Hey everyone, I am back from my travels and getting back to the grind here in sunny Tampa, FL. I have to say, I could not be more excited to touch down in the land of palm trees and un-congested roads. You probably may not know this about me – but I am a big cold weather person. If it’s anything over 75 degrees, I’m usually very ornery. At least, I was.. I can’t tell you how much I longed to get back to warmer weather. I guess the grass is always greener.. live and learn.

I wanted to share that picture above that one of our readers made – really for no other reason than to show off what you guys are doing. I thought Gert van Duinen did a bang up job on the illustration, and totally deserved a little love. Rock on, Gert! Now I have something to put on my desktop back at the office. Click on the image to get to his Flickr site!

I’ve got to tell you, I am way excited for what the new year is going to bring!! There are a couple of resolutions that I made, and as time goes on, I will totally be sharing, but here are two that I am immediately going to work on:

1. Take a Class! Be it Photography, Graphic Design, Web Design, or whatnot – the best lesson you can learn is this: You will never know -everything-. In keeping with that, there is ALWAYS something that I can learn by taking a class.. It’s about expanding your horizons and learning something you can add to your bag of tricks. Go to Kelby Training, and take a look at the classes there. If you don’t do InDesign – make it your priority to try. After Effects not your thing? Try a class! In this economy – diversification is key. You’ll be glad you did.

2. Go Compete! This one I am really excited about. You really don’t force yourself to the nth degree unless you compete (my opinion). If you run, the best way to take yourself to the next level is to race. If you shoot, the best way to get the juices flowing is to compete in a contest. Check out Photo Compete. This is a website that keeps track of all sorts of Photo contests that are happening. Get to shooting with a prize in mind, and throw your hat in the ring. I know I will. Win or lose, it’ll get me off the sidelines.

Obviously, this also rings very personal for me.. I mean, I want to take a cooking class, and I would love to beat the other guys on the elliptical machine.. but really, do you want to hear me talk about that? Probably not.

Check out our online Magazine
Hey.. as much as I love writing to you guys daily – I would also be remiss if I didn’t remind you to check out Layers Magazine! If you haven’t seen the inside of it recently Click Here to go see a Flash-based copy, right on the page. I am very proud of our magazine, and always recommend to all of you to subscribe!

Contest Winner and Contest Time
Before I go, let’s do this.. Contest Winner Jonothan Bonilla won last week’s Layers blog contest and got a cool Fay Sirkis DVD. Way to go Jonothan!!!

This Week:
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM, and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question: We have an Illustrator tutorial called Vector Art Goes Hollywood here on the Layers magazine website. Tell me who is the author and what is it about?

The Prize: A copy of Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature by Matt Kloskowski, as well as a year subscription to Layers Magazine!

Time to go de-clutter my desk. Have a great week. Back tomorrow!