I hurried home from school today, wanting to enjoy the wonderful weather, sit and relax, and play with Photoshop. I guess I am truly addicted. All I know is that there is lots to practice while I wait to start another course. I am noticing that the freedom to try ideas and create something is much easier in this program, and I am wondering why. There are plenty of tools right at hand, so you don’t have to buy anything or wait for something to arrive. And you can easily erase – even better, you can eliminate layers just by “turning them off,” and still make decisions or change your mind. Much more forgiving than the pen and ink I used to work with as a teenager. Makes me wonder at how willing I was to “commit” to art when I was younger, since pen and India ink is so unforgiving – no mistakes there! And I still have a number of the pieces I did when I was younger, including the big piece I gave to my dad (and he had framed) as a Christmas present. Maybe at the time I was still exploring and hadn’t had the creativity suppressed to the point of always being a “good girl” and never trying anything out of the box. Well, that has sure changed!

I tried the snowflake tutorial again, from myjanee.com. There are still some things I need to work on, and certainly some things that I learned. I need to work on not getting extra background as the main one. I am pleased overall with the cutouts. Then I had some fun playing with filters. And I figured out a few more ideas with the Magic Wand, so I ended up with an interesting set of colors – more desert in the colors, so hence – my desert snowflake.