Good Gracious! August is almost over and ...

... And Jake and Kitty are out enjoying this hot summer day.  That leaves me to upload the August card for the 2014 Christmas Challenge (from DigiStamps4Joy).

Still having trouble with the printer -- rrrrggghh! -- so ...

Anyhow, NOW is a great time to get to work on your handmade Christmas cards if you have not already.  And if you have not already become part of the monthly challenge over at DigiStamps4Joy, it is not too late!  Just let Desire know that you want to join in the fun too!

I don't usually work with figures (unless they are fat-legged children) in my stamping and digi-stamping.  However, this month's image was so much fun to work with, I may end up reconsidering and begin to add a few big-eyed gals to my collection.  :-)

Skin-tone and hair can be a problem for me.  But a few YouTube videos later, they don't daunt me quite as much as before.  Sorry, I don't remember which videos they were or I would share the links (if I find them again,I will gladly share!  :D).  In one video, the artist was "painting" a portrait using Prismacolor pencils.  She was laying in the blonde hair and made two very interesting comments as she worked.  First, there was no yellow in the blonde hair!  Second, she did not draw lines to put in strands of hair but used layers of color and uncolored space to create the hair.  It was wonderful!  [Hmmm ... I think I will go try to find that video and come back and edit the post to add in the link ... in the meantime, join in the 2014 Christmas Challenge!]

{Edited a bit later}  FOUND IT!  Here is the link to the YouTube video for drawing a face (or coloring in one) using colored pencils:   http://youtu.be/1OL6sPi2-p0
Plus one more just for the sheer amazing-ness of it!  Drawing Jack Sparrow using ballpoint pen:  http://youtu.be/VC6kABusOJQ
(Sorry, tried to have the title of the videos as the text for the YouTube links but blogger here would not behave for me ...)  Enjoy both videos,though :-D