wanted, that it was my trip. If I wanted to stay in bed all day in the cabin, read a book and take naps, then that’s what I should do. And she was right.

There was this familiar urge to get things accomplished, but the only work I did was that I managed to get my prints into two new galleries, in both Ucluelet and Tofino, which will again be a whole other post, and I still didn’t have to go to Tofino. I felt this obligation to come back from the trip with a sketchbook full of work, thousands of words written, and a line by line accounting that quantified and justified the expense, as if I had a boss I needed to impress when I got home.

Last I checked, I became a freelancer so I didn’t have to deal with a boss like that.

Another artist might think it a sacrilege that I went all that way and didn’t do any of the creative stuff I was “supposed to do” while I was there. But according to what so many have told me I should be doing over the years, everything I’ve done to build my successful career as a freelancer has been wrong, anyway. Most of the advice I’ve gotten from other artists has been based on their own experience, and people like to justify their way of doing things by telling others they should do the same thing. If I were to add my own experience based truth about this profession, I would say, “Consider all of the advice, but ignore most of it. Trust your own instincts and chart your own course. It’s the only way you’re ever going to be happy.”

This trip exceeded my expectations. I came home inspired and invigorated. I will do it again, might even go back to the same place because I loved being there and I loved coming home, too. The photos I took have given me plenty of reference to paint from and that allows me to relive the experience. Given the chance to do it all over, I wouldn’t change a thing.

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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.