TLDR : old man finds out websites are cool again.
Hello.
This is my first post.
It’s not the first post I’ve ever made, but its the first post on this website.
I’ve been working on this website for a few weeks for a number of reasons that I’ll likely go into briefly in this post and in more detail in later entries.
I’m an Illustrator from the UK, I’m in my 30’s, I’m employed in the animation/design industry, where I’ve worked for over a decade.
I’ve been drawing for fun all of my life. When I was a child, people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d always say “artist”, and in many ways, I have achieved this.
BUT.
I’m somewhat creatively unfulfilled.
I’m in a good position in terms of career. I’m able to pay my mortgage and support my family. But over the years of working in my “creative” job, I’ve found myself spending less time on my own personal projects.
I’m trying to make more time in my life for making art for fun.
A number of things have happened over the last few years that have made me become nostalgic for a time when creating art and posting it on the internet felt much more simple…and rewarding.
One of the reasons I’ve made this website and blog is so I have my own space to post my work and write about it, a space away from social media.
I grew up with an older version of the internet. The internet used to be full of unique websites made by different people (although the websites weren’t always pretty). I feel incredibly late to the game here but I’ve recently discovered there are others who remember this too. About a year ago, I was on instagram and an artist I follow (who I cannot remember but will update this once I do) announced their new blog…. A new blog in 2023? I was under the impression that we didn’t do this sort of thing anymore? We get our “content” from Instagram and Youtube served by the robots who think they know what we want? It made me think about blogs and the idea of starting one, but I ultimately forgot about it. Shortly after this, the artist Loish, announced her newsletter, which I signed up for. Neither of these are websites exactly, but they both represent putting your art or voice on a platform with a little more personal control.
A few weeks ago (at the time of writing this post) I was on Youtube (like I often am) and the algorithm saw it fit to show me a video about “the personal web”. This* is the video:
(* this is a re-upload, the original creator seems to have deleted their upload and dropped off the grid completely – see this reddit post)
I watched this video, which I really enjoyed. I don’t fully align with every point made here, but it certainly opened my eyes to this concept of “personal web/web revival”.
And because I watched one video about a new topic, Youtube obviously flooded my feed with 100 more.
This is another one that stood out to me.
It seems like many people are looking for their own platform outside of the big few websites that we all now inhabit.
This is not the first time I’ve made a website, in fact, I’ve had one since 2010 when, with the help of my University tutor, I put together a portfolio site to host all my art. But, and I think this has happened to a lot of artists, I slowly replaced my main online presence with an instagram account. My website became secondary to my social media presence.
Instagram obviously has benefits, although they’ve seemingly diminished over the years. If you want to show your work to as many people as possible, Instagram has the potential to do this. But if you are chasing exposure, you might need to “post reels” or create “viral content” rather than just posting your art the way, you want it to appear. There are some very adult orientated accounts on instagram, however, being an artist and posting anything close to an artist nude, might get reported and risk having your account removed. You also can’t add links to captions, or customise anything visual about your profile which is absurd. Also, the platform is owned by Meta, and they may or may not train their AI model on your data and art whether you opt out or not.
There’s also the “numbers game” you may or may not be effected by. But I do think having the followers at the top of the profile page feels very engineered to appear like a score. The bigger the number, the “better” you are. Although this isn’t unique to instagram.
As someone who has made it a goal to start taking art seriously again, I needed a place to share it without censorship and with the option to make it personal.
This is why I’ve made this website.
I started writing this post and just wanted to share a quick intro but it has snowballed… so I want to end on a few goals and next steps.
I’m focused on a few different projects at the moment but my main one is making videos.
I know I’ve just ranted about how I made a website and quite dislike social media.. but I’m still somewhat fond of youtube and I’m currently compelled to make videos about art and drawing. I have a few posted already but have a few more planned. Here is a speed draw I made a while back:
If I find myself, neck bent over, scrolling instagram mindlessly, I feel bad afterwards. However, after I’ve watched a 40 minute video essay presented by someone passionate about a subject on youtube, I always feel inspired. I like watching videos about subjects I find interesting and want to contribute to that space in some way.
I’ll also be writing and posting to this blog about getting back into drawing. Any new pieces will be posted here… and for the time being, on my instagram too. I do want to delete my account in the future but I’m not quite there yet.
I’m excited to work on new art and videos and write in this blog like a diary, even if nobody ends up reading it. There is something therapeutic about cataloguing my thoughts and work like this.
Leave a Reply