Snow Fairy

Hello, hello, hello!
Helen here today.
Hope you all have had a nice time since last month.
Up here, in the north, the light is beginning to come back, and that is what has inspired me for my coloring today. A cold, frosty morning in the middle of February. Even if I myself prefer the darkness...

The image is from a clear stamp set called Snow Fairies from Penny Black, by Mo Manning.

As always, I stamped my image with Memento Ink on Perfect Coloring Paper.

I sketched in the background with C0.

I wanted a dreamy look, right there, when the first sunlight strikes you in the morning, when the color in the sky turns, so I started with R0000 - BV0000 along the edges and in the middle I put in Y0000 - B0000.
C5 defines the bottom of the snow brink, the snow got some B0000 - B000 - Y0000 and the water got some Y0000 - R0000. The snowball got B0000 - B91 - B000.

I wanted more depth in the sky so in the bottom of the red I went in with R00 and yet another layer of the other colors in the sky.

Shadows in the right C2.
Shadows to the left BV20.
The birches got the first layer E40.
The water got B41.

Next layer for the birches are E42.

Then I went in with Y0000 - R0000.
C2 for branches, and I wanted the trees on the right to be soft.

To make the birches to the left pop and come closer to the front I went in with C3 - C5, just scribbled. I outlined the trees and on the right side of them I left a part that didn´t got the outline because I wanted it to look like the sunlight hits the stem there.
To the right the ground/snow got some BV0000 - BG000.

Made some shadow for the fairy and footprints with B41 - B45 - B95.
The water got some B45.

I struggled with the water. 
The shades is: B41 - B45 - B93 - B95 - B97.

The skin color I used is E000 - R00.

Shadows BV20.

On top of that BV20 I layered E33, blended it with E11 and blendet that with E00.

Made some smaller trees to the left and scribbled in some grass with C5.
And I wanted a harder, darker shadow to the left so I went in  with B45.

The first layer for the pants is E81.

Went in with my darkest (I thought) color for the pants, E87.
And as the sun doesn´t hit the pants in the front, they will be dark.

Blended it with E84 - E81 and for some details I used E89.
The buttons got Y20 - YR23.
The hat got the same colors as the pants.
And the wings got the same as the background and I added B72 for some parts.

Used some Gelly  Roller Dark White to get some snow on the branches and to define some grass.

I asked a friend about my coloring and she came back with "the sky should be lined horizontal and not vertical". But that´s exactly what makes it look dreamy. And - in real life there are no fairies so I guess we could color a sky vertical as well as horizontal...
What do you think?

Love
Helen