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WetCanvas is closing
Hi all,
Just learned that WetCanvas is going to be closing by the end of the year. Although not that much of a surprise to me there will be a lot of useful information I have found there that will disappear for good. I hope some of the artists who are there join DMP rather than have nowhere to go, but we will see what happens.
Just learned that WetCanvas is going to be closing by the end of the year. Although not that much of a surprise to me there will be a lot of useful information I have found there that will disappear for good. I hope some of the artists who are there join DMP rather than have nowhere to go, but we will see what happens.
Comments
It's funny this should happen now @Richard_P. I was at WetCanvas just last night checking it out. I'm a member there but have never participated or posted a painting. Now, if DMP ever closes, I really will have nowhere to go.
I hope Mark never closes the DMP forum. It's my art school, my sounding board, my mirror, my art club ... I get so much out of this place and am very thankful for it. I hope that it attracts customers for Mark's products so that he doesn't close it.
MAybe we will get some artists moving over!
and the band played on.
With only 1000 lifeboat places for 2000 passengers what else could you do but drink yourself into oblivion and enjoy the music. A better option than freezing and drowning in the inky sea.
Denis
The site is called paintinginmyunderapnts.com. There are a couple of intro pages one line now.
I can't say when it will be up and running. Soon I hope.
The site its not about me. I will present my ideas along with the others involved. And link to others. I'd like to have a live video chat periodically.
I have finally after many years gotten fast reliable internet via SpaceX Starlink. That make this possible.
Please let me know what you might want to see in a simple sight and forum.
Regarding WC refugees to the DMP island: I too hope some of them join, and have suggested that to a few by PM. I think a few of us already belong to both WC and DMP (and you know who you are
).
DMP is very different in the types of discussions and the overall civil and welcoming atmosphere. The WC forums’ moderators lost the battle for civil disagreements a few years ago, and troll-like behavior by a few tends to have outsized effect on everyone’s behavior. Now, since the announcement of closing, the few moderators have given up entirely.
Are there official moderators here on DMP, or are we self-moderating? This is an extremely pleasant and informative forum, and I think I am lucky to have found it!
The last known moderator was @PaulB, who stepped down maybe a year or so back.
Though he still makes the occasional visit.
I say `known` because I suspect that someone must be moderating it under the radar, as I think it can be quite a time consuming task with several aspects to deal with.
Keeping the daily tide of Spammers at bay for one.
@Abstraction and @Desertsky, I'm glad you washed up here I and hope that more refugees from WC will find us.
The other thing I'd like to see is meaningful critiques. I know that can be difficult to do online.
I think that all the Facebook art groups have hurt forums like DMP and WetCanvas. I for one have gotten sick and tired of the shallowness of the Facebook forums and havve been looking for more serious forums like DMP where I can get more advanced information. I want information I can trust. The groups on Facebook have too much "stuff" in them that is just plaing wrong!
Maybe DMP and your page can help correct some of this!
OK, Luddite confession: I find the Facebook visual, 2-dimension layout and organization to be really difficult to navigate. Even when I am motivated to search for a topic, its hard to find and understand the sequencing of the contributions over time. Instead of a date displayed for when a posting was made, it lists number of days, months, or years ago. Huh? I find the DMP layout to be easy to understand, in comparison, and easier to read as it displays more than 5 words in a horizontal line.
I created a specific identity just for my tentative foray into two Facebook art groups. After a few weeks of reading and very little engaging, I think it is just not for me. I prefer discussions written in complete sentences and more than 1 sentence per contribution. I get that here on DMP. I hope I don’t come across as a snob. For those who get something out of the Facebook groups – great and good for them.
If Mr. Carder closes down DMP, I would be willing to help fund the set-up of another site, organized and run in a similar fashion.
I worry that if this place closes I'll be homeless. We don't know what is going to happen here but, if it does close, your idea of a community funded site, organized and run like this one sounds like a great fallback option. I would willingly contribute. In my vision there would be no boss, everyone would be equal and the place would self-moderate. There would be a minimum of rules, just like here. There's no need to do anything while we still have DMP but my fear is it will blink off unannounced and members will no longer be able to contact each other.
Would folks be interested in putting together a list of members contact details so that if this site ever suddenly blips off we'll have a way of contacting each other to get something new off the ground? We could PM each other to get started. If folks don't want to use their regular email account they could open a new one with Google or elsewhere specifically for contact with folks here.
BTW, I gave up on Facebook five years ago. Like you I found it difficult to navigate and the sort of interaction one can have there is, well, limited. Same with Instagram.
What we need for advancing in our art is a place where we can get well-informed answers to questions and solutions to problems. That to me is DMP.
I, for one, want to figure out how to continue to make DMP work as it was originally intended. I think that having a site like @KingstonFineArt is describing that would be complementary to DMP would help both.
Yes. Quiet periods are fine and part of the pattern.
‘However, my concern is that most newbies start on DMP full of Mark’s great teaching and looking to extend their understanding of the principles and practices through question and answer with other artists.
The focus is very diffuse these days and I suspect many new starts drift away as we don’t meet their needs. I suggest we all touch on the basics from time to time. Mixing values, paint qualities, supports, drawing, composition, colour checking, premixing, perspective, prop dividers, brushes, stroke techniques.
it is also important to post fresh examples of the classic Carder style for discussion and analysis.
If we ignore the needs of new starts the next ten years will see two of us left complaining about quiet periods.
Denis
I try to focus on these basic areas when commenting on work that people post. And I make a point of always commenting on others' work (especially the work of newbies) and where I can I will point to basics like drawing, colour-checking, the importance of values over colour. etc. And that's pretty much all we can do.
Painting is in part an intellectual exercise but it's as much a physical skill that needs to be learned and honed by actually doing it. No one can do it for us. With regard to both the intellectual and practical aspects, there is a wealth of information available on the DMP site including dozens of free videos that cover just about everything people would ever need to know. I've been here for about six years and I still haven't gotten through all the free content. If people are really serious about learning to paint realism in the DMP way then it's all here for them for free. Nothing else is needed as far as I can see. Except actually applying oneself to the job of painting.
DMP is a great place for self-motivated painters whether they are just starting out or have years of experience. Long may it continue.
@Abstraction, Yours didn't reach my message box.
Another to add to the list.
No 'Underpants' won't be a compliment for DMP. Frankly I really don't see a whole lot of Mark Carders disciples on the DMP forum. I hope DMP forum keeps going. It has been a unique and valuable platform.
I don't see Wet Canvas disappearing just morphing to a pay to play.
I agree that Facebook sucks as an artists forum. I have not participated on FB for about 2 years. I still have an account though. The other day I went up to a page I manage on fishing a local river. I haven't been there since my shoulder blowout. FB now considers it a Business page. A bunch of lying fisherman is now a the statuuss level of Rice Crispys and Coke. God help us. Facebook sucks.
**NEW** Latest Update on the Future of WetCanvas - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists
Richard, over the past two years, about half of the most informed and helpful posters in the oil painting forums quit posting or changed their names and deleted their posts (Contumacious, Sidbledsoe, Gigilot, JCannon). I interpret this to be a reaction to trolling. So, for me, the site just does not offer much in terms of informed technical analysis anymore.