Autumn scene

Even though we're in the middle of another summer heatwave, I'd like to show you my first fall-themed creation of the year. I didn't really plan to jump between seasons, but I was offered a GD spot over at Penny's papertake for my win in one of their recent challenges. For my crafting task, I was offered to pick between three lovely digis by Mirtillamente, and somehow, this autumn scene warmed my heart. 

I love how your typical Halloween combo of a pumpkin and a cat is expanded by some lovely mushrooms, as well as some autumn foliage. I immediately felt like creating a non-card project with an image like this, and started acting accordingly: I printed the digi a bit larger than I usually would if it was for a card. I then went to work with my coloured pencils, colouring the motif with warm colours. I decided to stick with a natural colour scheme, and I must say I'm quite satisfied with the result, except for the giant pumpkin: no matter how I tried, I didnt seem to get the shading right. As a resukt, it looks like a huge orange blob rather than a textured vegetable, but I hope that this can be balanced out by all the other details that I managed to get right. 

The cat was a bit tricky to do, too. Of course, it had to be black to match the Halloween pumpkin, but I tried to add a bit of colour with the soft pink ears and green eyes. So far, so good. The other details, however, turned out to be too tiny, and while you may recognize the nose under a microscope, the little vampire teeth became completely invisible amongst the black fur. 

Once the colouring was done, I took an old picture frame from my stash. I wanted to throw it away already as I didn't have any use for it, but I think it will make a fun fall display now with the image in it. I cut the picture to the right size, and inserted it behind the glass. For a while, I thought about painting the wooden frame a different colour, but I decided to leave it like that for now. Mainly it was because I couldn't pick one colour to go with: I guess black would be too much of a contrast as the frame is quite prominent, gold would be too much of a mismatch, and any shade of brown just didn't seem to resonate with me. There's enough of warm autumn colours in my card already, which could prompt me to go the opposite way with green or maybe purple, but in this case, the autumn theme of the image would completely disappear into Halloween. I'm a bit lost and confused here. As a result I'm now stuck with this orange-looking frame that is actually a brown-ish red, but it makes the whole image look a bit too orang-y. I can't say I'm thrilled with that part of my project, and I might paint the frame later to try to find a better solution, but I can't come up with anything at the moment. What would you do in my position? Any crafting tipps or suggestions? 

challenges:

- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a place to start: ATG with optional twist "leaves/trees"

- gem of a challenge: ATG (stamp/digi)

- allsorts challengeblog: all creations great and small

- classicdesignchallenge: ATG DT 

- crafty calendar: ATG

- creative crafty uncles: animals
- creative inspirations: ATG
- creative moments: ATG

- critter crazy: ATG animals

- kreativtanten: ATG

- lil patch of crafty friends: ATG handmade

- morgans artworld: ATG

- use your stuff: recycle/upcycle (old picture frame)

- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide crafters and colorists challenge: ATG