To ensure that the forum remains a friendly and user friendly place, it is important to follow these guidelines when using the forum :
1) Before starting to post, please take a while to familiarise yourself with the layout of the forum, chances are your question has been answered already.
Under the
Help section there is all the Technical help you need to learn how to post pictures, add an avatar to your profile, etc.
2) Please read before asking. We gladly help, but it becomes tedious answering the same questions over and over again. The forum has been laid out in such a way that specific mediums are "bundled" together.
Each one of these sections have again been broken down into smaller divisions, eg. :
under the Oil Painting section you will find General Questions, Encourager Sessions, etc.
by clicking on the division you are interested in you can access all the previous discussions about that topic.
Please don't PM or email art related questions to our tutors - questions like "How do I mix brown" - our tutors don't have the time to answer general art questions personally. Besides by posting the question on the forum, then others with the same question can also benefit from the answer.3) Especially when you first start painting, the whole process can seem very overwhelming and you will find that there are suddenly 1000 questions in your head at once. Please don't post these questions all in one post. It defeats the whole object of segregating the forum into "bite sized chunks" of information. We want everybody to find what they are looking for quickly, so please write your questions down and post them, individually, in the correct place. You are going to get better quality answers this way too.
4) Similarly, if you are reading a thread and a question comes to mind which does not flow naturally with the topic of conversation, write it down and post it where it belongs.
5) Please give your posts a meaningful title, eg., don't call your post "HELP" or "What should I do?", rather call your post "How to mix leaf colours" or "Where can I buy a filbert brush in Auckland?". This way you are sure the person that knows the correct answer will read your post.
6) It's great to ask questions and get answers back, but please also reply to questions that you know the answer to as well, it's only fair.
7) Be friendly, if you are having a fuzzy brush day, come back tomorrow. We all have our "off" days when nothing we paint looks good. We are all going through the same process so we know how you feel. Please don't take those stresses out on us, you did it to yourself
With differing personalities on the forum comes different opinions. If somebody says something you strongly disagree with, first take a step back and think about your reply, if a reply is even required, before posting. Often it is a case of I say potaytoe, you say potahtoe. If you do post a reply, please do so diplomatically. The rule is debate the topic without attacking the person. Personal attacks are deleted immediately. Repeated personal attacks will get you banned.
9) A forum cannot convey what you want to say as effectively as when you say it face to face, that is why there are many "smilies" for you to choose from to help convey the "mood" of your posts. Smilies help avoid somebody reading your post the wrong way, so don't be shy, smilies are friendly little creatures.
10) This is a family website, so we don't swear here.
11) For the same reason, we also don't post anything pornographic / risque here. Modest nude artworks are acceptable and a natural subject in art, but the moderators reserve the right to decide if what you have posted is outside the limits or not. If your post containing one of your prize nude studies gets deleted because we felt it crossed our fine line, cry in your pillow tonight, build a bridge and get over it, or whatever you do in private, because it's not negotiable.
12) We have members of all religions here, so please be considerate of that too.
13) Racist comments are not only against the law, it also has nothing to do with art, so we don't tolerate them here.
14) We are happy to help those who support us with a link to your website. You however need a minimum of 50 posts on the forum before you may add a link to your website in your profile. If you have been inactive for 3 months or more, your link will be removed.
15) You may
not place a link in your forum signature period
16) Most importantly, enjoy the forum, make full use of it, and above all happy painting
