Coloring, hinting....

Coloring:  I am still playing with my pencils and this is my latest offering.  I have all of my digital images divided by folders in my computer.  When I got ready to sit down seriously and color, I opened my Mo Manning folder and printed several images in Word.  Since I scanned this image, I added Glossy Accents to the pot which shined it up nicely.  I really love doing the hair on these images, you don't have to blend.  You just find three colors that go together well and stroke them in.  I have another little girl on the drawing board, hopefully I can share tomorrow.

Hinting:  I often see examples of really fine cardmaking that I want to save for future inspiration.  Keeping track of those pictures I copy (I don't use Pinterest) is often a problem.  I've recently solved it.  When I do a 'save as' on a picture of a card that has an element I really like, I name it with that element.  Such as:  I found a picture of a card that had a terrific layout on it.  So I named it 'Layout 1', I assumed I would find more pictures of layouts that I like.  I would never be so crass as to copy exactly another person's art, but I do get ideas from looking.  Later, when I look through my saved pictures, I can tell from the name what it was that caught my attention.  I've also created a little database in Access that keeps track of URLs that I find informative.  There are only three fields:  name, URL and comment.  I might find a wonderful tutorial on making a word book so I would add 'Word Book' into the name field, the URL of the tutorial in the URL field and a comment such as 'would be a great book to send to Lowell and Marcia for Christmas'.  When I am at a loss for ideas for Lowell and Marcia, I will search the comment section for their names.  I can also search the name for 'word book'.  We all know that inspiration can elude us sometimes, these two ideas often jumpstart my creativity.