Thursday 27 June 2013

Open: the Royal Mail-proof, stay-at-home, collaborative circle journal

Open: the Stay-At-Home CJ


So, with our first circle journal now drawing to a close, it's time to think about what might fill the void....

As most of you know, unfortunately the Desert Island Discs CJ suffered a casualty at the hands of the postal service, with one of the books (mine, sob) lost in transit as it neared the home stretch.

This, and the ever increasing cost of postage, has put a few people off the idea of doing a traditional CJ again straight away ... and so I have been looking into alternative ideas that will allow us to work on a journal of our own at home, while still retaining the challenge of a circle journal (working with other peoples' themes etc), and a collaborative twist....

And I think I've found something that might.....just.....work!

My inspiration has come from the two posts below on the fabulous Roz Wound Up blog, so have a click and a read of  those first, and then I'll go into a bit more detail of how I see this working for us on Collabor-ART:


So - the first step would be for each participant to produce a background page - just the one - dimensions 8" by 10".  This can be in colour or monochrome, painted or collaged or stamped, whatever you like as long as it is FLAT (as it will need to be scanned and printed).  These will then be posted to me and I will make a full set of colour copies of all the backgrounds for everyone taking part. 

These will then be posted back out, and from that point on there's no more posting, each month we will all work on the same background, and create a page to the theme set by the background's original artist.

On the last day of each month, Sarah will upload a blog post with everyone's artwork, it will be really interesting to see how each of us interprets the same theme on the same background, totally differently! :)

(This is a change from the original plan - rather than everyone blog independently I thought it would make more sense if I upload the lot together - participants please see the instruction letter in with your backgrounds which will tell you where to email your artwork and by when....)

I hope that all makes sense - I don't have a great track record for explaining these projects very clearly!

Sooooooo - please sign up below if you are interested!

Or ask me questions on the Facebook group or on the comments here if you're still not sure.....


1.  Sarah - theme 'song lyrics'
2. GlitteryKatie- theme 'Cogs & Wheels and Rust!'
3.  Virginia - theme 'Shakespeare' - characters or quotes whatever goes
4. Carmen -theme 'Beastie'
5.  Wisher - theme 'Art in my Heart'
6.  Sami- theme 'Mermaid Tales'
7.  Pat - theme 'Steampunk'
8. Lou - theme 'for the love of TREEs'
9. Pam - theme 'Innocence and Experience'
10.


Details:

Host: Sarah (Flo)

Maximum number of participants: 10

Timing:

8" x 10" Backgrounds completed and posted to Sarah, with an A4 sized SAE with a 'large' stamp, by:  20th August 2013

Copies made and sent back to participants by : 31st August 2013

First artwork reveal : 30th September 2013

Thereafter, please email your artwork to Sarah by the last day of every month

Before signing up, please read the list of monthly requirements below to be sure that you will be able to comply:

  • You'll need to be able to email your page on or before the last day of the month each month -  please don't be late.  Please also hold off posting pics on your own blogs, facebook, instagram etc before the reveal date.  The fun in this one will be that none of us will have yet seen what everybody else did with the same background when we do our own interpretation.
  • If you are not going to be able to email on time please let the host know
  • Please sign up with at least the intention to stick with the project for 10 months!  (obviously if something totally unexpected happens and you need to back down, that’s fine, we will be able to work around unforeseen problems, but please don’t sign up if you already KNOW you have a major life change planned part way through this CJ that will disrupt your ability to take part)

9 comments:

  1. Hope this works! I'd like to join in please

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll sign you up Gill, let me know when you have decided on a theme....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Sarah can you sign me up please as my computer is not playing nice and woht let me do it. Thank you x

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Sarah can you sign me up please as my computer is not playing nice and woht let me do it. Thank you x

    ReplyDelete
  5. are we going to know whos paper is whos and what theme goes with each one in advance?? or will each only be reveled the month we're doing that one?

    ReplyDelete
  6. hi Jazz - yes once all the background pages and themes are in, I'll put photos of them all on here, along with who did each one, what their theme is, and which one we are doing each month....

    ReplyDelete
  7. so in theory, as long as you didnt post anywhere else with pics you could have a good run at them all in advance... hmmm thanks xx

    ReplyDelete
  8. yup, absolutely, you could do all ten in the first week if you like :) as long as you only blog them once a month

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm going to sign up for this- I love this idea!! I often don't get anywhere near a post office for weeks :)

    ReplyDelete