amanda blake : artists who blog

Amanda's blog: www.amandablakeart.blogspot.com
Amanda's website: www.amandablakeart.com
Amanda's shop: www.thisisalliknow.etsy.com

Why did you decide to start a blog?

I mistakenly deleted my website and needed a quick temporary solution while I made a new site. It ended up taking me three years to finally make a new website so in that time the blog took on a bit of a life of its own.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

Rather boring - Amanda Blake is a pretty common name so it can be difficult to claim its use and when I first made my website years ago "Amanda Blake Art" was what I chose without much thought when I couldn't simply use my own name. Years later when I really thought about it I chose "this is all i know" as my store name and name for twitter and all that other stuff, I wanted a name I could use for my shop no matter what I decided to sell and "this is all i know" will always apply, I'm always toying with the idea of just redirecting everything to "this is all i know" and abandoning the "Amanda Blake Art" name.



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

The most clear change is that having a blog led me to read other artists blogs which led me to etsy and etsy really has changed everything for me. In a more meaningful way personally the act of writing about my work and the what and why of what I do forces me to really think about more work in more depth which as a working artist it can sometimes be so frightfully easy to forget to do. Working on painting day to day it can be so tempting to just produce but to really make something good it must have thought and the blog helps to hold me responsible in that way rather than just painting mindlessly.



What are your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

The Small Object, Posie Gets Cosy, This Artist's Life and Angry Chicken - great writing, great art and crafts, they are all just rather perfect blogs that make me wish I really wrote enough to really consider myself a blogger.



Do you have any advice for artists/designers who are starting a blog?

Think a bit before you just jump in to it - I wish I'd thought it out more before I started so I wouldn't be stuck with a name I don't like and wish I hadn't started on blogger, I really would rather the look of a typepad or wordpress blog but at this point I don't really want to make the switch.



What has been the most positive and inspirational aspect of having a blog for you?

I've met a lot of great people through my blog and through comments left on the blog and people linking to it you get this wonderfully tangible way of seeing how your work affects people and that's really rewarding.



What do you find the most difficult/most rewarding part of having a creative profession?

I'm beyond horrid with bookkeeping, I absolutely hate it and have gone through so many different systems to try to make it work for me but just can't find a way to make it really work for me so it's always a struggle.

I couldn't really say there is any one thing that is the most rewarding - I'm so lucky to do what I do.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your art/design?

I've done plenty of things like facebook and twitter and newsletters because I feel like I'm supposed to promote but really what brings the most traffic and the most sales is when I stop thinking about promoting and just focus on making work, the more paintings I make the more chance that I'll create something that people connect with and choose to show on their own blogs which is worth so much more than any time spent trying to bring people to an empty shop.



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

Still trying to figure that one out.



What would you like to accomplish by the end of 2010?

I'd like to get back to doing some large work, I miss it. And as always I'm toying with about a million different ideas of new projects I want to start, including a new blog - just need to come up with a title.

Thank you Amanda!

olivia jeffries : artists who blog

Olivia's blog: www.sweet-loon-bird.blogspot.com
Olivia's website: www.oliviajeffries.com
Olivia's shop: www.restlessthings.etsy.com



Why did you decide to start a blog?

I started my blog late in 2006. Six years after graduating from art school I still hadn't found my creative niche and was feeling very lost. I was really looking for a way to bring all of my ideas together and help me develop my style as a creative individual. Before starting my blog I had only ever looked at music blogs but after spending some time online one afternoon doing some research I had come across some artists' blogs (i think it was port2port!) which completely fascinated me and by going through all of their favorite reads I uncovered this amazing network of creative bloggers. This completely inspired me and although it still took me many months to finally get to a stage where I had anything interesting to write about I knew it was something that could help me bring all of my ideas and inspirations together.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

It was some kind of mash up of my partners pet names for me, 'sweets' and 'loon', a loon is a kind of a bird and bird is slang for woman and I can be a bit of a loon so it's some kind of combo of those things!



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

Blogging has really helped me to keep track of my ideas and themes as they develop and also to go back in time and see what I was thinking about at a particular time. Getting feedback from other people who find my work of interest has been fantastically useful and has helped me to make connections with similar minded people. My blog also really helps to fuel me along through those times when I feel like I'm stuck in the mud creatively.



What are your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

all the mountains
an ambitious project collapsing
claire loder
my love for you is a stampede of horses
grass doe
to name but a few.

I like these blogs because they have something raw about them.



Do you have any advice for artists/designers who are starting a blog?

It can take a lot of time to develop a space that really comes across as being a visual/virtual version of yourself but eventually you find yourself at home in your little blog space - keep at it!



What has been the most positive and inspirational aspect of having a blog for you?

It has to be communicating with other people. I practically work in a vacuum so it's great to be able to finish something and get it straight out there and for people to be able to share their thoughts on it.



What do you find the most difficult/most rewarding part of having a creative profession?

I find working in isolation is a double edged sword. On the one hand I'm the type of person who really enjoys her own company and can spend many an hour/day pottering around drawing, writing, photographing, resting, eating on my own. There are some times however when it can be overwhelming and I want nothing more than a restorative coffee and chat with someone to take my brain out of the work zone.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your art/design?

Promoting my work is something I'm still working at and I don't think there are any cut and dry methods to getting good promotion - it will be different for everyone. I have paid for promotional slots and have found them to be inefficient. The best kind of promotions are those that happen by word of mouth. I try and provide really great customer service to those who buy my work who in turn leave great feedback which makes other potential customers feel confident that I am a professional artist to do business with. Also, keeping other others up to date with what you're working on with a newsletter can be useful. I've recently started a facebook fan page too because I keep reading about how amazing they are for business. We shall see!



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

I don't as I work at home but I try and sneak in a lazy day with my partner where I can and try and have a good holiday at least once a year.



What would you like to accomplish by the end of 2010?

I would like to be able to take part in some shows around the uk, it's proven a tough market to break. I would also like to find the perfect studio and work towards separating my life from work.

Thank you Olivia!

candy glendening : artists who blog

Candy's blog: www.candiedfabrics.com/journal
Candy's website: www.candiedfabrics.com
Candy's shop: www.candiedfabrics.com/shop



Why did you decide to start a blog?

After reading blogs for a couple of years and learning a tremendous amount from them, I decideded to start recording my artistic process in a tangible way. I also had the hope that perhaps I could give a teeny bit back to the blog-o-sphere, sort of paying it forward from the help I’d received.



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

For a short time about 8 years ago I sold hand dyed fabric. My name is Candy, so Candied Fabrics as a name for that venture was not a big stretch! I loved the name, and kept it when I started selling my art made with my hand dyed fabrics, and so it was easy to keep it for the blog as well.



How has blogging affected your work as an artist/designer?

I have learned so much from writing about what I do and why I’m doing it. I am sure that a lot of my artistic growth in the past year and a half is because I’ve been able to identify themes and successfull strategies I’ve quantified by blogging about it.



What are some of your favorite artist/designer blogs? Why?

OH! Such a hard question...but I’ll try to narrow it down to artists who have something specific that I look to for inspiration!

a la mode stuff: Linda has an incredible eye for composition – the way she lays out pictures for a blog have several times sparked a layout for me.
Aimee from Artsyville: The wonderful color/textures she creates for her doodles sing out to me, the lovely casualness of her lettering, and her words just make me laugh.
Arounna from Bookhou at Home: The simplicity Arounna achieves with her work brings me peace.
Daisy Janie: Jan’s use of color excites me. I also love the freedom of her lines.
Lisa Call: Contemporary Textile Art: Lisa has an amazing work ethic, and a way of talking through issues about getting things done that has been an amazing help to me. Her ability to work through an idea with a few huge series of works is awe inspiring!
Lisa Wharton of Urban Bird: I love her birds, but also her use of the informal house shape. I love the texture she gets on her small works, and when the small works are combined into larger compositions, ooh! I just love them.
Martha Marshall: An abstract painter, Martha works in several different styles, and her discussing her work is helping me understand how truly abstract artists work!
Melody Johnson: She is an amazing art quilter who is also an awesome painter. She was the person who began my incredible journey down the path from traditional to art quilter by creating amazing work.
Scoutie Girl: THE place to go for eye candy, MANY of the blogs I follow I found through the hard work of Tara (and before her, Jan!).
Stephanie Levy: Although you’re last alphabetically, you’re TOP of my list for amazing composition skills! I love your ability to combine abstract shapes with realistic line drawings (something I’ve been doing with my Botanical Sketches series). You also create the most delicious color combinations. I LOVE when you work in 3-d, it’s so exciting and one of the driving forces to work in 3-d that is building up inside of me right now!

**Thank you Candy :)



Do you have any advice for keeping a blog interesting for readers?

My last 2 pieces I broke down into several posts so I could show my process – lots of folks found that interesting. I guess I try to show on blogs what I find interesting on other blogs – which is a mix of stuff: Artistic process, behind the scenes business stuff, beautiful shots of finished work and enough personal stuff to flesh out the person behind the beauty on the screen.



What have been the most positive aspects of publishing a blog for you?

I make incredible connections with people that I never would have met, but for the blog. Blogging has taken the place of other down time activities I used to do (watching TV), and I’m so glad it has – the act of recording my process has clarified it for me, I’m learning a lot about how and why I create. My hope is that the more I understand about this, the better I’ll become at it!



What do you find to be the greatest challenges and rewards of having a creative profession?

My biggest challenge should be no surprise to any of us: TIME! I do NOT have enough of it! My biggest reward: always having plenty to do with the time that I DO have. In year’s past, when my kids were very young, I yearned to have time to create, and when I did have that time, I would often struggle with what I wanted to make. Now I have ideas literally screaming to be made inside my head.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your artwork and reach new customers and clients?

Local art/craft fairs. I make a line of „everyday art“ that allows me to monetarily support my artistic habit and expose folks at these shows to my art, in the hopes that they will buy a scarf or bag today and call me later to create a piece of art just for them. I completed 2 commissions just this month for folks who had purchased scarves from me in the past; I hope this continues!



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

HaHaHaHaHa (wiping tears from my eyes). Thanks for the laugh...I do NOT have a healthy work/life balance. This is a work in progress!



What would you most like to accomplish in the upcoming year?

I’ve pretty much reached my limit when it comes to setting up for shows. I’d love to increase my online sales. But really, I’d like to continue working in 3-d and see where it takes me.



Do you have any personal New Year’s resolutions for 2010?

Although I don‘t do resolutions (so much baggage behind that concept) I Do have a couple of „inclinations“:

1. Create more Art!

2. Communicate my Art!

Thanks Candy! Your enthusiasm, positive spirit, and great sense of color are always an inspiration :) Read more about how Candy successfully manages to balance family and career time here!

jill bliss : artists who blog

Jill's blog: blog.jillbliss.com
Jill's website: www.jillbliss.com
Jill's shop: shop.jillbliss.com



Why did you decide to start a blog?

I used to keep in touch with my customers by doing frequent in-person sales events, but had to take a break from those these past 2 years while I dealt with some health problems. The blog is a great way to let people know what I’m up to and thinking about since I don’t see them so often any more. Now my back and shoulders have healed and I’m getting back into doing in-person sales events again!



How did you come up with the name of your blog?

Ha ha! My blog doesn’t have a name, poor thing. At the bottom of the page it says „Jill Bliss is proudly powered by WordPress “ which cracks me up every time I see it!



How has blogging affected your work as an artist?

It functions as a reminder for me – if I can’t remember exactly when I did a certain project, I can check my blog. I hear it’s also a great portfolio for potential clients. I do post each and every project I work on!



What are your favorite artist/designer blogs?

I like to keep up with my friends’ blogs to see what they’re doing. Apart from that, I like to check these blogs when I have spare time:

you thought we wouldn't notice - see who’s ripping off who.
this artist's life - whitney smith - great reminder of the artist life.
my love for you is like a stampede of horses - awesome art.
share some candy - awesome art and design.



Do you have any advice for artists/designers who are starting a blog?

Before you start, think about how much of your private life you feel comfortable revealing. I talked to several other friends who have blogs and asked for advice before I started.



What has been the most positive and inspirational aspect of having a blog for you?

I love it when people comment! Especially when they’re positive comments!



What do you find the most difficult/most rewarding part of having a creative profession?

Being in charge of my own schedule and finances is both a blessing and a curse.



Other than your blog, what has been the most effective way for you to promote your art/design?

Etsy, word of mouth, doing sales events and talking with my customers directly as much as possible! I get as much out of these interactions as they do – I learn so much about how they use the things I make and what they wish I'd make.



How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

That’s always a work-in-progress. Two years ago I moved to portland oregon from the bay area, where I was born. That has helped a lot – I no longer have to work 80 hours a week just to barely cover my monthly expenses. I also got a dog six years ago, and she’s great at reminding me to go outside several times a day, and eat at least two meals a day on a regular schedule!



What would you like to accomplish in 2010?

In 2009 my artwork progressed to a new level in the series you see at the beginning of the post: anima. I also began teaching formally and informally. My goal for 2010 is to continue to progress and refine my artwork, my teaching skills, and the rest of my life. It will be an amazing year!

Thanks Jill! I love the peaceful, detailed quality of your artwork, and your studio looks awesome!