Welcome to my Online Gallery!

Thanx for your interest in my artwork. I'm a very private person, and I don't often tell much about myself, but here's a few things that may help put my art in proper perspective.

I am 29 years old and was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania. I've always been interested in art: I began drawing at an early age, and in fact when, as a small child, I made a drawing illustrating "what I want to be when I grow up," I focused on two professions, artist and scientist, my childhood enthusiasm not bothered by any problems reconciling the two very different perspectives. My interest in science has diminished a little over the years, but I'm still curious about the way the world works.

In high school I began to seriously think about a career in art. I drew and painted constantly, starting out by copying drawings out of comic books, and by my senior year, I was painting figure studies from photos. My interest in the figure continues to dominate my art, as you can see from the examples on this site. :)

Over the years, my attention has wandered to other pursuits, but I have always returned to art. I attended art school at Syracuse University from 1989 until 1993, but in the end, I was a few credits short of graduating. At this time, I have no plans to return to school. I have been primarily a self-taught artist, and I feel that I should continue on that path. But, I do consider my experiences at school to have been a good education, even if I didn't come away with much in an artistic sense.

After leaving Syracuse and returning to Pennsylvania, I gave up on art, or painting at least, for over six years, despairing of ever "making it." Even so, I always maintained an interest in some sort of creative field, whether it was the occasional ink sketch, or writing material for role-playing games, or even attempting to write fiction. Finally, in July of 1999, a convergence of a friend's encouragement and a creative mood caused me to pick up my brushes once again.

Still, my artwork is of little value if no one ever sees it. So I decided to make use of this wonderful medium for communication, the Internet, and created a web page so that people can look at, perhaps comment on, and hopefully enjoy my drawings and paintings. I have spent several months trying to recapture what I had forgotten in the years I had given up painting, and now that I think I have gotten back to that point, I am going in new directions, trying new ideas.

It's been a year since I put up this website, a year since I started painting again. I've received numerous compliments on my artwork, and have even made a few sales, encouraging me to continue my explorations. I have plans for expansions to "Tolun's Art" in its second year. So keep an eye on my site and watch it grow!

I hope you're as interested as I am in seeing where this road takes me. You're invited to come along for as long as you want to... :)

I'm very interested in hearing any comments you may have about my art and/or my Web site. Feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments via the link below. Thanx!

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Copyright 2000, RLJ Jr.
This Page was created on October 16th, 1999.
The last time I bothered to do anything to this page was June 24th, 2000.