This Weekend: Impromptu Signing Party

Overall, the weekend was casual fun for me at Art of the Carolinas sponsored by Jerry's Artarama.

Warning: I've edited this at least 4 times, you'll want to come to read it again and again.

I was able to meet some incredible artists and some gracious reps from art supply companies. I became a North Light groupie and pretty much did my best to stay out of Mike's and his customers' way -I did manage to sign a few books for folks!



Also had the pleasure of meeting Paul W. McCormack and we each signed each other's pages in Strokes -how fun. Also met his funny wife Karen, who is also an illustrator and get this: she grooms images into dog fur!! Candidly, I told her to start a blog so that I could see photos of her art of grooming.

Additionally, my favorite new friends are:
Joe DiGiulio, MRasheed, and Bill Canright

Thanks guys! I'll be stalking ya! Only Karen laughed and said, "yea!"

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Meanwhile, hanging at this tradeshow taught me many lessons this weekend:

• If you enjoy combat shopping, do it at noon on Friday, Sunday, and after the workshops let out each evening, the vendors love it. If you just want a leisure look-see and don't want to buy a darn thing, do it Saturday.
• Also, lurk around the vendor booths and constantly ask when the discounts begin, they love that, too. What vendor wouldn't want to give their stuff away for free?
  
• I learned that F+W Publications (aka North Light) has groupies and I've become one. Now I need to scope out F+W events, purchase my plane tickets and set out for an adventure of a life time. Because reading books for free at their booth is loads of fun, where else can one do that?
• If you can't flip over a book to check it's price, then you should ask the vendor if all the books are the same price. I've never know books to be different prices and wonder why I'm surprised when I see some coffee table books differ from step-by-steps. Baffling.
• When you watch artists demonstrating effects with their medium of choice, ask them what their medium of choice is. It doesn't matter if he's only using acrylics, ask him again -he loves it.
• Then ask him how long it took him so that you can weigh the price against the hours completed, divide, and then decide if his art is worth the pennies-per-day something you'd enjoy.
• Don't forget to ask for samples. I heard some book publisher was holding a special: All you could carry.

Okay, this is all in jest, in case you need to be reminded. Blame Michael Ian Black. Naturally, I'm never snarky, but this guy just put in all in perspective for me this morning.

My favorite husband was busy at home cutting and sewing suede books for us, so he wasn't able to join the fun or take my photo lurking about. Photo documentation probably would have turned up as evidence in court, so I guess it's best not to take photos including me.

Thanks for coming out to see me - it was fun meeting new enthusiasts.