Please come visit me at thepookster.com and read about my new career as a mom. I’m still teaching and designing, but right now I don’t have much time for maintaining a design/tutorial blog. I hope to return here later when the babe gets a little more independent.

I love continuing to build my “bags of tricks” in Photoshop. This time, I purchased and followed a DVD by David Cuerdon called “Adobe Photoshop CS4 Beauty & Portrait Retouching Kit.” It’s not only very informative, it comes with a host of brushes, custom shapes, and color swatches that make photo retouching of people much more efficient. The delivery is a little slow, but it was well worth my Sunday.

Here’s my first effort since running through the tutorials. It’s a photo my husband took of me at Pier 39 in San Francisco earlier this year. “Before” is on top and “after” is below.

Closeup:

Our house is being fumigated this week because we have wood-boring beetle damage under the floors. Yes, this means the big circus tent over the house. So we are staying elsewhere.

Surviving at the Motel 6
I originally reserved 4 nights for us at Motel 6. I have no idea what I was thinking. It turns out that while Motel 6 is cheap to stay at, it has very little in the way of creature comforts. You get a bed, a bathroom, matchbook-sized soap, a small desk, air conditioning, and a 19″ TV. Plus unidentifiable stains in the carpet that could be chocolate or could be something else. Plus a “non-smoking room” that reeks of stale smoke. Then there’s the meth-addled chick who dug a cigarette butt out of the ashtray outside the front office, then tried picking up on my husband while I was walking beside him.
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On July 9th, I posted here about my initial attempts at getting a marketing plan for BluLob off the ground. This is an update and a general impression of my experiences so far. If you find yourself mentioned here, please understand that I found everyone – with rare exception – to be personable and having the best intentions. That rare exception would be my first item: National Association of Professional Women.
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The following is a guest post from Karen Schweitzer, who writes for OnlineColleges.net.

20 Free Resources for the Starving Artist

Launching your art career doesn’t have to be a costly adventure. The Internet provides an abundance of free education, communities, and galleries specifically for beginning artists. Here is a list of 20 resources to get you started:

Free Education & Tutorials

ArtGraphica
ArtGraphica is a free traditional art tutorial site that runs on this principle: with the right motivation and skill anyone can create art. The site provides lessons and commercial tutorials in charcoal, ink, pastel, graphite, watercolors, and acrylics.

Art of Color
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers this free online course to help self-learners understand the science of color. The course teaches students about the history, interaction, and psychology of color.

About.com
The About.com Guide to Painting offers an extensive online guide to painting. This site discusses everything from technical strategies to exhibiting and selling work.
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