A little announcement...

I've been a freelance illustrator for well over a decade and have worked with Copic now for 8 years. Very few things get me excited anymore about seeing my artwork published, seen, and used. In fact, the last time I got this excited was when Copic called me 6 years ago and offered me a full-time job instead of the freelance I usually do (oh and I have some storyboards that I worked up that are floating around Hollywood right now, but those are top secret so I can't be excited about those).

So what has me so excited? Let me tell you a little story...

Back in April I was getting ready to teach a certification class in Medford, OR. I had been blog hopping and I saw that some sweet papercrafter mentioned driving into Eugene recently. My little gears began turning... hmm, that person lives close to me, I wonder if they would like to come to a class in Medford?

So I e-mailed this person, whose name happens to be Cami. She contacts me and says,

"Why Medford, why not have a class in Eugene?"

"Ummm, OK, but I needed people to attend."

Cami said "How many?"

"I guess if we got 10 people together we could do it."

Cami says, "Give me two days."

I'll be darned, but she had 11 registered in two days and I had to get a location! One of the dear sweet people Cami got to come in for the class was a store from California, called Eclectic Paperie. Joy was her name, and she was such a gem! They both listened so well and paid attention and were excited about every little bit they learned in the class. All of the sweet ladies who attended that class were sooo nice (go visit Cami's blog for more info).

Now mind you, I'm NOT a papercrafter, I'm a graphic designer, artist, and illustrator. At the time of this class I maybe had like 10 stamps in my possession. None of which I really wanted to color on all day during a class (they were too small). To get pictures to color during the class I just dug through my computer and printed up a bunch of line artwork that we could work on.

I have a personal clipart collection that I've drawn over the years that is very extensive (If you can't tell, I draw and color a LOT). The whole class loved coloring my little pictures and I was happy that I got some use out of all that old artwork I had kicking around. Ideas began forming among class attendees...

We colored and Copic'd all day with lots of other fabulous papercrafters. Joy and Cami weren't leaving town for a few days, so the next day I got an e-mail asking if I wanted to get together. Sad to say, I was on kid duty so I invited them over to my place to play while I cleaned :) Within 10 min. they were at my house. For the next 3 hours they sat down and poured through every sketchbook I've drawn in the last 8 years. By the end of the evening they had a plan.

We're going to start a company to turn Marianne's artwork into stamps.

And so, after many months of hard work, rough ideas, and late nights drawing, may I introduce

There's a whole fabulous team, not just the three of us (we can't forget Kimberley!!). It's a company created by stampers, for stampers, and gives me a way to share all the artwork that I draw with everyone so they can have fun coloring it themselves :). OCL will have lots of other great papercrafting supplies and are expanding every day the cool things they offer.

My personal goal is to draw a little bit of everything. If you notice in the first release and with each release there is a variety of artwork and styles. That's because I like to draw a LOT. And I like to draw EVERYTHING. So those of you who have bugged me since I started this blog that I need to turn my artwork into stamps, I have listened, and I was way ahead of you.

What does this have to do with Copic?

Nothing. I still work for Copic, but OCL is my freelance outlet. Nothing on this blog will change. I'll still share coloring techniques using an unbiased mix of my own artwork and stamps from a variety of companies. Just know that if you are interested in coloring MY pictures yourself you now have a way to get them :). As a representative of Copic my goal is to teach EVERYONE to color anything (oh I almost forgot, I need to post more car designs and architecture since those people need pointers as well as papercrafters...so much to draw, so few colors :).

Stamping
However, because of the new company I had to make a card. Here is my version of the Anna Mae stamp set. She's patterned after my own little AnnaMae, with her little blond curls that flip up at the ends. I turned her upside down, stamped each leg individually so she can be doing a handstand, and doodled on the dress pattern with a 0.1 mm multiliner that matches the tissue paper. She's colored with BG11, R81, R30, Y21, E50, E11, BV02, and E31. I added little bling rhinestones and colored the white silk ribbon with my BV02 marker so it matches. I attached the ribbon with a white brad and smile happily hangs off that ribbon.

If you get a chance, please stop by and check out the cool things at OCL. Also check out the great artwork posted by the ladies who have been working all week on sneak peeks.

Have a great weekend and enjoy those new stamps! I'll continue next week with my posts on coloring large areas.