Drawing Day is June 7th

Drawing Day on Saturday June 7th is officially launched today.

This brand new initiative aims to:

• submit a million drawings to various social networking sites - in one day!
  
• promote the different ways artists can use various social networking sites to display and/or promote their drawings.

In a world where computer-generated replaces handmade, people often take creativity and artistic skill for granted. Drawing Day hopes to change this perspective by reminding people of the joy of drawing, regardless of their artistic ability.
Drawing Day Press Release

The front end website for Drawing Day can be found at http://www.drawingday.org/ and is very slick.

However, as one might expect with any new initiative which is getting off the ground for the first time, there are a few gaps with the participating sites (see links and my comments below) and not everything is presenting as well as I'm sure it will be as it gets nearer to June 7th.

It's free and simple to get involved - although it might involve having an existing account or becoming a new member or joining a group in advance at one of the various participating sites.

I've detailed what you need to do on the day itself - this is how you can upload drawings to participating social networking sites which are:

• Draw on Deviantart.com (the largest drawing forum in the world). You need to become a member first. Then on Drawing Day create drawings either in your favorite graphics software or draw on paper and scan and then upload to your DeviantArt account (choose the drawing category) with a description saying "Created for Drawing Day - www.drawingday.org"
  
• Draw on RateMyDrawings.com - You need to join the community first. It is going to have a special Drawing day section - although it doesn't appear to be in place as yet. Use the online drawing tool to create drawings through your browser. Drawings will then be available for people to watch animated stroke-by-stroke. I'm just wondering how their website will cope on the day if everybody tries to use the webware at the same time.....
  
• Draw on AmateurIllustrator.com. This art and illustration community is one of the new kids on the block in terms of number of members. I've not visited it before and to be honest although I note the instruction to "Make sure drawings are uploaded to the Drawing Day 08 Genre" I'm puzzled as to how to do this/find this. You can create drawings either in your favorite graphics software or draw on paper and scan
• Draw on You Tube - Subscribe to the YouTube Channel and Join the Group. On Drawing Day, record videos of you drawing on paper or take video screen captures of you drawing on any graphic software such as Photoshop. Then upload your video to You Tube with the title and tags Drawing Day to appear in related videos of other Drawing Day videos. You can also Download the Drawing Day intro video or intro image to place at the start of your video to spread the word about Drawing Day
• Draw on Facebook.com If you're a member of Facebook, you can either use the Grafitti application or upload drawings to your profile and Post photos of your digital or scanned drawings and/or Post videos of you drawing to the Facebook group. Even if you're not planning on drawing on Drawing Day, Join the Facebook group NOW! The more members it has, the more Drawing Day gets noticed by people on Facebook.
• Draw on MySpace You need to have a MySpace account and then you can use the MySpace Grafitti application or upload drawings to your profile or your photo gallery.
• Upload drawings to Flickr - Join the Flickr group On Drawing Day create drawings either in your favorite graphics software or draw on paper and scan. Then upload to your Flickr account with the words "Drawing Day" in the title of your drawings or create a Flickr photostream called Drawing Day and upload all your drawings to this stream. Finally, organize your drawing day photos and add them to the group.
  

I think I'm probably going to use the Flickr option - but you never know - you might see a video of me drawing on YouTube!

The success of Drawing Day will depend on artists spreading the word. The idea is that whether you’re a professional artist or you just enjoy scribbling, the biggest contribution could be making sure that all your friends know about Drawing Day.

Here are a few tools to help.

• find out more on the Drawing Day website
• spread the word and get buttons and banners to display on your website and blog. Check that you are happy with the code before downloading. I saved the image rather than using the code.
  
• view the Drawing day video at You Tube (I have to confess despite waiting a long time this did not work for me - but you may well have a different experience)
  

I'm toying with idea of hosting a project for Drawing Day - and if I do, I'll let you know more later.

PS I've now got News about Drawing - as delivered by Google News - at the bottom of the right hand column. Do let me know if you notice this blog loading more slowly as a result of having the Google News Feed.