Nancy Freeman Studio
  • Blog
  • Home
    • About the Artist
    • Contact
  • APPS FOR ARTISTS
    • Painting with Pixels
    • Paint, Draw, and Fun Specialists
    • Full Artist Studios
    • Camera & Transformation Specialists
    • Full Photo Labs
  • Portfolios
    • Paintings inTraditional Media >
      • Landscapes
      • Abstracts
      • Flora and Still Lifes
      • Oils and Pastels - Commissions
    • Photography >
      • Blue Plate Special series
      • Copper Dreams
      • Painted Pot Dreams
      • Round Things
    • Paintography
  • Projects
    • Cabbage Invitational >
      • CABBAGE ARTWORK PORTFOLIO
      • CABBAGE SCARVES
      • ABOUT THE CABBAGE INVITATIONAL
      • CABBAGE COMPETITION WINNERS
    • Demos >
      • Digital Paintings - Step-by-Step Demos
      • Pastel Paintings - Step-by-Step Demos >
        • "Inner Space" Demo
        • "Fallen Bouquet" Demo
        • "Winter Ruffles" Demo
        • "Winter Gold" Demo
        • "Yellow Soldier Roses" Pastel Demo
    • Hill Center Solo Exhibition >
      • Hill Digital Quilt
    • Speed painting
  • Store
    • CABBAGE ARTWORK

Interview About Blogging

9/8/2012

0 Comments

 
I've been asked by George Miller, who is the blog-meister for The Art League in Alexandria, to answer a few questions about my experiences concerning developing and keeping an artist's blog.  The Art League is a very large and active organization, with a big gallery, arts out-reach program, art supply store, and a fine art school. The school has thousands of students, and hundreds of teachers.


Interview for The Art League Blog  

Q: How did you decide on the domain name?

 Of all the many, many decisions involved in constructing the website, the domain name was the most difficult and frustrating. I wanted something pithy, memorable, distinctive and informative, but not too long. Dozens and dozens of  clever ideas were considered and rejected before I resigned myself to the simple but descriptive Nancy Freeman Studio. I actually own three domain names now,  because we decided on one, then switched to another, then another. 

Q: How do you like Weebly, and what made you pick it?

 I've been a computer artist for over a quarter century, and it became a source of professional embarrassment that I didn’t have a website. But now the software is so user-friendly there’s just no excuse. My computer-whiz daughter found the Weebly system, which has a graphic drag-and-drop interface. It’s free for most (simpler) 
I constructed a free trial site to work out my concepts and to learn the system.
You don't have to take your site public, of course, until it’s really ready, and
even after that there‘s nothing to prevent you from revising it. Prior to
publishing, other editors can work on it (I had two very helpful people who had
access) and you can invite anyone you choose to view it and offer their  ideas.


I found the Weebly program fairly easy to learn and quite
powerful and flexible. It's well thought out and organized, and you can move
fairly quickly once you get the hang of it. Getting the basics up, just like
with a painting, is the most important part. We built some template pages that
could be copied and filled in, and by now most of the design decisions have been
made.

Weebly has been sufficient for all my needs so far,
and if it proves deficient in some area I can add my own HTML code. (I'm not
capable of doing this on my own, but there are some crack “computists” in the
family.)

My site is quite large and growing fast, so I
quickly became a paying Weebly member. With my three domain names through
Weebly, maybe I'm even a big deal there, who knows. I do have a little wish list
for future system updates. They seem to be responsive to the issues of their
paying clients.

Q:
What's been your experience with
blogging?


The blog is only one
page on a big website, but it's by far the most active part of the site. I try
to get something up at least twice a week, so it keeps building. I find the rest
of the site tends to get a lot less attention and regular upkeep. My blog
functions as a kind of news update, featuring the latest creations, recent
events, website additions, reviews, and thoughts. Most blog post items
eventually find a permanent home on a relevant page in the website.

The
main reason it took  such a long time to get my site up was not the state of the
technology  but the huge amount of content I wanted to put up, very little of
which was really ready for online presentation. Getting the pictorial content 
decided on, photographed, re-sized, color corrected, organized and  written
about is the time consuming part. I envision a time (possibly a fantasy) when
all the functions and  systems are in place, all the major written pieces are
done and  polished, the bugs are worked out, and I can use the time to fully 
populate the sections and update the art. And maybe even do the
art.

You need to start with some idea of what
you want to accomplish with your site or blog, but your vision can evolve
considerably as you go through the construction process. That process itself was
immensely helpful in shaping my thoughts about what content I should include and
in what way, and to a certain extent in crystallizing the purpose of the site.
My plans for the site are quite ambitious, but some aspects are more pressing
than others. Getting the Apps for Artists section under way and giving myself a
framework to deal with the tremendous volume of image production I've been
indulging in are the two most critical directions at the moment.


My site is a lot like a garden; it’s more of a process
than a product and is always a work in progress. And as with a garden, the
rewards are in direct proportion to the time and effort you put into it.

To read the Art League Blog post, click here
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About
    the Artist

    Nancy Freeman is a native of California who lives now in Washington, DC. A lifelong artist, she paints portraits and other commissions for a living, which keeps her traditional skills tuned and supports her decades-old obsession with computer art, and pastel painting.

    She is currently using her 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th computers, but remembers
    when Dick Tracy had to make do with a two-way wrist radio.

    Archives

    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Abstracts
    Apps For Artists
    Cabbage Art
    Catch Of The Day
    Demos
    Events
    Garden
    History
    Other
    Painting
    Paintography
    Pastels
    Photography
    Reviews
    The Hill Quilt
    Thoughts