Painter Classic: Wacom Tablet: Procrastination default: Sleep deficit

The gentlemans' agreement that is implied in most website communities we visit is that we behave as if we were grown men and women. The new frontier of the wild and wooly net will test this consistently because there is the safety of anonymity behind those callsign names by which we recognize each other. I've met a good number of the community over the years and thank goodness they all were gentlemen and ladies of the drawn arts. Faces are made known. Gestures of good faith, "We are all well met." You now know these people.

The post below was my comment on the transaction that is posting and responding to artwork we share online. This is just one aspect of a tangled many. I can wish we all share a similar regard, though I know it'll take more than numbers to carry the day. It will take--just like our craft of drawing--practice.

I really appreciate the comments. This is part of the community life we live as artists on the internet. Without which we pretty much go back to the days when we can only see each other's work if we were geographically blessed to be living within the same planned neighborhood and bump into each other constantly armed with our drawings to show (curiously enough that's what's facing us if we all agree to be in the same retirement home for decrepit artists). We wouldn't even know of each other's existence, let alone see any drawings.

Opinions shared in a group is social. Opinions muttered from the armchair while clutching the remote is not. It invests nothing nor risks anything. As gentlemen of the board we all understand this. I'd rather have the social hail of comments than the silent bile of mutterings. One invites discourse and the other is just judgement.