Did you ever wonder what mice do on Halloween?

Well, here is my take on the answer, I have this wonderful set of Halloween House Mouse clear stamps, there are 8 of the cute little guys all dressed up for Halloween. As you can see, 4 of them are checking out their goodies after having visited the nearby house. The finished size of this scene is 9 3/4 inches by 7 3/4 inches. I began my scene by stamping the 4 mice and masking each of them. Next came the tree from Beeswax (which I also masked), the cabin from Sutter, the fence from Beeswax, the path from Sutter using a stamp positioner, then the hills from Stampscapes, masking the edges of the house with a paper towel. I thought the dead tree from Beeswax gave some creepiness to the scene. The rocks are also Beeswax, the filler grass is from Stampscapes. Now to coloring, I always lay down my light color, shade with my darker and then come back with the light and blend them in. I NEVER use my blender pen to blend, that is for erasing. I started with the mice; their faces, hands and feet (and the belly on the vampire bat) are E41 Pearl White, their fur is E43 Dull Ivory. The caterpillar is YG01 Green Bice shaded with YG13 Chartreuse. The Swiss cheese is Y11 Pale Yellow. The carrot is YR12 Loquat shaded with YR18 Sanguine. Both of the pumpkin containers are YR04, chrome orange. The brave Vampire bat is BV00 Mauve Shadow shaded with BV11 Soft Violet. Now on to the scenery, I took E53 Raw Silk and colored in all the dirt areas, G40 Dim Green for all the grassy areas. Then I took E51 Milky White and went over all those areas blending in the colors, giving it a warm dead grass look. The rocks along the path and under the dead tree are E70 Ash Rose, E71 Champagne with E53 Raw Silk as a blending color. (I quite often will use E50, 51 or 53 as a top coat to change the overall look of a scene. They make wonderful blenders and just warm up the scene.) I used E15 Dark Suntan on the cabin, then used E13 Light Suntan for the door and window frames. The tree on the left is colored with E44 Clay, I used it for shading also, just went over the areas I wanted darker a second time. And the leaves on the vine around the tree are YG63 Pea Green. That brings me to the sky. I wanted it darker around the edges to bring your eye into the scene. I started airbrushing with B23 Phthalo Blue, following it with B26 Cobalt Blue, B29 Ultramarine and lastly C6 Cool Gray just on the outer edges. I would have used black for the last step but do not have it in a Sketch marker that will work in my airbrush. I also used RV32 Shadow Pink across the center of the sky. The final step was to add the spooky branches around the outer edge to help push the scene back and invite the eye into the scene and the birds in the sky. I always like to mat my scenes, first with a black card stock, followed by a matching color from the scene. I did not have a blue that matched this, so I chose a lighter blue, mounted it and then just airbrushed it to match. Pretty cool! I hope you enjoy my scene and that it puts a smile on your face.