I just got gimp recently and I've been using here and there... but I don't think I'm using it to it's potential. I've heard over and over about layers... But I don't understand the point of them... I've been told they're like a saftey net in case you make a big mistake... I've also been told you use them for shading....I've also been told for can use them for special effects.... but they confuse the crap out of me. I've been told to read the tuts, but my programs says it cannot find the file that contains the tuts.....

So I have two things I'm asking.... 1: a explaination of how to use layers for shading
and 2: how does this look?, point out any mistakes that I did so far.......

this is incomplete ( well no shit ).... still working on sand and water and other things ( basically details )

In the sand, I was going to go over it in a darker shade of the sand color and smudge it to death

In the water, I'm doing the same thing with the sand, except a lighter tint, and I was going to add white/ whitesh blue for like the foam and stuff

yes..... this is ALL ON ONE LAYER...... I used a pencil drawing as a guide, which i scanned...