Tuesday, September 19, 2006

For anyone who believes in fun:

Enrico Casarosa wrote:

"So ... I have details for the meeting on Saturday September 23rd here in San Francisco for the 11th World Wide SketchCrawl !

The plan is to take the ferry from the city (Embarcadero Ferry Building) to Sausalito. We are all meeting at 11am at the Peet's Coffee in the ferry Building.

Here:
Ferry Building Map

And then take the 12:00 Ferry to Sausalito.
Should be a fun day of drawing.

Also, if you have any friends around the world who you think might want to know about SketchCrawl, here's a rough write up I did for it:

- World Wide SketchCrawl -
Drawing Marathons from Around the World

To all interested. The 11th World Wide SketchCrawl is September 23rd 2006 ! (details for the SanFrancisco Chapter will follow)

But what is a "SketchCrawl"?
In short, roughly every 3 months we put a call out to people around the world to join in, put pen to paper on a given day for as long as they can (be it 20 minutes or 8 hours). Drawing, sketching, journaling about their day and what's around them. For a day, slow down, look around you, see ... and draw and write. Record your day. No specific level of skill is expected ! Anyone is welcome. We've had kids and parents having a great time together!

How to participate.
We set up a forum where to seek and organize meetings with artists from your area. You can participate in SketchCrawl on your own or with a group of friends. I usually meet groups of artists in San Francisco, where I live. The forums and the Flickr SketchCrawl group also serve as gathering and sharing place after the drawing marathon day. The idea behind this is to get the great feeling of drawing with and at the same time as peoples from all walks of life and from all corners of the world; and ultimately sharing the day's sketches and photos on Flickr and the SketchCrawl forums, to see places and details from corners of the world we might not see at all in our life time !

The history of it.
We put out a call for the first World Wide SkethCrawl on November 21st 2004, we've done 10 drawing marathons since and people from all over the world have joined in and shared their drawings. On one occasion we also raised funds for the Pakistani Earthquake relief effort. And we plan to seek more of this kind of opportunities in the future. There's nothing like sharing drawing and also make a small difference in the world.

The SketchCrawl blog.
We have a communal SketchCrawl blog for which we are looking for contributors. We are very happy to accept posts from anyone who might want to contribute sketches or thoughts about drawing, materials and inspiration. One more space to share.
http://sketchcrawl.com/blog

The organizers.
I started SketchCrawl in 2004 and have organized and spread the word about SketchCrawling since. I am currently a storyboard artist at Pixar Animation Studios. I've worked in the industry for more than ten years and been publishing comics and artbooks in my spare time. Ronnie del Carmen is a legend in the animation industry, currently a Head of Story at Pixar, he has worked for the Batman Animated show, Dreamworks animation and many others amazing projects.

So take this chance to dust off that old sketchbook of yours or take the wrapper off that nice new Moleskine you bought. Saturday September 23rd is around the corner, obviously the more the merrier. So feel free to spread the word in any way you can. That's what is amazing about the internet. We've also tried and spread the word in another few ways: we have made t-shirts and stickers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casarosa/sets/72157594270875661/
If you plan to have a big group of "crawlers" shoot me an email, I'll be happy to send some stickers.

Many thanks for your time !

Enrico Casarosa



Here's a few Links to SketchCrawl information on the web.

Sketchawhat ?
http://www.sketchcrawl.com/blog/?page_id=3

The first SketchCrawl I tried in the summer of 2004.
http://enricocasarosa.com/sketchcrawl.html

The first World Wide SketchCrawl on November 2004.
http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

The Flickr SketchCrawl group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sketchcrawl/

The SketchCrawl forums where you can see past and current SketchCrawls.
http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum

Heeding Everett's advice, I played w/ the dog character a bit more, and discovered an opening/background scenario for the canine, sort of explaining how/why it is that he's running free in the city: