It's getting towards the end of the year. I often try and do more entries than the previous one. I probably won't manage that this year but it was a pretty productive year nonetheless. I self-published two books this year; one on portraits and the other being the first act of "City Silent." Being stuck at home for long periods of time not only didn't hurt me, it maybe have helped in a way. The brushes came out and actual paintings were made, some quite large. I proclaimed that I wasn't a cartoonist and was going to stop trying to be only to change my mind and put out what I think are City Silent's best pages yet.
All that being said, there are numbers to look at, just in case I was feeling too good about my output. The top image is my "Top 9" from my Instagram account. Those numbers aren't exactly life changing. While I think it's a necessary platform, and one I really love for following other artists, I'm not making any kind of splash there at all. The numbers from flickr, the lower image, aren't a top 10 of the year, just the top 10 overall. I am seen far more there than Instagram and, as such, the images chosen are very different from those on Instagram. Prince Harry was finally de-throned by an image I made of Monet, for reasons I will never understand. Hell, I don't even know why the Prince Harry painting was so popular. At #3? A drawing of a shoe. It's all very weird and, in a way, not very helpful. Overall, I find, of my portraits, my self portraits are generally a lot more popular than those of other people, which only confuses me a lot more.
I have no idea how to rig the system, get more 'likes' or even what it would mean if I did. Some kind of self worth? Probably. Would it affect the art, and if so, how? I have no idea. I would love to be able to make some kind of living at art, but that's obviously just never going to happen. Regardless of numbers, I like my work. I might even say, in some cases, I love my work. After all, someone has to.
3 comments:
I hear you! One image on Flickr had almost 5000 hits in 2 days and was almost exactly like several other images I made of the same subject. I have no idea how that happened. Then there are photos or drawings I am really proud of that get no hits at all. If they are of shirtless acrobats, there is a certain popularity of that subject. That seems too easy a way to get attention though. Luckily I am also happy with most of those images. I would love to find some way to find a market to sell prints even though I think ordering and shipping them would be very time consuming!
I recently had a bunch of attention on flickr for some of my shirtless illustrations. It's going to disappoint those new followers when they see that those were few and far between. 5,000. I've never had anything close to that. I see people's top 9 on Instagram in the multiple thousands and wonder how the hell they got there. Oh well, it is what it is.
It was actually a little disturbing to know all those people were suddenly focused on one banal photo I did. I thought it might transfer to more looks at other photos... nope. my biggest hitters are 14.5 and 15.6 K both naked guys where you can't see they are really naked or even their chests. I am a member of a bunch of groups on Flickr and that gets people to find my work in the appropriate categories but it takes a sometimes many years to get more than 50 looks on most things. I put images from my animations and links to the films so people will see them. I might get 300 looks but it seems not a single person clicks over to watch he film. Same with my 2 books. So using Flickr as promotion does not seem to work very well. I think if I were to get on every social media platform, get built up physically again, cut my age in 1/2 and host the slammer in a tank top I would get more attention and maybe even a Patreon following. Besides being impossible, THAT would be full time job with no time to do art or films! It jsut seems so random!
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