Koi - Sketch Style

It is that time again, when thoughts turn to the incredible sketches that Kathi, our fearless Bombshell leader, challenges us to use. This month she chose a simple beautiful sketch, and honestly, this ended up being one of my favorite cards I have EVER made.

This card was made a little bit differently - in that I worked different than I usually do. I first decided which way I wanted the sketch to be. Kathi challenged us to use this sketch, and I decided it needed to be flipped. Then I chose my stamp. I looked through all the Bombshells I had to figure out which ones went best with this layout.

Then I chose my paper. I found this Best Creations paper with a dragon flying up, but the great thing about it was the water at the bottom. And it coordinated with the other sheet of paper (the back paper). THEN I chose my colors to coordinate. I say this was different because I typically color up an image and then try to find paper that matches, then come up with a layout... so this was reversed almost.

I colored the Koi up with YR21 and then started layering from the inside edge of all of the scales with YR23, R22, 24 and 27, then I went back over with YR21. On the fins I layered the same way and added in R39 at the base to make it darker. I then added shading with the R22 along the scales. The "water" I tried to match some of the water splashing on the paper and used the W4, 6, 7, 9 series to try to match it.

 I used crystal stickles over the water colored to add some shimmer to match the paper, and also used crystal effects to make the fish all shiny. The  I used some charms from the jewelry section at JoAnns to anchor the top.

Ok... Now that I have bored you all to death, I really hope you pop on over to the Bombshell Stamps blog and take part in the Sketch Challenge this month. And if you don't have any Bombshell stamps, take a look at the "Anything Goes" special challenge, for a chance to win some of these super fun stamps.

Talk to you soon!!!!