Another full day yesterday at the Snow Business cover design day event. I set out for Crewe Heritage Centre on a dreary and dark morning, half-expecting a quiet day. I arrived and set up a couple of tables. I had brought some basic materials; some papers cut in the shapes of Christmas Trees and Stars, some brushes and a few other things. I needn't have worried about materials. Almost everything was supplied by Creative Crewe, including a great 60x60cm square of card. One thing I'm pleased I brought however was my easel to display the result, it really made a difference to have that there, and a roller to add some colour to the plain white background:
Deb arrived at 10am or so, she was hugely helpful. I'd not have been able to do this without her as the day was really very busy. The event was supposed to start at 11am, but families started to knock on the door from 10, to take part in the many workshops in the room from Poppy Making to Lantern Building, to Face Painting, to the making of huge wicker sculptures for the light trail.
My table gradually got busier. The main creative task, I worked out, was for children to decorate a star or tree, then choose where it fitted on the result, creating a pop-art collage of Christmas. This worked well; I had just about everything. I was aiming for felt-tips and pencils, but paint rapidly became the medium of choice; the glitter glue especially treasured. The results were decidedly messy, but the PVA managed to hold everything in place for long enough.
I stuck artist images on there fairly early, and the image grew:
In the end 30 to 50 children took part, and I barely had time to pause. Deb was a huge help introducing the parents and children to the activity, and generally keeping things going. I spent a lot of time guiding or sticking the results. It was really quite a factor of creativity.
Mike Drew and John Lindley joined us, which was lovely.
By about 2:30, the canas was full up and everything was close to complete. Here's a photo by Mike:
I'm amazed by how well it all went. I had just about everything I needed, little more, little less. It was hectic, messy, chaotic but it all worked. I will wait a day or two for the image to dry, then flatten it and photograph it. Then the complex design work can begin.
And today, We Robot is released after months of preparation!
As such today has been filled with admin work associated with this launch. Website and links updated, preparations for the YouTube premiere and the album-length video of 'AI and Celebrity' set live. This, plus lots of filing of yesterday's event, adding that to my website, and documenting it for future reference. Sending out and receiving photos of the day. Tim Lee has sent his song, and The Poachers are about to send theirs, so over half of all artists have already completed their contributions, a month ahead of schedule.
I've also updated my master album list with a new format for credits. Each album now has Creation Credits (composer, lyrics), Production Credits (producer, engineer, recording), Performance Credits (each instrument). Sequencers count as instruments, so Prometheus, and other software, is credited as an instrument. Everything is much more ordered. The credits for I, Leviathan were the most time consuming to administer. Until now, that was my biggest 'community' project.
It's past 4pm and I'm still very busy with this admin.
