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Pixeladies Update
This is a very busy time at the Pixeladies’ studio. Well not really at the studio, but on the computers. We’re in the final two weeks of teaching our Photoshop Essentials II class (we love teaching), creating videos (Deb hates listening to her voice) and a handbook (auditioning legible fonts) for our upcoming Photoshop Organizer…
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Intern Update
Has it really been two years since Intern Kelsi was finishing up her internship with the Pixeladies and finding her first job at Target? We still laugh about how it was the fabric folding, a chore we tossed at her near the end of her internship, that really impressed the folks at Target. Well, today…
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Tech Tuesday: Our Students Are Better Than We Are!
We don’t think there is anything more gratifying as teachers than when our students not only “get it,” but they use what they’ve learned in such creative ways. Our latest example is Kathleen Loomis. Read her blog post about how she helped a friend break through a creative block and go from this: to this…
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Tech Tuesday: Register for Online Photoshop Elements Classes Now!
Back by popular demand! Yes, we’re teaching Photoshop Elements Essentials I and II. Essentials I starts on June 1, and Essentials II starts on July 6. The classes are three weeks long each, but we’ve added a fourth week to each class so you can post more homework, ask more questions, spend more time with…
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Our Latest Series: Walk A Mile In Her/His Shoes
We recently finished a 26-piece alphabet quilt for a client. The pieces were small, and while it was a challenge to work with such small text in that format (tweezers became our best friends), we really liked the objects and themes that went along with them. Since then we have worked on three donation quilts…
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Tech Tuesday: What Our Students Learn
We just ended our Photoshop Elements Essentials I and II classes. Wow! What amazing students. Their creativity never ceases to amaze us. We’ve rescheduled the series again in June (please see our classes page for more information). We’d normally want to tell you ourselves how great the class is, but we’d rather you heard from…
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Tech Tuesday: PSE Essentials II Starts Feb 9
We’ve been engrossed in teaching Photoshop Elements Essentials I, which started a couple of weeks ago. We are having so much fun. The students are great and are learning so much. It’s wonderful to witness the “aha” moments. We’re answering students questions at all hours of the day (okay, so we have yet to answer…
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Fiber Art For A Cause Is February 4th
Virginia Spiegel, mixed media artist and fellow SAQA member, has been organizing auctions of fiber artwork since 2005, with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society. This year it’s called The 100 Fundraiser for a Cause. Virginia invited 100 artists (including us, an honor) to donate an artwork that would be auctioned off for $100. On February 4, beginning…
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Tech Tuesday: We Heart Online Teaching
We love teaching, and we love technology, but teaching and technology don’t always work together. So why do the Pixeladies bother teaching online? It’s convenient–for both the student and the teacher. We have students from all over the world, and we don’t have to be up 24 hours a day. We post our class materials, and students…
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Tech Tuesday: Reminder for Photoshop Classes
This is a friendly reminder that our next Photoshop Elements class starts Monday, January 12. This first class is really suited for beginners and for those who want a refresher or need help finding their way around the Photoshop Elements 13 workspace. Both three-week classes come with videos, handbooks, and three live webinars. Students tell…
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Tech Tuesday: Photography, Photoshop, and Classes – Oh My!
We’re getting ready for the new year and new classes, so we thought we’d show you a couple of photos that will illustrate 1) how great a tool Photoshop can be, and 2) that nothing helps a photograph better than a good photographer. When we were in Houston this past October, we had Bonnie McCaffery…
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The John M. Walsh III Collection Is A Must-See
You have until December 21 to view 54 pieces from the John M. Walsh III Collection on exhibit at the Texas Quilt Museum. If you’re anywhere near La Grange, Texas, make this trip. As a matter of fact, make a point of going. It is the largest exhibition of the Walsh collection ever. Sandra Sider,…
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Tech Tuesday: Online Photoshop Classes Start January 12!
The new year will bring with it new Pixeladies classes. We’re starting out with two beginning classes on Photoshop Elements. These three-week classes come with videos, handbooks, and three live webinars. Students tell us they really appreciate the individualized feedback. We hope you can join us starting January 12! Click here for more information and…
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TechLESS Tuesday: What To Do When Your Printer Is Kaputt (Again)
Yes, we bought a new (used) computer, an Epson 9880 wide-format printer. Yes, our tech guru sold it to us and made sure it worked well. Yes, we had a bad cyan chip, but the cartridge supplier quickly sent us a replacement and we were back in business. Yes, we made all the color corrections…
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The Advantage Of Teaching Over Time
We’ve been teaching for several years now (and we aren’t even counting when Deb taught adult ed and Kris taught German), but we have never had the chance to teach over a long period of time . . . until now. Starting in June, we had the opportunity to teach an 8-week course at the…
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Tech Tuesday: Another Fabric Printing Service Review
Wow, it finally happened. A company read one of our blog entries and thought we needed to review their company as well, so here you go! After Modern Yardage.com read our fabric printing review, they asked if they could print our test sample for a comparison. We thought, why not, and sent off our file with really…
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Tech Tuesdays: The Color Red And Printer Woes
Those of you who follow us on Facebook know that we have been living without a wide-format printer for months now. Our tech guru, Fadi, found us a used Epson 9880. (We highly recommend Fadi and Pacific Office Equipment for those of you in the Sacramento, California area – Tel. 916. 334.7875). All of our…
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Tech Tuesday: Sending Word Documents with Gmail instead of Outlook
Here it is. One of my pet peeves: I want to email a Word or Excel file to a friend. Click File > Save and Send > Send using E-Mail > Send as attachment. Then the dreaded message appears: “You can’t do this because you haven’t installed Outlook, and since I’m a Microsoft Product, like…
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Tech Tuesday: The Fight Against Facebook’s Algorithms To Stay In Touch With Our Friends And Fans
You’re our friends and our family. You read our blog and follow us on Facebook because you a) like our art, b) were once students of ours, c) you really are related to us, and we made you do it, or d) just happened upon our blog and Facebook pages one day and thought “why…
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Tech Tuesday: Removing Backgrounds from Quilts
Quilt photography is a necessary expenditure of time and/or money if you want to enter your quilts in shows. Our advice is to have have your work professionally photographed. And that’s ususally what we do. But there are those cases when you don’t have a good photograph. You know, the time when you are so…
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Take Our Class at the Crocker!
Yes, we are scheduled to teach at one of our favorite museums, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California. We hope you can join us this summer for our 8-week course, Storytelling through Quilting. Class begins June 1, 2014 and runs Sundays from 1-4 pm until August 3 (no class on June 15 and July…
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Tech Tuesday: Fun with Color
You just never know where you’re going to learn something new. I’ve been frantically working on the printed program for the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) conference. I’m almost finished. The last part is placing the ads in the program. Since I’m known to procrastinate before deadlines (it might be the only time I clean…
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Tech Tuesday: Fabric Printing Services Review
As many of you know, we print our own fabric for our projects. People often ask us if we will print for them (we don’t), but up until now we haven’t recommended any company because we hadn’t ordered fabric ourselves. Now we have, so we’d like to share our results with you. We focused on…
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Teaching and Retreating
Kris and Deb just finished teaching Photoshop at Focus on Fiber in New Smyrna Beach Florida. After the workshop, we were able to treat ourselves to a week of fiber, friends, and food–oh yeah, we did get a little bit of work done, too. Here are some of the highlights:
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Update on Florida Photoshop Retreat
There’s still time to register for the Florida retreat March 12-14, 2014. We’ve updated the class description to make it more individualized. Bring any project you want to work on or start from the very basics. We’ll be able to accommodate you! We have a new title for the class, too – Photoshop Elements for…
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We’ve Cleaned Up Our Art
I was back on the torture machine (the elliptical for normal people), listening to TED talks, when I came across Ursus Wehrli and his technique of “tidying up art.” This one’s worth watching. If you don’t want to watch while exercising, then grab a snack and put your feet up… If your browser blocks this…
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Tech Tuesday: An Apple A Day
We have recently been creating fruit using words and phrases cut from magazines and newspapers. We started with a tomato. SacraTomato is the pet name for our city, and some of the text was about issues surrounding California’s migrant and sometimes undocumented farm workers. Now that we’ve moved onto apples, we wanted to take up…
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Finding Your Voice (Or Not!)
Finding your artistic voice is a common topic in artistic circles. Wanna have a solo show? Ya gotta have a voice. Applying for a grant? Need that voice. Being recognizable is something we strive for. Artist Shea Hembrey has taken a different approach in his conceptual project entitled Seek. Seek is a biennial or Biennale—pronounced…
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Tech Tuesday: Cropping Is A Good Thing!
We often have students ask us something like “How come my photos don’t look as good as the ones I see in the magazines?” Setting equipment, talent, and training aside for a moment, you can dramatically increase the impact of your photo simply by cropping it. Photoshop’s cropping tool is very easy to use. We…