Lost Aussie on the loose

Back From Art N Soul

Back safe and sound from our trip to Virginia Art N Soul where I taught two days of fabulous classes.  I guess you would have to ask the participants whether they enjoyed themselves or not, but since no-one left the class early or threw eggs in my direction, I can only interpret that in a good way!

I had 20 fabulous students in my Surface Magic Class, where we created weird and wonderful substrates upon which to print and a further 16 who were brave enough to try their hand at mastering some digital art skills in the Lovely Layers Class, with incredible results.

It was thoroughly rewarding in each case, to see "light bulb" moments when people GOT what we were trying to do and the OOOOOOhhhh....aaaahhhhh's that could be heard when something gorgeous came off the printer or the magic and mystery of the layer's palette started to make sense.

Nothing rings more truly with delight for a teacher than the sound of a happy student!

I can't overlook the investment that DH made either.  He was my technical support and go-fer "dude", manning printers and making sure that all the electronic and technical aspects of the class were hooked up and ready to go.  He's earned Brownie points in a big way!!

Returning to New York yesterday took us a while.  Unfortunately we managed to snag the 'beach" traffic as we hit New Jersey, adding an hour to the 8 we had already tallied for our journey.  Still, it was nice to get back home, be greeted by the four paw critters and examine what had been going on while we were away.

Yes, the Peonies managed to bloom while I was away, and so did some of the Roses.  There will be days aplenty to savour their blossoms, so that is good!

Next on the agenda is final preparations for the Online Class which starts in June, and judging by the responses I had while I was away, I think there will be a few more to come in quick succession!..so stay tuned for those updates!

Ciao for now

3,2,1..

Wish me Luck!

xoxo

Re-Cycling Away

No - I'm not just twiddling my fingers and watching the grass grow - though it's doing a good job of that, all by itself, despite the fact that Winter seems to have come back for a visit!

We are making very very busy, lists all over the place, the Studio looks like a combination of a Staples store and copy shop.  My three "pooters" are all whirring away doing different jobs and I think DH will be quite happy when all of this Art n Soul business is off the table and he can find his wife (sane and sensible) again.

Anyway, as I was cutting up sheets of Tyvek and preparing Class packets this afternoon, I decided that it was the 'perfect' time to do something creative - total derail of focus - as I snagged a piece from my carefully grown pile and had at it with the printer and sewing machine.  My excuse was that I needed another "sample" to show students - well that works - right?

I'll be showing students how to work with the Tyvek during the AnS Surface Magic class as well as in the Online Class - which by the way is now FULL!  Thank you to everyone who signed up!  It was a rush and a roar and looks like I will need to hold another one soon!

AnS Countdown

The days till Art n Soul Virginia are drawing down and I am in the final stages of preparation.  The new projector has arrived, another printer is on order, inks too and the Class Kits are almost complete.  Two more PDF's to create and my "To Do" list will be almost done.

If I have time, I will wrap my head around some fun trades to take and figure out what I will prepare for Vendor Night! ....Yikes, I guess a lot to do still!

In the mean time the DIGITAL MAGIC ONLINE CLASS  Registrations have blown me away - there are only a few spaces left - so if you are hanging on the fence, I suggest you JUMP over right now! 

In the mean time, a few pics from around home to serve as a little eye candy!

Online Class Update

No, it's not just about flowers, though I have planted 250 impatiens today, so my mind could well be following along that track!

I've updated the Digital Magic website, to include Class Samples, FAQ's, Registration details and Info AND I've  put stuff in the FREEBIES department.

DH persuaded me to extend the $10 discount for the Class as a Mother's Day gift - so don't forget to take advantage of it.

The Class is ALMOST FULL!!!!! Wooo hoooo... and no, the registration will NOT be open ended.  I want to make sure each and every student is taken care of and want to make sure that I have the time to do that!

And in case you were worried...MAX has volunteered to be the Class Moderator...he's a tough Task Master!

On-Line Class Update

The DIGITAL MAGIC site is now UP!

It contains a full syllabus of the class, all the nitty gritty fine print and well...you can just go and see for yourselves what other goodness lies within :-)

Working with Acrylic Skins

I have been working on more Class stuff.  Messing with videos and a few other things.

So without giving away "state secrects" that "Paid" folk will enjoy, I'm going to use my Blog Buddies as guinea pigs for a little show and tell..  ENJOY!

Sorry the video is a tad long winded for such a basic procedure...but I am LEARNING as I go along (with the techno dweeb stuff)!

And yes, I know there is more to the story than I have shown you here, like how to make the skins and all that jazz....so there will be more about that at a later date!

One Down, One to Go

Wrapping my head around Adobe's InDesign - I have finally finished the first set of class instructions for Art N Soul.  A 12 page interactive PDF that students will be able to flick through and read during class as well as take away on disk and get all the benefits of the live web page links to resources and other fun stuff in the "privacy" of their own home.

I used DH as the guinea pig and he managed to follow along with the program, so I am hopeful others will be able to as well.

I know from experience that its no fun to take a class with no notes, bad notes or ones you can't really make head nor tail of after you leave the room - so I am doing my best to make sure everyone has enough information and insight so that  they can accurately replicate their new skill set after they leave the Classroom!

Both my classes in Virginia are now SOLD OUT - so if you have missed out you might like to try the Portland Venue later in the year!

A Little of This and That

Today's been a mixture of success and major frustration.  In preparation for my "looming" workshops, I have been busy creating video tutorials to supplement the class work.  What was supposed to be an OH so fancy plug-in for Elements (no I won't even bother to tell you what it was) turned out to be a major PITA and resulted in many hours of install, uninstall, reboot and reboot some more and - tear out the very graying hair!

I absolutely adore the opportunities that PC's offer in the way of open source code, but sometimes I just grow more and more in love with my MAC and the fact that it never hiccups, no matter what I try to do to it and that every plug-in that is supposed to work on a MAC does just that!!

Anyway, time, patience and lots of cups of tea later we are all sweet.  I have just decided to work the tutorials without the plug-in and well, maybe folk will just have a better idea of what to do!

In the meantime I have been working on my ICE-11 Collages.........hard to believe it's that time of year again.  True to form there will be a mixture of digital/goop and glue collages that will be sent off.

The first image shows the custom mask used to create a mosaic effect on a graffiti piece that has been printed on a mixed media substrate.

The second set of images tell the story of how you can take an interesting piece of line art (courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons) and transform it into a background and from there, colourize, embellish, paint/enhance and print as a textural collage piece.

Oh and in other NEWS..............I have been selected as one of the FIRST BETA testers of the very hush hush Adobe Photoshop CS5.  As I've had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, there's not much that I will be able to tell you about the whole process, other than I am very excited and thrilled to be among a very select few throughout the world who are getting to trial this new software and work with Adobe to make sure it's just as awesome as we would all wish!  (I'm quite tickled, cant you tell???)

The Weather Report

I think like many other folk living in the North East of the US, I have had enough of the cold, wet and snow.  It's rained constantly for the last two days, leaving the outdoors a sodden dreary mess.  We lost one tree to the last heavy snowfall and many of my poor rose bushes- which would normally not be pruned until the break of Spring - are going to have to be cut back soon because of bent and broken branches.

And so it's with a big heavy sigh that I listen to the current weather report that forecasts two more days of rain, sleet and YES....MORE BIG SNOW! Ugh!
I know of quite a few places in the world that would welcome a drop or ten of water and believe me, I'd gladly pass it along if I could.

So, indoor activity continues!  Today I rearranged my Studio (yet again) and following my recent foray into jewelry making decided that all my bead boxes needed the same housekeeping treatment too. 
The cats, obviously fed up and bored with being cooped up indoors decided it would be fun to 'help' with the bead organisation - and several strands had to be promptly rescued from a merry trip down the hall!  Naughty kitties!

And finally a little Photoshop - working on preparing some images for the classes I will be teaching and pulling them together to put into the class booklets - AND in the process discovering how much I had forgotten about InDesign.  Good thing about working with Adobe though is that it all connects and I'll fish the requisite stuff out of the wintry corners of my mind without too much trouble I'm sure!

So ciao for now....snow blowing updates will follow soon no doubt!