Is it a picture?

I've been bowled over by the huge, very positive response to the pictures I've been posting recently on Facebook and Twitter. For many months, I've simply been sharing ordinary photos of canally, boaty subjects, and I've put them in some FB boaters' groups as well as on my own profile. Most of them have appeared on this blog over the years, too. But in the past week, I've been working on photos with computer software, and it's these that have prompted this massive reaction.

I've been posting these pictures without any explanatory text. Clearly, some people think they're photos of paintings - I've been asked what medium I've used. I've told them the truth - and others recognise the truth without being told. I've even been asked, "Is it a picture?" but I guess they meant to ask "Is it a photo?" It most certainly is. They all are.

Two FB folk have said they wanted to hang the first picture below on their wall, and have been really grateful when I told them they were welcome to copy and print it. Another suggested that I sell prints of them. 

There are, of course, very good reasons why I'm not posting photos of  paintings that I've done. Firstly, there's no room anywhere on the boat for my art materials as well as Grace's. Secondly, there's no room inside for us both to paint at the same time. Thirdly, I can't paint. I gave up learning how when my grammar-school art teacher took my class out onto the school fields one day, and told us to draw a tree by drawing the gaps between the branches.

I confess I have this niggling feeling that I'm cheating, I'm being an imposter. I'm proud of the photos I take, and they do appeal to others. And I'm proud of the results I have with them on the computer, too. They're a combination of the two art forms - photography and photo-editing - but it seems all too easy. I've watched Grace paint many times, and I've seen how time-consuming it is, and how skilful she is. Now that is art, isn't it? Not this!

But I'm going to keep creating them, and I'll keep posting them, too, for as long as others enjoy them. I hope you like them, too.

*****

A lovely surprise!

There are a number of very talented artists on the UK waterways, painting, drawing, sketching scenes of the rivers and canals. Sadly, I'm not one of them, but one of them is a Facebook friend of mine, Lisa Greatrix. I got a message from her yesterday, attached to which was a photo of her latest painting. It's her interpretation of one of my many photos on this blog.

She displays her work on her website The Easel Life and on a Facebook page

As with many boating artists, not all of her paintings are of water scenes.

My problem with Lisa's work, as with several other artists I've seen, is that I have nowhere I can hang paintings on board Kantara!

I encourage you to go and see all of Lisa's pictures on the web, and, while you're there, visit a FB group she's created, called Narrowboats Canals Advice Chat and Sales, which might be of interested to a good number of my readers. Press the button there to join the group.

Enjoy!