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Moderators, thread starters and the members who answer beginner questions at seven in the morning. This page is about how the forum is actually run, who decides what gets pinned, and what happens when a critique thread goes sideways.
Operators
Operators use the forum differently from everyone else. You are not here for a pat on the back on a single drawing. You are here because a press is jamming, a life drawing model cancelled two hours out, or you need a straight answer on whether a Saturday plein air group will actually turn up in the rain. Post your setup, your constraints and what you have already tried, and the thread stays useful for the next person running the same room.
Tell us the room, the equipment and the schedule. Read the daily sketch habit notes or the gesso and drying thread before you post if you want to see how we write things up.
A few working definitions, so nobody has to guess what a thread is asking for. These apply across every sub-board, from beginner questions to the critique section and the studio diaries.
Critique is a response to the work on the page, not to the person who made it. Say what you see, name what is working, and be specific about what is not. "I like it" is welcome in the studio diary area, but it does not belong in a critique thread.
Asking why a charcoal line smudges, or which side of the paper to work on, is a normal post. Nobody gets moved to a quieter board for it. The only expectation is that you describe what you tried before asking.
When a thread covers gesso, rabbit skin glue, drying times or cheap paper that still takes charcoal, we ask for the conditions you worked in. Humidity in Cape Town and dry inland air in Johannesburg give different answers, and both are useful.
Saturday plein air sessions and material swaps are arranged in the open, with a place and a time in the first post. Trading offcuts is fine. Turning a thread into a shopfront is not.
No follower counts, no ranking by popularity, no gatekeeping about training or qualifications. Work in progress is treated as work, not as a draft waiting for permission. If a thread drifts into scoring people rather than reading the drawing, a moderator will step in and say so plainly.
Operators on this forum are the people who keep threads alive: the ones who answer a beginner's question about fixing charcoal without a fixative, who post a failed gesso panel and explain what went wrong, who show up to Saturday plein air in Observatory even when the south-easter is blowing. Their words carry more weight than any rating we could print.
Below are notes pulled from members who use the critique boards, the studio diary section and the materials threads regularly. Nothing here is sponsored. If a thread helped, it helped because someone took the time to write it out properly.
"I posted a half-finished linocut expecting polite silence. Three people told me the registration was off and one sent a photo of how they clamp their block. That is the whole reason I stayed."
"The studio diary board is the only place online where I have seen someone admit a painting went badly and then explain the drying problem behind it. I check it every Sunday."
"I asked a basic question about paper weight and nobody made me feel stupid. Six months later I am the one answering that thread for someone else."
4.8 / 5
Average rating from members who filled in the yearly feedback thread
9 in 10
Say the critique board changed how they read their own work
Weekly
Plein air meetups posted in Cape Town and Johannesburg, rain or shine