Thanks to the Meetdraw8 ‘Digital Animals’ print sale before Christmas, you lovely meetdraw-ers raised £355 for animal welfare charity Compassion in World Farming, PLUS £200 for their Dorset supporter group Compassionate Dorset (that’s us!). That’s a whopping total of £555 from one night! It really was a fantastic amount and Compassion in World Farming were really pleased to hear the sale went so well and are very grateful to everyone for supporting their work for farm animal welfare.

Compassionate Dorset

Compassionate Dorset is a local animal welfare group promoting compassionate living through events and creative projects. So far, all funds we have raised in our first year has been donated straight to Compassion in World Farming and we really needed our own funds for our own publicity materials, printing t-shirts etc so as you can imagine we were really chuffed to hear that we were Meetdraw’s chosen charity and to be invited along to the print sale. The money we have received ourselves will be going towards print work to publicise our group through posters, leaflets, flyers as well as banners for the events we attend across Dorset, so quite apt that one creative venture will go to support another creative venture and it’s pretty cool how those ‘digital animals’ ended up raising money for… well, actual animals!!!

Thank you

A HUGE thank you again to everyone at Meetdraw who helped to create and sell all those striking and funky prints. Compassion believe that together we can make a real difference to farm animal’s lives across the globe, and it all starts with local communities, so we’ll be using our funds to help raise awareness and educate the people of Dorset to think about where their food comes from and how they too can make a difference.

Tees still available

By the way, if you like digital animals, Compassionate Dorset have our own range of farm animal designer tees by Illustrator Stu Jones and ALL profits (at least £2 – £5 from EVERY t-shirt/top sold) gets donated to Compassion in World Farming so get yours at http://compassionatedorset.spreadshirt.co.uk

Hands washed, benches scrubbed, screens blasted clean, and finally, here are all our finished screen prints.

The brief we gave our artists was ‘digital animals’. They each chose a three letter file extension, or digital acronym, and then set about illustrating it using three animals, and just black, white and one colour.

Colour separations we’re sent through, and with the help of the skilled staff at AUCB, here’s what we produced…

Before I wash the ink off my hands, arms, face and clothes, and out of my hair and ears, I thought I’d grab a quick beer and ten minutes to jot down a few words.

It’s been an amazing few days, hanging out in the print studios at AUCB, being expertly guided through the screen printing process, and getting messy along the way.

A small herd of regular Meetdraw attendees have given up their weekends and evenings to brainstorm, design, and finally print their own artwork. For most it was a process that was entirely alien though layered with tradition. It was fascinating to move away from digital screen to make something with our hands, something that was physically more tangible, and produce a series of identical images that are subtly unique at the same time.

We’ve produced a dozen or so designs and printed a limited edition of ten of each. They’ll be on sale at Meetdraw8 on Thursday. Each print will be £15 (sorry cash only), and once they’re gone they’re gone, so bring some dosh and get there early!

AUCB have kindly waived the costs of our workshops so we are delighted that all the proceeds from the print sales can go to charity. The charity we have chosen is Compassion in World Farming. Two thirds of the takings will go to the charity and one third will be used by their local support group Compassionate Dorset to help with local events and projects.

Compassionate Dorset is run by volunteers, including talented local digital people, like Anna and Stu, who’ll also be joining us on Thursday. Check out their cool tees, we’re hoping they’ll be able to bring some along for sale.

Finally I’d like to give a massive shout out to all who have helped with this project. To Neil and Lisa at the AUCB who lead and guided us brilliantly, to the students and technicians who helped us with unerring patience, and to all our artists who pitched in, pitched up and had fun.

See you all Thursday

With only 5 days to go until Meetdraw8 we’re frantically running round getting everything ready to ensure it’s the best Meetdraw ever, and today was no exception.

Thanks to our friends at AUCB a bunch of Meetheads, lead by David ‘The Butcher’ Burton, spent the day producing a series of limited edition screen prints for Meetdraw8. The prints look amazing and we’re really grateful to everyone who volunteered their time to help out. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it but looking at the photos it was an awesome day.

On Thursday we’ll be auctioning off the prints in aid local charities, so start measuring up your walls, dust off your cheque books, and get ready to own your very own ‘digital animals’. To help whet your appetite, here’s a little sneaky peek:

Thanks to Damian Proctor and John Parker for these photos, and everyone else who took photos during the day. To see more check out Meetdraw on Flickr.