Well, gang. As many of you know, I’ve been remiss on the site lately. But only because I’m fulfilling my contractual obligations. Including this, check it out: I figured out how to create a Celtic knot in Illustrator. If that sounds like ho hum, big ole deal—I politely beg to differ. The illustration below contains not only paths that flow in and out of each other—meaning that one path can be simultaneously in front and in back of another, which is fundamentally not even sorta something you can do—but also paths that weave in and out of themselves. Themselves, I say! Which is not only currently impossible, but theoretically improbable within the construct of a vector-driver computer graphics application. And yet, it can happen—not in the future but right-this-second-now—thanks to the near-limitless depths of Live Paint combined with the seemingly infinite obsession of yours truly. (Let me make it clear: These are three shapes, filled with gradients, interacting with each other. And nothing—but much, much, much—more.)

My sidekick Colleen is the one who put me up to this challenge, so blame her for my lack of posting as of late. (Ha! I love blaming stuff on Colleen!) Incidentally, this will be part of “Chapter 17, Live Paint” in my forthcoming Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced video course for lynda.com, which will be available in November.

I’ll come back to that topic in a moment. In the meantime, the final leg of my video bible on Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Mastery, is live and ready for viewing on the lynda.com Online Training Library.

Michael Ninness (one of the best trainers on the planet, the former Pm of InDesign, and VP of Content at lynda.com), wrote up this totally awesome description of the course:

Deke McClelland has finished the third installment of his series for lynda.com, Photoshop CS5 One-on-One Mastery. This latest release covers advanced tips and techniques. Deke has recorded over 6 (!) hours of Photoshop CS5 training in the past few months—we lovingly call these courses Dekelopedias! For those of you who may have watched his previous series covering CS4 and CS3, be sure to check out his latest content. Deke went back to the drawing board and revamped this series from the ground up with all new examples. And as with any course, the beauty of the Online Training Library is that you don’t have to watch an entire course in a linear fashion. Don’t let the 6 hours duration intimidate or overwhelm you—just skim thru the table of contents and watch only the movies that interest you.

Damn that Michael is good! We’re all so glad to have him back. But you could give two twinkies, so I’ll get back on topic:

Here’s an image from the Mastery course. (In case I haven’t made it clear, this course will help you master Photoshop. This woman with all her hair was not against this blue-sky-with-clouds background to begin with. She comes from the Fotolia image library. And I masked her. Just as you will to if you join up.)

In other news, I and my team are so close to finishing up the book that will be Adobe Illustrator CS5, One-on-One, which goes to the printer on October 18. This book has been four years in the making (no kidding!), and it looks beautiful. I keep saying I’ll post an excerpt. And I will, as soon as I finish writing the damn book.

Oh, hey, I had an interesting meeting with some folks at Adobe last Wednesday. Man, they have some interesting stuff in store. (And I was the first person outside Adobe to see it! Score!) It’s still a couple of years out, so don’t freak. But wow. Those boys and girls are amazing! The way I see it is, just keep drinking that kool-aid cuz them kids at the Wiz-Bang Factory have lots more coming. I wish I had some of that stuff now.

Back to the beginning of this post: about creating the interlocking path outlines and all. I and my extraordinary team are working hard on 1) getting the contractual obligations off my plate and 2) getting some extremely sweet free content onto yours. It’ll be called Deke’s Techniques. It’ll be a weekly video blog. And it’s not far away. The Celtic knot will be part of it. But so much more. Remember, I’m either famine (like now) or feast (until you will beg me to stop). The latter is coming before this year is out.

Brace yourselves.