Are You Who Say You Are?

"Cat with a Pearl Earring" 2.5 x 3.5" colored pencil on paper.
Copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater.
Available on mugs/ bags/ stuff here.

Sunday is my blog-reading day. Well, it's really my lazy all-purpose doing things I don't have time to do the rest of the week day, but it's quicker to say "blog-reading day."

Anyway, the bigger my blogging circle gets, the more chances I seem to get to actually meet some of the folks whose blogs I read or who comment on my blogs. It's always a weird experience. Because sometimes, you meet someone whose online persona is just like them -- their speech patterns and their . . . I dunno, aura . . . are exactly like their real-life mannerisms.

But more often than not, there's a strange disconnect between someone's online persona and their real-life persona. And as a blogger, that's a bad thing. Because most of us are way better at speaking in real life than we are in writing. Sure, a lot of us can throw together a nicely patterned sentence or a formal paper, but we sure as bunny-fluff don't actually speak like that.

So the reason why this sucks for bloggers is because the success of your blog (and for artists who rely on blogs to drive purchases) relies on how well you can connect with your fellow man. The younger set doesn't have the same problems with this because they've grown up talking to people online. To them, there's no difference in how they speak and how they write (which of course has its own set of problems when they try to move into formal writing). A great example is this teen review of Lament. Tell me you don't know exactly how this girl would be in real life. I had the great fortune to meet her after she wrote that review and I have to tell you, what you see is what you get. And that's refreshing a world of insincerity and anonymity. People want to get a sense of who you are.

On the other hand, I get e-mails from older folks -- and by older I mean thirty -- and I get run-on paragraphs of stilted e-mailese. Often it comes across as curt or uneducated; it frustrates me when I meet them in person and realize that these are highly educated, well-spoken people whose communication skills fall apart when converted to the written word. In a word . . . ack. Communication disaster.

So here's the question for the week: are you who you say you are on your blog? Or are you buried beneath clunky prose and funkier punctuation? Here's an exercise: hold a conversation with someone. Anyone. Your husband. Your dog. Then run to the keyboard and write down exactly what you just said. With some polishing and slightly fewer swear words, that should be what your online persona sounds like too.

Hope everyone's having a great Labor Day . . . I expect I will have a blog post containing humorous antics and tales of disaster as I try to host my first ever multiple-family BBQ at my house tomorrow. I'm afraid, very afraid.

Complements That Have Already Made People Feel Good

This post took me far too long to do, partially because it took me forever on my dial-up to access all the links people had given me and partially because half the links didn't properly work and I had to work my butt off to figure out where I was actually supposed to go. But I've finally gotten around to it, and hopefully this will serve the purpose of both illustrating some complements at work and also giving some shout-outs to some of my blog readers who make this blog a better place with their comments.

Those who are just appearing can find the original post on complements here. I asked blog readers to send me links to pieces (of theirs or from other people) who intentionally used complements. So here they are. If you click on them, it should take you back to the original page the art appeared on.

Here are the contributors:

Vivien Blackburn. Her seascape is using blue/orange complements and while it's pretty, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that y'all should head over to her blog and look at her other stuff, because some of it is positively transcendental.

Jo Castillo. I love this artist because she has a sort of unflagging, indefatigable web presence that is always inspiring. Her pears are a green/ red complement pair. Whoo pears pairs! I'm enjoying following her sketches on her blog these days . . . makes me want to doodle and sketch more.

Casey Klahn. His blog, The Colorist, is always informative and well written, and he does some amazing stuff with pastels. He's also got another helpful blog on the nitty gritties of art fairs that I recommend to art fair newbies. His piece here is using pinks and light greens -- yes, people, those are complements as well.

Karen Mathison Schmidt. Her cat piece here uses blues and oranges, and it is nice . . . but not as nice as some of the really loose, blocky pieces on her blog. She has this one that I really want!

Barbie Bud. If for nothing else, I would love Barbie for her wonderful comments! But she's a promising artist too -- her piece here is blues and oranges (seems to be a popular set of complements). If you look at her blog, check out her use of darks . . . we could all learn something from that understated palette.

Meg Lyman. Check out this quirky guy! Red/ Green -- see how powerful that color combination is? Meg is a very competent artist with a fascinating peculiar style that I can't seem to look away from. :D


Melanie Rich. I actually hadn't visited her website before today, but I'm glad I did. She's got a cool, blocky style that appeals to me and her fishy piece fits into our complement theme as well - more orange/blue popping.

Christy Branston. At first I thought this piece didn't really illustrate complements well, but then I read her explanation again: "Everything seemed really dull until I read about combining yellow with purple, so I tried putting purple on the white flowers, and that made the flower pop right out from the yellowish leaves." And it's true. It did work.

And of course, thanks to Katherine and Cooper for their suggestions (Cooper, I couldn't get your Wolf Kahn link to work), and to Dhara for recommending I take a look at the Munsell Color System, which is another version of the color wheel worth looking at. I actually like his complements better and think that they're what I tend towards anyway.