Well, here we are at the final update on this
record-breaking campaign
- all the surveys have been sent out over the past 3 months, and every
single package (if you've filled in your survey!*) has now been sent,
meaning everyone will have their books by the end of September, as
promised. In fact, the vast majority of you have them already.
7,500 copies were signed,
450 pieces of original art now have new homes, I processed through
10 TONNES of books, and sent out more than
5,000 separate packages to over
60 different countries.
THANK YOU ALL for bringing this thing to life, without you it would not exist, and an extra thank you to
ROBIN,
who helped me out in the crazy first month of sending all those tier
one packages (he got so he could bag and box a book in under
5 seconds!).
You have all given me the freedom to continue this massive project, and to focus more than ever on
SHARING SKILLS for
FREE. I feel so strongly that the proliferation of
paid subscription services and
paywalls are beginning to shut off much of the best art education on the internet, and I'm determined to
FIGHT BACK
against that, on behalf of everyone that feels as I do that sharing
skills for free is the greatest gift we can give to one another. The
tutorials are going to continue
every week on line, as Robin and I build a resource so
MASSIVE and so
DIVERSE, that you will
NEVER have to
PAY to learn to
DRAW or
WRITE online ever again. Paywalls
DOWN, skills
UP!
This
whole process has been a complete JOY from beginning to end, you've all
shown me so much support, in particular in the amazing comments you
left in that
"say something to make me smile while I'm packing" section of the surveys. That was so wonderful, as some of you told me how they'd
discovered my work, some of you told me about how
the tutorials had helped you, some told me that the books were
surprise gifts for friends, brothers, sisters, parents or
children, or for people they'd had a
crush
on for years! Some told me very moving stories about how the online
tutorials had helped them find a new direction in their lives after
depression, or unemployment, or the loss of a loved one. Some of you
suggested
music or
podcasts I could listen to while packing, told me
jokes, suggested I do various
exercises/drink lots of water/coffee/beer/milkshakes/take breaks/don't stop/keep going!
I cannot tell you how touching it was to get one of those wonderful
comments to read each time I printed a new packing label, it made me
feel SO connected to you all during this wonderfully
EPIC task, and gave me an incredible sense of how far this thing has reached now :)
And then a
HUGE thank-you to those of you who took the time to post up about the books on
twitter and
instagram, or write reviews of the books on your
blogs etc.
It was incredible to literally see these books in the hands of so many
different people from around the world - I chose not to post up images
of the books myself, but instead to retweet the pictures and videos
YOU posted
flicking through the books , and many of them got
amazing traffic, so I hope you guys benefited from that by gaining some extra followers too ;)
*For
the few of you who have not filled in your survey yet because the
survey email (and subsequent reminder email) got sent to your email spam
folder -
DON'T WORRY! Just
log into your kickstarter account, click your little avatar, go to
"backed projects", then click the
"How to THINK when you draw" thumbnail - your survey is waiting there for you.
If you think your package should have arrived, but it hasn't yet, please wait until the
end of September for delivery. After then, if your package hasn't turned up, drop me
a message through Kickstarter or email me at
misterlorenzoboy@yahoo.co.uk and I'll get it sorted.
This is the final update on this campaign, BUT, if you want more
FREE tutorials and art
EVERY DAY, just follow along with us on
TWITTER, INSTAGRAM or our
BLOG, for an endless stream of new stuff :)
Any questions, just let me know, I respond to all messages on all platforms within 24 hours :)
Thank you all for being a part of this thing!
Lorenzo!