Lost Aussie on the loose

The Change in Pace

  My foray into the world of online teaching has been and interesting one so far and brought many changes to the way things work at home! 

It's a strange feeling, being driven to my computer each day, pushing it to it's limits as well as developing a pattern of work that allows me to tend to my online flock, create engaging and technically correct content and yet still allow time for all the 'regular' domestic (and international) chores to be taken care of.

I'm grateful that there are still a few moments here and there where I can play with the pixels for my own sake and not have to second guess whether what I'm doing will translate well into a class demo or can be replicated on 3 different versions of Elements and 4 versions of Photoshop :-)

Having said that, I am finding this teaching experience to be very rewarding, and delight in helping students unlock the mysteries of Photoshop (and Elements)!  Their Ah Ha moments are awesome!

Checking In

My poor blog has been somewhat neglected of late, 5 days no post. eek!
All I can say is that my Digital Magic Class is keeping me quite busy!  It's all going off like a rocket with the students immersed in new material each and every week and fabulous feedback from everyone.
I've been besieged by requests for another class and will open registration for that quite soon.  If you are interested in signing up, I suggest you send me an email  asap as places will again be limited.

Tomorrow I am taking the day away from the keyboard and heading into New York City to play with the Photoshop Guys.  Their sessions are always a blast and even though they are more into Photography than Digital Art, there is always some snippet or technique to pick up.

I'm champing at the bit to install my new CS5 but want to wait until this current class session finishes - software glitches and teaching never marry too well!

Afternoon Light

With all the work that I have been doing on the computer lately, my body was just screaming for some outdoor exercise and fresh air so after a late thunderstorm had passed, DH and I slipped down to one of the southern beaches here on Long Island.  It's only about 15mins way from our house and the sudden downpour meant that most of the beach goers had fled (yay!)

The light was lovely, the air humid enough to catch the light and we were only about an hour away from sunset! Perfect!
As I filled my camera with lovely pictures, I was thinking about my friend Christine.  She loves this LI beach. So this one is for you girlfriend!

The New Dispenser of Goodness

It's hard to believe that the end of June is almost nigh and it was only this week that we opened our swimming pool.  It's somewhat of a monster, being over 50ft long and still, after 4 days-  sort of has that cross processed, lomo look - where it's a strange mixture of greeney, blue, gray.  The gray is all about the six months of debris that has collected on the bottom (and the pool man has yet to vacuum) - the rest of it is just gallons upon gallons of filtering that needs to be done.

The cats are annoyed, they had become used to basking and playing on the trampoline like cover and now stare at this enormous watery void with much aggravation.

The highlight of the "pool opening" has been the addition of our new Yellow Duck - aka chlorine dispenser.  The old one just seems to have rotted away in the shed over the winter.  We are actually blessed with the opportunity to have a salt water pool, having installed the right sort of equipment when we first move in to the house.  Sad to say, but to run it that way costs more than it does to be chemically hungry and chlorinate it the old fashioned way, and unfortunately, right now, the buck stops at the Yellow Duck!

I stuck my toe in the cross processed mess tonight..brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......I think it will be weeks before it's warm enough to swim in, and of course by that time, the leaves will be falling again!

I think the duck needs a name though, and for some reason, Dave, seems too obvious.  If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them..........he's too cute and really deserves a Christening!

Oh and for my Students -the Vignetting is done in ACR!

Girl (Less) Abstract

This week my head has been swirling with Video stuff, clips, PDF's screen-shots and all manner of things pertaining to the class, but tonight after a nice dinner out with DH I just wanted to "let go" and not worry about constructing something that someone else could follow along.

I've a lot of add in programs attached to my PS that mean I can't readily teach ALL the techniques I use, unless folk want to buy the Plug-ins. Sometimes they are cheap, but other times they are not.  I've extra stuff loaded on this machine that costs anywhere from FREEware "0" to $12 bucks to $600 and I do like to these programs in my own work.  
This week I have just hurked up mega bucks to Adobe for the upgrades to CS5 Suite on my Mac and PC.  Shame they don't allow cross platform licenses or give any discount to their Beta testers! I guess we must just do that for Love!

The image above was created using Corel Painter X and then further worked in Photoshop.

Stock Image Credit Night Fate - deviant art for the Violinist photo.

Girl in (almost) Abstract

According to Wikepedia -

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.

So....I think I am nearly there.

For those of you taking the Digital Magic Class, you might like to know that the Masking Tape texture is hiding underneath her skirts too!

Girl - Stock Image credit Alma Wade

Show and Tell

As a parent, it's always interesting to see your children develop and see vestiges of yourself peeking out from the new "version" either through genetics or role modeling.

#2 "smaller" son has apparently inherited my passion for Photoshop and is taking several Digital Media classes as higher school subjects.  We have lots of enthusiastic discussions about filters, actions, layers - digital recipes for this and that, which usually leave DH shaking his head in amazement (and confusion)!

As part of a school project, David has posted a few pieces of his work on Flickr and he has kindly given me permission to post a piece of his work here and share his Flickr link.  David takes his own Photos and manipulates them in Photoshop CS3 and CS4.

I am proud of all four of my sons, but it's very nice to have two of them with whom I can have "techie dweeb" conversations!

Thoughts on Teaching

 

I think I was about 27 when I first started teaching.  A Staff Development job in a big OR suite at "Charlies" where I had the pleasure of maintaining clinical standards, writing the procedure books and calming the nerves of pimply med' students and wanna be "diva" OR queens.  At least in those days it was all Science based, fact influenced practice and standards that were not to be ignored.  It was easy to create clinical manuals, how-to's and what not-to do's because again, the Science supported it all.

Where then to begin teaching folk how to use Photoshop (or Elements)? and create in an environment where there are no rules, 50 ways to skin a cat, or create a digital collage, manipulate the variables and oh so many buttons to tweak!

To find the answer, I've looked back at how I taught my hospital students.  Many of them were in awe of the grand surgical consultants.  Almost all afraid to open their mouths or move a foot forward for fear of being berated for a faux pas.  In those days, my advice was - always be respectful, but bear in mind these guys, eat lunch, they eat dinner, wash laundry and buy milk - just like you do!  I can't say that my advice always bore fruit, but it did make everyone think for a moment and wonder about the incredible/credible factor.

How does that translate into teaching students how to work with Photoshop (et al)?  Well I think you have to start by recognizing that there are some very good digital artists who's work you love but will never teach you, ever, about how they create it - even thought they might want to.  I've tried following some of the fabulous tutorials you can find in Photoshop magazines, written by incredible artists and after reading the blurb, looking at the screen shots, I just roll my eyes and go and make a cup of tea, head out to the garden and pull weeds.

So really it's all about connecting, being able to translate your vision into the path of someone else's eyes and help them see the things that you do!  It's not easy.  In fact I think that running an OR teaching programme is way easier that constructing one to teach folk Photoshop!  For sure.

Science allows for slim borders of interpretation, ARTdoes not.  Have at it, manipulate the variables and see what comes out the other end.  It does not work like that for people, variables and strange endings are usually not good ones............. but in the case of Digital Art, the more variables and the stranger the ending............ usually the better!

Proof will be be in the pudding as they say.  No-one mugged me in Virginia after taking my classes at  Art N Soul which is a good thing! ......... I guess the jury will be out on the Online Class for a few weeks :-)

Wish me Luck!

Sights and Sounds

Warm days offer opportunities to be out and about - Central Park is always filled with sights and sounds that stimulate the senses and bring nothing but wonder and delight.

Images captured by my camera and "tinkered" with in Photoshop.

Having a Ball

Last night DH and I were invited to attend the Brooklyn Hospital Silver Anniversary Founders Ball.

It was a great event, honoring, among other worthy candidates, a good friend of ours, Doctor Ramesh Gulrajani.

The event was held at Steiner Studios, part of the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, which now boasts studios fit to film movies and commercial TV series.

I'm not quite sure who organized the 'bash' but if ever I want some catering and large scale function organising done, I am going to find out who did this affair.  It was quite wonderful!  Great food, wonderful wine and the band was perfect for a middle aged (ugh) bump and jiggle towards the end of the night!

I think I was one of a few women who eschewed the obligatory black dress - I'm having a love affair with Teal lately!  What can I say? ...other than you don't see me in pictures very often ever ...  so grab the moment!