A really small gang...

Good morning! 

When 7 Kids got in the new More Jungle Littles set from Hello Bluebird I had to add them to my cart immediately. All of the little critters in the set are super cute but it was the adorable meerkat that really sealed the deal. There is just something about meerkats, watching them hang out with each other, popping in and out of their burrows, that I just find totally endearing. So even though there is only one meerkat in the set I wanted to try my hand at creating a small gathering of them on my card through some selective inking.The two up front I only inked up the heads so that I could color the dirt in around them and create the appearance of them peeking out of the ground. Then I just masked them and added a few more behind them, wiping away the tail on two of them before stamping and then drawing in a new tail off to the opposite side on one to help change things up a bit more. Once I had them stamped it was time to create the background so I googled meerkat sunset photos and found this really cool one with a yellow sky that looked awesome but also scared me a bit to try. But since these are the challenges that make us better colorists, I took a deep breath and dove right into it. I am really pleased with the end result even though the dark cloud bank doesn't look near as fluffy as it does in the photo. And while in reality my meerkat gang being backlit like that would have been cast in silhouette I decided to take some artistic license with the scene and color them in like they are front lit. Who knows, maybe there is a wild life photographer using her flash there to capture them in front of that Sahara sunset. ;)

Have a great week everybody!

Supply list:
cardstock- Papertrey Ink and Copic X-Press It
stamps- Hello Bluebird (More Jungle Littles), Mama Elephant (sentiment)
ink- Memento tuxedo black and Versamark watermark
Hero Arts white detail embossing powder
My Favorite Things A2 stitched rectangle stax set 1
Copic markers:
meerkats- E40, E31, E33, E35, E93, W5, W7, W8, 110 
sky- YR30, Y0000, Y000, Y00, Y11, Y21, Y26, V000, V20, V22, V25, V28, 0
ground- E44, E47, E49, 110, 0