hi,
i just want to say that your art is amazing, and wonderful.
i just want to ask where to find forging dragons in nederland?.....im addicted to your arts, and i love to draw dragons to, but my drawing is not as good as yours..

Monsieur Howe,

Je me permet de vous écrire un mot par le biais de ce guestbook pour vous dire toute l'admiration que j'ai pour vous. Depuis toujours je pratique le dessin et ai une passion pour l'univers du fantastique, et depuis que je vous ai découvert (il y a maintenant quelque années!) je suis dans la plus plate admiration devant votre travail. J'ai toujours rêver de vous rencontrer ou de connaitre un peu mieux votre histoire et votre parcours (car je fais du dessin ou du moins de la création graphique mon métier), mais je n'ai jamais osé vous contacter... Mais l'autre jour je suis tombé par hasard sur une émission de télévision sur vous et je me suis rendu compte que vous parliez français, quel bonheur pour moi qui suis loin d'être bilingue! C'est pourquoi je vous laisse aujourd'hui ce message dans l'espoir que vous le lisiez un jour!

Bref, pour ne pas vous décourager de le lire en écrivant trop, je vais écourter mon monologue! Monsieur Howe, vous êtes pour moi plus qu'un exemple, et depuis que je vous connais, je rêve d'arriver un jour à votre niveau et de pouvoir laisser parler mon imagination sur le papier avec autant d'assurance et de facilité que vous.

Je vous remercie de l'attention que vous porterez peut être à ce message. Bonne continuation, et surtout, n'arrêtez jamais de faire ce que vous faites, car personne ne saurait le faire aussi bien que vous.

Aurélien.

Hi!
I just wanted to say that you are an amazing artist and that you and Finlay Cowan are my artist idols! I really like your, "Beowulf Battles Grendels Mother". So long! (:

Hi John,
Thanks for Signing your Forging Dragons for me yesterday. It was a pleasure to meet you and shake your hand. I hope it wasn't a chore and that you had some interesting and pleasant conversations. And thanks for sharing your art!
I hope you have got to spend enough time in New Zealand and to catch up with friends that you made during Rings. I hope The Hobbit has presented some good opportunities for imagination beyond Smaug. I wonder if you get to spend any time with Allan Lee, and if you guys have a demanding schedule. All the best...

Le Suilad!

I am a half-elven, half-human girl at the age of 12 (I shall be thirteen in June) and greatly admire your work.
Two of my greatest aspirations are to become an author and artist. I am working on a book at the moment that is 96+ pages, and I draw regularly.

I was wondering, if you had the time, could you critique my drawings? I don't have many posted, but I haven't scanned any new ones in. The link is: http://manyrandommusings.blogspot.com/2009/04/drawings.html

I greatly admire your work as an artist, God has greatly gifted you.

Namarie,

Hannah

(known to my Elvish kin, as Eruanniel)

How are you?

Le suilad, Mr. Howe!
I am somewhat of a cool geek, as I say.
A fifteen year old half-elven hobbit girl who is learning to speak and write Quenyan and Sindarin elvish letters and numbers, and who is about to send a book to a publisher. :)
And I am an artist.
You are my favorite artist!
You are absolutely amazing!! Thank you SO much for publishing your art book, I got it from the Library!
Also, thank you for not putting any explicit nudity in it, I really, really appreciate that, being a Christian.
Thank you for your inspiration and talent!
God has gifted you AMAZINGLY!
I hope one day I can do half as well.
Namarie!
~Ëarwen Herion~

http://www.thoughtsofashieldmaiden.blogspot.com

Your work is truly inspiring, I am a realitvely new grapic art student and have fallen in love with digital painting.

I fell in love with your art long before I knew you were doing Tolkien work. What a wonderful and well visualized imagination you have. I especially love the fact that you keep your art largely functional and not so unrealistic as to be impossible (in the sense of failing to suspend disbelief.) I gaze in wonder at your art and can only hope to someday emulate the shadow that you cast!

I have been a fan of Robin Hobb's books for a few years now and I have to admit, my favourite part about the paperback book editions was your fantastic illustrations! I loved how each little image depicted a scene or symbol of the story, and found the images to be stunningly believable. I could imagine the scene happening in my minds eye. So I thank you for your hard work, for sharing your skills with us and for that feeling of anticipation when I went out to get the next book covered in such amazing artwork.

A. Lamb

You're too good at this whole "art" game. I bow down before you.

Hello John, just signing the guest book to compliment you on your incredible imagination and your visually stunning artwork. I have spend the last hour or two browsing through your art galleries, simply magnificent!

Dear John, thank you for your great work!
Hope you know, you and the LotR, you`re inspiring the whloe world. Me and my girl friend, we are traditional archers and we always meet fantastic people at the tournaments.
Thank you and keep on doing!

Mr. Howe
I would first like to say how splened your work truely is I both admire and love it. It is a great insperation to me with regard to my own artistic eneavors. What advice would u give to some one that was not born with ther talent as so many othere were? I went to school for four years for graphic deesing and advertising. I studied art and practised but I never seemed to grain the taled of people I studied with. I still paint and draw but how can I get better after many years?

Thank you...

Thank you, Mr Howe, for all your splendid illustrations, your marvellous job on the Lord of the Ring and all that you make for the Fantasy Art! I am impatient to see your next work!

(and my apologise for my poor English)

G'day Mr.Howe,

I wanted to drop a line or two down for you.

Gread work by the way. So i wanted to say i do indeed enjoy admiring your work as well as this inspiration i recieve because of you.

So thank you Mr. Howe, and Pencil Bless!

Kindest Regards

Adamo

Yes... please add to your biography. It would be great to read more about your time/schooling in the Okanagan.

You need more on your Biography. People want to find out more about you John. I have to do a presentation on you and I dont have enough of a biography on you.

Dear sir Howe.

I am a citizen of Albaida, great fan of their work and of the world of Tolkien. I knew their visit to my small city last day March 6, visiting the Museum Segrelles that so much he likes. It is a honor that visits us and is interested in our painter's work. I think that Segrelles has been a good illustrator of Tolkien. I will visit with pleasure the exhibition of Swiss artists during these days in the university of Valencia.

Sincerely.

Apologize for my low English level.

Dear Mr. Howe,

Although I've read some of your ideas on art and Lord of the Rings in articles and books, I've never read anything as intensively thought out, and as passionately presented, as your recent article, "From Babel to Barad-Dúr". It was fascinating and thought (and image). I'm so glad I found a link at "Middle-earth News" to follow.

Of all the great material, this bit most struck me:

"John Ruskin, when he launched his ambitious plan to teach factory workers to draw, had no desire to fill London's parks with labourers toting sketchbooks and charcoal, his desire was to teach them to see. For their own sakes, not to make them better artists, but to have their vision constantly refreshed. Drawing, whether in nature or from some interior landscape, is a form of meditation, an effacing of self, a suspension of time and conscious thought. The local park or the banks of the Anduin: little difference, just a question of detail."

I think LotR does that for the reader, which I think was your point: constantly refreshes their vision. To learn to see like that, is it not something greatly to be desired?