Describing why I started the Art showcase Blog Carnival.

Anyone who has ever started a blog knows that it is very hard to find your audience. You tell your friends. You link to your site from your social bookmarking site. You try to digg yourself.
But with all your efforts you may be lucky if you can get a steady audience of a few dozen people.

For the last year I’ve been featuring a series of artists. But by the nature of the way you find information on the Web, most of those artist were well established. Working for years with their own following and a large number of paintings/drawing/sculptures.

I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to show the work of a few artist who, just like me, have only just started on their journey. Artist who are still learning their craft.
Artist who are juggling a day job with their need to show the world the images and feelings they have in their head and heart.

For that reason I’m starting the Art showcase Blog Carnival.
If you draw, paint or sculpture and you write a blog and you would want to extend your audience, posting an article at Art showcase will be just the thing for you.
Other art Blog Carnivals might demand work of a certain quality, but since you’ve just started you can’t give that. Some Carnivals may seek work of young but promising artist but nobody can say about himself/herself that he/she is promising and to be honest neither can I.
I’m interested in your growth as an artist: Growth in your drawing, painting or sculpting skills. The process by which you find subjects, the way you work with them and learn from them.

You can submit two kinds of articles:

• Articles in which you show your work either with or without comments. Preferably two articles so you can show where you was a while ago and where you are now. (Enter the second link under “remark”.)
• Articles in which you talk about your creative process. (For instance articles about: Where you find your inspiration.With what kind of subjects you work. How you develop your skill. etc.)

When you find that I’ve listed your work in the Art Showcase you might feel tempted to link to my site. To show your appreciation and/or to show your friends that you finally got some recognition.
Don’t! Google frowns upon two way links because spammers use them a lot to sell their V*something. (Angering Google will hurt your ability to gain an audience.)
I would, however, appreciate it if you would bookmark this article at any social bookmarking service you use. By doing so you will not only show your appreciation (which is nice), but you will also be helping other starting artist to find the Art Showcase (which is even nicer!).

If you don’t use any social bookmarking service, might I strongly advise you to start doing so. Not only is it a lot of fun to show people links to what ever subject that interests you, but it will also help you to promote your blog.
This being the Internet you’ll find that nobody is interested in a list containing only links to your articles. But there are a lot of people who are interested in the same kind of things that interest you. While looking through your list of interesting websites/articles they will also find your blog.

If you feel that your blog falls in the category of sites that would benefit from a listing in the Art Showcase blog carnival, head over to the entry form and submit your work.