Drawing Day Blog - worldwide drawing event

Artists Set to Create One Million Drawings on June 4th – World Drawing Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:30:00 +0000

For immediate release:

As June 4th approaches, artists worldwide quietly sharpen their pencils in anticipation for Drawing Day 2011. In its fourth year, the event is set to infuse online art communities and social networking with one million drawings.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) May 17, 2011

As social networking grows, artists have more power than ever to showcase their artwork with the world on Drawing Day 2011. The web is now the platform of choice for artists both amateur and professional to showcase their artistic skills. Websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, deviantART and a group of emerging online art communities are helping bring artists together for what is set to be the biggest worldwide drawing event ever. Artist and designer, Mick Gow and a small group of fellow artists had a vision almost 4 years ago to make some noise worldwide for the sake of art – and Drawing Day has been slowly growing ever since.

It’s quite possible that Drawing Day 2011 may reach that goal. “Social networking is more powerful than ever, and once the word spreads, artists will embrace the event,” says Gow. The event has already had a great start with a successful Drawing Day project on the popular fundraising website Kickstarter.com. “We launched our Kickstarter project to raise money for a book to document Drawing Day, and we hit that target pretty quickly,” he proudly adds. The book will showcase drawings submitted on Drawing Day and is part of what’s new with the event this year. The official event website drawingday.org showcases the official t-shirts, downloadable posters, and includes all the information anyone needs to participate.

It’s free and simple to participate and you can do so on your own, with a group of friends, or at your local school or community center. If you would like to participate at a local event and can’t find one, you can simply download a poster from drawingday.org, post it on a notice board and organize to meet people in your community. All people need to do is arrive with a pencil and paper (or a computer if you’re a digital artist). Once you have completed your drawings, simply upload them to drawingday.org or to any of the participating websites listed.

Technology is definitely helping the Drawing Day mission. The website has created an online drawing application so people can draw directly on the website – and it works on an iPad. Since its launch, the iPad has been embraced by many artists as a digital and portable drawing tool. These artists are set to bridge the gap between traditional and digital methods of drawing and Drawing Day hopes to take advantage of this.

“Drawing Day is for everyone. You can draw using the latest technology, or use the event as an excuse to turn off the computer and spend time with family and friends using nothing more than paper and pencil,” says Gow. Whether you’re nine or ninety-nine years old, Drawing Day is hoping to remind people of the joy of drawing.

If you would like more information about Drawing Day 2011 or want to be involved either as an artist or to help promote the event, contact Mick Gow or visit the official event website at drawingday.org.

Official Drawing Day T-Shirts are here!

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Wed, 11 May 2011 07:59:00 +0000

The Drawing Day T-Shirt competition that was held has finished and winners have been announced on the Redbubble blog here.

The 3 official T-shirt designs are shown below:

If you are looking to purchase one of the above T-Shirts, you can make a pledge on our Kickstarter project (this also gets you one of your drawings in the KickStarter 2011 book!). You can also purchase directly from the Redbubble website via the winners announcement page.

2011 World Drawing Day launches kickstarter to aim for one million drawings

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:27:00 +0000

World Drawing Day is world-wide art event that encourages people around the world to drop everything and draw. To get prepared this year, they have launched a kickstarter event to help reach its goal of one million drawings.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 05, 2011 – June 4, 2011 is Drawing Day - one day devoted to drawing. Mick Gow and some fellow artists have organized the event in the hope that it will encourage the world to create one million drawings in one day.

"The world needs to stop and remember that childhood joy when we picked up our first pencil and created our first piece of art. Drawing Day is all about that feeling of creativity and imagination", says Gow. The event doesn't dictate where you draw or how you draw, but participants are encouraged to share their art with the world and spread the word about the event. One way to do this is by posting drawings created to the official website at http://www.drawingday.org or by submitting drawings to any of the participating websites listed, which include popular sites like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, or DeviantArt.

With two months until the event, the organizers have started a fundraiser on the popular funding website Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com). The Kickstarter project is all about creating a book to document the event. The Kickstarter project is located at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mixart/june-4-2011-d ...

A collection of artwork submitted to the Drawing Day website will be published in this full-color book that showcases highlights from the day. The book will showcase artwork ranging from high-quality masterpieces to simple and inspirational drawings from kids. The book will be a visual and artistic story that documents the day and will illustrate the imagination of the world on this day.

People are asked to make pledges that cleverly include options for artists to ensure one of their drawings is included in the book. There are other pledges that also include getting an artist profile in the book, and even Drawing Day T-shirts. There is also a pledge to purchase the actual book when it’s published.

If you'd like more information about Drawing Day 2011 or want to learn more about getting involved with the book, contact Mick Gow via http://www.drawingday.org/

The Drawing Day book is trying to get a kickstart

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:44:00 +0000

We're raising money to create an official Drawing Day book filled with drawings from the Drawing Day event. To make this happen we need your help. The book will showcase artwork ranging from high-quality masterpieces to simple and inspirational drawings from kids. The book will be a visual and artistic story that documents the day and will illustrate the imagination of the world on this day.

You can guarantee to get your drawing in the book if you make a pledge to our project on Kickstarter.com

We understand that the book will be only a sample of all drawings collected on the day, so we have created various pledges to give people options to be published in the book. These range from a guarantee that your drawing will be included in the book, to an artist profile in the book. If an enormous amount of pledges are received (we can only hope), we will create multiple editions of the book.

With the current goal, we aim to create a full color 8" x 10" book that is approximately 200 pages. The number of drawings per page will vary and range from 1 to 9 drawings per page.

Whether or not you are interested in the book - please pledge money to the Kickstarter event - all dollars donated will be used to help promote Drawing Day.

The Drawing Day T-Shirt competition is open for entries

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:21:00 +0000

The Competition

We are hosting a T-shirt design competition for Drawing Day this year over at Redbubble. 3 designs will be chosen to be official Drawing Day T-shirts.

RedBubble artists have always been great supporters of Drawing Day and this year the organisers are offering you the chance to create a Drawing Day design which will appear on Drawing Day merchandise.

Judging / Voting Criteria

The entries will be shortlisted by the community through the voting process. The final three winners will be selected from the top 20 by RedBubble and the Drawing Day organisers. RedBubble and Drawing Day will select final winners at their sole discretion. The official logo is available for inspiration but you are not required to reference this in your design. Designs must be uploaded using the RedBubble t-shirt template and the preview should be set to a white background. If it’s not on a white tee, it’s not getting in!

Rewards & Prizes

First, Second and Third Prize: Your design will appear on Drawing Day 2011 merchandise and you will each receive a $100 USD RedBubble gift voucher. Fourth and Fifth runners up will each receive A $50 USD RedBubble voucher.

For all the details visit the drawing day competition here: http://www.redbubble.com/groups/redbubble/challenges/32370-drawing-day-logo-challenge

We're getting ready for Drawing Day 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 06:11:00 +0000

This year is going to be a big year for the art world and a big year for Drawing Day. 2011 will be the fourth year our event has taken place. We've always had big dreams for Drawing Day, and have mostly been limited by our voice. As always it is the voice of everyone participating that will give our event the exposure it needs. However, this year we will be throwing more resources at the event in hope that it will get a big kickstart and get in front of the eyes of the world.

We believe that artists deserve a day like this, and the world needs to be injected with more creativity. So many lives can be touched by the simple notion of picking up a pencil and drawing.

Get your voices ready to start spreading the word.

Drawing Day live twitter feed

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:22:00 +0000

We have added a live twitter feed to the Drawing Day homepage so we encourage you all to make sure you tweet any time you create a drawing and post a link to your drawing making sure you include the hashtag #drawingday.

You can also view the live feed here:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=drawingday%20OR%20%22drawing%20day%22%20OR%20%23drawingday

If you would like to post this feed to your own website to encourage people to promote Drawing Day then feel free to use the code:

<script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script>
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: 'search',
search: 'drawingday OR \"drawing day\" OR #drawingday',
interval: 7000,
title: '',
subject: 'Live Drawing Day Twitter feed',
width: 300,
height: 250,
theme: {
shell: {
background: '#028C94',
color: '#ffffff'
},
tweets: {
background: '#ffffff',
color: '#444444',
links: '#1985b5'
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: false,
loop: true,
live: true,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: true,
toptweets: true,
behavior: 'default'
}
}).render().start();
</script>

Artists Use The Internet To Create One Million Drawings In One Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:45:00 +0000

Can artists around the world all rally to create 1 million drawings by spreading the word via social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? World Drawing Day (June 5 2010) is an online art event supported by online art communities that encourages people around the world to drop everything and draw.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) June 4, 2010 -- June 5, 2010 the world stops to remember that joy the first time you picked up a pencil and created a piece of art. A team of artists at DrawingDay.org are calling on other artists around the world to use social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to remind everyone of the power of drawing. The goal is 1 million drawings.

June 5, 2010 is world Drawing Day

One million drawings in one day may seem like a stretch to some, but take a moment to think how obtainable this goal is. Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis and more than 35m Facebook users update their status each day. Twitter now has around 15m active users on a regular basis. YouTube viewers watched more than 93 videos each month in January 2010. A small percentage of vocal artists from each of these social networks may very well reach one million drawings in no time.

Can artists around the world rally to create 1 million drawings in one day?

Artists are extremely passionate people and love to get noticed but they need to get creative to bring attention to their art. Gone are the days of simply creating an online portfolio and hoping it will launch your art career. Social networking has become the tool of choice to showcase art online. Websites such as Facebook, YouTube™, Flickr™, deviantART and RateMyDrawings.com help bring artists together, but is it enough? Founder of Drawing Day, Mick Gow who is an artists himself thinks more can be done to encourage this new way of showcasing art, so Drawing Day was born.

It is completely free and simple to get involved. Drawings can be created via any graphics software or by simply scanning drawings created on paper. Participants then submit these drawings to any of several online art communities or social networking websites listed on the Drawing Day website. For the more adventurous or tech-savvy artists, there will be various websites listed that will be hosting online drawing events that allow artists to create drawings directly from their web browser using a mouse or drawing tablet. Some artists are even recording videos of themselves drawing and posting them on YouTube. Participants are then encouraged to spread the word by sharing these drawings with their friends.

Jun 5 is Drawing Day. It's getting HOT!

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:07:00 +0000

Drawing Day is SOOOooooo close and things are starting to heat up fast.

It always amazes me how the Drawing Day event is a bit like a wild storm. Just before the event, it is fairly quiet but when the action happens it happens fast.

The social web is as active as it has ever been. Facebook, Twitter and social networks are more popular then ever and events like World Drawing Day are at the mercy of these networks. It no longer takes a huge budget or high profile press to make exciting events like ours work. It only takes one spark in a social network and this is where you can all help.

NOW, like right now is the time to Tweet, post on your Facebook wall, and spread the news on all the art community websites you belong to about our event.

DeviantArt is getting fired up:
http://news.deviantart.com/article/119077/
How can you help? Like this news and also upload this image from DeviantArt to your DA account now.

Facebook is getting excited:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drawing-Day-1-million-drawings-in-1-day/124099384282009
Help - LIKE our Drawing Day page and post about our event on your wall.

Follow us on Twitter
We will be posting tweets all weekend long about the event.
Please help us now and tweet about Drawing Day.

If you believe our event is something the art community needs then please stop reading this blog and start doing everything you can to promote our event, and above all... remember to draw on Drawing Day and submit your art to any of our participating websites (that includes posting to Facebook) and just be sure to mention Drawing Day when you do.

Two weeks until 2010 Drawing Day -- get ready!

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:50:00 +0000

World Drawing Day (June 5 2010) is an online art event supported by online art communities that encourages people around the world to drop everything and draw. In its third year, the event aims to encourage people to create one million drawings.

We had some amazing responses over the past two years and expect this year to be just as inspiring. We had several participants draw non-stop for 24 hours or draw all weekend with very few breaks". Websites such as Facebook, YouTube™, Flickr™, deviantART and RateMyDrawings.com had great success in encouraging artists to participate.

Our press release has been sent out and we're gearing up for this years event.

Please LIKE our Facebook page for this years event, where all the latest Facebook happenings will be posted.

Also be sure to get a reminder via Facebook by joining our official Facebook event.

Drawing Day 24hr marathon on SecondLife

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:38:00 +0000

The SecondLife Drawing Day event has begun. SecondLife members should not miss out on checking out this event. Details about the SL event can be found here.

Ina Centaur will lead a twenty-four hour "art marathon", where she held the vigil and drew roughly 4 sketches per hour while rallying Second Life artists to participate in Drawing Day.

June 6 - It's World Drawing Day today

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:52:00 +0000

If it's June 6 where you are, then Drawing Day has arrived!

For half of the world, Drawing Day has already begun so - Happy Drawing Day!

We've just launched our online gallery where you can keep track of drawings as they're being uploaded to the various participating websites - Check out the gallery here

The most important part now is to Start Drawing! Everything you need to know about how to participate is available here.

The second, and just as important step is to spread the word! Email all your friends, tell them about the Drawing Day website and how to participate. This is a world-wide event and the biggest strength we all have as artists is our voice. If you own a blog, blog about the event. If you're a twitter user, then please tweet each time you create a drawing with links to your art and our website. You can also follow us on Twitter, which is a great way to stay updated about Drawing Day over this weekend.

Official Corel Painter Magazine supports Drawing Day

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:55:00 +0000

The latest issue of the official Corel Painter magazine (issues 30) has hit the shelves and has a great feature on Drawing Day. If you see the magazine in stores, be sure to check it out!

Official magazine website: http://paintermagazine.co.uk/

Drawing Day press release

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:33:00 +0000

Our latest Drawing Day press release was sent out today. If you know of any bloggers, editors, website owners or press then please share this article with them:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/drawingday/2009/prweb2453924.htm

As always our strongest power as artists is our voice - so shout loud and let everyone know about Drawing Day.

Get updates on Drawing Day via Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Sat, 23 May 2009 08:05:00 +0000

If you're a twitter user, make sure you follow us on the weekend of June 6 - Drawing Day weekend.

On Drawing Day, many of our participating websites will be tweeting via the Drawing Day twitter account. We will be posting Drawing Day updates, posting links to outstanding drawings and events that we hear about. It will be a really exciting weekend and I'm especially excited about the opportunity this brings to our event.

It's not often that there is a high concentration of art being created in a short period and this is definitely a great way to follow progress of the event.

Drawing Day on YouTube - group video

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:54:00 +0000

A group of artists have banded together to create a Drawing Day promotional video on YouTube. Obviously artists who are part of the YouTube community are excited about the day and this video is a great example of how a few people with some passion can have a strong voice.

Check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mg39ZGxAQo

It will be interesting to see just how much attention this video gets - it has a great community message and does a good job of representing what Drawing Day is all about.

2009 Drawing Day - 50 Days to go!

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:57:00 +0000

We're just about at 50 days to go. Our first of a several press releases was announced today and we're getting very excited about 2009 Drawing Day. Several high profile magazines have shown interest in writing articles about the event and we're expecting more buzz this year with the growth of many social neworking groups such as Facebook.

The latest press release:
http://www.prlog.org/10217472-2009-world-drawing-day-aims-for-one-million-drawings.html

Drawing Day YouTube group video

noreply@blogger.com (Mick) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:18:00 +0000

We are putting together a promotional video for Drawing Day 2009.

We need AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE who are YouTube users with webcams or video cameras to contribute to a group video.

If you have a camera and want to participate, please send a message to the Drawing Day channel on YouTube....
http://www.youtube.com/user/1milliondrawings and say you want to participate in the group video.

We have a small script talking about drawing day - we are asking everyone to read the script on camera and at the end we will be stitching the videos all together to make one video with lots of people talking about the event. It could be a really big awesome video if we get a hundred people contributing!

WE NEED YOU YOUTUBERS!

Drawing Day 2008 - a success and an inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:49:00 +0000

2008 was the first year of our Drawing Day initiative and considering we had only 5 weeks from the launch of our website until the actual event - the results were very inspiring. Google returns over 180,000 results from the phrase "drawing day 08" - most of these from bloggers supporting the event. From the response and constant emails we received, we know that Drawing Day is something the art world really needs and loves. 1 million drawings in a day was a huge goal and we were far from being close, but there is no way we're going to stop striving for this magic number in the years ahead. Like any event in it's first year, we can only improve and it makes us more determined.

View a gallery of results from our 2008 Drawing Day event

The countdown to 2009 begins. The good news is, next year we'll be off to a flying start and rather than having 5 weeks to prepare for the event - we have 12 months! Whatever you do, don't forget about Drawing Day - we will reach our goal and we still need your support. We will be updating our website with many new features getting prepared for the next event and we have plenty of awesome ideas (some suggestions sent to us from you). We always welcome more suggestions so keep sending them to us!

Drawing Day rocked (and keeps on rock'n)

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:10:00 +0000

For some parts of the world Drawing Day (June 7) has ended, however it's not too late to contribute. Many of our Drawing Day supporting communities are hosting weekend long events to celebrate Drawing Day. So keep on drawing at any of our participating communities.

So how are we tracking so far? It's always going to be difficult to measure any exact number of drawings, but for our first year it has been nothing less than an amazing success. Drawings will no doubt keep dribbling in to the communities over the coming week while people scan their drawings or add finishing touches to their digital artwork.

If you want to sample some of the drawings created so far, then check out the Drawing Day galleries at these communities...

Drawings at: DeviantArt, RateMyDrawings, YouTube, Red Bubble, Flickr, Facebook, Amateur Illustrator, creativestem, how-to-draw-cartoons-online, Paper Demon, BrooklynArtProject, SecondLife

It's 2008 Drawing Day - Drop everything and Draw!

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:16:00 +0000

WOooah! It's Drawing Day - Start Drawing!
Depending on your location around the world, Drawing Day has already started!
If you've just learned about our event, it's simple... All you have to do is submit drawings at any of the art communities listed on our website on June 7. Some communities are running weekend long events so don't worry if you miss this day! Also be sure to join our Facebook Group, Flickr Group, and YouTube channel.

Please spread the word about this event to all your friends! If you haven't picked up a pencil in a while, then today is the day.

We're encouraging everyone to Download this Drawing Day image here, and upload it to every art gallery you have on DeviantArt, AmateurIllustrator, Flickr, etc. and upload the image as a photo to your Facebook, MySpace, or any social networking website.

Lets make everyone see this image on Drawing Day!

Thank you to all the supporting art communities and for all the artists out there participating. Keep checking this blog throughout the weekend as we'll be updating our progress and adding links to various online galleries as they grow.

Drawing Day - Days away, get ready to draw!

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:30:00 +0000

OK, this is where we get on our knees and beg you to spread the world about Drawing Day more than ever ;) Email all your friends and let them know you'll be drawing and tell them to keep an eye out for your drawings online.

As much as drawing on the day is what it's all about, please share links to your drawings with all your friends. Spreading the word is just as important on Drawing Day. The larger art communities will all take notice if they start to see a huge influx of drawings tagged with the words "drawing day" in their titles and descriptions so be sure to do that. Join our groups on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. - it really does make a difference!

We also would like to really encourage some of you to record video captures of you drawing in illustrator, photoshop, MS Paint, etc. and we will feature these videos on our YouTube channel. If you have a webcam, you can even record yourself drawing on paper.

Excited yet? We are!

Can a few artists create a worldwide drawing event?

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:00 +0000

So a few of us came up with the idea of Drawing Day. With one week to go we're pretty excited - I mean how can you just make up an event and expect the whole world to participate?

It's a good question but the answer is pretty simple really. Because we can ;)

It's a really exciting time on the web where social networking has such an amazing power. There are average Joe's (and Jill's) making YouTube videos about scratching their nose with their left index finger capturing the attention of millions of viewers.

The great thing about Drawing Day is that it's an art event, and you won't find more passionate people than artists. We have some awesome art communities getting involved in Drawing Day but what's really interesting when we look at the traffic statistics of the Drawing Day website is that collectively we get more people visiting our website from single passionate artists than any other way. We receive emails every day from single artists saying "We love this event and totally support it and will write a blog". Sure, this blog might only send us 10 visitors, but when there are hundreds of you artists doing this is really adds up!

So, there may only be a few individuals behind this initiative, but with all the artists around the world getting excited that's one big voice. Remember, we're doing this out of love and have no funding, have never asked for donations and are simply relying on the artists voice and the power of the web.

So here's what we need to really make a statement...
DIGG this story, show the world that a few passionate artists can be backed by a world of passionate artists and come up with a world-wide event that injects the web with more drawings and art than you can poke a mouse at.
&lt;br>

Rules and Limitations for Drawing Day (There are none)

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:49:00 +0000

We've received a few emails recently from artists asking things like "How many drawings can I create" and "What types of things can I draw".

Quite simply the answers are: Draw as many as you can in a day, and draw anything you like. We have no strict rules or policies for Drawing Day. We're really just here to help bring everyone together on one day to encourage you all to draw. It is totally up to you where you want to draw, what subject matter, what medium you use, how many you create, where you post your drawings, etc.

You're the artist, you make the decisions, we're just here to let everyone know about the event.

Drawing Day Launches -- Artists Embrace Web 2.0 (Press Release)

noreply@blogger.com (DrawingDay) — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:05:00 +0000

To help promote our event, we're happy to announce the Drawing Day 2008 official press release. To view the press release please visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/drawingday/2008/prweb939464.htm

A special thanks to Dave Conrey (http://blog.daveconrey.com/) for his rock solid pr skills to help craft our press release and express the Drawing Day mission and goals to the world.

Side Note: Thank you bloggers - keep blogging
I just want to thank everyone who has been blogging about Drawing Day. It amazes me how many bloggers feel the importance of talk about our event. You may not all reach a large audience but collectively there are hundreds of referrers to our website each day from artists like you with a voice. If you own a blog and haven't mentioned Drawing Day yet, get to it!