Certifiction and Setting up in-store events

What a long, great trip! I met so many fabulous people this weekend and had a great time. Somewhere between Mardi Gras and northern Florida I picked up a cold, which was not helped by flying, so I have been a little behind in my posting. However, I have some class info to go over today before I post a tutorial tomorrow.

Certification, Spring 09
First of all, we had some technical difficulties on the applications I had all ready to go before I left town, so I apologize for everyone trying to get into April and May classes. Those will be going out as soon as I can fix the auto applications. Please do not bug us for applications if you have already asked to be on a mailing list or signed up through our sidebar. The applications are on the way, trust me.

New Certification Location- Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada
Sherrie Siemens has just arranged a new Canadian location for Winnepeg, June 6th. I will be doing a mailing next week for that class, so if you are in Central Canada or the Northern part of Minnesota or North Dakota this is a great opportunity for you. Again, you can sign up via the registration form on my sidebar.

Certi-fiction
We have also had some questions arise about what a certification class will help you with and why it is open first to Store Owners, Teachers, and Design Team Members. Here in a nutshell are some ideas of what to do after you take a Copic Certification class in papercrafting.

After you are Certified...
Once you are Copic Certified you get a lovely little certificate to hang on your wall and you can say you're certified on your blog. Now you need to practice, practice, practice. What else do you get from attending the class?

What you Can do:
• Listed on our online Instructor list- this is located on the Copic Website under Instructors. It is currently being updated, so if your name is not on the list and you took a class after November, don't worry. Soon you can expect it to be updated within 2-3 weeks after each certification class, tough there are a lot of certification classes taking place this spring so please be patient.

• Offer in-store demos- ask your local stamp store if they would like you to do a demo or make-n-take. You need to provide all your own product supplies and make 'n take parts, though we are happy to offer literature and support materials. Please allow 2-3 weeks shipping if you request literature.

• Teach a papercrafting class- Take the techniques you learn and turn them into a workshop. You can print off any posts from this blog as instructional material, though you need to credit where the info came from. Again, if you need literature, just let us know with adavace warning and we'll be happy to help.

If you are teaching a class and you will need markers please remember: Copic markers are in very high-demand and you will want to place your order at least 60 days (preferrably 90 days if the colors are very specific) before your workshop especially if you order direct through Copic. Don't set up a class before you have product arranged- this will just make people unhappy. Ditto for stores trying to set up a Copic Club. Please have product before you hype an event.

• Peace of mind- You'll know that you heard information about Copics straight from our official representatives. If you ever have a question or problem just bug one of us and we either find the answer or take it straight to the manufacturer in Japan.

• Blog - Go ahead and share anything you learned in the class on your blog. Just cite where you learned the technique from if it is unusual or if others might have questions. If you have a blog and are certified and need the logo send me an e-mail with the city you were certified in and I will be happy to send that to you.

• Get asked by other people to teach - Occasionally we have a need for a demo or workshop across the country. We may contact you or another store might contact you. For this reason, be sure that your blog shows good, high-quality use of Copic products so that if someone comes looking for your services they'll know what kinds of things you make.

• Use the status to get on design teams - I know that it means a lot to some design teams if one of their candidates is Copic Certified, however, you still need to prove though high-quality work that you know what you learned and to get them to pick you.

What you can't do:
• Get Frustrated. If you're certified you still need to practice, it won't magically work the first time. Those of you who have taken the class know what I mean. Some of the blending techniques are tricky and you might not have mastered them during the class. Just keep practicing and you will improve. This is why you can re-take the class. We know you won't get it all the first time.

• Certify others. Sorry, to be able to certify others is a long, involved process and we are NOT looking for new instructors at this time. You can teach local classes but nott official Copic Certification classes.

As you can see, Certification is geared for people who plan on going and sharing what they have learned with others via store, classes, or online through their blog. We want everyone to be able to have access to high-quality Copic classes, even if they can't attend a certification themselves. If anyone takes a class from someone who is certified and has a good experience, please contact us. Likewise, if you have a bad experience please let us know why and how they can improve.

I hope this helps you understand the process a little better. We want everyone to be happy with their product knowledge and we'are always looking for ways to improve our education events. In 2009 and 2010 we hope to visit many more cities and offer classes in places that have not had them before. Have patience! It may take a while to come to your region, but know that we still love you.

I'm Still Here

I am still here, I've just been busy with so many fabulous papercrafters. Friday we had a great certification, despite Mardi Gras delays and traffic. Sunday we had a wonderful class at Flourishes. I discussed the last post in-depth, so we covered elements of layout AND we discussed color theory and the weight of colors.

Although I'm not showing much today, I want to direct you to a fabulous website that allows you to type in a word and find color scheme related to it, or you can take a color you have and look at color combinations based on that color. Go look and play- it will help you get color ideas to break out of a rut.

You need to have a recent version of Flash Player, but it't totally worth it. Enjoy this until I get back in town and post some more stuff. Have a great week!

http://kuler.adobe.com/

Basic Rules of Good Design

I'm here in lovely New Orleans, getting ready for my class tomorrow. As I am waiting for the blog to move I'll post some more things without supporting artwork or diagrams. I posted this to a group of stampers on SCS, but as I mention, I learned these rules of good composition as a graphic designer for newspaper layouts. I need to give credit to my 9th grade journalism teacher Mrs. Bigham if anything...These rules of thumb got me through design school and my journalism minor and I have yet to find anything as simple or concise when thinking of layout.

Anyways, I hope this helps you as you think of composition and how the parts make up the whole. It really has little to do with Copic, and more to do with good design. Eventually I will take each point and expand on it with artwork. Again, sorry I am directing this at stampers, but it is a key element of any creative composition- not just cardmaking.

A Summary of Good Design
To understand why you can instantly recognize a good card design yet you have no idea how to get there yourself you need to check out a book or two from the library on basic graphic design and layout. Our eyes and mind see it, but without RECOGNIZING what the good elements are we will never be able to re-produce it.

In my high school journalism class I was the graphic designer and in charge of making the whole paper look good. I would train each new batch of students on the elements of good design. We had a formulae that has never failed me, and it can be applied to both graphic design and fine art as well as in cardmaking: DUMB-V

First, Hold your card at arm's length and squint at it. Then you see the parts, not the details. Then go over each element of good design

D: Design. or overall design, format, size- the technical stuff

U: Unity. Do all the parts go together, not always match, but at least go together? This is why we care so much about color and patterns.

M: Movement. What is the first element that catches your eye? then where does your eye go from there? do you get lost and it all blends together? if the flow is wrong or the main thing doesn't stand out then it's poorly designed. Ribbon or stripes pull your eye in the direction they travel, so a ribbon should be strategically placed so that it pulls the eye into your most important element (then people tie a bow to really give a focal point).

Sentiments are read from left to right, so your eye naturally travels from left to right. when it reaches the right, it should be pulled back into the top of the card somehow, and from there, back into the middle, or in an endless loop. This makes you look longer at the card, and if you spent an hour making it you darn well want someone to look at it longer than 5 seconds!!
(see V.)

In scrapbooking, this is why you don't want your photos looking off the page, people follow the direction of eyes and if the eyes look right off the page then you lose your audience. Same with stamps of things that have eyes. If the art is looking in a direction, then try putting your sentiment in that direction. In a composition, the stamp is looking at something within itself.

Take for instance, the Hanna stamp where she is placing a star on top of a christmas tree. Hanna is looking at the star, her arm is out holding the star, then if you put the tree under her hand you have a loop Hanna, Arm, Star, tree, back to hanna. If you have no tree, then put your sentiment near the star, then your hanna pulls you into the sentiment. No tree, then you have one other element down in the empty space under the sentiment and next to hanna to balance the image. Don't make the last element too big or contrasty, this upsets the balance:

B: Balance. Each color, each bling, each patterned paper has a visual weight. Dark things are heavier than light. Contrasty patterns are stronger and heavier than subtle patterns. Your most important element usually stands out because it has the most contrast. When you add a ribbon that is the same color as your background paper the ribbon is lost because it has no weight of it's own. Too many high contrast papers and your image gets muddy and unbalanced. Start simple- one solid, one pattern, one bling or punch and one stamped image/sentiment. see how these work with each other. Bling, like a big ole sparkly something thrown on, will have a lot of weight- like a black hole it sucks your attention in and then you loose the important part of the card. That's why the little rows of tiny blings look so much better than one big, horking rhinestone.

In design, classy things are visually stable, conveying long lasting. So a classy sympathy card should be heavy on the bottom, since it's visually more stable. A fun, whimsical card can be light and airy, but slightly top heavy. Trendy, urban things tend towards heavy on top. this is a whole branch of study...

V: Variety. This is making it interesting. this is the bling, the ribbon, the pop-dots. This is what makes you want to keep looking. You will tread the fine line between variety and balance. The GOOD cardmakers have practiced enough that they can instinctively know what the balance is.

Beginners should err on the side of plain. A simple card always looks classy. Too many patterned cardstocks without understanding how they balance each other will just look tacky and busy. You can always dress up a plain card, but it's harder to mute out a bad one. For a rule of thumb, use only 3 elements- or elements in odd numbers. 3, 5, 7. But make only 3 elements important. Repeating elements, like 3 circles in a row, become one visual element because your eye groups them together. (I tend to have plain cards because clashing patterns and too much bling bug me- just like using too many different typefaces on one page of design).

As you can see, there is a lot to study. You can learn it on your own, you don't need a design degree, but the first step is recognizing what the parts are that add up to a good design. I hope this helps. Have a great week!

Krylon Art Scholarship opportunity

As we move my blog over to the Copic site you will notice a few small changes. First, I will be adding categories: Stamping/Papercrafting, Fine Art, Professional Design, Comic Drawing, general Product knowledge etc.

This will be in addition to the regular Beginner, Advanced, and other categories. This is a means of helping ALL Copic users out there, not just a small demographic and makes it easier to search through posts for useful stuff. I still love all of you, but we want everyone to feel like they are growing in their knowledge of art supplies.

We also are striving to be a resource for students choosing an art-career field and help them have the guides they need to succeed. To further this goal I would like to pass this information on to any student looking for scholarships in art. This is from Krylon and was passed on to me (Copic has no affiliation with this scholarship). Good luck to students! If any of you hear of opportunities like this, please pass them along as well so that we can help anyone improve their art knowledge:

Dear Designers,

Below is a release about a new scholarship opportunity from Krylon. Please
pass the information along to any high school seniors and college students
you know who are pursuing a degree in fine arts. Thank you.

KRYLON CREATES CLEAR CHOICE ART SCHOLARSHIPS
Scholarship Includes 30 Student and School Awards in 2009

(CLEVELAND, February 17, 2009) Krylon®, inventor of the first aerosol clear
coatings to preserve priceless artwork, continues to support the Arts with
new Krylon® Clear Choice Art Scholarships. The new program will award
future fine artists and the schools they attend with scholarship money,
grants and art supplies totaling approximately $12,300. Top prizes include
five $1,000 scholarships and five, $500 grants for winners' schools.
Winners will also receive a generous gift package of essential Krylon Artist
Sprays and Adhesives.

"Our heritage is in the art market and today our products are the choice of
fine artists for the preservation of priceless artwork," says Michelle
Neuhauser, Krylon Market Manager. "We're proud to invest in the future of
art by awarding scholarships to help art students pursue their dreams and
meet rising tuition costs. The Krylon Clear Choice Art Scholarships also
supports the schools our winners are attending at the time of application."


The Krylon Clear Choice Art Scholarships will award five $1,000
non-renewable scholarships to high school seniors and college freshman and
sophomore students currently accepted at or enrolled in a fine art program.
The five scholarship recipients will also receive a student gift package of
Krylon Artist Sprays and Adhesives with an approximate retail value of $70.
In addition, the winners' schools will receive a $500 grant and a school
gift package of Krylon Artist Sprays and Adhesives with an approximate
retail value of $250.
Ten additional students and the schools they attend will also receive gift
packages of Krylon Artist Sprays and Adhesives.

Scholarship applications are due by May 31, 2009, and scholarship recipients
will be notified in writing by July 31, 2009. For more information about
the Krylon Clear Choice Art Scholarships, including application forms, visit
www. krylon.com/art <http://www.landingpageURL.com

> ..

Krylon is the nation's leading spray paint manufacturer and is number one in
innovation and consumer brand recognition. Its line of artist finishes and
craft and décor products, including Artist Sprays, Adhesives, Metallic
Finishes, Brushed Metallics, Spray Stain, Glass Paints, Fusion, H20(tm)
Latex Spray Paint, Outdoor Spaces® Paints and Finishes, Faux Finishes, Fun
Finishes, Brights Paint Pens, Hobby Paints and Indoor/Outdoor general
purpose paints, are manufactured by Sherwin-Williams Diversified Brands,
headquartered at 101 Prospect Ave. NW, Cleveland, Ohio 44115. For more
information, call 1-800-4-KRYLON (1-800-457-9566) or visit the website at
www.krylon.com.

Blog Winner, Video Preview, and other notes

Blog Candy Winner!
I want to thank all of you who left comments on my blog and the other blogs for the fabulous stamp set giveaway by Our Craft Lounge. Out of 272 comments, the winner for the St. Patrick's Day set is:

RANDOM.ORG

True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

214 

Timestamp: 2009-02-16 09:01:54 UTC

which means that Dorrie is the winner!

Dorrie said...

Cute set. Thanks for the chance to win.

Thank you Dorrie for leaving your comment. Just send me an e-mail with your address and we'll send that set right out! And thank you to all the kids who came and colored with us in the Youth Room this weekend at the Asian Celebration. As always it was a fun event, so thank you!

For those of you trying to guess which sets I did not draw for this release by Our Craft Lounge, some of you got close, but no one go them all. I know it's tricky because I already warned you that I like to switch my style around and you won't have any idea that I didn't do it. We have two other talented artists that also contributed this time, and the 4 cute sets they made are Kiss Me I'm Green, Children of the World, Snail Mail, and Hello Spring.

Video preview

If you didn't stop by the Copic booth at CHA and you are dying to know about the upcoming airbrushing DVD's, you can get a preview of them on the Copic homepage. These will be available in the next couple months, and will retail for around $19.95 each. The 3 videos are Papercrafting (with Ellen Hutson), Landscape Architecture, and Comic Illustration. Each video goes into the studio of the professionals we interview and shows a glimpse of their working style, tools, and techniques. You'll get a complete step-by-step of their process, so be looking for those videos.

Certification Notes
Meanwhile, if you're trying to get on the certification mailing lists and the sign up doesn't work, just send me a quick e-mail with the locations you're interested in and I'll add you to those lists. I know we have mostly West Coast and East Coast locations this spring, but hopefully this fall there will be more Mid-west or other locations. Anyone outside the US or Canada that is trying to get into a specific location should send me an e-mail. Although I don't have Summer CHA on the official list yet since I don't have details, I know that many of you will be coming in for that show and I am happy to accommodate you as much as possible.

Blog Happenings
On another note, for those of you who are worried about my blog moving, whenever it officially happens I will automatically switch your subscriptions over with me if you registered through my sidebar. The rest of you will have to switch your other subscription services manually. The switch will probably come while I am out this next weekend, though no guarantees (I hope they get the bugs done soon, since I have lots of neat stuff I'm holding off on posting).

You will be able to get to my blog from the Copic website. Also, if you are on Facebook or Myspace you should come join our groups of friends to find out what we're doing today and see who the other Copic admirers are out there. We like having lots of ways for Copic users to connect with each other and see what they've created with Copic Markers.

Certification Class updates

Happy Valentine's Day! Don't forget to sign up on yesterday's post for some blog candy

I will be sending out the mailing next week for the following classes in April and May. Please sign up via the form on the right so you don't get left out! Note the new locations on the East Coast!

April and May classes
April 5, Savage, MD
April 19, Kingsport, TN
April 22, San Francisco, CA
April 26th, Chino CA
May 3rd, Rotterdam, NY
May 17th, Rockland, MA
May 31st, Smithville, OH

Upcoming in June
Manchester, NH
Durham, NC

Blog Candy Fun

I promised Cami over at Our Craft Lounge that I would play her stamping game, and you get to be the winner. Today Our Craft Lounge is releasing 28 new stamp sets. Want to see them all? Click here. My friends thought it would be fun to give away all 28 sets to celebrate our second release, one of EACH new set!

Today, leave me a comment, and I'll draw a winner on Sunday (approx. Noon Pacific Time) for this fabulous Irish Blessing Set that I drew for OCL. Want to see who else is playing the Our Craft Lounge game? Go bug Cami for a complete list.

Meanwhile, here is the card I made using the new Irish Blessing set. I'm not usually one for patterned paper (or papercrafting in general, but when you have peer pressure things change...), but I had this great piece of striped Pool Fun paper by Reminisce. Too bad it was mostly blue. So I took my G14 and G17 Copics and toned it down with some stripes of green. Perfect! Now it's St. Patrick's Day paper in colors that match the artwork. The ribbon is from Offray, and the white paper is Neenah Classic Crest with Memento ink.

My drawing style for this set
I drew this stamp set all in angles and loose chunks. Why? Because when I draw I get tired of drawing in the same style all the time. I encourage those of you who tend to draw all your stuff in one way, switch to a totally different style every now and then.

Add straight angles where you would usually have curves. Make some lines extra thick and some thin if you always draw with one line width. I love looking through old reference books and changing my style (like when I drew the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland). If you look through my sketchbooks you'll see a variety of styles. I see it as a challenge- have I drawn anything like this before? How can I push myself to be a better illustrator?

One nice thing about the sharp corners on this image- I can color in sharp edges and it looks good. My usual perfectly blended smooth objects would totally look out of place on this artwork. This totally works, and it is much easier to get it to look correct than if I had used perfect blends. Again, it forces me to change my mode of thinking and gets me to make different illustrations than usual.

When you get this stamp set it comes on a card just like you see here. I colored the examples on the set to help you get an idea of where to start your coloring process. I don't expect people to copy the artwork exactly, but know that I color all my examples with Copic markers.

Something special to me about St. Patrick's Day is that I have a hidden talent. I can spot a 4 or 5 leaf clover without even trying. I'll be going for a walk, look down, and pick one out without thinking. I have found thousands over my lifetime. I usually dry them and give them away (think of this set as my personal 4 leaf clover that I'm giving away today). Just a bit of something many of you don't know about me :)

atyou Spica Glitter Pens
The green and gold areas are atyou Spica pens. I haven't talked much about these pens, but now is a great time. Spica pens are micro glass-flake filled pigment pens. They're not gel pens and they're not multiliners. Their tip is actually firm plastic. You can never see the glitter on a computer, but they're really elegant and they're transparent. Right now they're available in 12 colors and a clear, but in April our 11 new colors should be coming in- they're gorgeous!

Unlike the markers, Spica need to be kept horizontal t0 even out the flakes. If they are dropped or shaken then the glitter inside gets unbalanced. Just store them point down for a while to encourage the glitter to flow correctly, then return them to the horizontal state. You don't want them to stay point down, or the glitter might overwhelm the tip.

I was informed by the Japanese manufacturer that the word "Atyou" is kind of like "Wow!" or "Oh!" it's a happy exclaimation. "Spica" is the name of one of the stars in the constellation Virgo. When you say "atyou Spica" don't think of it as the sound you make when you sneeze (even though it sounds that way) think of "Wow! Stars!". If you get a chance to see one in real life you'll agree that "Wow! Stars!" pretty much says it all.

On that note, I'd better get back to bed. Play along, leave a note, go visit the other designers for Our Craft Lounge and win a set of stamps. It's that easy. Happy Valentine's Day!

eta: Of the 28 new sets at OCL, I drew 24 of them. Can you guess which ones I did NOT draw?