Static Fling - A Blogger Outage

Is Blogger the sixth most popular internet sight?  That was a rumor I heard while searching the news about Blogger's over 20 hour hiccup that began yesterday and ran through today. Data corruption was the reason that Blogger reports led to its take down of all posts since Wednesday, May 11th., 2011.  At first, access was read-only, and users weren't able to log in to their blogs.  As I write this post, Blogger has returned my posts since Wednesday. Who posted corrupt code at Blogger?  Inquiring minds want to know.


Personally, I did notice some bad behavior by my blog leading up to the outage.  Blogger posted my comments, incorrectly, as CaseyBooks, and adding a video on my sidebar that belonged in the posts.  


The Colorist has been posting daily since May 3rd., and so the impact on my plans has been noticeable.  I want the posts to show an uninterrupted daily listing.  It is a goal I keep once a year, and the rest of the year I like to post once, twice or three times a week.

The Colorist is an artist's blog newsletter and forum on fine art, authored by Casey Klahn.

Update - Update

You are owed another update of my studio activities. First, pour yourself a cup of coffee.



The studio is a buzz with framing for my upcoming show in California, the Sausalito Art Festival. I'm a little unsure of the number, but I may have around 35 - 40 originals for my upcoming exhibitions.



Have another cup? Dark roast, I hope. For some unknown reason my statistics at The Colorist have gone ballistic. Almost quadrupled on the best days. Much of this uptick is hits to this page. I cannot figure it out.

Other recent posts include 100 Things I Love About Art, and When Bloggers Meet.



Daily posting of miniature pastels, as well as an occasional medium sized work, is now going on at The Colorist Daily. This is the time to buy a small work under $100.



My search for gallery space and exhibitions may be yielding some fruit soon. I'll keep you posted when dates are firmed up. The Hoquiam River exhibition is penciled in for September 2011.



On the easels, I am developing my voice as a figure artist by studying the masters. Da Vinci and Degas are my current muses. I often post those at Pastel, but you may see some here, soon.

Two books I am reading are: Master Class in Figure Drawing and Degas, By Himself. Hale's classic instruction in Master Class has me drawing various parts of anatomy an area at a time. I am learning more stuff about the rib cage than I ever thought existed. My Nurse Practitioner wife brought home a medical anatomy book as reference material, too.




I continue to thrill at the works of Edgar Degas. His familiarity with proportion and anatomy are only the beginning. I never realized how much he departs from the real before. All because his gestures, forms and movement are so believable. The book - mine is published by Barnes & Noble Books - is richly illustrated, has a woven binding and nice, heavyweight paper. Lovely.

Edgar Degas
Dancer

Finally, in the subject of figures, our blogger friend Astrid Volquardsen, has posted one of her recent figure paintings: Eva in the Bath. Well worth your look.

When Bloggers Meet

My set-up at Loriann's slough locale. She loves this particular spot, and I can see why. There are scenes wherever you look - but that generally describes Skagit County, Washington.

Painter in the mist. Loriann Signori is well focused on her art. Her post of the image is here.

Our favorite plein airist, Loriann, was be-nighted the evening before, looking for her lost house key in the tall grass with a flashlight. She didn't like the sounds of something big slapping the water, and beat a hasty retreat. I found the tracks and showed her what she'd been avoiding - a small bear.

When bloggers meet - a paint out adventure. Loriann Signori and Casey Klahn in La Conner, Washington.

I will post the artwork I did soon. I still haven't unpacked my big van since my Kirkland show. After seeing Loriann, I had a great time driving east over the Cascade Mountains and home after much arting and general hob-nobbing. Unusual for me, I actually enjoyed the hot weather in Leavenworth, WA - maybe after being cold at the painting location!

Next posts: galleries and art fairs and workshops.

Banner Banter - How To Make a Blog Banner

Banners and Badges Are Creative Blog Design Elements

Here is a special thanks to those of you who voted to choose a new blog banner. The gray banner has prevailed. There were 16 votes for gray, versus 11 and 10 for the brown and green ones, and some sentiment for keeping the old one was expressed.

A new and attractive blog banner can be the most dramatic change for your blog, next to selecting a new template. Yesterday's post presented various types of creative blog banners for your inspiration.

This post will link you to the simplest tutorials I have found for creating and posting a new banner to your blog. I won't touch on platforms other than blogger, except to say that I think the information here on designing and creating your banner will benefit you no matter which platform you use. I will add the following advice that I found helped me. I use Photoshop Elements (version 2!).

1. Determine the size that you want your new banner to be. I experimented with my old one and discovered that 717 x 426 pixels was my preference for a banner in my particular template. When you open a new file in Photoshop, designate the size you choose.
   
2. A helpful hint in choosing a banner size is to find an image that you feel is an approximate of what you want to make and open the properties by right clicking on it. Use that as a starting point, but don't copy - you want to stand out.
3. Notice that a few of the banners I linked make their statement in a small space, about 70 pixels tall. That may be your solution if you want to cut to the chase. Charley Parker's is 593 x 110.
   
4. Why not allow your readers to participate in choosing a banner design by polling them?
   
5. Make sure your finished product doesn't look pixelated, or fuzzy, when you post it at your blog. I suggest that creating it in the right size, by pixel dimensions and by dpi, will do the job. I try to create my designs in a 200 or higher dpi, and then I save them at 110 or so to make sure they look sharp enough. In my (uneducated) opinion, most people's web feeds can support at least an image of 110, rather than the old 72 dpi. Any other opinions on this?
   

Some have advised against big banners, and I sympathize with that opinion. I have gone with a big banner to make a graphic statement and to make my blog recognizable. I have found that there are many ways for readers to arrive here, and usually they have followed a subscription tool, which highlights the image or title of each post. The downside of having your post "below the fold," as Katherine van Schoonhoven says, is not too critical, in my opinion.



How to make a banner and post it:

Blogspot Tutorial
Photoshop Tutorials
Paul Stamatiou
Design Mom (embed code tutorial provided)


Don't forget to have a tag line. I like Angela Taylor's, "I have marks to make." Mine is "New School Color." Many bloggers make the name of their blog fit a tag line, such as "Robin Pucell, Watercolors in the Plein Air Tradition." I think it's important to include your name somewhere in your header, because people want to view and buy art from an artist. An internet nom de guerre doesn't help in building your artist profile.

Keep in mind the overall look of your blog, not just the header or banner. Also, your background color. The Colorist sported a mid-value blue-gray background for the first half a year of its life. When I went to white, the added light was well worth it as far as my art was concerned.





Why I'd never make it as an IT guy.

How To Mind Map Your Blog

"I must create a system,
or be enslaved by another man's,"
William Blake

The Mind Map of The Colorist blog was posted a week ago Monday, and you may wish to do this exercise for your own blog. My goal in doing a mind map was to clean up my busy sidebar and sort out what kinds of data I may want for the new Blogger tabs.

The following describes how I did my mind map.

detail - center of the mind map

I began with the identified subject in the center of the blank page, and drew radii with subjects that I found easy to describe based on what I like to write about in the blog. The broad subjects included Art essays, Art History, My Art, The Art Blogging Community, Casey Klahn (it is my newsletter), etc.

I skipped the rule about using color (go figure!). I think in color when I draw, though - that's part of my whole job description. A rule I will follow next time is that one should pose the subject as a thesis statement or as a question, not just, "The Colorist." I should have written: "what are the components of The Colorist?"

Next, I consulted my labels, and then I described the sub-branches by associations of content with the main branches. For instance, "My Art" has several sub branches such as abstract and landscape genres. Also, the broad category of "Art Content" broke down into the associated subjects of "art philosophy" and "education."



The finding of links between the broad subjects, or a systems analysis of how subjects connect, was illustrated by double ended arrows running between the main branches. This is the most problematic area, and I think the worst represented by mind mapping. Systems are more complex than this 2 dimensional scheme, and they have multiple associations, not just those that are easily illustrated by an arrow. Anyway, the object was to get some systems identified, and to find groupings that will help me pull together types of content for my tabs and my sidebar widgets.

Below, I drew a pop-out that attempted to scheme some broad concerns of the blog. I want to keep my blog focused on ideas, and not so much on myself - people get bored with that. That's why I drew the overlap as a little bit of the artist's self, a better amount of content (ideas) and a whole lot of action (painting and drawing). The outside influences of culture and others I described as "world."




Like with the Borg, all ideas can be assimilated, but when you get the crew of the star ship Enterprise involved, all bets are off. I would say the same thing applies to the artistic mind. Artists are (or should be) the most individual souls on Earth. Systems that artists work within may not function for other offices. Create your own sets of ideas and make your artist's blog a "Mind Map" of your own personality.


Extreme Navel Gazing Links:

Brainstorming
Mind Mapping
Argument Map
Disney Mind Map 1957

Funny gif by EFAmbros

More Art Blogging Tips

Ponte Vecchio - Old City
@7" x 6"
Graphite on 70gr. Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

Being an artist blogger is a many-headed hydra. Just like the traditional art gallery, you want to understate your presentation. Be fully functional as a sales vehicle, and yet keep a lid of decorum on it. The theory is that fine art is an exceptional thing - not base like most commodities or products.

Self-representing, but not grasping


This explains, in part, why art galleries can seem ostentatious and off-putting. (It wouldn't hurt the gallery staff any to greet each patron, BTW - just my 2 cents) Art bloggers, prepossessed with the rank of the fine artist, must not turn around and trash the reputation of the fine arts. Art blogs, like all Web 3.0 entities, suffer from the canard that new media has a lesser status. That is changing, and we art bloggers must be the agents of that change. High quality, but also revelatory. Decorum, without being stodgy. Self-representing, but not grasping.

self-importance and über-angst


Having said all this, here are some tips for being read. Previous posts in this series are here: Art Blogs & Art Blogging. What good is it to write and post, but not be found by your public? Don't do your own patrons a disservice, and stay hidden under a front of self-importance and über-angst.

Think of ways to get links back through your blog. Each page is a unique web entry, and you want readers finding your content throughout your blog. Organize and label your entries, and offer easy access to them. Do place active links within your posts to recent posts in a series. Remember to stay topical with internal links.

You'll notice that I use blogger's picture tool in order to create internal links in my sidebar. How to choose content for internal links? Your art, in it's different genres or mediums, is a good place to start. I offer My Drawings, My Artworks and My Abstracts. When I notice an unusual number of hits coming in for a certain search query, then I offer a tool for my readers to pursue that subject. Leonardo da Vinci, and Jackson Pollock are examples. Don't worry, though. I won't be creating a Teri Horton button soon. Another good internal linking system is the blogger recent comments tool.

I also list external links that are related to any other presence that I may have on the Internet. The Fine Art Department is a collaboration blog where I am featured, and Casey Klahn dot blogspot is my art-for-sale site. An artist profile and community website that I participate in is ArtSlant.

One major outside feed to The Colorist is my second blog, Pastel. It maintains a purpose and a life of it's own as a low key blog focused on the art and medium of pastelists.

meaty art and artist content


My favorite way to drive traffic is with meaty art and artist content. The Artist's Traits series was a recent lengthy thread. Past threads have included famous artists like Mark Rothko, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Matisse. You need a true and genuine interest in your subjects, and these modernists are my favorites. A contemporary favorite artist is Wolf Kahn, and I once did a series of drawings after his style.

Art Blogging - Tips & Types

Deer "Cast" Drawing
14" x 12"
Charcoal, Conte and Compressed Charcoal
Casey Klahn

Art Blogging has been like a vapor cloud; a ghostly apparition just out of sight of the greater blogging world. In a form of reveal, Wikipedia now has an entry on Art Blogs. (Hat Tip: Madsilence)

Don't rest on your laurels just yet, fellow artist bloggers. You will note from the list of important bloggers in the Wikipedia entry, that only about a third of those considered important are authored by artists, and even then, these are not all formatted as blogs where the artist posts their art on a regular basis. The bulk of the list are arts professionals, such as writers, gallerists and critics.

But, if the fire burns in your belly to share your art and ideas on the Internet, nothing comes close to artist blogging for achieving that. Think of it as the modern equivalent to van Gogh's letters-a journal of your direction, art and beliefs.




We have been describing, in loose terms, the types of art blogs that you may use as a departure point in starting your own blog. The blogs typed so far are much more than the sum of these descriptions, but observing them closely may give you some guidance.

To date, we have described these types of artist blogs: art didactic, D'autre (other), and medium-based. And, lifestyle, art-form and spare.

Now, I want to discuss the Instructional, Process and Art-for-Sale art blogs.

Instructional

Already mentioned in a previous post, James Gurney's Gurney Journey is a one-over-the-world instruction blog for artists. Ever wonder if illustration and fine art jive together? Gurney provides the answer: yes. His paintings are very fine, and I particularly enjoyed his reports on his recent trip to North Africa. See Port of Tangier and Rabat Alley.

Another two notable instruction blogs are Richard McKinley, who blogs at Pastel Pointers, and Michael Chesley Johnson, who offers A Plein Air Painter's Blog. Both are pastelists and oil painters and their blogs are regular reads for a broad audience of artists.

Process

Adam Cope at Dordogne Painting Days creates his blog around his art, his locale and his near influences. Subjects, such as musicians, family, and market vendors are sketched in a lively manner. The south of France, well known for its art foundation, provides the landscape for his colorist oils and watercolors. But Adam's thinking about the painting process is the textual copy of this blog. Not surprising, as Adam teaches workshop painting holidays in this painter's paradise.

"This blog is about my life as an artist- my work and random thoughts about the creative process," Deborah Paris says at A Painting Life. In this post, Old School-New School, she gives some of the reasoning behind her current style. No blog today is as rich with beautiful landscape paintings as Deborah's.

Vivien Blackburn's Paintings, Prints and Stuff features her excellent works of these types from coastal Great Britain. Vivien uses widgets to promote her art that is for sale, such as imagekind and Etsy, and also Blurb which carries her book.

Art for Sale

Tracy Helgeson, also of Works By Tracy Helgeson, has created a simple and clean design for how to sell your art from your blog. See Tracy Helgeson dot blogspot. The concept is that one's blog can be so active with context, that patrons sometimes may not see a path to purchasing the fine art displayed. Enter the Art for Sale style of blog. Keep in mind that this type of blog will work best if supported by another web presence driving traffic to it.

My newest blog is a direct spin-off of Tracy's: Casey Klahn dot blogspot. In a "just the facts, ma mm" manner, each post is one artwork, with description, and a big Buy Now button from Paypal.

This series has many of us established art bloggers wondering aloud how we each have styled our blogs. My advice is to not think too hard, as we are each ourselves. This study is an attempt to sort out broad styles as a path to new art bloggers. And, what about The Colorist? What style does this blog fit into? Stay tuned!

Tip: Dip your toe in the water by creating a Beta version of your art blog. One way to do this is to limit the viewership to invited readers only. OTOH, my opinion is that a new blog will have very minimal readership, anyway. Especially if you avoid commenting at other blogs for a while.

Art Blogs & Art Blogging - Blog Styles

Under Riva Ridge, Italy
@8" x 5"
Charcoal
Casey Klahn

What is your blogging style? If you are like me, you will begin with a concept, and after the blog is established (perhaps six months into it?) you may have a better idea of what the blog really wants to be. That is a natural process for the first time blogger.

The styles I am examining in this series are from blogs written by artists, and not arts professionals. This is to get you, the art blogger, closer to the style you want to emulate. There are some terrific blogs about art collection, and art news, but you want to blog about your art and establish a format. But what will your format be?

What is your blogging style?


In the post, Yard Birds, we discussed three art blogging styles: social, art form and spare. This time, let's discuss three others, which are art didactic, D'autre (other), and medium-based.

Art Didactic

Katherine Tyrrell at Making a Mark has this set of publications about blogging for artists. These are a must-review if you wish to step-off on a good foot at art blogging.

so ubiquitous that it is hard to find any peer blogs


The aforementioned Making a Mark is the ultimate example of an art didactic site. Katherine Tyrrell, who is nearly a daily poster of her own watercolors, pastels and colored pencil works, has developed a site so ubiquitous that it is hard to find any peer blogs. Who else packs so much valuable information into one place? Actually, Katherine's MAM blog needs multiple blogs and websites to contain her ideas, and so she has diversified by adding many different resource and art sites.

I want to start giving you multiple examples of a style, but it is hard to do with this one. Marion Body-Evans at Painting.About and Linda Blondheim Art Notes are in the same style, I think. If you wish to be "another Making a Mark", I would review these blogs,too. And study up.

D'autre Blogs

By D'autre blogs, I mean a blog by an artist that spotlights other artists.

Charley Parker is another ubiquitous art bogger, with the blog Lines and Colors. It is also hard to find another blog that equals his depth and scope. L and C is a format where Charley, an artist himself, features other illustration and mostly realist fine art sites. Emphasis: quality work. Charley is thorough, covering every artist from soup to nuts.


Another way to help understand the style of a blog may be to review their well-crafted blogroll. Parker's has the following categories: Art, Painting & Sketch, "Painting a Day", Illustration, Comics & Cartoons, Animation & Concept, and others as well. One good hint for blogrolls: when you have non-art links that you can't do without, establish an other or "off-topic", or friends category.

Review the blogroll


Other D'autre art blog examples may be artist interview blogs. Angela Taylor had one of these at one time, but she is never one to stay in one place! BTW, she gets my mention for special purpose art blogging, where a cause is paramount. Her delightful art is spirit-lifting.

The thing to watch out for if you're going to do a D'autre blog, is that your own art may become lost in this format.

Medium Based

A medium-forward blog is one where an artist focuses the style of their blog around the subject of their art medium. My own blog, Pastel, is one of these. The reason that I began pastelsblog dot blogspot (Pastel) is that I was labeling so many posts "pastel", and the medium itself was a star player here at The Colorist. Some times, too, one's medium (or your art genre) can over power the message. Colorist art is not limited to pastel work, only, and I wanted to make that clear. In some ways, I needed to refine the direction of this blog by sorting out that aspect.

A number of blogs are named for the pastel medium, and also the watercolor medium. See Eden Compton Pastels and Watercolor Artist's Diary (Tracy Hall).

These genres can be a help as well as a hindrance


In some ways (my opinion here) the daily painting movement was being identified as an oil painting style of blogging. I don't think anyone ever intended that, but the strength of Duane Keiser's and Julian Merrow-Smith's daily painting blogs of oil paintings was so great that it took other non-oil painters coming on the scene to dis-spell that. Nonetheless, mediums do create groupings of bloggers.

Another grouping other than medium is genre, such as the drawing and illustration genre. These genres can be a help as well as a hindrance, IMHO. No art should ever be about its genre or medium only.

Lines and Colors may be drawing and illustration based, but Charley Parker pushes the genre upward and outward, giving illustration the broader fine art appeal that it deserves. Another artist who defies the fences that genre can impose is James Gurney, of Gurney Journey. This fantasy illustrator is actually one of the foremost painters and teachers online today. Charley and James are the mode-breakers - will your medium-based blog transcend the medium?

Winter Yard Birds

Winter Yard Birds
Photo: Casey Klahn

The little ones are climbing the trees. Cooped up and stuck in snow world for a couple of weeks, and today makes the second day they should have been back in school. Canceled.

Personal subjects in art blogging are a matter of taste, I think. Is it the right subject matter? Isn't it supposed to be about the art, after all?



Your Blog Style: Lifestyle, Art Form or Spare?

The answer lies in your own style. Some artists thrive by blogging about their life as well as the studio, and it is a very successful strategy. A perfect example is Tracy Helgeson, who just completed a month of daily postings challenge. Of course, having the world's yummiest studio, a beautiful farm house in upstate New York, chicken-coop full of joy, and fantastic colorist oil paintings doesn't hurt her profile, either. Her blog style has created a story line that is compelling, and authentic. Yours will be your own individual story, of course.


Tracey Ullman with a paintbrush


This leads to another style of art blogging: the art blog as an art form. First in mind for me is Jafabrit's Art. Jafabrit tells the story of an artist's life but keeps it stylized by writing spare, centered copy. Her work is dramatic, with skulls, ravens and crows, and screaming faces on rocks. Her humor is dry British wit, but tends towards the outlandish kind. Think Tracey Ullman with a paintbrush.

Corrine (Jafabrit herself) knits tree ware, gives art to the cosmos on Fridays, and commiserates with her greater art community in her Ohio locale. Well, actually she does this worldwide, too. Her "Your Documents,Please" piece has circled the globe, and don't forget these blogs go out to the world wide web. As an added bonus, because her blog is an art form, she peppers the format with music widgets, talking heads, and occasional videos - always funny. I consider Corrine's blog, and her art, to be absolutely among the most authentic and original out there.

If you are considering the absolute, most spare art blog that you can manage, think twice. The SEO gods want you to add copy to those pictures. This is the way their robotic algorithms compute. Picture...BZZZZZt-TzT (flicker, sput); Words...HzMMM nng- BTZ, AHHHHH. And the SEO deities like certain words better than others. Call it alms, or perhaps a dogma. My favorite SEO tripwires are Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson, Terri Horton, Vincent van Gogh, pastel, you get the idea. The problem is, these words don't all fit my narrative, except on very narrow occasions. OTOH, the posts live forever on the net, and garner traffic in perpetuity.

I will back up and say that images have their own pathway to the search engines such as Google Images. Here is a little research on this. Also, learn a bit about the alt attribute, and the title attribute of your images.

have a tissue handy as you cry at the results

If you have been blogging for a while, try a search of Google Images with the search query as your name, or as the name of your blog. Have a tissue handy as you either laugh or cry at the results. But, copy is still king on the Internet, since the default page on Google is text based.

Anyway, my vote for the best spare but extremely effective style is Robert Chunn's Alla Prima. Cunning and colorful still lifes posted on a consistent basis are his fare, but he has a program far more thoughtful than art only. Robert posts an art-related quote with every post, and try that sometimes if you think it is easy! Additionally, his spare motif includes his sidebar design. Precious few widgets, text all lined up and justified, and links. That's it. Think that's all? Have a closer look at his links - very exhaustive and organized. The outcome is a blog that very much matches Chunn's art, and tells the story he's after.

And you thought daily painting was the only format for art blogging! What is your art blog style? Next time: more tips, and types of art blogs.


Monetize Me, Bro:

Visit my profile page at ArtSlant here.

My art for sale is here.

Art Blogs & Art Blogging

Photo: Lorie Klahn

A number of clues have me feeling that art blogging is going to be a focus for many this year. It is free, which helps since general advertising budgets are getting slashed. In that light, I'll be adding this thread about my perspectives on art blogging. An outline would be: tips, theories and observations.

No one is in greater need of improvement at blogging than moi, and that provides my motivation for this thread. Katherine Tyrrell at Making a Mark has focused early on blogging this year, and I am catching on myself that this blogging upgrade series will benefit the artist blogging community. Katherine's new posts include how to use Google Analytics, and a poll on posting frequency.

In the area of design, Rose Welty has taken the ball on Cleaning Sidebar Clutter. My own "how to" on this is posted here: Quick Key Links. Good work, Rose! Rose has emphasized clean and neat, but I choose communication over being tidy. I once had my labels shrunk, but now am leaning towards having them available for clicking - sort of an impulse shelf. The one thing that I mull is whether to consolidate the number of labels down to more distinct categories. What are your opinions?



Art Blogging Tips

First, a rant. The Weblog Awards still do not have an art blog category. Hello. Photography? Hottest Mommy Blogger? Hobby? People often ask me if I think our culture is in decline. My answer: "what culture!?" Here is another loser award blog without an art category. I have written them, and now reside in their troublemaker files. Power to the people, baby. *endofrant*

This reminds me of my other blog goal this year: to get out-of-genre to expand my reader base. My wife reads Ravelry, which is mega big, but I can't really see going there, myself. I did get some link-love from Pin Tangle recently, and I thank them for having an interest in art - that's what we like to see in our culture.

In the same vein, I will be setting a goal of following through with an exhibit at my alma mater, Northwest University. They now have an art class, or department, but didn't when I attended in the 70's and 80's. I ran into an old classmate at the Bellevue ArtsFair who is now a Hebrew prof., and he suggested a show. An exhibit there would be outside of the art gallery fold, and provide some extra exposure. And frankly, it would be a cultural event.

So, outside of genre blog interests should be just that - authentic interests for yourself. Mine include Christianity, the military, particularly WW II and the Civil War, Italy and blogging and marketing technology (a little bit).

Here are my favorite blogs in these categories:

Christianity - Faith and Theology

Military - Michael Yon

WW II - Ordinary Heroes: Six Stars in the Window

Civil War - Civil War Blogs

Italy - Living in Florence

Marketing - Seth Godin


Another discovery of mine has been the art community website ArtSlant. I have avoided many such sites, usually because of issues with their layout. ArtSlant has an attractive layout, and meets my goals, so far, of cross-exposure for my art, and for The Colorist. Hat tip, Julianne Richards, for recommending me there.