Apparently, NASA has begun the official countdown for a February 7 liftoff of the space shuttle Atlantis. With a little less hoopla, The Pastel Journal is also preparing a launch. We won't be heading to the International Space Station; we're just heading out onto the World Wide Web with a brand-new and much improved website!

The new site combines the forces of our sister publications The Artist's Magazine, Watercolor Artist with The Pastel Journal to create a rich and dynamic site for fine artists of all kinds. You can search articles by magazine title, by medium and by genre, so it should be very easy to get to what you want. We'd like to give you, our blog readers, a sneak preview. Click here to visit the site and then take our short survey to let us know what you think. We're expecting some bugs in the beginning, so use the survey to let us know what they are, and we'll let "Houston" know we've got a problem!