emglivejournal

When is it?

The Sketch Fest will run from noon on Friday May 21, through noon, Saturday May 22, Alaska Time.

Not sure about timezones? Check out these handy sites:

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=81

(Thank you, April!)

You do not have to participate for the entire 24 hours - you may drop in at any time you are available. (I personally need my beauty sleep - I will be opening up the Sketch Fest and participating for ~8 hours on Friday, sleeping, and then closing it after a few hours of sketching on Saturday.)


How does it work?

If you are interested in participating, please sign up in the comments below, so I have an idea of what to expect. :)

Anyone - artist or audience! - is invited to leave us prompts throughout the Sketch Fest. Prompts can be titles, ideas, single words, photographs... pretty much anything.

The participating artists claim these prompts. When claiming a prompt, reply directly to the person who left the prompt, and please call it out in the subject of the comment. CLAIM: Mushroom Imp, CLAIM: side-saddle snail, etc. (This way, it's easy to see at a glance what's a claim, and what's just a random side comment, even when there are a 100 comments to sift through.)

Artists have 1 hour to complete a sketch for the prompts they claim. You aren't required to post it within an hour - maybe you get a phone call, or want to scan all of your finished sketches at once, or who knows. You are simply on the honor system not to spend more than one hour on the sketch before posting it. You are also invited to finish the pieces later, if you like what you start! Any medium is welcome. You don't have to spend the whole hour on a sketch - if you get to a good stopping point after 20 minutes, that's fine!

When you post the finished sketch, reply directly to the person who left the prompt - try to avoid replying to your own claim, as the person is unlikely to get an email alert if you do that. In the subject of the comment, use the following format: SKETCH: Star Dancer, SKETCH: young dragon, etc.

You can see how it worked last time, at this entry: http://community.livejournal.com/emglivejournal/1793.html (Note that it was pretty chaotic with people not using standard subject lines, and it's a little hard to pick out what got finished, and what got claimed...)


Does it cost anything?

Participation, as an artist or as a prompter, is completely free. Artists may choose to ask for donations, or offer their sketches for sale during the Sketch Fest. For some business model ideas (as well as tips on sharing your finished work), see this post.

I am accepting donations towards a streamlined off-livejournal site to manage future Sketch Fests. Features would include uploading and re-sizing tools, a finished 'wall' of thumbnails, and easy prompt, claim and final sketch management tools. If I get to $50 before the Sketch Fest, I will make a very basic uploading form available for artists for THIS Sketch Fest that will resize your images and allow them to easily be posted as a thumbnail and link to a larger image, right in the comments at livejournal.

Questions?

If you have any questions or suggestions, please ask them in the comments here!