The first of January is also the anniversary of the start-up of JSVB, my visual blog. So, today provides me the opportunity to look back over a year's worth of work:
This stately column of images represents an entire year of my work. Distilled into this matrix form, it reminds me of a tall modern tower filled with windows. Each window belongs to someone or something for most days of my life during 2010. These are all of the pictures, drawings, and digital paintings I have posted to JSVB.
My intention for JSVB was to challenge myself to create more artwork, and to get better at art production. I believe that I met that challenge, although I did not post every single day. I have just over 275 posts. From a year with 365 days, that means I posted roughly 75% of the time, or approximately five days out of every week.
Some posts took just a moment to compose, others took weeks. On average, I would guess I took four hours to complete a typical post. With my total post count, that would make 1,112 hours of specialized work. If I were paid my asking wage, I would have earned $44,480.00 to produce JSVB. I'd like not to discuss what I actually earned this year, though.
Around mid-June, Blogger the blog host decided to add some statistic tracking functions to their software. I had wanted to track blog views since the outset, but I am happy to get tracking data from June onward. The data does not include any personally identifiable information, but it does track basic items such as viewer nationality, the favourite posts, and how people link to JSVB, i.e. links from other blogs, Google™ and Facebook™ search engine hits, and the ubiquitous pings from automated bots looking to spam my blog with comments.
About adding comments to JSVB: that has been one criticism I have not really addressed. I did add the "Choose Your Opinion" boxes at the bottom as a way for people to acknowledge that they have seen and possibly liked any given post. Normally five or so people click on a box, which is cool. I purposely chose "STUNNING" and "EVOCATIVE" as my descriptors, as I do not at all appreciate the contemporary trend of adding "likes" and "dislikes" to everything. All that does is help the advertisers without adding value to JSVB.
As far as comments are concerned, I have over 275 posts this year to keep track of. A malicious bot can fill any or all of them with spam, whereas I would have to clean all that gunk out manually. Even just one minute per post cleaning out spam means I am spending four and a half hours on pure monkeywork. That time equals what it would take me to create a new post. I'd much rather spend the time being creative. If you have comments, my e-mail remains at the top of every page of JSVB.
I do get a few e-mails regarding my blog. Most are congratulatory or requests for clarification. I enjoy hearing from JSVB readers. I also encourage people to sign up as my Cultural Elite, which means becoming an official "follower" of JSVB. It's a bit of a hassle to set up, as you need to use a Google™ account. After that, though you should get some automatic notifications of my latest posts. For what it's worth, I've also added some sharing functions for ease of linking to my posts, including RSS feeds and the like.
So now for some statistics. Each item has a clickable hyperlink to take you to the post:
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR POSTS ON JSVB:
Honourable Mention 1 - Goes to Mr. Keith Langergraber. People are searching for Mr. Langergraber and finding mention of him on JSVB. Only in the last few days did he drop from the Top Ten searches on JSVB.
Honourable Mention 2 - Another popular item is Momma Horse & Baby Horse Sketch. This was just a quick and simple drawing, but people seem to like it a lot. A couple of weeks ago, it was dropped from the Top Ten. Maybe I will rework it into a more finished piece.
Honourable Mention 2 - Another popular item is Momma Horse & Baby Horse Sketch. This was just a quick and simple drawing, but people seem to like it a lot. A couple of weeks ago, it was dropped from the Top Ten. Maybe I will rework it into a more finished piece.
10) Momma's Boy Blues - An ode to poor Janice, who has broken several bones in her body as of late.
9) Rassen Frassen Gesture Poses - I suspect I get hits from search engines for "rassen frassen", which was animation producer Hanna-Barbera's solution to swear words in G-rated pictures. A full phrase goes "rassen frassen franastanic brickle brackle", which can sound awfully mean without injuring the ears of children.
8) Mousey Tongue - I like this drawing of our little mouse visitor, and so do other people it seems.
7) Trek Or Treat - Kind of an embarrassing pic, but it was an excuse for my wife to get painted green for Hallowe'en. That day, we went out to a football game where she cheered her head off for the green Roughriders. I spilled beer on my phaser.
6) 30th Terry Fox Run - Thirty years after he passed away, Terry Fox lives on strong in the hearts of Canadians and the people of the world. Living in Port Coquitlam means always having some part of his magnificent legacy close at hand. I plan to do another post on Terry Fox, as this post generated a few queries.
5) Better The DVLA You Know - A play on the phrase, "Better the devil you know than the one you do not." DVLA is England's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which is a target of search engines from the UK.
4) PoCo UFO Incident - A really creepy UFO landing that was reported just a few blocks from where I live! This is one of my favourite posts, as it combines the capabilities of Corel Painter with the spectre of a flying saucer hovering over trees. I've always been deeply attracted to that kind of X-Files-style imagery. It's like postmodern gothic horror, I guess. Strangely, the majority of views for this post occured within a three week span, and then ceased entirely.
3) Why Phi? Or: A Silver Golden Rule - I kept getting clusters of multiple hits for this post. Then I discovered that art classes kept finding it using the Internet for research. There are other websites than mine that do a better job of exlaining how Phi works.
2) Nat Bailey Nooner - This escape to the iconic Vancouver ballpark is the most searched-for single image on JSVB. I carefully altered the colour curves in Photoshop to achieve a somewhat nostalgic effect.
1) Ricci De Mare (Sea Urchin) Recipe - By far, this is the most popular post on JSVB. It gets hits every day. People seem curious about sea urchins in general. As well, they want to know more about the fascinating, grisly technique for preparing red sea urchins for dinner.
Well, that's the lot. I would like to express my deep gratitude for any JSVB readers who have followed my blog for the year. I wish a big welcome to anybody who is just dropping by to look at Orion Slave Girls, Hyde Creek, the Olympic Posts, the Stained Glass Saints or anything else here. Be sure to check out the SHOWCASE category to the right to see my own favourite pictures on JSVB!
Happy New Year in 2011!
Sincerely,
JEFF SHYLUK
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