Monthly Archives: December 2011

From Frances and Dima
All the best for 2012!

Our New Year card originated from this screenshot of one of the Tagtool drawings that I did recently during our skiing holiday in Livigno, Italy.I altered the original image using one of the new applications available in the latest edition of Picasa. There are now so many different effects, some really subtle and others quite bizarre – but all great fun and easy to use. Here are some experiments that I made with a couple of my other Tagtool drawings. Above is the original image and below some ‘altered states’ courtesy of Picasa!


Below, another of my drawings – followed by some Picasa ‘variations’!


Really scary, eh!!

Dima made five short videos from the concert given by Margaret Unknown and Tembryo at Café V lese in Prague on Sunday 27 November. You can find all of them on this Vimeo channel but I have posted the two here where I think that the combination of sound and visuals works best.

On Sunday 27 November there was a concert by Margaret Unknown and Tembryo in the newly opened cellar bar of Café V lese and they asked me if I would provide some live Tagtool drawing for their performance.Although this is a very nice large space, doing drawing here was not at all easy because of the low ceiling and the pillars that obscured the view, and also because the four musicians were spaced very widely across the big stage area with its corner steps. In order to see the projection the only light source for the stage,which was a ceiling-mounted bare light bulb, had to be switched off during the performance. This meant that my Tagtool drawing was the only source of light for the musicians while they were playing and although the corner stage, doorway and uneven brick walls made a most interesting setting for drawing there was a lot of distortion and overlap from the two projectors for me to cope with as well.Because, as can be seen in the photo above from my first drawing sequence, the musicians became almost hidden in the combination of my drawn and their real shadows, for the remainder of the performance I drew mostly abstract patterns to complement their experimental-psychedelic music, concentrating on trying to make the four musicians visible as well as providing a series of background images for their performance. Despite the difficulty of making an interesting background image while at the same time providing enough illumination so that the musicians could see to play, I ended the performance by drawing this dark cityscape.

Dima videoed the whole of Nathan Bell‘s performance with my Tagtool drawing. I really enjoyed making these visuals to accompany Nathan’s performance!
He played for about three quarters of an hour and you can find the complete performance uploaded in six parts on this separate Vimeo channel – http://vimeo.com/channels/266513
Here is the first video clip – after viewing it I hope you will visit the Vimeo channel to see the rest of the performance.

This is a real ‘blast from the past’ – a video from 2008 of part of the performance at Evolution Night Vol 2 in Club Skutečnost, Prague. At the time I was not aware that anyone was making a video so I was very pleased to discover after the performance this clip by CIANT on the Internet. It’s now three years on, almost to the day, so I thought I would post it on the blog…..

Club Skutečnost was located in a labyrinth of interconnecting cellars with widely differing ceiling heights and the small stage in the club was set so high up that a ladder was the only means of access for performers. There was a very nice big back projection screen that stretched from one side of the stage to the other but by the time that the musicians had set up all their equipment the only space available for us to work was a small alcove in the side wall in which we were more or less hidden from both audience and performers. Also, this meant that I had only a very oblique view of a small section of the projection screen while drawing. To this difficulty was added the problem of setting up my laptop plus a separate computer screen which we had covered with a (homemade) black box hood to isolate the drawing area of the Corel Painter programme that I was using, the tripod-mounted video camera, Dima’s Edirol V4 Mixer and a small desk and chair so that I could sit to draw – all of which had to be jammed somehow into this one small corner. Of course Dima had to carry all of this equipment up the ladder on to the stage (and back down again afterwards) – these were definitely not the ideal circumstances for a live drawing performance!
However, Anja and Bethany were happy with the visuals accompanying their music and the audience also seemed to like my drawings. This encouraged us to try to look for some other (easier/better) way to make live drawing performances so we searched the Internet – and discovered Tagtool!

And the rest, as they say, is history!