Showing posts with label making a mark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making a mark. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Making A Mark still in Top 10 Art Blogs

I recently found out that Making A Mark is still in the top 10 of a list of art blogs from all over the world

Specifically they are #5 in the 60 Best UK Art Blogs and#10 in the 100 Top Art Blogs according to Feedspot. 

Not quite sure how they work out the rankings either and not quite sure how this happened but I'm happy that it did. 

Although I was #5 in the Vuelio's Art Blogs UK Top 10 in 2022


60 Best UK Art Blogs - according to Feedspot

The best UK Art blogs curated and ranked based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content. Blogs with highest credibility within the UK Art space are ranked higher. This list is updated regularly to ensure it reflects the most active, influential, and valuable UK Art blogs on the internet today.
In the 60 Best UK Art Blogs to Follow in 2026, Making A Mark ranks 5th!

5. Making a Mark

Making a Mark+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Location London, England, United Kingdom
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

100 Best Art Blogs- according to Feedspot


The same principles apply in relation to how different sites rank within the 100 Best Art Blogs to Follow in 2026 - where Making A Mark is ranked 10th.

10. Making a Mark 

Making a Mark+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

This is despite a reduced level of posting in recent times due to the facts that:

  • I got to 70 and decided if I was ever to retire I needed to make more time for me. This is despite the fact I took early retirement (knowing that severe osteoarthritis was a racing certainty for me) back in 2005 and started this blog a few months later
  • I now need to walk a decent amount every single day to stop me from seizing up. I average between 5,000-6,000 steps
  • Periodically I have to get ready for and recover from surgery. Like I said I always knew osteoarthritis was in my future. I didn't quite factor in the time needed for surgery!
  • Not to mention other health hiccups. I was told I need an urgent MRI this morning! They're going to see if they can fit it in before surgery next month.
Although I do fewer posts now I do seem to get better audiences for the ones I do.

For the record, other art blogs "from the old days" also ranked as follows in all Art Blogs

1. Artsy

3. ARTnews

13. Artwork Archive Blog

16. Artnet


Note: I do find these inventories of blogs to be very useful. If you look at the Feedspot Instagram, you can see all the other categories which are ranked.

Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, March 24, 2026 0 comments
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Thursday, September 04, 2025

24 Million Pageviews for Making A Mark

I've been writing this blog for very nearly 20 years having started after I took early retirement. 

In December 2005 I started to work out how it all worked with four posts. This was the second 

from Two of my favourite occupations

and  as you can see I hadn't yet mastered how to get a graphite drawing not look overly grey!

Red Onion
from Working Smaller
I then went public at the beginning of January 2006 with these first three posts

and started to focus on producing small works, thinking I might eventually sell them....

I'm used to Blogger which is why I stick with it - and its archive (see below) although I have been tempted by Substack.

I have a 71st birthday coming up soon and I now write an awful lot less than I did in that first year when I aimed for a post each day and actually wrote 348 blog posts. 

Basically osteoarthritis limits gadding about now but also requires regular longish walks - which in turn limits time for blogging. However I now aim to do as much gadding about as I can before I creak too much - and have had a wonderful hot summer visiting various gardens across London and the southeast! So blogging comes second to filling my eyes with things I like to see - whether it's art exhibitions or plants, gardens and walks.

You can read any of my past posts by browsing the blog archive (see links below and in the side column in the desktop/tablet view) - which probably helps explain how come I've now had 24 million pageviews for Making A Mark!!! i.e. more than a million pageviews a year for every year this blog has been published!

Many posts are what might be called "perennials" and worth a second or third look! People have been known to get lost in my archives for hours at a time.....

Browse the Blog Archive


Posted by Making A Mark on Thursday, September 04, 2025 0 comments
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Thursday, April 24, 2025

A comprehensive look at Turner - all my blog posts

This is the blog post I should have done yesterday - on the 250th anniversary of the birth Joseph William Mallord Turner on 23 April April 1775 in Maiden Lane in Covent Garden #turner250

Below is a list of all my blog posts about some aspect of Turner since I started writing this blog. They all include images of various works by Turner - and some even include my versions

Many of you will never have seen or read them.

However, beware the links to pages relating to the Turner Bequest at Tate Britain. They revamped their website - without bothering to do any 301 commands to take people from old URLs to new URLs. In part bebcause they've dumped a lot of their content relating to Turner which used to be on the website - which is a very great shame.


Turner on Making A Mark (2007-2025)

A drawing by JMW Turner
On the Washburn, under Folly Hall
British Museum

2007

2008

A study of Turner's snowstorm seascape
coloured pencil on Arches HP, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

2010

2011

2012

"The burning of the Houses of Parliament" by JMW Turner

2013

2014

2015

Brunnen, Lake Lucerne in the distance c.1841-3,
J.M.W Turner (1775-1851).
watercolour over graphite, with pen, brown and black ink on paper
(touches of watercolour, verso, from next page)
height, 225, mm; width, 290, mm
Image: copyright Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

2016

Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway
Location: Maidenhead Railway Bridge looking east,
across the River Thames​ between Taplow and Maidenhead
The bridge was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and completed in 1838. 
Exhibited: Royal Academy in 1844
Collection: National Gallery

2018

2019

2020 

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), The Doge's Palace and Piazzetta, Venice, c.1840.
Image © National Gallery of Ireland

2023

2025


Where you can see Turner's artwork


The Turner Society maintains a list of all the larger collections in public museums and galleries throughout the world, has a magazine and various events, walks, visits related to Turner. 

Posted by Making A Mark on Thursday, April 24, 2025 0 comments
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Sunday, January 07, 2024

Making A Mark is 18 years old!

Making A Mark is now an adult - and 18 years old! ;)

I should have really done this on Friday which was this blog's 18th birthday in terms of "going public" - but I've been having a major clear out and chuck event - which will continue this week aka "no tubes running all week and it's freezing as well" 

What happened in 2023

Making A Mark continues to have followers all over the world - mainly but not exclusively from people in English speaking countries

This is the map of where visits came from in the last year.



In 2023, this blog had 
  • c.250k visitors for what I think was an average of just under 3 blog posts a week
  • 1,159,103 pageviews according to Blogger during the last 12 months - which is just under 100k pageviews a month.
Not bad going for somebody who is semi-retired - at least from daily blogging!
Making A Mark at 18


What's happening in 2024

The main event in 2024 is that I will hit my 70th birthday.

I started to wind down from daily posting back when I was 65. As age and the osteoarthritis progresses, I've become ever more conscious of needing to spend time 

  • keeping me mobile - hence a lengthy walk every day, which is the only time I feel like I used to when I was younger. Notwithstanding I can barely move in the evening after sitting down for too long.....
  • being able to do things while I'm still around  
  • being able to do things with my partner is still around - in sound body and mind
So I won't be looking to increase what continues to feel like a diminished rate of posting for somebody who blogged on a daily basis for years.

What I will be doing is endeavouring to introduce people to more of my archive of 4,469 posts about art since January 2006. 
Plus continuing to post on things which interest me - particularly art society exhibitions / open competitions and popular art programmes on television.

But I am very gradually slowing down to make more time for me.....


Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, January 07, 2024 0 comments
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Tuesday, January 02, 2024

Making A Mark - the 20 most popular blog posts in 2023

I've done an audit of my statistics to see which were the most popular blog posts in 2023. These are listed below. It includes posts from previous years which became very popular again. I have written a few well referenced blog posts over the last 18 years....

TECHNICAL NOTE: Google Analytics changed the way it collected information halfway throughthe year and I've noticed while writing this blog post that the top blog posts are very biased towards the second half of the year. That said, hardy perennial posts from previous years "top posts" make an appearance in the top 20 - so the top 20 report is NOT just about the second half of the year. However the bias is very odd....

Portrait Artist of the Year (PAOTY)

In total, this very popular art programme series on Sky Arts generated 50 PER CENT of the top 20 posts - which is some achievement. However it was a very special year for them......

That said, my PAOTY Review posts are the longest and most time-consuming posts I write each year - which suggests to me detail, length and effort might count for something as well as the popularity of the series! They are also by far the most popular posts in terms of people writing to me complementing me on my blog! Apparently I have triggered people from countries taking holidays in the UK to watch the series! It may therefore come as no surprise that.....

The most popular post was Want to watch the Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 being filmed? This is not a surprise given the overall interest in Portrait Artist of the Year and the return, post pandemic, to the public being able to watch again. I've had people writing to me for a long time asking how they can watch. I think it's maybe a mix of wanting to be able to see how it all works in practice and the opportunity to be on the television yourself. In the background of course!

This post listed the dates of the heats and the changes being made for the 2023 filming.....

Interestingly, according to Google Analytics, it had a lot of repeat views per visitor. That didn't stop people still writing to me - but at least I had a blog post to refer them too!


#2 was Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 has a very different start this year! (September 18th 2023) This was of course the celebration of 2023 being the 10th year of the series.
This year Sky Arts is expanding the tenth series to include TWO extra special events
  • a special episode - involving winners from the first nine series
  • an attempt to set an official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most people painting online and in a single venue simultaneously.

#4 was Review: Portrait Artist of the Decade (8th October 2023)

This was the programme when 8 of the first nine portrait artists of the year came back to participate in a challenge to paint Dame Judi Dench in 4 hours.

I also posted the follow up to this episode towards the end of the year Portrait Artist of the Decade Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - last few days 

This didn't make it to the top 20 but judging by the popularity of the Facebook post and album of my photographs of the portraits hanging in the National Portrait Gallery might very well have been the most popular post all year if it had been published earlier.

#5 was Wendy Barratt is Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (Series 10). That's unsurprising to me given the overall popularity of this series and the quality of Wendy's portrait paintings. She would have been higher but for the Portrait Artist of the Decade celebrations.

I'd add it's the first time when the winner was almost universally celebrated by people commenting on my Facebook Page from her heat right through to the Final! Which is very unusual!

Wendy's PAOTY Portrait Paintings
(left to right: self portrait submission; heat (Nicky Spence);
Final (Dame Joan Bakewell); Semi Final (Emma Bunton);
Commission for Final (her husband Fred)

Interestingly - and I assume this is due to the repeat of the previous series before airing the latest episodes - #6 was Morag Caister wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9) (2nd December 2022). 

I suspect the fact her commission painting of Sir Lenny Henry is now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery may also be something to do with its popularity.

Other popular posts from Series 10 included


...and now for everything else which made the top 20 posts on Making A Mark in 2023!
READ MORE......>>
Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, January 02, 2024 0 comments
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Tuesday, September 05, 2023

20 million pageviews!!

Making A Mark has finally achieved 20 million pageviews - as counted by Blogger!

It also recently made it to six million unique visits as well.

125k+ Visitors from all over the world in the last 6 months

I feel so silly though as I knew it was coming up - but took my eye off the ball so I don't know when it happened but it was in the last few days!

Despite me writing a lot less now (only 106 posts so far this year!) - for reasons I explained in my last post - it's still generating a lot of visits from all over the world - and most stick around and take a longer look at what else can be found on the blog.

Below are tips for how to get people to visit and to keep coming back....

Making A Mark - the story so far

Blogger hasn't quite adjusted to blogs being as old as mine. This is the chart on the stats page

The story since 2011 (when it was already 5 years old) - when it achieved 1 million visits

Previous posts on this topic include:

I included a tip for how to get visits and visitors who want to look around once they arrive in 11 tips for how to get 1 million website visitors quickly

The 11 Tips (explained in the post) were:
1. Make your website very focused
2. Make every webpage very specific - make it a niche within a niche
3. Make every title very specific in terms of its topic
4. Provide a short summary of what each page contains at the top.
5. Make navigation very easy
6. Have a plan for how your website will develop
7. Use statistics to guide development
8. People look at images and read words - but really they scan both!
9. Write about what you know
10. Refresh and update a website regularly (use a blog)
11. Do link to relevant other websites - and encourage them to link back

Blog posts to date

The Archive tells me that the pattern looks like this - with over 4,400 published blog posts to date.

I started out writing virtually every day - for three years.

Then started having one day a week off. I producing around about 300 posts each year or very nearly 6 blog posts a week. This continued (apart from when I was on holiday) until I started to write my book in 2014.
Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, September 05, 2023 0 comments
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