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These pages are being developed to present personal art journal information, combined with oil painting & artistic insights and information as experienced and understood by Michael.  I’ve decided on the title “Journal Letters” as this fits what I intend this will become.  The intent is to write when inspired to write, and only when inspired.  Although I find blogs interesting and in some cases informative, I expect this to be different in having content that exclusively comes from an inspired desire to flesh out subjects, and share with the reader.  As these first words are being put down, my hope is these journal letters have a different feel than a typical blog.  In this, you will find these letters to be less prolific than some blog posts, since they are written for a different reason and under a different mind set.

“Creating artwork is a life long learning process.  In fact I see learning as a central tenant to the creative process.  Each work is new, and requires a new way to bring it to completion – how technique is used so as to carve out emotion and beauty, must be infused anew into each work – and cannot be copied from previous works.    While it is true techniques can be learned, these are only tools.  Like a carpenter’s hammers, drills, screwdrivers, and chisels; scumbling, glazing, impasto, and imprimatura are examples of tools to be used for the artists vision.  The artist must then take the tools, and create something out of nothing.  With oil painting, I believe that means translating to a 2 dimensional space something that stirs the soul.  Each work is a new journey in learning how to make that happen.

Please see the side bar for posts and topics – come back often and feel free to contact me with comments, and questions.”

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