This past week, I participated in the first World Art Drop Day. It was invented by Jake Parker, the same artist responsible for the month-long drawing challenge Inktober.

The concept is simple. Create some art. Hide it somewhere in your area. Take a picture of the location, post it online and give hints about the location on social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Use the hashtag #artdropday so others will (hopefully) find your art stash.

Sounded like a cool idea, so I created a bunch of painted art cards and then quickly laminated them since they’d be outside for an unknown length of time. Turned out to be a pretty good idea. If anyone is interested, they were and ink drawings with water colour pencil crayons. Was quick and easy to do in the evenings after the munchkin went to bed.

I didn’t really have any real plans of where I was to hide the cards when the day came. I made note of some local Geocaches in the area. I figured that would be a safe bet as the art would eventually be found if it nobody else in Winnipeg was paying attention to either Art Drop Day or me. Turns out at least a few were.

I also walk my son to his daycare every day in the summer months and then walk to my place of work. I managed to hide two that way.

This one was in a Metro news box by a Tim Horton’s (I AM Canadian ‘eh!) I figured at least the guy who empties them out at night would find it.

This one was by a water retention pond by my son’s daycare. It was just out in the open. Turned out to be an error in judgement. It poured buckets and buckets of water in the afternoon. It was not forecasted for. I thought it was destroyed. And it was one of my favourites. I checked the next day, and while really, really drenched, it was still in pretty good shape. Should dry out nicely. I took it back as a reminder to have a better plan (and potentially drier spots) for next year.

Did I mention it rained? A lot? And I walk to work? And I still had a bunch of cards to hide?

Yeah, I got really, really wet. Good thing I pack rain gear. But it was still a lot of water.

I had to leave early for work that day, so my plan was to hide a few more along my way and then maybe hide whatever was left in a geocache sometime later.

The torrential rain changed my plans very quickly.

I hung out in a bus shelter during the worst of it. And hid a card in there. In case anyone was wondering, I had no change for the bus.

This was right after the rain. Looks Like EVERYONE was doing stuff for World Art Drop Day!

And long after I had dried out, I was hanging out in a local bookseller, McNally Robinson. And I found what I thought was a clever hiding spot for one of my cards.

I’m pretty certain at least some of my other cards were found. I put info regarding Art Drop Day on the back along with my website info. Got a few extra local hits that night. So not a total wash (see what I did there?) but it does mean I have a few extra cards left over.

Oh and to the jackass in the Dodge Challenger who tried to splash me? You missed. Pththththththhtththththtp:P

So I’m thinking maybe vinyl stickers next year…