Marilyn Mulgrew

I spent a good portion of my adult life raising children and employed as a social worker. But I was a closet artist all the time and I always promised myself that after my sons were grown, I would get serious about my drawing.

The computer and graphic software came along just in time. I took an early retirement and began taking courses in computer graphics at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY, and never stopped. Free at last!

Drawings

Dinosaur
Alphabet Book

I started out with pen and ink and stuck pretty much to black and white. I saved all of my rough sketches. Some of them were pretty old when I started with computer graphics. They were faded and the paper had discolored. The first thing I learned how to do was to scan them and clean them up.

I made all my Christmas cards, by hand, for over twenty years. Now I can just print out as many as I need. I love my computer and I love Adobe PhotoShop!

Mona Lisas

Photographs

The inside says
Ho Ho Ho . . Escargo!

The inside says
CHEERS!

I started taking courses at Monroe Community College In 1998. In my first course, I began learning the wonders of Adobe PhotoShop.

I learned to scan images and to manipulate them, by improving the color and contrast, by isolating parts of an image, and by combining images, using layers. They say you can learn the basics of PhotoShop in a few weeks, but that it takes up to five years to master it completely.

Meanwhile, Adobe keeps coming out with new versions and I keep expanding my skills. I hope I never stop learning!

T-shirts

Animations

Since then I have studied Illustrator (my favorite), desktop publishing (with both Quark and Adobe InDesign), typography, animation and special effects, and web design, using Adobe Premiere and Adobe GoLive.

Some of the courses I have taken more than once, learning different things from different teachers. I love being around other creative people.

I have the most fun with Adobe Illustrator, drawing birds, animals, and insects.