About three days into the introductions; effectively 4-5 hours of actual study time and I'm astounded at the sheer complexity of the graphics world. My admiration for you creators has already increased a hundred fold. Granted, I'm an individual who tends to make things more complicated than they probably have to be, but still this arena begs to open the pandora's box of the imagination and that alone unleashes a plethora of possibilities. I admitted my nOOb orientation to this process, but even I couldn't have imagined I'd sit for an hour mixing wet paint on a palette experimenting with colors and brushstrokes - and even had a little fun with it. Forget the fact that, given what I've seen, I'm probably months away from any quality work -- this was a sudden reaquaintance with the notion that the nature of results are directly related to the nature of the ambition and effort invested toward achieving them.
Don't mean to derail this into a Logo-blog, but just wanted to acknowledge - now that I've taken even the smallest steps into the trenches - my enhanced appreciation for the tremendous talents that exist here in the forum. Salutes to all of you. I'm thinking now, realistically, I should be able to create my retirement logo by the time I get the feel for these concepts.
Wow.