Resurrection

After half a decade, this blog is being revitalized. There are millions of blogs out there and many of them lie abandoned, as this one has been, even though they're sometimes still accessed and read. The owners lose interest, or turn to other pursuits, but the ancient entries live on, mummified in cyberspace. Generally, these old sites are a dead end.

The Studio Journal has been like that, in suspended animation, since early 2010, when I began using a different website as an online portfolio. But that site was never intended as more than a place to post examples of my work rather than uploading any writing about art. During the intervening years, my online postings have mostly been confined to discussions with friends in private on various art forums, for all kinds of reasons, but mostly limited time. Nevertheless, with this entry The Studio Journal lives again. I'm going to do my best to post something here at least twice a week--more than that, I hope--particularly images of new work, progress photos, ideas about art and artistic expression, and perhaps other new material. At some point this blog (or the portfolio web pages) will link to online auctions. I've also added links to favorite artists' sites plus several art materials sites. And now you can access my own portfolios and web gallery by clicking here: Heartland Studio.


In the coming weeks, I'll be revamping and adding to that site as well.

Another interest of mine is art history and museums. I blogged a few articles on museum visits on another site, Museum Musings, a few years ago, but then either lost interest and simply haven't taken time to revive it. There are a couple of articles there about the Museum of Modern Art and The Frick that I'm not ashamed of.

During the past 5 years my main work has continued to evolve and my explorations of the various media of artistic expression has widened considerably. New works in ink, graphite, metalpoint, gouache, and watercolor have been the result, though I haven't shown these much. I've been interested in metalpoint for many years, especially silverpoint, but hadn't taken time to pursue the medium with any seriousness. But in the last year I've begun some tentative steps into silverpoint and goldpoint drawings, mostly quite small. The delicacy of value shifts and the fine detail fascinate me. And the unforgiving nature of the medium frustrates me as it has many others. I'll be posting some of those drawings here as well.

One decidedly fascinating direction of my work over the past several years has been in digital formats and various digital art programs. I've had the opportunity to test and use Photoshop, ArtRage, Sketchbook Pro, Art Studio, Brushes, and others for about 2 years now. I'll begin posting a few examples of those works as well.

So The Studio Journal is risen and lives again!

Here are a couple of digital artworks from the last year or so. The first is a digital drawing of Teddy Roosevelt that I did last October using a well-known photo as a reference. The second is a digital painting of a New York subway station at Astor Place. It was done using Sketchbook Pro as a study for a possible oil painting.