Blogs created by artists offer a unique look into the minds of these visual creators, showing how they view the world and where they find their inspiration. They are goldmines for creativity, mapping the way in which both the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of life and art get absorbed and transformed into new artistic works. The list below showcases seven popular blogs and offers a glimpse into the range of styles and content that can be used when you make your own website.
Happy Famous Artists is a collective blog of artists whose focus is on emergent art with a commercial bent. Sometimes gaudy, sometimes irreverent, the work they showcase consists of both their own and other artists’ images. With a sense of mission and purpose, this web page is for the offbeat, the sassy, and controversial, the goal being to get in your face and demand your attention. No web page background images compete for attention with the content, although fun moveable illustrations create dynamism and added visual interest.
John Keatley blogs frequently here about his work as an advertising and editorial photographer. As a recent post notes, he’s taken pains to make this a personal website with interesting, creative content, not just a glossy marketing tool designed to look like a press release. The result is a fantastic digital portfolio paired with reading that keeps his visitors coming back. Personal stories, behind-the-scenes observations, and explanations of how he crafts his shots abound throughout the photography website.
An amazing resource, this stylish blog posts short intros on an array of emerging artists. With a clean web page design and straightforward layout, the posts are searchable by name or medium. The short descriptions are paired with a single high-quality image, as well as the occasional biographical information or notices of current exhibitions. Each post suggests other artists that the reader might find interesting, offering a fun way to browse and discover new talent.
A unique and fun project from American artist and illustrator Stephanie Levy. Living abroad in Germany, she has contact with an international group of artists, who she gets to sit down with her for personal interviews. A simple web page template provides the backdrop for links to the interviews, as well as the artists’ external websites, while a selection from their art portfolio is displayed on Levy’s actual site. It’s an outward, rather than inward-looking approach to consider when you make your own website.
An Open Sketchbook features the delightful musings and illustrations of Suzanne and Edgar Cabrera. It’s a fun look into how artists draw upon inspiration and how they turn the world around them into a work of art. Whether sketching the newest plants bought for their yard or picking up on stories in the newspaper, each topic is given a unique look and a blithe comment. This is a digital diary that uses personal topics for a marketing bent.
Dennis Hollingsworth’s blog reads like a map of his mind. Although he openly discloses that he views the blog as a marketing tool and business website, his posts tend to focus on inspiration he finds, places he visits, and things he thinks rather than simply posting one painting after another. Included is also a highly amusing illustrated timeline of the artist’s life. Insightful, fun, and sometimes biting commentary makes this blog worth coming back to.
This blog belongs to Greg Allen, a filmmaker who writes about video art, documentaries, design and the visual arts world in general. Along with interviews with filmmakers, Allen posts his own projects and current obsessions. It’s a comprehensive exploration of all things art, speaking to the fact that each artistic discipline is not confined by itself, but that instead they all work together and inspiration comes in many forms. As such, it’s a reminder that you can make your own website dynamic by incorporating a broader artistic focus and exploration.
Maria Nemenman is a contributing writer for CrazyLeaf Design, and a marketing specialist for website builder Wix.com – a free web platform that lets people create quality Flash websites without having to use code.
The best CSS and Flash web galleries – Places to inspire
Design All-Stars – 46 Design Blogs You Should Follow. Period
Design Inspiration – Illustrations by Alex Mathers