Guest Copier: Carmen Wing

Back in June when Kirsty shared some wonderful artists with us during her Children's Iluustrators mini-series Carmen Wing, one of our long standing supporters here at Copy+Paste left us the following comment:

"I don't have it any more, got lost in one of my many moves but I did once have a picture cut from Diana annual. It was only small and it was from one of the comic strip type stories. The face of a woman - I just loved everything about it and tried recreating it myself in sketch form (THAT I do still have) In fact I then went on to create other pictures with this same woman in. I just remember being blown away by whoever had drawn this woman and loving this image so much".

So really what Carmen was basically saying is that she'd copied and pasted from a Diana annual! And, keen to hear more we invited her to share the full story with us here.

Welcome Carmen:

*Copy*
When we were younger my sister and I used to love the old annuals for girls - you know like Jackie and Mandy but our favourite was Diana because we loved that the stories were hand-drawn comic strips. So whenever Mum used to spot them at jumble sales she used to snap them up for us. Think she secretly loved them too. My sis and I would spend evenings copying pictures out of the books, making up our own stories, making paper dolls etc.

One picture in particular I just loved and once I had copied the drawing I would incorporate the character into loads of other drawings, a bit obsessive but I just loved the picture.

After the recent illustrators week I decided to go on a hunt for that edition of the Diana Annual to show my girls!

They've got to a point where they are really interested in drawing and my eldest in particular has been asking me how I used to practise. A really, really lovely seller on eBay went through all his stock annuals for me to find that specific one with the original drawing I sketched from. The one that my daughter has seen so many times in my old folder!

And here it is:

..... along with my original 'copy':

*Paste*

And here's one of the remaining follow on drawings (I gave the rest away at the time - like you do as a kid, give them to your friends *g*):I think I was about 16 or younger when I did these and I still don't know who the original illustrator was. I can't find it mentioned anywhere in the annual which is quite sad as seeing it again after all these years, I still love the original picture!

Carmen.

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Isn't that a great story? We're delighted that one of our posts sent Carmen off not merely on a nostalgia trip in her memories but also onto ebay to find her original inspiration ... which, in turn, sent that fabulously helpful seller into his loft for the very picture she'd carried in her head since she was a teenager!

Thank you Carmen. You can read more from Carmen on her 'Whoopido...ings' blog.

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Now it's your turn to 'copy + paste' from Carmen and do as she did .... let us know about any similar tales you have to tell!

Maybe you've copied something from your own childhood and adapted into your adult life, or created a business around it. Not that it has to be related to your childhood ... maybe there's something which so inspired you to copy it that you gave it a try yourself and something interesting / life-changing / disastrous or wonderful came from it. Maybe there's something you've always wanted to copy but there's something stopping you.

Whatever it is, we're always keen to hear your 'copy + paste' stories to be featured in future guest posts. So, if you have something you'd like to share, let us know and we'll take it from there.

We'll look forward to it.

Julie :)