Stuart & Scooter go for a Ride: Hairless Pig-Dog???

I just LOVE this stamp! (Stuart & Scooter can be found hangin' out at the bottom of this page.)

It's the perfect stamp BUT I don't know how to colour it, so I had to add this question (it's killing me!?!) Is Scooter (the little animal guy in the back here) a pig or a dog? Charles says "Dog;" I say "Pig" and Charles says "He's open to interpretation." So is he a Pig-Dog??? If he is a dog I've coloured him wrong, so in this card he would have to be a hairless breed! Hehehe.

This is the first time I've tried masking. It was way easier than I thought it would be...I did it in 3 layers or 3 main steps: first, I stamped the whole image on S.U. "Craft" cardstock, cut out the box shape, and used my Hobby Blade (exacto) to cut a slit in the box, so I could slide those guys in; second, I stamped the top of the image onto "whisper White" cardstock, water-coloured them and cut them out (leaving a tab on the bottom of 'em so I could insert them and adhere 'em into the slot); third, I stamped the box wheels onto a piece of "Whisper White" cardstock and coloured them in with a black ink wash and silver zigpainty pen. I also masked the box off and stamped the grass in. Then I water-coloured the sky and the ground.

The dragonfly was added last (Man, was I paranoid that I'd stamp him wrong!) Thankfully, I was using the stamps on an acrylic block, so I could position him (This is also the only reason that I could get the grass at the right angle.) I have to say that I am rapidly becoming a fan of purchasing unmounted stamps so that I can work with more precision (or less muckin' up!)

I realized with this card that I like to do the painting first and then cut out the rectangle (or square...) of the main scene after, because I don't want the size to limit my design. This means I have to adhere the image onto each mat layer and then cut away the excess. (Does that make any sense at all?) ;0) What I mean is that I start the image on a big piece of white cardstock and cut away the outside... (same with the layers of colour that go behind it: textured "Blue Bayou," "Cool Caribbean," and "Not Quite Navy.")

I think I like this method because I hate measuring/marking and I just eyeball all my cuts, haha. In this case, building the image from the scene meant that I could mark the exact line of the hill onto the green "Certain Celery" card (with a pencil) and then add the tone-on-tone grass stamping to follow that slope. [You can just barely see it on the left and right.]

Thanks for having a peek & hope you have a great weekend,
Mel