Art Magazines

I love looking through art magazines for inspiration and ideas. While browsing at Border's I discovered Somerset Studio magazine. An online search for art magazine led me to Altered Arts magazine. I had to have them!

Somerset Studio magazine is chock full of ideas for paper crafts, rubber stamping, ATC's, art jounals, assemblage and altered art. The magazine has been around since 1999. It's published six times a year and is well worth the $7.95 newstand price. Of course, as with any magazine, a subscription means a savings over newstand prices.

Somerset also offers other art magazines:

• Belle Armoire - marries fabric art with rubber stamping and embellishments
• Stamper's Sampler - rubber stamping magazine
• Somerset Memories - devoted to scrapbook pages, journals, and memorabilia
• Art Doll Quarterly - art dolls, sculpture figures, polymer clay, and wire armature

http://www.stampington.com/html/somerset_studio_magazine.html

Another of my favorite's is Altered Arts Magazine. This magazine specializes in paper arts, mixed media collage and altered books. I am actually in the process of creating the artwork that is on the cover. The magazine came into publication in 2004. It is published six times a year and sells for $5.95 an issue. Altered Arts also features a Club Kit for purchase. Each Club Kit is $28.95 and contains a variety of products including unmounted rubber stamps, collage sheets, transparencies, and a design sheet that details at least two different projects you can create using the items in the kit.

http://alteredarts.com/

Can't Afford Photoshop? FREE Graphics Programs

Are you excited by programs such as Photoshop, but can't afford pricey graphics/photo editing software? Well there is a solution! Great FREE software is out there for the taking. Much of what I reviewed is very similar to Photoshop. Of course, you're not going to get all the bells and whistles with a free program, but it will allow you to learn and use basic editing features... and create some pretty cool stuff.

To find and review FREE software, do a Google/Yahoo search for one or more of the programs below to see which will best suit your needs. The search will also show downloading links.

Gimp or Gimpshopdotnet (which closely immulates Photoshop), Project Dogwaffle, Ultimate Paint, Pixia, Skencil, InkScape, Paint.net, Brush Strokes, Sodipodi, Karbon14, ArtWeaver, Terragen, ImageMagick, or Blender.