I love to figure out how to do new things or follow the directions/recipe to make something. It doesn’t help that you can find instructions for just about anything on the Internet! Here’s an animation for Halloween. I took an image of a jack-o-lantern, kept darkening the illuminated parts, the background, and the pumpkin itself, and placed each new version on its own layer in Photoshop. Then I made the animated gif in Image Ready, a part of Photoshop. As I was working on the project (simple in concept but with numerous opportunities for mistakes, all of which I made at least once), I kept thinking about the early 80’s when I embarked on the adventure of learning to use the computer language called Basic on my Atari 800. I’m still having fun doing things that serve no earthly purpose. (Click on the pumpkin to start the animation.)