Should you Start an Art Blog?

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Why You Should Start an Art Blog

If you’ve wondered about starting an art blog, and backed away from the idea, waving the bold lettered banner “I have nothing to say” or “I hate to write” – consider this:

I used to hate writing, until I started to write about ART. Writing about something you love grows your courage.

And I used to think I had nothing to say, but my friends reminded me that – in person – I talk all-the-time. (Hand rubbing chin, thinking…  Hmmm, Oh yeahhh… I’m chatty!)

I had only focused on the knocking-knees and chattering-teeth fear associated with the obligation of writing regularly, and the intimidation of posting my work online in front of a global audience. I never considered the benefits I’d cultivate in myself as a writer, speaker and observer of my own artist journey.

Here is a great article from the folks at Patreon about blogging as a creative person:

List of Positives

In my resistance to write and share art, I failed to consider:

1. the potential to find art collectors online who like my work
2. the tickle-reminder from my waiting-for-a-new-post blog might lure me into the studio to make art more often
3. the possibility that I might inspire another artist
4. or meet artists from other parts of the world
5. the discovery – via comments and invitations – of new online venues to show my work
6. art supply manufacturers would send me new products to test
7. managing my own presence on my own blog would embolden me to plant new offshoots, like an Etsy Shop
8. I’d get pretty comfortable speaking about my art face to face, because I practiced writing about my work regularly.

 All of that happened because of this blog.

Baby Steps Will Lead You Forward

Pondering your own feelings and process on this might be worth a little time.

When I started this blog in 2005, I wrote the title of the art, the size and medium, and added a link to buy it. That’s it.

Nothing more because I was so nervous to publicize my paintings.  To spur me on, I found online communities with weekly assignments, like Illustration Friday (retired) and Danny Gregory’s Every Day Matters Sketch group.  

It took awhile to find my groove. But that’s expected with anything new, right?

Longevity on the Internet

The simple, doable task of regular posting – just a painting and a line or two – emboldened me to write a little more as the months went by. “Baby steps” progress works.

Blogging is the Toastmasters to writing and speaking about your art more comfortably, confidently and professionally.

If you want to sell your art, eventually, you will have to speak about it at exhibits. You’ll also have to write about it for submissions and show catalogues, etc.

Relying on broadcasts to social media alone is brief, since the average lifespan of a post on twitter is 18 minutes. A Facebook lasts 5 hours. A blog post will remain viable for 2 years. Plus, you can start with the blog post, and propagate that post across all social media. That’s an invitation to come visit your blog, and maybe even subscribe!

A social-media-only presence is risky. You don’t own, pay for, or control the real estate you’re building a presence on. It could disappear overnight.

All Learning Takes Practice

After practicing writing about art on this blog for over a decade, I now gush words, and spew them onto these posts like a fire-hydrant of verbiage.

I’m a chorus-line of tumbling art-thoughts, like clothes waving at you from a laundry line in the wind. I go on and on and on.. 🙂 I am – in most posts – talking to myself. Because we all need words of encouragement, I’m just sharing them with you too.

I type all these words because I want you to step over that threshold, and begin. If I can do it, you can too!

What to Write About?

Posting regularly incites a form of chrysalis; you can start like I did – by listing the title and the dimension of your work, and then a few months later, you might venture into blogging by saying:

1. why you chose a particular color in the art
2. you could add commentary from your furry studio assistant
3. perhaps share images snapped from your favorite art book this month
4. what inspired you from those pages?
5. feature art and a blog from another artist you admire
6. take some photos of your process, and relay a bit of your process

A Tiny Step Each Day

Ease into it, like you’re stepping into the pool slowly on a squinty, summer day.

Pretty soon, you’ll be swimming – and eventually you’ll write a little more about YOU. That’s what everyone is interested in, after all.

Imagine if every painting hanging in a museum was a portal to watch the artist who made it.

What if we could see back in time, and get to know each artist you admire in history, in their own studios? It’s not just the art we’re enthralled by. We want to know about the artist who made it.

The human element of art-making is the most compelling part of the process; we want to know How did they do it? Who are they? What are they like? What do we have in common?

Documentation of Your Growth

After a year of just two or three posts a month, you’ll learn so much about yourself by reading backwards in time.

You’ll see the growth of your work, your emergence as an artist standing tall in a public arena, and you may even discover that you enjoy writing about art. 

Schedule 15 minutes, twice a month – that’s just once every two weeks. Post a piece of your art on your own blog (doesn’t that sound exciting!?), and write a little sentence about it as though you’re talking to your best and most trusted friend or family member.

“Speaking” as you write to *one* person can reduce the anxiety of talking to an internet-wide crowd. And after all, you are speaking to one person, because we read these blogs on a phone, or a tablet or a computer, all by our onesies.

If you haven’t made any new work lately, pull images from your archive.

Build it and They Will Come

Trust me; you just have to start. With regular, simple posts, you’ll get more and more comfortable sharing what you make with your own two hands.

If you already have a blog that’s neglected, bring it back to life. Other artists will visit and leave comments and complimentary remarks, and you’ll make online friends.

That’s how I met YOU, right?

Begin an Art Blog Today

So, if you decide to begin an art blog, remember to come back to this post, and leave us a link to your new blog in the comments so we can visit.

And be sure to engage the email subscription option on your blog, so your art gets distributed automatically to your followers via email with every new post, just like this blog does.

Have a creative, courageous, idea-filled week, and I’ll see you in the next post!

Belinda

P.S. Here are five tips to help build your art studio newsletter.

Art Quote

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

~John Adams

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