It can reveal something about the artist, that their work alone cannot communicate. Its something personal. Everyone has a very subjective perception. For example:"when I say artists, I mean people who paint great figurative paintings with impact". For someone else an artist smashes just paint onto a canvas to create abstract art.
Through a blog you gain more knowledge about the person behind the art and their goals, and its a matter of a few sentences to find out if there is a "same wavelength". Sure when you like the art of an artist, you don´t necessarily need to like the artist behind and vice versa. But in case you want hire an artist for a project this wavelength thing suddenly becomes more weight.I have another post discussing this question:" artists, why do you blog?" and I´m still interested to hear my fellow artists reasons.
When I get asked why I do blog, my answer is simple; its my opportunity to share my passion in a personal manner. I want to help others. I want to make a difference.
In a perfect world....
... probably everyone should just do what they can best, a writer should write, an artist should paint a salesman should sell and a blogger should blog.
But, in our world, an artist has to be the blogger, copywriter, marketer, manager, salesman, creative director, designer, web-developer, programmer, entrepreneur, coach, psychotherapist, clerk...
you name it.
If any artist would ever get the financial compensation for all these jobs he has to do on a regular basis, no one ever would become a manager anymore:-)
I have mentioned it before and will keep on posting this pointer until artists check the fact, that posting images without any words on a blog is plain useless.
People search blogs for help, advice, solutions and probably in a few percent, for inspiration.
As fast as a visitor views your images on your blog, so fast they are forgotten.
Bottom line is, that (except your name is Jason Chan) you will not stand out with just posting images on your blog, without any keywords connected to them. Or even without a bio at all.
Lets take this a step further; as curator or art director I have to chose between 20 artists who are blogging and showing a little of their works. I´m not sure if these are official blogs, because 19 of these artists just post shiny pictures with little to no description.
Just 1 artist writes articles and shares a creation process of their work, which one stands out? Which one of these makes it easy to be recognized as an original creator and not just as a re-poster of other peoples content?
You should blog,
- If you are an artist and have developed a new technique, a blog is the perfect space to show the progress step by step. Or promote your workshop along with it.
- If as illustrator you have developed a sophisticated artwork for a novel, a blog is the place to show a progress and describe it! Advertise it!
- If you are an advisor or coach, a blog is the perfect solution for giving and receiving advice. And make use of content marketing besides.
- As art director you can write about your side of the business and reveal case studies to interested parties, illustrators for example.
Continuity is a requirement, not an option
Continuity and quality are equally important. I always say its important to write only if you have something to say, otherwise people won´t listen when you really have something to say.
But continuity is a requirement, not an option. If you as artist are serious about your profession in creating new works, blogging is a great way to get the story out and told.
It took a long time for me to realize that I want to write more than just a journal or a press release here and then. Something that can help and inspire others at the same time. I found with this way of utilizing a blog I have still a lot to learn, but can give advice at the same time. Because I see a lot more artists at a stage where I have been a few years ago and they can develop their voice too, if they just want to.
For me communication through writing has become my daily bread and butter and I do enjoy it more than anytime before in my life. I just learned that writing or blogging the right way is similar to painting, if you are successful, you create a picture in the readers mind that connects you to the reader in a stronger manner than any image alone posted on a blog could ever do.
What has this all to do with fame and fortune?
Hm, probably this was a teaser, but if you are good at doing the blog thing, fame will be surely yours. And my definition of fortune is to make a living from what I do love the most, thats what I´m doing and I´m pretty sure when I can achieve it, someone else can do too.
I really enjoy your insightful posts about Freelance illustration. I myself am an illustration student and started a blog at the beginning of my course so that I could see my own progress and have an organised way to sort out my ideas. I'm not particularly good at writing descriptions of the intentions of my work, but try. I've also started posting some of my lecture notes of my professional practice in the hope that someone might read it and find it helpful. I'm trying to get better at blogging, and hope to receive some kind of fame through it one day, as you have done with yours =)
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the advice in this post, and for stating the pitfalls one can kind in blogging.
All the best.
Stacey Jones.
Stacey definitely nailed everything I wanted to say. Thanks a lot for sharing this with us, and bringing blogging to my attention again :).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments, @Stacey, thanks for the heads up and the compliment:)
ReplyDeleteI´m still learning and compared to others probably far from being popular. I think its not so important to perfectly write down your intentions, than to determine the story you are going to tell, as a whole.