Sunday Mailbag- Do a Workshop Near Me?

Q: Are you going to come to my hometown and do a workshop?

A: I get a lot of people who ask me that, and the only answer is maybe but probably not. It isn’t as easy to set up a traveling workshop as one might think. I have to find a hotel that has the right room for our needs and all that, but the biggest concern is making sure I can fill all twelve student spaces. It doesn’t make sense for me to take three plus days away from the studio and incur the expenses of travel and hotel and room rental etc. unless I have a full class. It’s hard to know if I will be able to find enough students in a given city to make a workshop work. Tuition is not cheap, and students incur expense with travel or hotel if they have to drive in from different parts of the area, so selling these out is not that easy even with only twelve available spots.

If you are interested in having me come to a location near you to do a workshop, there are two ways you can assist in making that happen. First, email me and let me know you would be interested in attending a workshop in a certain area. I keep a folder of such emails and if I get enough interest from a certain area I will start to look into doing one there.

Second, you can act as a “host” for a workshop. If someone contacts me and says they have 8 or 10 people who are interested in doing a workshop, and they have a suggestion for a hotel to have it at, I would work with that person to find dates that would work for the group and set one up. In fact, if someone does the local legwork in finding a hotel and finding enough students to fill the class, I give them a FREE spot in the workshop.

I can only do a handful of these a year, though. They do take a lot of time to set up and to conduct. I’m happy to consider doing one in your area if enough interest is there.

Thanks to a lot of people for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!