Copic mania has well and truly taken hold of the Lime Tart girls, so we were super excited to hear that Marianne Walker and Lori Craig were visiting Australia to conduct just 2 copic certification classes. We quickly made plans to meet up in Melbourne and learn all about our favourite markers from the best of the best.

Philippa and I arrived in Melbourne on Friday afternoon, did a bit of shopping, then met up with Rachael (who just happened to be in Melbourne that weekend too!) and Teresa for a drink. The only one missing was Julie

(Thanks to Rach’s hubby for snapping a pic of us together before she had to head off to the Rugby.)

Teresa very generously put us up (or put up with us!?) for the weekend so after dinner we headed back to her place to talk SIA and rest up for our big day.

CERTIFICATION DAY:

Saturday morning I was hanging out to find out once and for all how to pronounce copic! LOL. Between the 3 of us, we had differing opinions! After some confusion we did get it clarified – for those of you who are wondering, it has a long ‘o’ sound: coh-pic

There was a nice pile of goodies at the tables for us. Plenty of copic documentation,  including the much anticipated debut of the student manual. (The first in the world to receive them!) A paper sample pack, a copic pencil case full of markers for us to keep (!!) and lots of mints (well, there were lots of mints for just a little while!!)

Marianne was a great teacher. Very funny and very approachable. She and Lori walked around demonstrating on every table, so we all got to see the techniques up close. I was in awe flicking through Marianne’s sample book. Oh My Goodness! That girl is talented. (Maybe that’s why she gets to fly around the world teaching people how to colour??)

Here’s Marianne in action, showing us her hair technique on the ‘shadow and highlights hair girl’ (that’s a technical term by the way!)

Lots of stamping, lots of experimenting, lots of questions, lots of jewellery colouring (yep) some playing with the airbrush tool, and all too quickly it was over

And we were certified!!

(I’m gonna get in trouble for that photo!!)

I thought the day was very well organised and we left full of information (and mints) and couldn’t wait to get home and try out our new skills.

We learnt heaps about Copics and all the basics of good colouring (or coloring?) so stay tuned over the coming months as we share it all with you here on Marker Monday.