Weekends generally arrive preallocated with visitors coming into town and/or acquisition of targeted goods and services [but totally in an urban MAN vs WILD kinda way--stand in our path as the wife and I traipse to CRATE & BARREL for new glassware and without a doubt you will be lying face-first on the sewer grate with a dull pocket knife jabbed half-way into your abdomen, a fire pit a yard away, and your right leg setup rotisserie style, Donner Family chillin' at the bus stop]. These here are rough streets in hard times, folks.

AND that’s why its a real treat to have a hot minute for more creative pursuits [not that carnivorous slaughter of sidewalk fodder isn't creative--I ALWAYS give credit where its due]. This weekend, I was putzin’ around with the latest incarnation of Adobe PhotoShop and with the help of HOOKED ON PHONICS I read me up on a couple online tutorials. What’s great about others doing all the hard work is that it leaves only the basic challenges for the graphic design simpletons such as myself. I can generally overcome the small hurdles and usually do the basic reverse engineering for what goes unsaid in the guides. There’s always the part of the tutorial where it says, “…and here are the super sexy results I got from that last step” and it leaves out around 40 key pieces of information for you to do exactly the same.

I started with my rendition of the sky island, which seems to be pretty common on deviantART in the last year or so (click image to see larger version – wallpaper size here):

Then moved on to a watercolor piece dedicated to my wife (click image to see larger version – wallpaper size here):

Last but not least, the soundtrack for this post:
annuals - around your neck