To start an art blog, choose an angle (your process, one medium, tutorials or the business of art), set it up on a platform that shows images well and lets you use your own domain, and post on a fixed schedule: work-in-progress stages, finished pieces with the story behind them, and how-to posts other artists search for. Add your shop or commission page and an email sign-up so readers can buy or follow, and name and describe every image so Google Images can find your work.
Below: six art blogs that are live in 2026 and what to copy from each, a sortable platform comparison (including Tumblr), post ideas that bring search traffic, and the image settings that matter.
Key takeaways
- An art blog is not a portfolio. The portfolio shows finished work; the blog shows process and context, which is what people search for and what sells commissions.
- James Gurney's Gurney Journey runs on free Blogger and indexes hundreds of posts by topic (609 under Academic Painters alone). The platform matters less than the archive.
- Tumblr is free and good for community, but it sends little search traffic. Pair it with a blog on your own domain.
- Google Images reads your file names, alt text and the text near an image. Add license metadata and your work can show the Licensable badge.
- Lossy WebP files are 25 to 34% smaller than comparable JPEGs (Google), so pages full of artwork still load fast on phones.
Art blog or portfolio: what is the difference?
A portfolio is a curated gallery of finished work. An art blog is a dated, ongoing record: works in progress, sketchbook pages, materials you tested, shows you visited, commissions from brief to delivery. Most artists need both, ideally on the same domain, with the blog linking into the portfolio and shop.
The blog is the part that grows. Every post is a new page that can be found in Google or Google Images, shared, and linked to. A portfolio of 30 paintings gives search engines 30 images and very little text; a blog with 30 process posts gives them 30 stories, each with words that match what people search for.
Art blog examples to learn from
All six were live on October 19, 2026:
| Blog | Focus | What to copy |
|---|---|---|
| Gurney Journey | James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia, writing for illustrators, plein-air painters and sketchers | A huge, well-labelled archive (609 posts under "Academic Painters"). Runs on free Blogger, posted into 2026, and he now also writes on Substack. |
| Austin Kleon | An artist and writer on creativity | Frequent, short posts built around a drawing or idea, feeding books such as Don't Call It Art (June 2026) and a newsletter. |
| Making A Mark | Art competitions, exhibitions, interviews, art business | Becomes the reference for one useful topic: which open competitions to enter and what happened at them. |
| Lines and Colors | Painting, drawing, illustration and comics, curated | Features other artists' work with commentary, published on a steady schedule. |
| Colossal | Art, craft and visual culture "since 2010" | Proof that a blog about other people's art can become a destination in its own right. |
| Lisa Congdon | Illustrator and fine artist | A site where shop, original art, limited prints and classes live together. |
Two of the six run on Blogger, a free platform. What they share is a clear focus and years of consistent posting, not expensive design.
Step 1: Choose your art blog's angle
Pick one primary angle for your first 30 posts:
- Process: your work from sketch to finish, with photos of each stage. Best for selling originals and commissions.
- One medium: gouache, linocut, digital painting in Procreate, pottery. Easiest to rank for, because people search medium by medium.
- Tutorials: how to stretch watercolour paper, mix skin tones, scan large artwork. Brings other artists, who buy courses, brushes and prints.
- The business of art: pricing commissions, entering competitions, approaching galleries. Making A Mark shows how far this goes.
- Curation: writing about other artists' work, like Lines and Colors. Builds an audience before you have a large body of your own.
Step 2: Choose a platform (including Tumblr)
Prices and limits checked in October 2026. Click a column to sort.
Art blog platforms compared (October 2026)
| Best for | Watch out for | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outrank Blogs | ✓ | ✓ | A fast, image-friendly blog on your own domain, free up to 10,000 visits a month | Launched October 2026, five templates, no built-in shop (link out to yours) |
| Blogger | ✓ | ✓ | A free blog forever, as Gurney Journey and Making A Mark show | Dated templates; design changes mean editing theme HTML |
| Tumblr | ✓ | ✕ | Reblogs and an art community | Little search traffic; your own domain goes through Tumblr's domain service or a paid connection |
| WordPress.com | ✓ | ✕ | WordPress without managing servers | Ads on the free plan; a custom domain needs the Personal plan ($4 a month billed yearly) |
| WordPress.org (self-hosted) | ✕ | ✓ | Full control, gallery and shop plugins (WooCommerce) | You pay for hosting and handle updates |
| Squarespace | ✕ | ✕ | Polished image templates plus a store | No free plan, only a 14-day trial |
| Substack | ✓ | ✕ | Sending new work to subscribers by email | Limited layout control for images; custom domain is a one-time $50 |
Click a column header to sort.
If you have no budget, start on a free platform that lets you use your own domain, so every post builds your name. If you already sell through Shopify or Squarespace, use their built-in blog so readers are one click from checkout. For a broader comparison, see how to start a blog for free and Squarespace vs WordPress.
How to start an art blog on Tumblr
Tumblr suits artists who want community first: reblogs carry work to people who would never search for it.
- Create an account at tumblr.com. Your first blog is your primary blog; you can add a separate blog for art from the account menu if you also post personal content.
- Pick a theme that shows images large, and add a header image and a short bio with a link to your shop or main site.
- Post with tags. Tags are how Tumblr users find art, so add the medium, subject and style to every post.
- Use the queue to schedule posts at a steady rhythm instead of posting everything at once.
- Reblog and reply. Tumblr rewards participation; reblogging other artists is how they find you.
- Link back to a site you own. Tumblr sends little Google traffic, so keep your full archive, shop and email sign-up on your own domain and use Tumblr as a discovery channel.
Step 3: What to post on an art blog
A schedule you can keep beats a perfect plan. One post a week is enough. Ideas that work for artists, and the searches they match:
| Post idea | Example title | Who finds it |
|---|---|---|
| Stage-by-stage process | "Painting a heron in gouache, from thumbnail to final (6 stages)" | Other painters searching the medium and subject |
| Materials test | "I tested 5 white gouache brands on toned paper" | Artists comparing supplies |
| Tutorial | "How to scan a painting bigger than your scanner" | Artists with the same problem |
| Commission story | "A pet portrait commission, from brief to delivery" | Future commission clients |
| Pricing and business | "How I price commissions in 2026, with my actual rates" | Artists and potential clients |
| Show or fair recap | "What sold at my first art fair, and what did not" | Artists planning their first fair |
Specific, practical titles like these face less competition than "my new painting". Across 200,871 articles Outrank wrote for 4,348 sites in the last 90 days, the median target keyword had a difficulty of 14 out of 100 (Outrank platform data, 90 days to October 2026). If you want help finding these questions and drafting posts around them, Outrank can publish a daily SEO article to your blog; add your own photos and process notes to each, since that is what makes an art post worth reading. For other ways to structure posts, see our blog post format guide.
Step 4: Photograph and publish your artwork so it gets found
Artwork is images, and images need words around them to be found:
- Shoot in even daylight, square to the work, and colour-correct to match the original. Crop out the background.
- Name files descriptively before upload:
heron-gouache-painting-a4.webp, notIMG_4021.jpg. Our guide on how to name images for SEO covers the pattern. - Write alt text that describes the work: subject, medium, colours, size. Google says alt text is the most important attribute for providing image metadata, alongside captions and the text around the image (Google Images best practices).
- Use WebP. Google says lossy WebP images are 25 to 34% smaller than comparable JPEGs (WebP), so a page of ten paintings loads far faster on a phone. More in how to optimize images for the web.
- Add license metadata if you sell prints or licensing rights. With the
licenseproperty in structured data or the IPTC Web Statement of Rights field, your images can show the "Licensable" badge in Google Images (image license metadata). - Watermark lightly or not at all. A small signature in a corner is enough; a large watermark ruins the viewing experience for buyers.
Step 5: Turn readers into buyers and clients
- One clear next step per post: buy this print, commission a portrait, or join the email list for the next drop.
- An email list from day one. Announce new work and print releases to subscribers first; social reach comes and goes.
- A commissions page with prices "from", turnaround times and three examples, linked from every process post.
- A shop on whichever platform you already use (Shopify, Etsy, Squarespace or WooCommerce), linked from the blog.
- Pinterest and Instagram as discovery channels for finished pieces, always linking to the post that tells the story.
For more income ideas, read how to make money with a blog. Writing in another creative niche? See how to start a poetry blog or blogging for photographers.
FAQ
How do I start an art blog?
Choose one angle (process, a single medium, tutorials or the business of art), set up a blog on a platform that lets you use your own domain, and post once a week: work-in-progress stages, finished pieces with their story, and how-to posts. Add a shop or commission page and an email sign-up so readers can act.
Can I start an art blog on Tumblr?
Yes. Tumblr is free, image-friendly and built for reblogging, so it is a good discovery channel. Tag every post with medium, subject and style, use the queue to post steadily, and link to a site you own for your archive, shop and email list, because Tumblr sends little search traffic.
What are some good art blog examples?
Gurney Journey (James Gurney, illustration and plein-air painting), Austin Kleon (creativity), Making A Mark (art competitions and art business), Lines and Colors (curated painting and illustration) and Colossal (art and visual culture). All were publishing in 2026.
What should I post on my art blog as a beginner?
Start with stage-by-stage process posts of your current pieces, a materials test, and one tutorial for something you have figured out. These are easy to write from what you already do, and they match what other artists and buyers search for.
What is the best free platform for an art blog?
Blogger and Outrank Blogs both let you use your own domain for free; Outrank Blogs is free up to 10,000 visits a month and sets up SEO basics for you, while Blogger has no visit limit but dated templates. Tumblr is free but better for community than for search traffic.
Do artists still need a blog in 2026?
If you want to be found by people who don't already follow you, yes. Social posts disappear in days, while a blog post with good images and text can bring visitors from Google and Google Images for years, and it lives on a site you own.
