best Photoshop/Elements mixed media tutorials ever

Tangie Baxter is a mixed media artist, both digital and paper. I've been a fan for several years, going to her studio in AZ last fall for a workshop that was a blast, taking online classes, buying digital goodies from her. A couple years ago I anted up for her full digital workshop and am sooo glad I did. I'd been using Photoshop and Elements for a few years and was doing ok on my own but would get terribly frustrated trying to figure out how to do cool mixed media effects by looking in books meant for photographers or other types of users.

I started at the first lesson and by the end of it had taken so many notes that I'd filled the class PDF I'd printed out and had to get more paper. I kept going, "So THAT'S how you do that!" It's really a great bunch of tutorials.

AND... they're now down to $75 for all 3 - Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. You get 35+ videos, PDFs, elements to use in the demos, a $25 coupon to Tangie's studio etc, etc.

$75 is half price. I'm posting a plug for the class cause I know from experience that it's a great deal on excellent classes. Every digital collage I've posted in the last couple years was made using what I learned in these classes.

If you've had a hankering to learn from scratch, or get better at, Photoshop or Elements, go take a look at this great deal.

AZ workshop journal (lots of pics!)

Front cover

The mariner's compass is actually glued to the page two images down.
You're seeing thru a hole cut into this page.

Click (or maybe double-click) on the pics to embiggen them. There are a ton of techniques on all these pages but I simply don't have the energy to caption them one by one and call out what's on them. I'll caption a couple that have something really interesting but otherwise there's scraped paint, sprayed ink, stencils, stamps, gel medium transfers, Neo Color IIs, gel sticks (gelatos), marker, pen, collage, cutouts (holes cut into the page).  If you have a question about something in particular, ask away. 

All these pages are from a journal made of just three pieces of paper. The outside piece has a short foldout at each end. The second piece has a full foldout on the right. The third (inner) piece has a full foldout on the left. Very cool design and fun to work on. Tangie's husband Dave makes them for her classes and for sale.

Lots of masking tape put onto page before scraping 2 colors of paint across it.
Makes a very cool background.

Took one of Tangie's cool journal pages (printed out that you can buy
altho this one came with the class) just torn up with no thought
to what would end up on each piece, then glued down, also pretty randomly,
altho I did place the girl and the word 'found'. Love this look.

The little pocket at bottom right holds a Fugi Instax Mini pic
that Tangie took of each of us. 

Another hole cut in the page to view the sunburst on the following page.

Looking thru the hole from the back of the page.

And here's the sunburst from two images up.

The girl at bottom left is a gel medium transfer done directly onto the page.

This image and the one below are the front and back of a short foldout.
Some of the other pages are foldouts too but full size.

The back.
I very carefully decided where I wanted to stamp my hand carved 'dream' stamp,
then proceeded to stamp the damn thing upside down. 

Artspirations Studio workshop

There's me - Leslie52 - along the left side.

Last weekend I spent 17 wonderful hours art journaling with a bunch of other women at Tangie Baxter's Artspirations Studio in Mesa AZ. Those 17 hours happened in a 28 hour period - 5 hours Friday night (6pm-11pm) and 12 hours Saturday (10am-10pm). I've never in my life done something for 12 hours straight. It's a long time, even for something I like a lot and I got a little light headed around 5pm but a slice of pizza fixed me right up.

Gorgeous old turquoise lockers and the bird wall.

The studio exists because Tangie ran a Kickstarter campaign, hit her goal, and then worked her butt off putting it all together! I was a contributor so my name is up on the wall along with everyone else who chipped in, and it was cool to look up and see it there - kinda like having your star on Broadway!

The studio is a wonderful place, full of every art supply known to woman, tables to work at, chairs to sit and look at books in, stuff to buy, art on the walls.

One side of the paint station and the circus wall.

The workshop was good. Tangie demoed a lot of techniques and we all thrashed away on the journals her husband made for the class. I'll show mine in another post after I get it all scanned.

Tangie showing us how to do gel transfers.

The rest of the paint station.

Tangie talking to all of us sitting at tables
along the left wall, just out of sight.