Gradient and Brush Practice

Today I was messing around and practicing with the different brush tools, and this is what I came up with.  To make this image, I took a picture of myself from my computer and traced it using the brush tool, went in and changed the style of the brush so it looked more like a paintbrush, and hid the original picture of me so it is no longer visible.  Next, I used the brush tool to create the red flowers going down the right side of the image.  To make the flowers, I found a different brush tool that was a random assortment of these flowers, and simply drew a line, and the flowers appeared.  The words "do it with passion or not al all..." were created in the same way; using the brush tool to write it out and finding a style that I liked.  Finally, I created the gradient in the background by using the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle, then using the gradient window to select the colors and adjust it to how I wanted it to look.