What's Sketch Fest?

Sketch Fest is a 48 hour creative jam session with artists across the world, brought to you by Ellen Million Graphics and many gracious donors. Prompters leave ideas and artists sketch, in any media, whatever catches their fancy. The only rule? Sketches can only be worked on for one hour, during the Sketch Fest event.

The short window of artistic opportunity means each piece is low pressure - if you mess it up, at the most you've invested an hour, and in many cases, only a few minutes. Working to someone else's prompts means you're stretching your creative muscles and exploring topics that you might not have come up with yourself. Sketch Fest is a surefire way to break through a creative block and find inspiration. And if you haven't finished in an hour, you can always go back and post a finished piece later, as long as you've uploaded your sketch at the hour-mark. You can see a gallery of finished pieces.

Sketch Fest is also a great place to buy and sell artwork! You can find really rare sketches by some of your favorite artists, at incredible deals... and sometimes even from your prompt! Artists can list originals, prints, or other merchandise for sale directly at the site. A percentage of each sale goes to support the Sketch Fest site and fund improvements. All transactions include shipping, and artwork is shipped directly from the artist to the buyer.

Prompters:

Please leave us ideas and inspiration to keep us sketching! 48 hours is a long time to think up ideas, and we need all the help and encouragement we can get.

Prompts can be one or two words, character descriptions, photos, weird science facts, links to articles... whatever. All prompts will be available for all artists to choose from, and most of us will be working in the fantasy and science fiction genre. You may post one prompt or several. Most users are restricted to five prompts, to make sure that plenty of people have an opportunity to get their ideas worked on. Logged in supporters who have donated to Sketch Fest get to submit up to 15 and super supporters who have contributed more than $100 get 25 prompts! You do not have to be logged in or registered; you may post anonymously. The same prompt cannot be posted again in the same Sketch Fest.

You may choose to get email alerts when someone posts a sketch for your prompt. Artists love to get comments, so be sure to let them know if you enjoy the work!

You may also request how long an original should be held for you. The artist is not required to hold an original for you, but you can set your preferences and let them know. Holds are only possible if you left your prompt as a logged in user!

Artists:

If you are logged in, you may tag or claim a prompt. A claim says "I've done this prompt!" and will allow you to upload your work after the Sketch Fest has ended - it also lets the prompter know that something has been (or definitely will be!) completed for it and gives them something to look forward to. A tag will flag the prompt for you so you can find it again, but not let the prompter know. There is no limit to the amount of prompts you can claim or tag, and both are completely optional. Please note that you cannot upload artwork after Sketch Fest has closed unless you claim a prompt.

More than one person may claim a prompt - it's fun to see different interpretations of the same idea!

Artists have 1 hour to work on a sketch for the prompts they claim. You aren't required to post it within an hour - maybe you get a phone call, or want to scan all of your finished sketches at once, or who knows. You are simply on the honor system not to spend more than one hour on any sketch before posting it. You are also invited to finish the pieces later, if you like what you start, and you have the option to upload that to our site, if you are logged in! Any medium is welcome. You don't have to spend the whole hour on a sketch - if you get to a good stopping point after 20 minutes, that's fine, too! Hop in for an hour and do one sketch, or pull an all-nighter and spend all 48 hours jamming with us.

Upload your finished sketch using the "Upload a sketch" link! (Click on the prompt to get to that page.)

You may list information about your sketch in the description field, and include a link to where it might be purchased at your own site. You also have the option to sell your sketch at the Sketch Fest webpage, with a portion of your price donated to cover costs and help improve the webpage. By doing so, you agree to mail the sketch (or a print, or a high-resolution copy, whatever you say you will send) to the buyer when Ellen provides you that information. An email is sent whenever you make a sale, but emails can go astray, so you are repsonsible for checking in at the site periodically to see if you have made sales!

You will be listed on the Sketch Fest webpage as a donor if your sketch sells, and you'll get other supporter perks! You may also choose to have the funds from your sketch sale donated to Commission-Control, EMG-Zine, Torn World, Portrait Adoption, or to cover general Ellen Million Graphics improvements and administrative expenses (like webhosting).

For Everyone:

A few basic rules of conduct apply: no swearing, no spamming, no sexual content (though nudity is fine), no hate-stuff. Be nice to each other.

Let Ellen know what features you'd like to see in the future, and what you liked best about your Sketch Fest experience! Email to ellen @ ellenmilliongraphics dot com, or leave a note for her on Facebook. You can also watch her on Twitter.

Above all, have fun and be creative!

Random Sketches