[Soprano]

A friend of mine told me about a drawing workshop which is a monthly thing up north, where they find a venue (usually somewhere selling alcohol/hot drinks) and provide materials - and people just turn up and draw. It's kind of open to all kind of people - traditional artists, illustrators, designers, architectures etc etc.

Anyway, I love the idea of this, but I'm down south! So I have over the last few weeks put some thought into trying to arrange something similar myself, and have had good feedback on the idea from a couple of guys I study with.

I'm really just looking for outside opinios, I guess. I hate the idea of trying to set this up and it being a massive fail, however I am thinking about contacting our student union to see if they would help us with arranging and putting the word out around the campus for the other art/design students.

The main problem would be, the event up north provide the materials, so you pretty much just have to show up. As a student (and mum!) I obviously couldn't really afford to pay for so many materials to cover an amount of people that may or may not show up. Does anyone have any ideas on how to raise funds for the materials or do you think it may be possible to email companies directly explaining what I'm doing and asking for donations of items? Or maybe I could state that people would have to bring their own - but would this possibly be off putting for whatever reason?

Does anyone have any other kind of feedback or opinions on the idea in general? Would love to hear them.

Thanks.

[bigdave]

There are a lot of these types of events that happen monthly around the country. some (like the one you mention) are art based, some are design based. In reality theyre just a good excuse for the local creative community to get together, have a beer and a good chin wag.

Dont contact local professionals asking for free stuff, they'll not be to pleased to get the call. If the focus of the group is creative students, why not ask the SU if you can have the bar or function room for an hour or so once a month and invite a professional (be it designer, artists etc..) to give a 10-15 min chat and Q&A session about them, and how theyve got where they are. It'll be interesting, useful and an opportunity for creative students or different dicaplines to get together and understand a bit more about what the others do. If its free people will come, if you charge it gets complicated with staffing etc... you may have to find some way of rasing money to pay the guest speakers expenses (£20 is reasonable i think). perhaps a collection or something?

[bigdave]

When I was at college the head of design ran an identical scheme funded by the college. free entry to students to listen to a designer talk for an hour. He had some amazing contacts which bought us the likes of Derek Birdsall!

[Soprano]

I like the idea of having a guest speaker. Also not sure if we have a SU so will need to look into that! But I can't see any problems with finding a venue as it would bring custom to the place.

Obviously still have a bit of thought to put into this but I think maybe it'll have to run on a "bring your own" basis in terms of materials etc.

[bigdave]

Originally Posted by Soprano

Also not sure if we have a SU.

SU = Students Union.

[Soprano]

Yeah I know lol, just that we're a college technically, just taken over by TVU - still, we might have one, but I'm yet to discover it!