The image in the November Stamp of the Month by From the Heart Stamps (Balloon Ride) was really challenging to color. Illustrator Faith Skurdla included a bouquet of balloons and provided an example of how to color them that inspired me to try and make the balloons look transparent.  Thanks to Faith for the challenge and the inspiration. My technique - I started with the balloons in the back and colored as if the whole balloon were visible then used my colorless blender to fade the colors that were behind other balloons. When I colored the balloons in the foreground, I used the lighter colors so the other colors would show through. This shows best in the detail shot where the purple balloon is behind the blue and red ones.  Where a light colored balloon was behind a dark one, the effect is minimal but I think that's true to life.

 

A predominantly white background seemed like the best way to show off the finished image so I embossed some white card stock and made a couple of simple panels.  Some little crayon embellishments from my stash (I'm pretty sure they are by Dress It Up but I have had them a for years and the packaging is long-gone), a scrap of the candle paper that provided the color pallette for the balloons (The Paper Studio, Party Candles), and a Happy B-day stamp from Stampin' Up finished it off.  I originally thought I would use a larger piece of the candle paper but ended up with just a scrap because the off-white background was distracting on a "white" card. 

 

I almost always try to create a visual triangle in my projects...this time it is provided by the multicolored elements - the balloons, and the two groupings of candles. This isn't typical, but I think it works...