You may have noticed a larger gap between updates. Believe it or not, I’ve been updating…behind the scenes.
I own the domain Katanaville.com. It’s been redirecting you to this blog. But you’re going to update your bookmarks, because there’s a new interview with Beth Morrell on Katanaville.COM and I know you want to read it.
Bear with me. I am new to dealing with hosting my own websites and it’s been quite the ordeal to get this up to where it is now. Godaddy has some great customer service, but I’ve spent more hours on the phone with them than I have with my friends over the last couple weeks. Turns out there’s a few really easy solutions to getting a decent wordpress blog up and running (or several for a few other projects) and I’ll tell you about them at Katanville.com.
This is going to stay up here while making the transition. And so as not to kill any link love we’ve generated here so far.
<3
If you’ve ever used a Conté crayon, a graphite stick, or a pencil, you know the trade-off:
It’s a choice between the slow-going gradient of drawing pencils, or the dusty black handprints of those black stick implements.
But what if you could get the subtleties of pencils H to B, the speed of working with a graphite stick, the deep blacks of Conté, and cleaner hands?
And what if, on top of that, your drawings looked more like the one on the left than the one on the bottom? These are both my drawings but I love the gradients I got on the left, whereas the drawing on the bottom is inconsistent with its gradients. These photos are taken with a camera phone, but you’ll forgive me for introducing you to the LITHOGRAPHY CRAYON. Found in with the printmaking supplies.
Today in drawing class we did some gesture drawings. I was rather pleased with this extended gesture drawing (9 minutes). 
What if you got art supplies delivered to you each month? Would you be very excited? Would you tear open the package and open a fresh page? Would you mount them on a wall organized by gradient down to the 500th pencil?
YES YOU CAN!!
Would you eat lettuce and mild curry, dressed in a mermaid’s gown, under an Arizona Sunset?
No, but you can draw it?
See how inspiring? I want all of the on a wall in my house, arranged by gradient.
I used to want to have every room in my house to be different: a green kitchen (all, everything, green) a black bedroom, a red bathroom (even the toilet. Everyone loves a rainbow.
Get it? Draw you in? Oh I am hilarious.
The process of sketchbook to Bristol board to finished work in Skyler Luke Punnett’s work is awesome. He’s in my narrative drawing class and did a presentation of his work today. He showed us finished works, some sketches he’s working on, and explained the process. His style at times reminds me of Al Hartley (minus the odd Christian themes), snowboard graphics from companies like Volcom, and fairy tales. He is great at creating a story within a composition and clever combination, like 
this Heart Beet shirt below. (Get it? HeartBeat? Beet!!)
The example he used is a beautiful sketch for a CD cover. He’s also working on a painting. That is a good thing to note as well- multiple iterations almost guarentee a quality finished product.
So the drawing is Cole Blue Pencil. I may have the name of that pencil wrong because Google isn’t bringing up any results. However, I plan to go to Opus (the local art supply shop) and ask. It’s a blue pencil that erases nicely, on Bristol board.
He also does a layer of watercolour wash seperately, and combines it digitally, working at either his home studio or the other one (not-at-home) for messy things.
Then the finished product goes to say, Shane Koyczan for a book cover. Koyczan is a pretty excellent Spoken Word poet (you might get to see at a Poetry Slam at Cafe du Soleil on Commercial Drive, Vancouver, if you’re lucky). However, my appreciation for Slam is not something I can go on about at length. It’s more like some people’s critique of art “Like it” or “Don’t like it.” Perfectly valid, but not much for conversation.
I just read Craig Thompson’s book, Blanket. I want to use all kinds of literary words, like beautiful and honest coming-of-age love story, but basically it’s a great book I fell in love with and now I wish my name was Raina. Cute.
And the after effects of that is that I want to draw. I want to make a graphic novel. I don’t know what it’s going to be about all the time- I have thrown ideas around- but I want to sit down and work on it and I don’t know where to start. So I’m on my computer right now.
Because of that blank page, I’m on the Internet, where there’s a page even for pages that don’t exist. It’s called the 404.
Remember the Underwater Photography Classes I’m marketing with the fantastic Josan Pinon as teacher? Registration is NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE! I’m going to show you how to make an online sales page yourself!
You need three basic things:
- a Product. (In this case, Underwater Photography Classes) It could be anything from Kazoos to Party Tickets.
- a PayPal account. (which requires an email address, and a bank account.)
- a Website (wordpress.com does not work, I used KatanaBarnett.com. If you have troubles with this, perhaps another tutorial is in order)
- Your press release (how-to is right here).
- A Great Satisfaction Guarantee (from The Art of Nonconformity)
Did you notice that we don’t have dates or locations yet? We want to be flexible with the needs of attendees, and our budget will depend on the number of interested people. To avoid raising any capitol, we’re selling the events before we pay for them. That would be leverage, which is one of the biggest tools we have.
Make a new page on your website. This is where you’re going to send people to register. They’ll read your description, and find out if they are the right people for what you’re offering. Keep it fairly simple, without a lot of distractions. I chose red for my headline because it’s attention-getting. The description is just the press release over again, and one of Josan’s photographs- the kinds of results we want to teach our students.
Than the guarantee, which should be honest (no refund of $1000 doll-hairs) and do-able. You can’t send dissatisfied customers on all-expenses paid trips, unfortunately.
Then, at the bottom, the ‘alter-call’ or the ‘call to action.’ If you have what they want, this is where you put your PayPal Button. This is a code that you copy and paste from PayPal.
Merchant Services -> Buy Now Button -> Create Button
Than you paste this at the bottom of your page.
Now you just have to make sure everything formatted nicely, and there you have it, easier than a point-and-shoot camera 
I had just moved in, meeting my neighbour (@garfieldherriot)- and I am explaining what it is that I do.
“I’m an art student at Emily Carr University.” Quite the elevator pitch, no?
This is usually enough- “Oh cool! You do art!” or “I hear that’s a really hard school to get into.” Of the latter, I have no idea- I dropped off my portfolio on the last possible day, scared of a rejection I didn’t get. Enough of a reaction to feel good about myself.
“So what are you doing to be an artist?”
I repeat myself. “Uh…going to art school. And then hopefully something afterwards. You never know.”
“Well what do you want to do?”
“Be an artist. I’d like to be in the Vancouver Art Gallery.”
“How do you do that?”
This is when I start to feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Oh my god, he just found out I’m not a real artist. “I don’t know?”
“Why don’t you find out?”
So I found myself at the Vancouver Art Gallery the next day, asking someone who didn’t want to talk to me how to apply. I learned they schedule three years in advance, and you need a resume. Art shows.
I get home, and am rewarded with ice cream. Than I have to go to work at my mundane security guard job. Yay.
LESS THAN A YEAR LATER I WAS PUTTING ON MY OWN ART SHOW
I am so pleased! My good friend is getting married!
She asked me to make some posts to mark the cardinal directions. They’re driftwood with tea-dyed yarn tying shells, holly, acorns, feathers, to the twisted branches, and between every two posts swags a few yards of bright sari fabric in marigold, jungle green, and bright plum. All her idea, and I’m so excited to see the ceremony, which is on the beach.
Now, what to wear!
So I made my press release a few days ago and now it’s time to show it to you!
First I made a list of words relating to the subject, keywords, if you want to get all technical. “Underwater, photography, lessons, techniques, photos, photographer…” etc.
Next comes the title: a little catchy, a little cheesy, but most importantly, it tells you what it is, includes a few major keywords. “Get your feet wet with Underwater Photography in Vancouver.”
Then a few sentences to describe what it is, giving just enough information to intrigue. “Award winning photographer..” and “a limited number of people will have the chance to learn…” Notice the “limited number of people”- this adds value. You could also say, “space is limited” or “limited time only.” You’ve seen this before, but were you aware of what it does?
And then a list of what the benefits are, what the audience will get out of it. What are they going to learn? What’s in it for me? This also gives you the moment to narrow down your audience. I don’t want people thinking they’ve signed up for bowling lessons!
And then tell them what to do next! They want it, now what do they do? REGISTER!
Final Result:
Get Your Feet Wet with Underwater Photography in Vancouver
Award-winning fine art photographer Josan Pinon reveals the specialized techniques of underwater photography that she has used to create beautiful underwater images and portraits.
How to take photographs underwater
How to handle the variables of water and equipment
How to maximize available light
How to set up composition & poses underwater
A completed portfolio of underwater photographs
You can get early-bird pricing by emailing Josan Pinon at josan@josanpinon.com
Regular registration begins August 1st
