I’ve just been messing with integrating my art gallery with WordPress. I’ve installed the NextGen Gallery plugin and have been trying to figure out how everything works. It’s kind of unorganized right now but hopefully I’ll get it all fixed up soon. This will replace my old art gallery that I made with the Gallery2 application. Gallery 2 was really nice but it wasn’t integrated with WordPress and had different logins and different control panels. NexGen doesn’t look to be quite as flexible as far as the style and organization but the options and controls all reside in the WordPress dashboard. I like that much better. The old gallery is still there, I just don’t have links to it. I wanted to leave it up until I sort out the problems with the new gallery.

I just had to post a new video from the punk band Rise Against. It includes a slide show of fan photos including one of my daughter Lauren at around the 1:08 minute mark. She was beside herself with joy to be in a video from one of her favorite bands.

Rise Against Slideshow

Rise Against | MySpace Music Videos

I’ve got a small gallery of pics I took while at Photoshop World. Had an awesome time and learned so much my brain hurts. Click on the pic to see the gallery.

Having a great time at Photoshop World. This is my third time going to this great convention. The keynote event was hilarious with a KISS rock band theme. Those Photoshop guys can really play! I had a great class with Russel Brown and Corey Barker. Two of my all time favs! I’ve met some wonderful people and shared work stories. It’s so much fun. I’ll post pics when it’s all over. Here’s a clip of what Russel Brown did at the Keynote. It was amazing and very funny.

I added a few new brushes and graphic styles I’ve been working on just for fun. You can download them in my Tutorials and Resources section of my gallery.

Last week I was listening to Deke McClelland’s Martini Hour podcast. Have you ever had one of those revelation moments? The kind where you smack your forehead and think omg! ..or maybe a big DuhHuh?

I had never really thought of using a raster image as an opacity mask in Illustrator. To get Photoshop-like grunge effects in Illustrator I usually placed a grungy image I made in Photoshop and then live traced it in Illustrator to give me a clipping mask and a basis for an opacity mask. Mordy Golding’s method is a hell of a lot easier and much more flexible. Check it out now!

Wowee this is fun to play with!

I usually don’t post non-art related stuff here but I had to tell you about the Rise Against concert I took my daughter Lauren to on Monday. Last year I contacted their manager about getting my daughter back stage passes to meet the band. I couldn’t believe when I heard back the same day. She got to meet them last year and they were so cool. They actually sat down and listened to her and were very gracious and polite.

Since they are on tour again this year and were coming to my area, I emailed their manager again. She set up a meet and greet before the concert and Lauren gave them a picture wallet of their previous meeting and a letter she painstakingly wrote for the band. They talked to her and posed for pictures. It was so wonderful of them to do that for her. The highlight of the evening was when the band dedicated their last song “Ready to Fall” to Lauren. I thought she was going to jump out of her wheelchair!

That makes me a Rise Against fan forever!