What's New on Portrait-Artist.org
December 5, 2015: I've been doing some updating in the last few months, and in particular, I finally wrote a second edition of Portrait-Artist.org's book. Also a mailing list has been set up. Check them both out! |
August 12, 2013: Yes, I'll say it again, "I haven't forgotten this site!" I have been doing my fair share of painting and drawing, but not so much blogging or web authoring (or cleaning up some of the parts of this 10+ year old site). I'm going to try to do more of that now.
Keep an eye on the blog section of the site, because that's where I'm probably going to be focusing for a while. I'm especially keen on painting and figure drawing at the moment, but also want to discuss tips for newbies too. |
January 28, 2013: I haven't forgotten this site! There have been a lot of things going on. Mostly a lot of painting, but I know I need to do some new drawings for the site as well. I just wrote this tutorial on my companion blog, about using cheaper student paint for portraits. |
January 1, 2013: Happy New Year! I have been good on my word, and have been busy updating the site. Knock on wood, I hope to get through it in the next several weeks. (I hope it won't take longer than that, but if it does, it does. I see a lot of pages that need fixing and updating. And some artwork that needs to be replaced. Yikes!)
I've written my first completely new tutorial (in about 7 years?) in the Color Section, Real World Color. I've also done extensive updates (in some cases) on other pages, with adding new content and fixing up parts with corrections or merely updates. In addition, I've added a new blog post Oil Painting Primer & Working with a Limited Palette.
I think that part of the reason I'm (finally) fired up to update the site is because I've been creating a lot of new artworks lately, after a too-long lag (as other obligations were pressed upon me). It's hard to explain why it took so long, but it is what it is. I hope that my real life won't intervene with all the updates that I have planned, but if that happens, please forgive me and be patient. I at least got this much done, right? |
December 29, 2012: *gulp* again! It's been TWO AND A HALF YEARS until my last formal update! (I have done some tweaks here and there, though.) But now I have some news! I'm biting the bullet and doing Facebook, and Heaven help me, I'm starting a portrait-artist.org blog. There's not much there yet, but I hope to start working on that pretty soon. Lots of updating to do at the moment, just everywhere. Plus I'm painting too (and filling a different blog up with those paintings) so my plate is kind of full at the moment, which is good! Very good!
Right now I'm adding Facebook links on each page, manually (give me strength!) and doing updates to each page individually. (Which is a good thing, right?) I am also pretty sure I'll be updating some of the artwork too, as well as adding pages here and there if it's not too inconvenient to do so. I have resisted Facebook for as long as I can. I'm not the hugest fan of Facebook, but it has its fun side.
I've also been painting a lot lately (portraits, por supuesto!) so if you want to take a peek at my portrait painting blog, check out portrait-art.biz. It's just been started at the moment. I'll be doing lots of painty-geeky posts there, and giving updates on my latest paintings, as well as posting tutorials on how-to-paint and how-to-draw.
The portrait-artist.org blog will be increasingly useful (I am hoping) because I have to be honest here—this web site is almost 11 years old right now. ELEVEN. That's about 100 in people years. (Okay, I don't know if that's true, but it sounds about right, okay?) I created this site with Dreamweaver 4, I think. My gosh, we're up to what? Dreamweaver CS 6? I am still using Dreamweaver CS5. (And I hate it. But I digress.) The point is, the formatting and code on some of this site are really old. And I'm not as tecnically savvy as I should be, and I don't think I can face updating everything. I just want to lay down in a faint at the thought. So I hope that I can add stuff on the blog and then link to the blog posts (if appropriate) from one of my static, 11-year-old pages from the "main" portrait site. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, why not "like" my Facebook page and say hello! |
April 18, 2010: *gulp* Has it really been almost FIVE YEARS since I entered an update on this site? Seriously? I have done tweaks now and then, but not updated this page. Well, I'm gradually going through and trying to update things and it's going to take a while. I got rid of the '1998 wants its title graphics back' titles (just sticking with plain text titles from now on) and I've been updating links and fixing up a few details here and there. Sooo much else to do, though. And I do want to add more to the site, but right now, first things first. I need to do a lot of "grunt work" which is horribly tedious.
And by the way, I am sorry about being so bad about answering emails. I really appreciate all the emails I get. I am sorry that I can't seem to be better at responding. There are always a lot of things going on in real life. |
April 30, 2005: I added a page to the Digital Art, Anatomy and Misc. section, about creating your own art site or portfolio site. It's called Getting Web Ready. I'm not saying I'm the foremost expert on web design, but I'm prolific and I've got the basics down pretty well. Hope to encourage more artists to put their work on the web!
I'm also revving up to update my Photoshop pages, since Adobe's come out with a new version, Photoshop CS 2. I've got my upgrade on its way from ClubMac, and am using a demo version right now (because I just couldn't wait!). So far it seems pretty good. A few features that I like already. Will report more later. |
April 27, 2005: Big news for me, but may seem trivial to everyone else: I grabbed up the domain name portrait-artist.net! The person who owned it before me apparently didn't want it anymore, so I got it! I've set the domain up so when you type in portrait-artist.net you will be taken to portrait-artist.org. Okay, so nobody else cares, but I'm stoked! |
February 7, 2005: An interesting experiment (in beta testing): I have started a blog. (UPDATE, no I haven't. That didn't work out) it may be a way to introduce some interactivity to this site, and perhaps make it a little easier for me to answer general questions and give feedback. I'm really bad about corresponding to people who contact me, so maybe this will help. We will see. |
December 21, 2004:
Another shock! I've added an additional
page in the "Attitudes" section, called "Dare
to be shameless." It more specifically
addresses bitter and discouraging critics. It
also tells you why you should be shameless enough to keep trying,
even if others say you have no "business" doing so. (I even mention
a William Shatner song. Find out why!) |
September
2, 2004: Well,
this is a shock. I've written a new article for this site! Prompted
by some questions from site visitors and elsewhere, I've written
about the importance of a
formal art education, art schools, being self-taught, and about
whether or not an art degree is really all that important. |
August
30, 2004: It looks like the transition to the new host
is going well. The new host has some good stats/tracking features,
that allowed me to discover that I'd actually been missing my
page on Acrylic Paints for
quite a while! I was mortified! But thankfully, I was able to
quickly replace the page from a backup I'd made of the site.
Some of you
may notice that some graphics files that you are using ("hotlinking")
for your blogs or message board avatars are no longer showing
up. That is because I turned on the "no hotlinking"
feature with this new host. This was long overdue. Hotlinking
is frowned upon by most webmasters and I feel no differently about
it. I apologize if a few of you lost images that you were using
to link back to my site or to make some commentary about drawing
portraits. If you still want to display one of my graphics, please
contact me.
To learn
more about the evils of "hotlinking," read
here. (Link opens up in new page.) |
August
29, 2004: Hey, I'm uncharacteristically active on this
site lately, aren't I? Well, I took the plunge and moved the site
to a new host. I am not 100% sure that I will make the change permanent,
but for various reasons I think it might be an improvement for this
site so I'm trying it out. Let me know
if there are any slowness issues or if there are any broken images/links.
The host change should be settled in by Sept. 1. |
August
28, 2004: I didn't want you to think that I'd abandoned
this site! I spent some time today re-writing and tweaking a few
pages here and there. I'm also toying with the idea of adding more
to the Photoshop and color sections, but have no fixed agenda or
schedule for when they might appear. |
June
13, 2004: Wow, it certainly has been too long since I updated
this page! Anyway, I did a long-overdue update of the Photoshop
and digital software sections of this site. Just a few tweaks here
and there. |
December
10, 2003: New! Hot off the presses!
I have responded to so much of your wonderful feedback and have
written a companion book for portrait-artist.org. Check out more
info on Drawing Portraits:
Fundamentals, the companion book for portrait-artist.org.
|
October
20, 2003: I'm "Beta Testing" the idea of "e-Books."
All I have right now is one article ("Advice
for Newbies") in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Reader formats.
Let me know what you think of this eBook
idea! |
February
6, 2003: Has it really been so long since I last updated
this site? I guess I've had a lot going on in my life. (A new PowerMac
G4 Tower, moving to a new house, and much more!). Anyway, I did
a much-needed update on the Photoshop
Book recommendations page. Added some new book links, and got
the page current for Photoshop 7 and Photoshop Elements 2. Hope
to start adding more pages and updating existing pages soon. |
June
27, 2002: Added more pages to the "Portfolio"
section. |
April
27, 2002: Edited and modified several tutorials. Added new illustrations
and information to the "Profile"
tutorial and the "Structure
of the Head" tutorial. |
April
23, 2002: Wrote a colored
pencil tutorial. How to draw portraits using Prismacolor and
Derwent colored pencil. On white paper, or colored Canson paper. |
March
26, 2002: Portrait-artist.org
now has a search engine! Check it out!
Also,
I have added a "digital art
materials" page to the "Basics" section. |
March
25, 2002: Created a small tutorial on how to draw
hair. |
March
19, 2002: Created the "Drawing
for Newbies" tutorial. I include drawing book recommendations,
the basics of shading, and the concept of "negative space." |
March
18, 2002: Wrote the "Shading
Explained" tutorial, which goes into further depth about
shading the portrait. |
March
11, 2002: Wrote the "Neck
and Shoulders" page for the "Anatomy,
Digital Art & Misc." section. |
March
9, 2002: Created a small tutorial on drawing "Realistic
Pencil Portrait." It discusses drawing from a photograph,
in a super-detailed, almost "photorealistic" look. |
March
5, 2002: Wrote the "Figure
Drawing" pages. Also wrote an article in "Attitudes"
called "Accept the Fact...." |
March
4, 2002: Created the "Gesture
Drawings" and "Proportions
of the Figure" pages in the "Anatomy,
Digital Art and Misc." section. |
February
25, 2002: I have added a portrait art
online poll. Fill out the poll, see instant online answers! |
February
21, 2002: Updated the profile tutorial,
and added a new tutorial, about the structure
of the head and face. |
February
17, 2002: Created the first Photoshop
Portrait page, and a new Eyes tutorial.
Also created the nose tutorial. |

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