I had wanted to write about artists I admired and about the painting process. I agreed to monthly articles and limit the focus of them to outdoor painting and painting from life. I would retain the rights to all of my creative content and Stefan keep all other rights to the site.
We invited other notable painters to join the site and we created free content on historical artists and articles for people looking for information about painting. It was one of the first sites of its kind. As the way people used the net changed the site started to show its age as a newsletter. Blogs had become popular and allowed people like me to forgo the need of a hosted domain. At the end of 2008 I had been talking to Jim Gurney about blogging and he suggested I start my own blog. I started the Art and Influence blog as a continuation of the writing I started on Outdoorpainting.com. I expanded my focus to include all of my interests which included illustration and studio painting not just painting from life.
It has been an interesting ten years but I feel I need to change things up some more. I am not the same artist I was ten years ago and my focus has changed along with my abilities. Social media has replaced a lot of interest that blogs and newsletters once held. There are many people doing what I do now, some better some worse; some even reusing my content, sometimes without my permission and appropriate credit. One of the side effects of success I guess.