Why, state of the blog, favorite posts at year's end?--IV

"The Back 40" children's mural in Burrowing Owl Books, Amarillo, subject of my fav 2019 blog posts

Looking back, it's been a year of change for me as a blogger and artist.
My favorite posts had to do with that change, challenged by my daughter Dallas Bell to paint a wall mural. in her new Burrowing Owl Bookstore in Amarillo. There are three October posts showing the project. 

• Here's the final story: Story of a bookstore mural

Two other posts involving change were about the death of my chess partner John Lawton, and attending an oil painting workshop with G. Russell Case.

All Mixed up

Checkmate

Oh, and here's what the mural looks like in the children's reading area now. And, that folks is -30-for the blog this year.

Why, the state of the blog at year's end--III

"10-year old coffee" traffic--but it started in May, 2009. 

At year's end, this blog, now going on 11 years, will have had the fewest posts in its life--112--but it is still alive, for now.
That's because it began as a journalist/professor's blog in May 2009 with no idea how long it would live, and gradually changed through the years kept alive as I taught blogging at UCO. 
It gradually ebbed, as I turned more to art and less toward writing. In 2018 I missed two months blogging at all, the first vacancies. I came close this year, with only one post in November.
But as it's changed with art, art has also helped rescue it. This December's postings, including this one, has generated more traffic than any other in five years.
Part of that is because of daily watercolor cards and thoughts. The other however is a huge amount of traffic from Russia--more than 2,600 in one month. (This has happened before with an all time high of almost 8,000 monthly hits which I thought perhaps Russians had "hacked" onto it.)
But that's all conjecture.

Speaking of that, the five most read blog posts go all the way back.
Here are the facts for this year, and for the record.

Traffic, posting  facts--

• 298,000+ page views since 2009 (up 23,000 from last year)
• Highest monthly traffic, this month--5,560+
• Lowest monthly traffic, March--946
• Lowest monthly traffic--May, 2018--638 
• Most posts in a month, this month, 29 so far
• Fewest posts in a month--November, 1

Posts per year--

• 2019--109
• 2018 --149 
• 2017--158
• 2016--137
• 2015--136
• 2014--276
• 2013--252
• 2012--203
• 2011--134
• 2010--292
• 2009--339 (started in May)
•  Totals--2,119 posts in 3,313 days

Total page views by countries--

What I have failed to do this year is keep up with readers from new locations. I know it's probably the same, at about 153 or so around the world.

In 2019--top page hits

United States	162292
Russia	21745
Ukraine	15950
Germany	13200
China	13007
France	10927
United Kingdom	4132
Canada	2712
Poland	2367
Turkey	1506

Watercolor cards, why as the year ends?--II

"A New Year's Journey," 5 x 7 watercolor card

Why the watercolor Christmas cards? I found an old one dated 2009 the other day, sifting through my slush pile.
I'm not sure I know, after all these years. They started out simply, going to family, and a few friends. I think they were then, and they certainly are now, journeys of  discovery, both in painting, and personally. 
They're also a challenge. The "list" has grown over the years, though it has shrunk below 100 since retirement, and trying to make each card original, trying not to get stuck in a rut, trying not to be too uptight in painting, trying to...
I learn from painting these, about myself and painting. On larger work I'm too detailed, too picky. These 5 x 7s demand minimal detail, more impression, more quick brush strokes, more reliance on the viewers' imaginations.
I considered not doing them this year, because I felt stuck in a rut, that perhaps I was painting out of obligation, rather than want to.
But then.
Some people expect them, even ask for them. Some actually frame them. And not doing them would diminish me.
"They're a gift," said my wife Susan, when I was thinking about starting them back in October. 
It took me a little to realize that they are a gift, primarily to me. They give me joy knowing that people enjoy them, look forward to them.
They push me to push myself. They push me to be creative, to be original, though they carry some common themes and images. Have you noticed the gates? The streams and bridges?I didn't even realize that until they kept cropping up. they're easy, but they're also metaphors of my life, for life.
By posting them on this blog, they also keep me challenged to think and write something meaningful, even stream-of-consciousness, about the images.
Every good painting tells a story, or stories. And what I've learned over the past few years as an artist, is that every painting has a story behind it, or more than one.
I guess that's the story, the answer behind the why to the watercolor cards.

Four of this years' cards

Why, as the year ends?-I

My journals, ten years ago, for the most popular post this December, "Toasting the Passage of Time"

Ten years ago, as this blog completed its first year of existence, I posted an account of the journals I keep, "Toasting the Passage of Time."
It raises questions, somehow appropriate today, as that post has been searched 2,311 times this month, for some reason, out of a total 5,510 December clicks on the blog, again for some reason with 2,667 of those from readers in Russia--only 732 of those readers from the USA.
The Russian readers began concentrating after I posted December 15 about a large number of Ukrainian readers, Glory to the Ukraine and still they outnumber Americans with 1,481 reads. (These figures will change before this day is out.)
More on the state of the blog, after more than 10 years, later.
Here's that ten-year-old post: Toasting the Passage of Time

Gates in our lives, and years

A season of gates," 5 x 7 watercolor card

As a cliche', we're about to close the gate on one year, and open it on another.
But there is nothing cliche' about gates, though they are symbolic in many ways, especially of fear or insecurity, of excluding, though also of opportunity. I prefer to think of them as beckoning, openings to adventure.
Historically, in times of walled cities, or communities (our "gated" communities), or nations (Berlin, America's southern border),  or back yards (to contain pets or provide privacy), gates were portals to keep people out, admitting only those we agree with. The Old Testament is full of such references, of people being "outside the gate." 
Thus John's words in Rev. 21 portended a new day: 
"In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed..."
On the Great Plains, or in the West, the iconic barb wire gates always catch my imagination.
The word "gate" comes from the Old English geat "gate, door, opening, passage, hinged framework barrier," from Proto-Germanic *gatan (source  of Old Norse gat "opening, passage," Old Saxon gat "eye of a needle, hole," Old Frisian gat "hole, opening," Dutch gat "gap, hole, breach." 
More than you wanted to know. But no wonder I paint gates, including a recent sale to friend Debbie Blossom, entitled, "Did you close the gate?" which only a rural person would catch the humor.

"Did you close the gate?" 8 x 10 watercolor