Patrick LaMontagne

Patrick LaMontagne is a cartoonist, illustrator, and digital painter. Despite what a number of his former teachers declared with great certainty, apparently a person can make a living drawing and coloring pictures all day.

Having grown up as a Canadian Armed Forces ‘base brat,’ he spent much of his childhood living in West Germany, among other places, but in 1994, while in pursuit of a girl, he ended up in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

After answering an ad in the Banff Crag and Canyon newspaper in 1997, he suddenly found himself with a weekly editorial cartoon. In 2001, Patrick accepted the editorial cartoonist position with The Rocky Mountain Outlook newspaper, the same year he became nationally syndicated. By 2005, he was a full-time cartoonist and illustrator, despite having never received any formal art training.

The detail and brushwork in Patrick’s digital painting style has often been mistaken for traditional media, and although he’s fortunate to enjoy the majority of the art he works on, those whimsical animal paintings are what he enjoys most. Two of these digital paintings received Guru Awards at the 2010 Photoshop World Conference in Las Vegas, including the Best in Show. Another one earned the Best in Show in 2014.

In case you were wondering, chasing that girl to Banff turned out pretty well, as she eventually stayed still long enough for Patrick to marry her in 1995. He and Shonna continue their pursuit of happily ever after in Canmore, Alberta, surrounded by the beauty of the Canadian Rockies.