Shapes created with liquify tool to be used in entry

Bird, leaf and animal shapes

House shape added

Grass formed with liquify from gnome's shirt

Grass being duplicated to form lawn.

Gnome is added, scaling for size. Will be duplicated many times, with hand and arm waving to be added with brush tool. Many will be color changed with hue tool.

Hot air balloon shape was also created from gnome hat and will be further shaped with eraser and brush tools. Designs will be put on using the graph lines to help place them evenly. Burn tool will add shadows and help to give balloons a rounded look. Baskets underneath are trimmed up with brush and eraser tools. Little gnomes will be created with brush tool, then duplicated and color changed with hue/saturation tool. Cables to hold basket to balloon will be drawn with fine brush tool.

I decided to make canvas larger here. (For some reason I always run out of space!) But, to give the effect of lots of depth, I thought I needed more heighth. I added to both top and bottom using the 'canvas size' tool.

The sky is inserted from source and will be enhanced using soft airbrush to help soften clouds.

Mountains are shaped from gnome hat using liquify. I left some of the colors around hat from when I lassoed it (very loosely). I liked the way it kind of gave the impression of snow on them. Three layers of mountains will be duplicated, then opacity changed a little lower for back two layers. When they are too thin so that sky shows through, a solid white layer of thin ones is duplicated and placed on layer behind colored one.

Here are three layers of the mountains.

Leaves are duplicated (using alt key), then attached to tree which was formed with liquify tool. Eraser tool will trim areas where leaves attach.

Water is inserted here from the source. I was going to use the gnome with reflections in the water, but later changed my mind, but leave this step in to show how often you have to change gears in some entries. Water at bottom would be covered later with grass, path and flowers.

Here are more hot air balloons being added. Be sure to vary sizes with edit/transform/scale tool, and vary height. One balloon will have a slight cloudy flow over it, and be sure to add a little gaussian blur since they are moving.
I will later move the largest balloon down over water to appear that it just took off.

Path is created using the beach portion of source. Using the cloning tool, I duplicated portions of it to create path, and with color of sand, airbrushed the beach in. Shadows will be put across the path after grass is inserted, and edges of grass erased away to blend into path. More balloons are added here, also.

Dog created from gnomes hat is inserted, scaled smaller, and face is added with brush tool, burn tool adds shadows. Two more dogs are duplicated, scaled smaller, then added down by beach.

The boats were a last minute decision, but it seemed that some of those little guys would watch the launches from a boat. It was also created by liquify and from gnome hat, trimmed up with eraser tool, and further shaped with smudge tool. Burn tool for shadows, then some of the little gnomes from the balloons were cloned into the boats.

There were so many steps I may have forgotten. (Houses had to be duplicated, sized to different sizes, and color changed with hue/saturation tool; some female gnomes had to be created also and color changed. Light source had to be established for entire work, and as various items were changed horizontally, light was changed. Flowers were formed with the lasso tool, then color changed with hue/saturation tools; some made smaller and some flipped horizontally; centers made with brush tool. Birds were made with liquify, used larger on one balloon, using smudge tool to fit curve of balloon and other birds were made smaller to fly in sky. I placed them where they joined water and mountains together. )