-
The Power Of Word Of Mouth & Ohio
We’re in the middle of registration for our next series of Photoshop Elements classes, and we’ve noticed a curious thing. The last time we taught online, we had several Canadians enroll. This time around, 26% of the Elements 1 students are from Ohio. Ohio!! Over 1/4 of our students . . . so far .…
-
What’s The Difference Between Levels And Brightness/Contrast In Photoshop, And Why Do I Care?
Our students often get confused when they first learn about levels. After all, they just want to brighten their photos, so wouldn’t it be easier to remember the brightness/contrast button? Seriously, what do levels mean anyway? If levels essentially do the same thing, brighten images, then why bother? Well, it’s all about the visuals. Let’s start…
-
Why We Go to Quilt Shows
Sure, we quilt. Sure, we like to meet up with friends. In the end, though, we go to quilt shows to get inspired. We usually go to the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara every year, but the past few years have not been very inspiring. It seems the quilts got dark and brooding…
-
Bid On Our Quilt Starting Today!
As most of you know, we are proud members of Studio Art Quilt Associates, whose mission is to promote the art quilt. Their annual online benefit auction is currently underway, and you can bid on our quilt starting today at 2 pm EDT. “The Language of Color 7: Color IQ” is one in the series…
-
Photoshop Essentials 3? Help Us With Our Next Online Photoshop Course
We’re taking a hiatus from online teaching until the new year so that we can work on revamping our design class. After a cursory review of the course, we realized that we had a bit of a dilemma, so we thought we would ask you for some help. Of course, we’ll intersperse our questions with…
-
Deb’s 2016 SAQA Dream Collection
Every year Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) holds an online auction of amazing 12″ x 12″ art quilts. They invite the public to post their dream collection. Kris and I just love curating the six quilts we would like to have in our houses (and, of course, really bid on). I started to create my…
-
Visit your Local Museum and Learn about Yourself
Ok! Now I get it. I just never understood why some people have problems with quilts hanging on a wall. Art quilters have grown used to comments like the following: “They aren’t quilts, if they’re on a wall.” “Why don’t you make a real quilt?” “You can’t sleep under it.” “That’s not like what my…
-
Passwords, the Internet and Marriage (Part II)
Last week I talked about the advantages of using a password manager program like LastPass. Click here to reread the post. This week I want to talk about creating a secure, memorable password for that one password you have to remember. If your password contains the name of any of your family members, your phone…
-
Tech Tuesday: Passwords, the Internet and Marriage (Part I)
Do you have a secure password? Can you remember it? Is it the same for all of your accounts? I used to have a large written list of accounts and passwords sitting right beside my computer. That’s not the most secure thing to do, especially if your eyesight is failing and it’s written in an…
-
Kris’ 2016 SAQA Dream Collection
Every year Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) holds an online auction of amazing 12″ x 12″ art quilts. They invite the public to post their dream collection of six pieces. Deb and I just love perusing the collection to pick out what we would like to hang on our wall (and, of course, really bid…
-
Tech Tuesday: Personalizing Keyword Tags in Photoshop Elements Organizer
Our students know how much we love to organize our photos with Photoshop Elements Organizer. It’s really handy for visual people like us, but it’s also very powerful. Take, for example, the keyword tags. You can create a keyword tag for anything you think you’ll want to search your images for. We once had a…
-
Using Facial Recognition in Photoshop Elements Organizer
Someone once told us she didn’t want to organize her digital photos because it “takes too long.” What’s great about Photoshop Elements Organizer is that you can organize your photos in great or very little detail. Organizer’s use of facial recognition makes it easy for you to label your photos with people’s names. If you…
-
Tech Tuesday: Facial Recognition Makes Digital Organizing a Snap
Now that we’ve all been snapping digital photos for several years now, it’s probably time to start organizing them. Deb has been organizing her 20,000 photos for years now, but as a relative newcomer to the game, I wanted to tell you how cool it is to go through and identify people for your records.…
-
Tech Tuesday: 5 Things To Learn About The Photoshop Grid
Whether you are using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, knowing that you can turn on a grid and use it to suit your needs can really facilitate your project. Here are 5 things to remember: 1. Turn on/off the grid. From the Menu bar, click on View > Grid to turn on/off the grid. The handy…
-
Two Cool Features Of Photoshop’s Move Tool
We’re getting ready to teach our Photoshop Essentials 1 & 2 again, and this is the time we remember how powerful Photoshop is and how difficult it is to decide what to teach in these classes. Here are a couple of nifty features of the Move tool that we think really help our students speed…
-
Our Obama Art: From Exhibition to Times Square to Politico Magazine
When Barack Obama was first elected president back in 2008, many artists took to their particular medium to mark this historic occasion – the first African American president of the United States of America. We wanted to commemorate this momentous occasion as well. “The Picture is Only Half the Story” has toured around the country,…
-
By Hand Exhibition
We are really looking forward to the premiere of “By Hand,” the first new exhibit of the year at the Blue Line Arts gallery in Roseville, CA. Our piece, “American Still Life: The Weight of the Nation,” is one of the works juried into the exhibit. We’re particularly happy our work was accepted because the…
-
Chiaki Dosho: Textured Emotion
We haven’t had a chance yet to tell you about our trip to the European Patchwork Meeting. It was amazing, and it would take several blog posts to tell you half of what we experienced there. Spread out over a few charming towns in Alsace, France, the EPM hosted some of the highest quality art…
-
Pacific International Quilt Festival
We enjoy going to quilt shows to see what other people do. Our most recent adventure took us to the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara. It’s an uneven show–some years the show is really good, other years, well, not so much. This was not the best year. Having said that there were some…
-
Procrastinating in Black and White
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just need to procrastinate. You know, those times you should be doing something productive, but you’d rather check out all the Facebook posts from the last year. And one post leads you to a website or blog, that leads you to something else, that leads you to…
-
Bid On Our Quilt!
The SAQA Benefit Auction starts tomorrow. We donated this 12″x 12″ quilt to help support this wonderful organization. After all, earth without art is just “eh.” There are a lot of great quilts available (just in case ours doesn’t strike your fancy). When our #internkelly was doing her internship with the Pixeladies, we all put…
-
Road Trip!
By the time you read this, Kris will have landed in Frankfurt where Deb is picking her up at the rental car counter. Deb has been in Germany on a much-deserved visit with her host family from her time as an exchange student in Hamburg. Once we reunite, it’s off to view the 6th Annual…
-
Registration For Photoshop Essentials Starts Sep 5!
It’s that time again – registration for Photoshop Essentials 1 and 2 starts on September 5. Photoshop Essentials 1 starts on October 5, while Essentials 2 starts on November 2. We have so much fun teaching these online classes because we get to meet people from all over the US, Canada, and the world. Our…
-
Tech Tuesday: How to Make an Animated .gif in Photoshop
If you read last week’s Tech Tuesday post, you might remember my “Ode to Adobe Color CC” that I posted in the form of an animated .gif. If you missed it, here it is again: I could stare at these animated .gifs for hours. They are just so much fun, and the possibilities are endless!…
-
#internkelly, Signing Off
Hello friends and followers! Today will be my last day as an intern here at Pixeladies Studio. Although I will certainly miss “working” (if that’s what you call sitting around, laughing, and having fun) with the wonderful Deb and Kris, I look forward to taking everything I have learned here with me as I continue…
-
Tech Tuesday: Adobe Color CC
One of my absolute favorite things the Pixeladies have shown me is the Adobe Color CC website (they teach this in their Advanced Photoshop class, but they let me work ahead a little). This site allows you to create your own unique digital color swatches online, which you can then apply to your Photoshop workspace.…
-
#internkelly’s 2015 SAQA Dream Collection
The art quilts I viewed for SAQA’s 2015 Benefit Auction have enchanted and impressed me in so many ways. I am struck by the intelligence and innovation behind every quilt and delighted by some of the unconventional re-purposing of materials. As I browsed the evocative body of work, I found myself pausing on a select…
-
Deb’s 2015 SAQA Dream Collection
Every year, SAQA members are invited to choose 6 quilts from the SAQA Benefit Auction they would love to own. Kris’s collection was Kind of Blue. Deb’s choices must have been inspired by the heat on the day she curated her dream collection*. It is called Riot of Color. Here’s the way I would hang…
-
Introducing #internkelly
Hello all! My name is Kelly and I am very excited to introduce myself as the newest Pixeladies intern. I currently study Fashion Design at the local City College, and when the opportunity to work with the Pixeladies came up, I knew I had to take it! I spent the majority of my first day…
-
Kris’ 2015 SAQA Dream Collection
The 2015 SAQA Benefit Auction starts September 18. Every year, members are invited to select their dream collection. We always have so much fun doing this. Here is Kris’ dream collection. Both Deb and Intern Kelly will pick theirs in the next two weeks. The idea is to curate your own 6-piece collection that you…