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Well, it's time to get back to the Artists Online Series - today I'm going to be exploring the different types of art blogging.

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One of the golden rules of blogging is that 'content is king'. All the articles about improving your readership numbers will tell you to 'write great content' and 'post regularly'. But how do you do that? Where to start? It can all seem a little daunting at first.

Fortunately, there are lots of different techniques for art blogging and it's probable that you can find at least one that suits you. Here are a few different kinds to think about:

The Blog As Art Project

This form can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. My own Diary Project is an example of this but there are plenty of other artists using blogging to create art projects. Some notable examples are The Textile Files, PostSecret and Skull-A-Day.

I've noticed that art project blogs usually have a set of defined rules, however, this isn't set in stone and blogging is a form that lends itself to plenty of creative interpretation. Blogged art projects can be a one person affair or a collaborative or communal project. If you've got a great idea for an art project, why not take a moment to consider whether blogging could enhance it. Remember that blogging can often bring you a larger and more diverse audience than a gallery show.

The No-Writing Blog

This is an excellent way to blog if you're not confident with writing or don't have a lot of time to write in-depth stuff. Because art is a visual medium, you can put together a great blog simply by linking to other people's work. Do make sure that you have images of their work though, rather than just a text link - you'll have a far more interesting blog that way.

Maditi Links is a good example of this form, she doesn't write about the work at all, just posts an image and a link. Her blog is a feast for the eyes and I visit regularly for inspiration and to find interesting artists for my own blog.

If you want to use this technique, make sure you host images on your own site rather than stealing bandwidth and don't lift any images if the artist has stated that people shouldn't do so. If in doubt, simply ask the artist. Always give full credit to the artist and link back to their site. If you want to include a little bit of text, you can usually pick up a description from the artists' site (be clear that you're quoting them) or write a brief piece about why you like the work.

There are plenty of places to find artists to blog about - Flickr, other art blogs, other artists you already know, general search sites like StumbleUpon! or dedicated art sites like Saatchi Online or AXIS.

Linking to lots of other artists in this way will often improve your traffic since the artists in question usually come over to your blog to check you out. Don't be cynical though, only link to people whose work you genuinely like, rather than people you think might be useful to you.

The Process Blog

Blogging as a way of recording artistic process is a popular choice amongst artist bloggers. It can be helpful for artists because it creates a journal-type record of their practice but readers like it too because it gives them an insight into how an artist creates and the way a piece develops - warts and all! It's a way of unlocking the studio door and that's always appealed to people. If you can talk about your work until the cows come home (erhm, guilty as charged, officer!) and are comfortable showing unfinished work, then you'll probably feel quite at home with this technique.

I don't have any numbers to back this up but I suspect that this could also be a good way to drum up sales because allowing people to see the process might get them emotionally attached to a piece.

Blogging images of your own work also exposes more people to your work - I've found that a large proportion of people who read my blog don't visit my galleries. Posting images of my work on a fairly regular basis means that those people see at least some of my work. Blogging about your own work also allows you to go into greater depth about subject matter or technique than might be appropriate in the portfolio part of your site. If you're not comfortable showing unfinished work, then just show finished pieces and talk about them instead.

The Tutorial Blog

If you're a frustrated teacher then this could be the blogging technique for you!

A step-by-step guide to a technique, especially when accompanied by clear informative pictures, is a great way to draw people to your site. Plus, there are plenty of places where you can promote tutorials - sites like Whip Up and Craftster are always on the look-out for them and I'm sure there are plenty of other sites that would happily link to them. If you can't find an existing place to promote them, then why not set up your own Squidoo? Squidoo isn't something I've got into yet but I know a lot of people find it a useful concept: Katherine from Making A Mark uses it to provide a handy round up of art resources and a search for 'art' on Squidoo gives nearly a thousand results, so there are clearly plenty of people interested in art who are using it.

If you want to try this form, you'll need to have reasonable photography skills and be good at writing out projects or techniques in easy to understand steps.

The Article Based Blog

A similar approach to the tutorial blog but with more words and less pictures. Good if you're confident with writing and have plenty to say on a subject. This really works for visitor numbers - the articles I've written for my Artists Online Series have brought a large number of people to this site. Watch out though, this kind of writing is time-consuming and you may want to balance it out with some of the other forms, both for your own convenience and so your readers aren't drowning in words.

The Subject Blog

If you want a very defined blog, then blogging about a single subject can be the way to go. The Carrotbox is a blog about rings and nothing but rings. You might think it would get boring but it's actually a constant source of delight and a brilliantly condensed way to learn more about contemporary jewellery because there's lots of images and the work chosen is so diverse. The downside to this type of blog is that you may only attract the people who're already interested in your niche subject.

The News Blog

A round up of news stories in the art world is a fairly easy way to provide regular, topical content. You can provide stories without comment as The Arts Journal site does or add your own opinions, like The Arts News Blog does. If you're going to focus on this form you'll need to have the time to keep up with current art stories and you should also have a few research and journalistic skills.

The Opinion Blog

Aren't artists always a bit opinionated? The ones I know certainly are, myself included! If you're a critic at heart, love to analyse things and don't mind sticking your neck out, then you'll probably enjoy this form of blogging. Just remember that being overly critical might not win you too many friends and being overtly nasty can look very unprofessional.

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Of course, your blogging might cover many or all of these forms, there's no rule that says you can only do one and I use a combination on this blog. However, if you mostly blog in one way, why not try shaking things up a little by trying a different form? You might gain a new readership and surprise yourself by being good at something you didn't know you could do.

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Ooh, ooh a present!

Inspirational blogger award

Huge thanks to Mandy from Feltbug for very kindly nominating me for an Inspirational Blogger Award. I am hugely touched and very flattered to have won something like this, particularly since this is such a new blog.

I now have to nominate five other people and it was a tough choice, I can tell you.

Cally Creates gets a Courageous Blogger Award. Her blog is consistently inspiring and interesting - she blogs better than a great many bloggers who aren't struggling with a chronic illness.

Yarnstorm gets an Inspirational Blogger Award. I've been reading her blog for years and she always makes me drool with her 'slice of life' writing and luscious photos.

Solveigh Goett from The Textile Files gets a Creative Blogger Award for her innovative use of blogging to create an online art project.

Susie Bright gets a Courageous Blogger Award for being a wondrous funky chick who tells it like it is - I love her bravery in tackling taboo sexual subjects that lots of other bloggers wouldn't touch with a bargepole!

Kim Carney over at Something to Say gets an Inspirational Blogger Award for her inspiring combination of gorgeous photos and masses of delicious links.

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The Awards come originally from Writers Review, an interesting site that I'm pleased to have discovered.

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Katherine, over at Making A Mark (an art blog you should all be reading - she has masses of great information), has a very informative article about using labels in Blogger. Despite hosting The Diary Project for 8 months over on Blogger, I'd honestly never noticed the little labels box before Katherine pointed it out. I'm a bit rubbish at using tags - I always forget them over in Livejournal and I only use them in Flickr because they make them so very obvious - but I can certainly see how useful they are: not only can they improve your visibility but they can also make it a lot easier for you to search for older posts that you might want to link back to.

So I've just mass edited the Diary Project posts to include the labels 'Diary Project', envelope, drawing and art. Not very helpful in terms of separating them out but it might improve the project's visibility in Google and on Technorati. I'll go and look at the posts individually when I have the time to see if there are more individual categories that I could add. If you subscribe to the Diary Project and it republishes all the posts because of this, then I apologise.

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Well, the wedding was delightful and we had a lovely weekend but I'm very glad to be home and picking up the reins of my life again: the wedding has dominated the last couple of weeks and I'm keen to get back to my own work. I did hand out lots of little Moo cards though, so many in fact, that I'll need to do another order soon. I'd been planning on buying a box this month anyway because I wanted some to promote this site. Just another small reminder that promotion needs constant effort.

I was looking for images of insect wings in Google Images earlier, when I spotted this article about Tasmanian artist, Catherine Woo.

Catherine Woo
Catherine Woo with Unknown Work. Photo: Simon Schluter

I enjoyed her very organic work, which uses materials such as mica, mica dust, powdered marble, lead and burnt paper to create images that reference scientific imagery and the natural world. There are some images at her gallery, but I wish she had her own website so that I could see more of her work.

Catherine Woo
Catherine Woo - Tela fortis 2002

I prefer her older, more microscopic and patterned work to the more recent cloud imagery in the gallery website, which seems a bit too literal to me.

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Hi folks, you may notice a few changes in the look of the blog over the next few days as we do some tweaking. We're not doing much, just widening the screen size so we can add the links and the archives to a sidebar. I thought it was a bit daunting to have to go all the way to the bottom of the page before you found the archives, plus it just makes more sense to have the links with the rest of the blog. Apologies to anyone still using a small monitor, I know it's annoying to have to scroll sideways but Steve, my designer, is keeping the actual blog text to a size that ought to still fit on your monitors without any scrolling.

Things may occasionally look a bit weird as we shift stuff around, so please bear with us. I'll let you know when we're done and then if it still looks strange to anyone, you can let us know.

Also, I'm going off to Leeds tomorrow and probably won't get a chance to post until Monday. It's my youngest brother's wedding on Saturday, so it's fancy new shoes and smart hat time! I'm doing a reading in the church - wish me luck!

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Danish artist, Peter Callesen makes amazing sculptures from cut paper.

Peter Callesen - papercut sculpture
Peter Callesen: Impenetrable Castle (detail), 2005

I love the simple whiteness and complex, intricacy of his work. Of course, the more complicated papercut sculptures will tend to impress most viewers because of the high level of skill and craft needed to make them - I'm sure they're his 'crowd pleasers'. However, in many ways, I'm more impressed by the very simple ones because I think it takes more courage as an artist to exhibit very minimal work. The less you have, the more focus there is on it and the more exact it needs to be.

Peter Callesen - papercut sculpture
Peter Callesen: Snowballs (detail), 2005

I'm also rather charmed by the contrast between his incredibly precise papercut work and his loose, exuberant drawings.

Peter Callesen - dying swan drawing
Peter Callesen: Drawing from The Dying Swan series

In fact, if you look at the different sections of his site, it's apparent that he takes very different approaches depending on the medium. However, because he's working with a central theme of fairytales, it all seems to come together. It's clear looking at the rest of his practice, particularly his performance work, that ideas of absurdity, futility and even tragedy also play a large part in his thinking.

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Michelle wrote in the comments on the Alt Images post:

Very informative post, Kirsty. One question: is there a place to learn how to create alt tags? The article is clear about what they are, but not how to make them. For those of us who are coding-challenged (or coding-averse, more accurately!), this would be vitally valuable information! Thanks.

No problem, Michelle, I'll have a go at explaining it.

I'll use this image as an example:

Kirsty Hall - Photograph of Broken Cup Handle With Shadows
Kirsty Hall - art, photograph of Broken Cup Handle With Shadows

It's actually pretty simple and you don't need to be scared of it. OK, if you look at the code on your linked image, you'll see something like this:

initial code here="tt-flickr" href="big long string of code"> img class="tt-flickr" src="a different bit long string of code"
width="500" height="305" alt="Broken Handle 01" /> closing code here

Please note, I've replaced the actual code with the helpful words 'big long string of code' and 'initial code' and 'closing code', so that we can see the code instead of just getting the picture again (working out which bits to change took me quite a while, since I'm pretty code impaired myself!) The code may also be in a slightly different order depending on how you've linked the photo. However, the only bit you're interested in is the bit that says, alt="whatever" /> and that will always appear somewhere towards the end.

In this case it originally said alt="Broken Handle 01" />, which was just the title of the image in Flickr. Now Broken Handle 01 isn't very informative, it doesn't give you my name or much about the image, so I changed it to: alt="Kirsty Hall - Photograph of Broken Cup Handle With Shadows" />

Basically, whatever you put inside the two sets of quote marks between the = sign and the /> code will be what Google and the other search engines read as the alternative text for the photo.

If any of you are more technically minded than me and are smacking yourself on the forehead and yelling 'dammit, that's completely wrong', then please do get in touch and I'll change it but I'm 99% sure that this is right.

Making that text searchable and relevant is how your work winds up in Google Images so, you should be adding your name and keywords that are appropriate to that particular work, i.e. 'oil painting', 'landscape', 'sculpture made from pins', etc. Apparently using keywords in alt tags can boost your general Google results too, although I'm not too sure how (magic Google dust sprinkled by the Google fairies maybe?)

Don't restrict yourself to using alt text just as a promotional technique though. You should also make sure that your text is clear and descriptive to make your site or blog more accessible to disabled internet users. Text browsers can't detect images but can detect alt tags and will translate them into spoken text for visually impaired web users. People in countries with poor web access may also have their browsers set to text only and they'll see little written blocks of text instead of your images. Bear this in mind when you're writing your tags. This article has more details on the level of helpful descriptiveness you should be aiming at.

It's a shame that Flickr seems to turn the photo title into the alt text since I can't quite bring myself to label all my Flickr photos with my name (I think it would look way too pushy, weird and tacky). Manually changing the alt text when I post images over here seems to be the only solution right now but I will do a bit of research over on Flickr to see if there's some wonderful way to add hidden alt text to the images without putting it in the titles.

However, if you're uploading images directly into your WordPress site, rather than linking from Flickr, then you can set your alt text very easily. Simply go to the section where you upload images and type the description you want in the box that says 'Title'. I imagine that other blogging software probably has similar options but fortunately changing the code isn't too complicated - just make sure you don't accidentally erase those all important little quote marks.

I hope this makes things a little clearer, Michelle. Oh, and if it makes you feel any better about the subject, I've just this minute realised that I have 235 envelope images to change over at The Diary Project. Someone shoot me now!

EDIT: on the advice of Gyrus, I've changed the term 'alt tag' to 'alt text' as the later is apparently less confusing and more accurate.

Gyrus also points out the following:

Sometimes you might not get the alt text come up when you hover the mouse over an image (it doesn’t come up on Firefox, for instance). Properly, the alt attribute value is “alternative” text, i.e. to use if you can’t see the image (either it’s a text browser, images are turned off, or it’s a speech browser reading the text out). That little “tooltip” that pops up, if it’s there at all, is technically supposed to come from a “title” attribute on the img tag. The title is optional, though. Just thought I’d mention this in case anyone gets confused on Firefox with the alt text not popping up when you mouse over it.

Get more help
If you'd like more information about building your online presence, check out the free resources section.

I am also available for online consulting if you need one-on-one help.


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Unsurprisingly, given the prevalence of small objects in my own work, the idea of the miniature has always fascinated me. It's easy to fall into kitsch with it though, something that Thomas Doyle manages to avoid. Instead, his tiny worlds capture and reveal intense moments of strangeness in which we're the ultimate voyeur.

Sometimes it's pretty clear what's going on, as in this piece:

Thomas Doyle = The Reprisal
Thomas Doyle: The reprisal, 2006

But in others, the narrative is far less obvious, leading to an art that speaks of fracture and dislocation.

Thomas Doyle - They draw you out
Thomas Doyle: They draw you out, 2006

His work makes me think about that moment in a dream when the unnerving quality of an almost normal situation suddenly overwhelms you and you start to slip inexorably into a nightmare.

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I've been working on another couple of posts about blogging for the Artists Online Series and hope to get them posted in the next day or two. However, I'm on a deadline this week so I thought I'd just post a quick image to tide you over. I need to spend the evening in the studio - I'm making some jewellery for my brother's wedding at the weekend, it seems to be coming up alarmingly fast.

Kirsty Hall - Mortar and Pestle
Kirsty Hall - art, photograph of Mortar and Pestle

I adore mortar and pestles (although I can never remember which is which) and often use them in my work; I've done various pieces where grinding things down was an integral part of the process. This one was shot in the window of the studio I rented before I decided that I worked better from home. I love the grey tones in this shot - I haven't done anything to it, it's just how the light was that day.

OK, enough talk of studios, it's way past time for me to get into mine!