Review of Sandra Pearce's Photoshop Painting PPGH PPA Merit Program 

by Sabrina Casas

This year I had the opportunity to attend the Sandra Pearce workshop organized at Houston by PPGH. It was a fun and refreshing experience that allowed me to take a break from my commercial work and truly enjoy learning from the beautiful artistic dimension that Sandra delivers to her class.

The first thing that I noticed during the class was the love that Sandra has for teaching and how good she is at that. It is not easy to manage the expectations and different experience levels of so many students —we had a very diverse group in the class.

Sandra was fantastic at organizing and presenting the subjects in a way that everyone could understand while providing time to cover questions and keep the class going.

I was also surprised about how much I enjoyed painting in Photoshop, the different brushes, and different uses for them. Sandra even showed us an eyelash brush, which I never thought to have but it is extremely useful for portrait work.

There are so many different things I want to try now that I have learned how to use these tools. I found myself going back to my old hard drives, looking for some of my photos of animals and flowers to find new ways to recreate them using what Sandra showed us. I’ll be honest, I am enjoying every minute of it! Since the class, I am making use of every free time I can to work on a few of my favorite images using Sandra’s techniques.

Also, as usually happens when learning something new, I have started to use on my day-to-day work some of what I have learned in the class. Using the mixing brush to correct little reflections in metal decoration or appliances, in my architectural work ­­—just to mention one example.

I know that Sandra, with her beautiful work and her wonderful teaching, helped me to reconnect with my artistic work and inspired me to explore new tools.

Thanks, PPGH for bringing Sandra Pearce to Houston. And many thanks, Sandra, for sharing your knowledge and love for the craft with us."

Sabrina Casas