I'm in School!

May have mentioned it here, but then again may not have. I have been so happy with my new PSE 6 that I finally decided it was time to take some classes. On line has really worked for me, and I started taking Renee Pearson's Just the Basics first. That's a weekly one and Week 3 started Thursday. Then Jessica Sprague offered her free (!) Frame-Ups & Special Effects class which started July 6. I had one day this week when I fell behind but the great thing is that the classes are on videos which you can go back to - forevah!

from Renee's Week 1

I wanted to take Renee's basic just to be sure I hadn't gotten into bad habits. I have read many of the techniques before but sometimes in following them it seems I'm missing 1 critical piece that leads to Major Frustration. I often cobbled things together but by then I was no longer enjoying the process. Fortunately with digital work, you're only wasting time, but hey...I could do lots of other things with time I've spent Grrrring at my screen.

from Renee's Week 2

Anyhow, doing these classes has had me use templates and designs I would not have naturally picked. Some of them will never be "me" but it was fun to do. Going outside one's comfort zone is always good and with art there are no failures, just experiences.

These below were using techniques from Jessica's classes. Recoloring, blending, playing with brushes. Each little 'truc' is an Aha! that's the step I was missing! So much fun.




This has actually encouraged me to go waaaay outside my comfort zone and take a Tim Holtz class. I waffled for a day or two and then committed to Nostalgic Memoirs at The Queens Ink in Savage MD.

Oh yes, I also finally started using Adobe Bridge. Love it for previewing digital elements. Now back to some reading of blogs and books - finally started The Time Traveller's Wife and am lovin' it.