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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

More fun with Photoshop Elements

During the weeks I wasn't blogging, I was still taking the PSE class at Hithergreen Center. For a while we departed from photo editing and delved into organizing our photos with Photoshop Elements Organizer. What a great program! I took advantage of learning new tricks with the Organizer and getting my 15,000 photos sorted into the folders before I put the link on my new computer. Fantastic! Today we used the Create tab to make albums and slide shows. I'll need to practice--I flunked slide shows. It's complicated trying to keep up on the keyboard, while reading the handouts, watching the onscreen demo, and making sure the people on each side of me are seeing where things are on my screen. Not everyone in the class has a laptop. Anyhow, it was great fun for another rainy day.

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Making the sun shine

Today was a gloomy, wet Monday, for sure. That didn't seem to affect my Exploring Watercolor class at Hithergreen Center. Several finished pieces they've been working on--one even got a round of applause at critique. Others did smaller paintings from start to finish during class and did a great job on them. They're doing a lot more painting and taking less time trying to decide what to paint. Also, the lesson on grids two weeks ago has had a good effect. Those who are using them are making better drawings and are now able to enlarge their source pictures instead of tracing them the same size. I'm already getting excited about our exhibit in the fall, and I know they'll be even better by then.

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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Fresh start, thank goodness

I've been out of circulation for about a month, nothing life threatening. Insanity a possibility, though, coming to terms with the frustration of working on a frustratingly slow 8-year-old computer, deciding on what to buy, setting it up and installing programs. The worst is over, and not all that bad. I'm happy with the new HP (fassssssst)and Windows 7, so far. Seems like much easier access to everything, especially to my files stored on an external 1.5 terabyte hard drive, which my husband calls my Teradactyl. So, what's next?

Too much to tell in one blog. Big news is I'm doing a complete revision of
Creative Collage Techniques
. I'm pleased to have my editor, Stefanie Laufersweiler, for our third book together for North Light. We met here in my studio yesterday (she lives near Cincinnati, I'm in Dayton)and went over my plans for the book. When we weren't exchanging photos of kids and grandkids or lamenting the woes of moving house (her) and setting up new computers (me).

But, about the book. Creative Collage Techniques has been in print for more than 16 years and is still a popular book, but I intend to update materials, techniques, and art. Virginia won't be able to work with me, but everything I do will remind me of the good times we had doing the first one. I'll be completely rewriting and adding a lot of new art--plus it will be expanded 16 pages over the original. I'm psyched!

First, though, I have to clean the house. The two of us don't clutter, but I still haven't figured out how to keep dust off the furniture. Had better get to work.

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