Thanksgiving is an autumn harvest holiday, celebrated by eating as much of the harvest as possible in one day. It’s also a time to consider all we have to be thankful for. When I published blog post #1000 last week, that milestone also made me pause and reflect on gratitude.
One important thing I’m grateful for is you, my wonderful blog readers/friends who give me so much encouragement and support and who so often say exactly what I need to hear when you leave comments.
Thank you for your inspiration, humor, advice, encouragement and for taking the time to share a few moments of your day with me. I treasure the friendships I’ve made via blogging. Some have led to in-person friendships, others have remained virtual, but all are incredibly valuable.
Along with the rewards gained from sharing my work and my thoughts, blogging has helped me to improve and grow as an artist and has led to many artistic and personal discoveries along the way.
I feel so lucky to live in a time when artists around the world can share, inspire and learn from each other. So I offer up a thousand thanks to all of you!
A few blog stats: Since I started JanasJournal in May 2006, I’ve published 1,103 posts, which received 10,120 comments, and almost 1 million “hits.” Meanwhile WordPress’s excellent spam catcher has caught and deleted 90,000 spam comments. Whew!
Jana Bouc, Artist 
16 replies on “A Thousand Thanks (well,1,003 to be accurate)”
And thank you to you for showing the rest of us how to do a great blog!
Love the statistics – makes me want to go check mine now.
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Okay, I checked my stats – Since April 2008, I’ve posted 894 times, received 1017 comments (some of them mine in response to others) and 2544 spams were caught. Couldn’t find the “hits” because I changed stat people a year ago. Guess I’ve got a ways to go in the comment department, but am so glad to be far behind in the spam category! (always something to be thankful for!) Blogging is the greatest!
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Cool! That’s amazing that you’re almost up to 1,000 in a much shorter time! Congratulations. I’d forgotten that when I respond to comments, it counts as a comment. The nice thing about WordPress’s spam catcher is that you never have to do anything with it, or see it. Every once in a while I look at what the spam filter caught (when I’m majorly procrastinating!) and occasionally find and retrieve a comment that wasn’t really spam. Otherwise I just ignore it and am so glad I don’t have to moderate comments to avoid the spam or make people use that stupid Captcha. Jana
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dear JANA thank you for sharing your talent with us.Your kindness is appreciated
I dont pretend to be an artist just enjoying art fulfills my life
Happy Thanksgiving day and i hope without aches
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Hi Victor, Thank you for the kind wishes and for all the nice comments you’ve left for me. I always enjoy hearing from you! Jana
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Beautiful fall leaves, Jana! They seem so loose and spontaneous. And, you have discovered my favorite pen! I have been using the uniball vision for years and it never lets me down.
So sorry our sketch rendezvous did not happen this time, but hopefully in the near future.
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I had no idea the Uniball vision had been around all this time. It’s the first pen (other than fountain pens) that draws easily on the watercolor paper I bind my sketchbooks with. I’d tried to use the Micron Pigma and Pitt Artist Pens but the paper was a little too rough for them and wore them down too quickly. Since the Uniball has a roller ball instead of a tiny felt tip, I’m hoping it will hold up longer. I hope your Bay Area trip was lots of fun. Thanks for trying to connect even if it didn’t work out this time. Jana
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Congratulations on your 1003 post!! I look forward to at least another 1003 moments of inspiration and admiration!
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Thanks Carol! So glad you’re along for the ride. jana
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Congratulations! Interesting too, to see that you’re having a “pseudo-summer” there as well; here it has been as mild as spring, all November. Some plants are starting to break leaf and open flower buds…
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My roses have been blooming and my friend’s fruit trees are all budding which makes her very sad because it means there won’t be any fruit on the trees next year. We finally got a little cool weather and rain, but not much. Wednesday was in the 70s again. Jana
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These are lovely colourful leaves.
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Very beautiful, Jana! Thank you for your paintings, inspiration, instruction and sentiment. I look forward to your blogs and hope there are at least 1003 more to arrive! Lynn
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Jana, went to purchase the Uniball Vision Micro and find that there are many to choose from. Would you please give more info on the one you use w/ watercolor paper? I would especially like to know if there is a refillable one (and that you use it)! Thank you, Lynn
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Thanks for your nice message. I had the same problem after seeing another artist using this pen and got confused at all the different ones. The one I’m using is the Uniball Vision Micro. It’s dark grey and those are the words that appear on its side. Beneath those words it says “waterproof/fadeproof.”
The first one I bought didn’t work out well: the “Uniball Vision Needle: Fine.” I didn’t like it because the ink seems to flow uncontrollably out of the same kind of fine felt tip point that the Micron Pigma and Pitt Artist Pens have. I tried using it to sketch on thin paper and it soaked through, made splotches and smeared. On watercolor paper it tended to splotch and smear too. Maybe it was just a bad pen, but the Vision Micro has none of those problems and doesn’t mind the watercolor paper (at least the kind I use which isn’t terribly rough).
Here is a link to a box of them on Amazon. They don’t seem to sell individual ones but you can see a picture of what the pen looks like. Jana
Sketchblog: JanasJournal.com Website: JanaBouc.com UrbanSketchers-BayArea,blogspot.com
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Thank YOU Jana. Watching this blog brings me joy. I feel connected to you as friend & fellow artist, and I’m inspired to reinvigorate my own sketching. Bravo!
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