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JohnPatience In reply to FantasyLost [2010-12-16 16:51:05 +0000 UTC]

I think myself that this one has the look of a greetings card rather than a painting proper, nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact Jane is putting a new website together for me to try merchandising some of my work, and I may very well approach greetings cards companies. I'll also be taking up your advice to push my models so wish me luck.

I think it's a life on a canal barge for you. watch this space, I saw some nice ones when back in England a few days ago.

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FantasyLost In reply to JohnPatience [2010-12-20 05:26:42 +0000 UTC]

I'm really looking forward to checking out your new website! I can see that it would be quite a challenge, especially if you will be making your own prints rather than (or in addition to) selling your originals. However, you certainly have the talent to create very marketable artworks, and I'm glad that you're moving in that direction . And I would love to have a model of "The Fairy Lancer" based on this painting: [link] . It would look especially cute with a tiny wooden dowel rod for the lance, ending in a metal spear!

Although I've seen many photographs of boats cruising the canals in Europe (I understand they are called "narrowboats" or "narrow boats"), I'd really never given them much thought, assuming they were all commercially owned boats. So, after reading your comment, I looked up a variety of websites about them, from brokerages selling new and used narrowboats, to a site where a lady was complaining about some owners tying up to the water points for long-term use and thus keeping people like herself from tying up there temporarily to obtain water. Other sites explained how they need to be only about 6 feet wide in order to pass through the locks (rather like living in a submarine ). Anyway, it was all quite fascinating! In the US, since they ply the waters of rivers and lakes, houseboats often are 14 feet wide, which makes them seem luxurious in comparison. Living year-round on either one would certainly make one part of a totally different community. For those who travel continuously (I understand it's difficult to find long-term moorings for residential narrowboats), one would truly be living the life of a gypsy. I think it could be fun .

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JohnPatience In reply to FantasyLost [2010-12-21 18:30:14 +0000 UTC]

My new site is [link] I think Jane has done a great job on it.

I don't intend to sell prints from the site, it's more a place to direct manufacturers of one kind and another.I may get lucky or the enterprise may be a complete waste of time. I'm waiting until new Year before I begin sending out emails, then we shall see what we shall see.

I used to have a couple of friends who lived on a narrow boat, they had the idea that it would be a nice free and easy way to lived, but it really didn't work out that way. I suppose, as always, it depends upon the people you chance to meet. I also had a friend who rented a narrow boat for a holiday, believe it or not he actually sank it.

14 feet wide is ginormous, very American and very impressive, but I have to say I rather like the littleness and coziness of England. Small houses, small cars and small barges Maybe I just lack ambition.

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FantasyLost In reply to JohnPatience [2010-12-23 07:45:02 +0000 UTC]

Checked out your new website; your artwork looks great . I hope you have some good results from it. If you would perhaps be open to a suggestion or two from a viewer's perspective, you might read on; otherwise, please feel free to skip to the next paragraph! It won't hurt my feelings a bit, since you weren't seeking my two cents worth in the first place . And, of course, also keeping in mind that I am speaking as someone who hasn't yet tackled the CSS coding on her own DA Journal and who hasn't done any coding since the old HTML days long ago . When looking through the landscapes, I found the constant resizing of the screen to fit each picture a bit distressing. Would you consider reorganizing the order of the pictures to keep all of the same size/shape together? Then there would be much less resizing involved. Alternatively, each artwork could be inserted inside a static-sized frame that would pretty much eliminate the resizing altogether. For your models, I would love to see some tight closeups of your wonderful pieces. This would work especially well for the horse's head and perhaps the wizard's head, too. I think your artwork would display better on a very dark grey, or black, background, rather than the light one. It would better focus the viewer's eyes on your work instead of taking in the full screen, since your art either tends to be light or makes use of a lot of white space around the outside, and thus blends somewhat into the light background. And last, it would be nice if your individual links automatically opened new windows, rather than sharing the same window, so that it would be easier to navigate the site and to exit from it.

But back to the boats!! From what I read on the Internet, life on a narrowboat isn't necessarily cheaper or better than living in a regular house, it's just different. I can believe that one could run aground or sink one of them since some of them are up to 70 feet long! Steering something that huge through narrow canals crowded with other boats, and squeezing them into locks that barely accommodate both their length and their width (some 70 footers can't squeeze into some of them), on foggy or rainy days especially, would really scare me. I think though what made me a bit uncomfortable with them isn't the width so much as the lack of large windows in most of them. I tend to suffer from claustrophobia if I can't see out. My husband and I and our Black Lab lived in an 11-foot camper mounted on our pickup as well as in a 32-foot 5th-wheel trailer for quite awhile and we did quite nicely because we had large windows. Most of the narrowboats I saw for sale had little tiny windows or portholes, and the Traditional models often purchased by "liveaboard" people have almost no open space on the outside to sit and watch the world go by. Houseboats in the US like this one [link] go out of their way to make life airy, inside and out. But perhaps they also reflect the more sunnier climate where they are normally used over here where people spend most of their time outdoors. I could envision you very easily sitting on the deck with your easel, painting beautiful waterscapes! Still, that houseboat is larger than our mobile home, so I guess one could consider it "ginormous" . Cost wise, some of the larger and more luxurious narrowboats if bought with US dollars would be about the same price as purchasing one of the cheaper houseboats like the one in the link. Oh, well, I can't buy one anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter in the long run . Always nice to wish though.

Please forgive me for this overly long comment . . . . Feel free to Hide it so it doesn't take up a lot of space in your picture's comment section.

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JohnPatience In reply to FantasyLost [2010-12-23 13:42:53 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the feedback Marilyn. My idea for this site was that it should have a corporate business-like look. It's aimed at business people who I feel might be put off with something which could be seen as too arty or self indulgent. Black or dark blue grounds always have an adolescent look to my eye, I think that's fine for full blown fantasy art but I am very much a children's books illustrator.
I'm sorry that the resizing of the screen didn't appeal to you, of course I take a different view, well you'd expect that wouldn't you. I find the shape shifting kind of hypnotic and soothing. There must be around 100 images on the site and I really couldn't expect someone with limited time and patience to click on individual images, so a slide show is the obvious answer.
The navigation thing is something I sometimes have a problem with on other sites but I think the method employed on my licensing site is relatively user friendly.
I did very much appreciate you input on this and if I hear similar thoughts expressed by other people I may well have anther think about it all, but in the meantime I think it's always best to trust ones own intuition. Oh yes I forgot, re the close ups of my models , I did consider doing that but I didn't feel they stood up to that kind of scrutiny. I think any manufacturer wood have to consider them as prototypes which if commissioned I would improve upon.

You've certainly done you're research on the narrow boats, and in this case we are in total agreement. :wild cheering and applause: Some of them do look very pretty but they would be very claustrophobic, especially in winter.The Scottish comedian Billy Connolly described cruise boats as "prisons with an option to drown" I think barges could be regarded in a similar way.
Thanks for the link, I think the American house boat does reflect the better climate and perhaps the larger bank balance- and you say it's one of the cheaper ones!

Not problem regarding the comment, and I would dream of hiding it.

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JohnPatience In reply to annewipf [2010-11-26 13:05:55 +0000 UTC]

Thank you

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annewipf In reply to JohnPatience [2010-11-26 15:43:31 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome

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JohnPatience In reply to plkearns [2010-11-26 11:09:51 +0000 UTC]

Thanks, the olive colored paper was nice to work on and all the other colors relate to that; I hope.

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plkearns In reply to JohnPatience [2010-12-03 18:21:53 +0000 UTC]

They do. It's wonderful.

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JohnPatience In reply to Himmapaan [2010-11-26 10:02:39 +0000 UTC]

No I'm afraid not.

It reminds me a lot of the of the little house in "The Snow Queen" the one owned by the old woman with flowers on her hat.

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Himmapaan In reply to JohnPatience [2010-11-26 17:29:08 +0000 UTC]

Yes, you're right; it does!

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