My Exhibition is NEXT WEEK!

My big exhibition of sketchbooks from my year's residency is being hung this time next week! I can't believe it's so close now. I am still frantically trying to sort things out. I designed a logo to be printed onto a vinyl stencil and pasted along the gallery wall. It'll be about 2m long:

It works really well on the poster I designed too:

I've also designed postcards with maps on the back so people can find the gallery. Luckily it's very easy from Manchester Oxford Road station and only takes about 15 minutes to walk:

The postcards will have various different pictures on the front. I've done 6 different versions, because each of the 500 delegates at the Urban Sketchers Symposium will get one of these in their goody-bags and I'm hoping that them all being different will make them more of a talking point. There's another 1000 postcards to be distributed by the university's marketing department too, so hopefully we'll get at least a few people turning up!

I have even designed a street banner to go outside the gallery to entice people in. It's just over 2m high and will be one of those that's like a flag, with a post going into a floor weight, which you fill up with water, so it doesn't take off halfway through the exhibition!

Inside the gallery, I am exhibiting 27 of the 2m long sketchbooks I have been creating over the year. Because they are relatively small in such a big space, I was worried about visual impact, so have created eight A0 size boards, with details from the sketches blown up HUGE. There are also a couple of AO boards telling people what it's all about: one from my perspective and one written by Professor Heath. I sploshed them with watercolour, to make them more groovy:.

Today I am working on workshop sheets. I am going to be running actual workshops on the mornings of both 26th July and 1st August, but we are also going to have an area with art materials supplied, so visitors can have a go, if they feel inspired. To give them some starting points, I have written 5 workshop sheets, which we will have laminated on the art table.

It's all going to be brilliant, but everything takes so long to prepare. It all has to be written, illustrated, designed then prepared for print. I think I am going to get it all sorted in time, but only just. I've left the least vital things until last, just in case!

Wish me luck...