Michelle Ward is at it again with her "Knock Yourself Off" challenge. The idea is to look at the way you once made a piece of art, and re-work it with your evolved artistic style.

This challenge invited me to look at my early collages, my favorites of which are in a small notebook--an early art journal, I guess. I saw that my artistic progress has been all about layers and blending images. At first, I just laid the images on top of each other; now, I try to blend and work them into a more cohesive whole. Also, when I started out I used a glue stick and a blank white page; now I sometimes put more work into the background than the focal image, and I never part ways with my gel medium.

In the end, this challenge was satisfying if for no other reason than to see a glimmer of artistic growth. I guess all that fooling around is paying off!