Comment from royowen

Excellent

And the same to you Gretcen, I'm very glad that your business has taken off, I hope and wish, God grants you all the joy, success and prosperity that only He can grant and wish on you and yours, well done, blessing Roy

 Comment Written 12-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 22-Dec-2016

Have a wonderful Christmas.

reply by royowen on 22-Dec-2016

You too Gretchen

Comment from Sankey

Excellent

G'day Sis. Good hearing from you. I wrote a poem recently about birthdays and how unless you are the star you are all miserable. Rewards are finished sorry. Send me an e-mail if you would like to hear some of my own Christmas carols. They are also on here in my 'Really Truly Christmas Carols' book. Merry Christmas.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 22-Dec-2016

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

Comment from rama devi

Excellent

Sorry to see you go but glad for your art business taking flight...good luck! Happy holidays. Thanks for the note. Good to hear you'll still stop by and review here on occasion.

Best Wishes,
rd

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 22-Dec-2016

Have a merry Christmas.

reply by rama devi on 23-Dec-2016

Thank you! Hope you have a happy one too! :)

Comment from WalkerMan

Excellent

Gretchen, glad to know your art business is prospering enough to need more attention. I'd be interested to learn more about it. Thank you for telling us why you will be less active here. May you enjoy the holidays as well as good health and continued prosperity in the new year.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

reply by WalkerMan on 10-Sep-2017

You are welcome, Gretchen. If you don't mind telling me, I'm still curious about what your art business is. Are you an artist yourself, or are you a dealer of some kind in the art of others? I ask because I use a lot of images in my literary art book, as well as seek images for some fellow FanStorians that I am helping to publish.

reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

I paint portraits. Pets, people anything really. I also paint landscapes. It's challenging to work 40 hours, raise 3 three children and have time for writing and painting. Thank you for your interest. You can see some of my work on my instagram account. Elmcourtcottageart. Please check it out

reply by WalkerMan on 11-Sep-2017

Very nice. I just looked. You truly capture the expressions on dogs' faces, especially their eyes. I especially like the sunset over the water as seen through the tall grass and reeds, the trees, and the breaking waves coming toward the viewer. You got the subtle colors in that scene so perfect that I would never have guessed you have a color issue with your vision. The canvas texture interferes somewhat in closeup with that one, but it looks great from farther away. You truly have a talent, Gretchen. I probably cannot afford any originals, but I do purchase non-exclusive display rights for images in my book or for
my publishing clients who like a particular scene or theme. Typically, I purchase royalty-free, unlimited usage rights to images available digitally, preferably at 300 dpi resolution, in as large a size as is available, then scale it to fit where needed. You can set up an account at reputable image sites such as Dreamstime (to which I subscribe), and be able to sell royalty-free licenses over and over to digital images of your paintings. That is not a huge income unless you have hundreds of images posted, but it can be a steady and slowly growing trickle of extra income over time. The nice part is that it is passive, so already posted images do not take time from you. The best such sites are Dreamstime.com, Colourbox.com, iStockPhoto.com, and Shutterstock.com (all of which I have purchased RF image licenses from). Anyway, I wish you much success with both your painting and your writing. -- Mike

reply by the author on 11-Sep-2017

Thank you. I'm not too tech say but I'll get my husband to check it out

reply by WalkerMan on 11-Sep-2017

You are welcome, Gretchen. Images of dogs and cats are very popular, and yours are especially good. Those would be the best to try first. Each site will have its own guidelines for images submitted; but they are quite similar, so what is acceptable for one likely would work on all. Once you have ANY digital form of an image, it can be resized in both resolution and dimensions with any good image processing software.

If you don't have that and/or don't know how to use it for best results (such as prevention of pixellation and/or blurriness when enlarging an image), I can do it for you, as I do have that software and use it daily. You could attach the original to an email (preferably in a ZIP file, but not necessarily), and I'd return the larger and/or higher resolution version to you the same way. I won't keep any of them unless I buy the rights from you for each one I may want. We can use PayPal for any such transactions, thereby protecting each other's financial data. PayPal accounts are free to set up. If you want the service I just offered, the price per image is just one single dollar (USD) for my time. I would do them as sent, but bill only in batches of ten or more to minimize the number of separate transactions.

Typical royalty-free licensing rights per image run from four dollars (USD) to as much as sixty (USD), depending on the terms of the site. The image owner then gets most, but not all, of that, which is how the sites stay in business. If I buy rights directly from you, of course, you keep it all (before the small PayPal fee and any applicable income taxes; no sales tax
applies). We could even barter, so that no funds change hands. I'd pick an image to license from you, you set the price for that, and then I work it off by resizing enough other images for you to equal that amount. As part of such a deal, I'd resize the image I license from you at zero cost to you as a bonus. -- Mike

Comment from Thomas Bowling

Excellent

I'm sorry to see you go. Come back soon. I always enjoyed your writing. Your one of the first authors that I fanned on this site. I'm glad to hear about your business. I think the economy is finally turning around.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

Comment from barbara.wilkey

Excellent

I will miss you, but I understand. I wish you the best of luck with your art. I also wish you the best Christmas ever and a great New Year. I will look forward to your return.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

Comment from marion

Excellent

Merry Christmas back to you. It's great to hear your art business is taking off. Congratulations. Marion. Oops! I have been sent back as my comment is far too short! This should fix that!

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

Comment from Heidi M

Excellent

Congratulations on having your art business take off! That's great news. Have a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

Comment from Bill Schott

Excellent

I thank you for the early Christmas present and hope that you have a terrific yuletide and that all your prosperous endeavors give you great joy.

 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you

Comment from lancellot

Excellent

And a Merry Christmas to you and yours as well. It is nice to here of small businesses doing well again. Good luck and have a happy new year.


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 Comment Written 11-Dec-2016

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reply by the author on 10-Sep-2017

Thank you