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| 2/20/15 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Stillman & Birn Gamma sketchbook |
On March 18 last year and the year before, I commemorated
my blogging anniversary with a few (OK, more than a few) retrospective words
about what blogging has meant to me. This year I’m going to skip March 18 and
instead make my pithy comments today, because Blogger informs me that this is
my 1,000th blog post!
On this milestone, I decided to look through my all-time
Blogger stats, which confirmed my general hunch that my most popular blog posts
(as measured by number of pageviews) are the product reviews. These are the top
10 posts of the blog’s three years:
Not surprisingly, the “page” with the most pageviews is Current Favorite Art Materials.
When I started Fueled
by Clouds and Coffee, my intention was to use the blog, first and foremost,
as documentation of my own creative process and growth as a sketcher. I knew
even before I began the blog that experimenting with various art materials was
a significant part of my process, so writing product reviews was a natural
outcome. I didn’t know whether the product talk would be of interest to others,
but I had a feeling it might, because whenever I’m interested in learning about
a certain product, I tend to seek out other bloggers’ reviews. I’m happy to see
that my blog stats confirm that interest. (If sharing my sketches as part of my
creative-growth documentation is the self-interest part of my blog, then I’ll
consider my product reviews as the public service part.)
In addition to the retrospective view of my own progress
(which is sometimes happily evident and other times disappointingly slow),
documentation includes recording all the places I’ve sketched. As an urban
sketcher, I delight in looking back through my blog to see the places I’ve captured
as well as recall my thoughts and impressions of the day.
I keep hearing rumors that blogging is dead. With the explosion
of social media, blogs have apparently become passé. It’s a one-directional
medium, trend watchers say, with an interface that doesn’t facilitate
meaningful dialog and discussion. (You mean the way Facebook does?) Many
bloggers have moved to Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, saying that feedback
and dialog are more current and immediate.
While I do post sketches on social media, and I do
appreciate the feedback I receive there, blogging still meets my need for
documentation in a way that social media never will. And that makes me
appreciate you, my readers, even more, for sticking with me on this journey
made on an apparently passé medium. Thank you!
(See the next post to find out how my left hand served as
both the model and the sketcher!)
Congrats on Blog Post 1,000!!! I do agree that others like to read about each other's art supplies. I like to see what others are using, and carrying, and testing. Thanks for all those informative blog posts as well as all the sketches themselves.
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