~.~ LA. That is very far. But a pilgrimage, in the name of art, I am willing to take. I'd love to finally meet all the wonderful artist here at devart. I have to really brainstorm on this.

It would be awesome to go and meet other deviants. I would LOVE to, but realistically, in my situation it's unlikely. I'm not ruling it out completely, though. And of course, I'll be happy to offer ideas et al!

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[link]

It would be a great thing to go to, is a ways away, I might make it.

/\\\

There should be cheese and crackers.

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"he didn't want to be alone."

there should be. yes.

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i'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky.

Something you mentioned there sparked something in my head and I have no idea what kind of space is going to be available of this, but it would be really fun to be able to do a large deviant mural, so to speak. Exact dimentions I'm not too sure of, but I wouldn't think anymore than 4' high, and could be done by just rolled out and gessoed canvas or even a sturdy paper. It could be either something someone has drawn ahead of time and gridded out into squares for people to sign up for and complete in their own style or more of a free reign thing where you can do whatever you like as long as it flows into the next segment, much like an 'Exquisit Corpse,' or even just like a giant patchwork quilt.

It seems that would make the perfect kind of 'guestbook' for artists and in the end, perhaps it could be auctioned off to help raise funds for deviantArt, maybe even if someone was able to photograph it at a high enough quality, prints could be sold to the same end. At any rate, even if not anything that elaborate, a kind of 'free art space' would be a fun addition.

You mentioned contests as well, and there is something they do at ComiCon every year with three of their guest artists called the Quick Draw. Basically, the participants are given a general subject and have just about a minute or so to get something down on paper. It could be an emotion like 'shock' or a situation like 'your worst day in grade school.' It's like a 'Who's Line is it Anyway?' for visual artists.

On a totally different note, since this will be in LA, it would be nice to have some animation artists represented as well as the more tradtional ones. I know at least a few that have displayed their work at ComiCon, but I don't know if they would be interested in attending other conventions.

Again on a different note, one of my favorite artists lives in Laguna, Scott Moore [link] , but he is quite involved with the Laguna Arts Festival, so by summer, it's quite likely he would be too busy to even consider such a thing, but I thought I would put his name out there.

That's all I have on the top of my head for now, but if I get any other notions, I'll come back and post them. I live in Orange County as do at least 5 of my friends here on dev, so 100% certain we will be attending. Also, AnimeExpo is the first part of July here in OC, and I know a lot of people come out for that, so depending on how the timing works out, you might be able to find people willing to come out and stay for both.

I've to LA a couple of times, but just visiting, so not enough to know what would be fun or where to go. Not really sure what I'm going to be up to in May, but I really want to go to this thing. I'll definately keep an eye out, I hope it all works out.

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You are under control.

Excellent, this is exactly what we're looking for

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"he didn't want to be alone."

I know I can't make it. I'm way over here in Georgia. It sounds like it's going to be great though! Hopefully it will become an annual thing and possibly be hosted in Atlanta in the future. If I were able to make it though, I'd love to see some venders there with some of the newest products available to traditional artists. And hopefully some demonstrations so we could see first hand how things work. I don't know how large this event is going to be, but I can't help thinking about some of the printing shows I've been to in the past. Venders everywhere with everything imaginable to do with printing. I would think I was in heaven if I came across an event like that to do with art. And being self taught without any formal training, it would be wonderful for me if I could see a demonstration of canvas being stretched....or mat cutting....or framing. Sometimes it's hard to figure out how to do something just from reading a book so live demonstrations would be wonderful.