Drawinglive News

On Friday 10 June I was drawing at the Music Club Střelnice in Klatovy.I haven’t drawn at one of Mutanti’s concerts since last year and for this performance they had some new songs as well as music that I know well. At this venue there were all kinds of decorations, stairs and a railing to a second room behind the stage (not easy to draw over!) so Dima put up a white cloth behind the stage to make a ‘canvas’ for my drawings. After a 3 minute abstract sequence for the opening song, ‘Frequence’ the programme continued with a song about homeless people warming themselves around a brazier on the street…  .. cue for another 3 minute drawing. Most of Mutanti’s songs are about this length, which makes it quite difficult to draw something appropriate and recognisable and also to move from one scenario to another in so short a time. Below, an old favourite – the mutated animals…. …and then a new song about a man who dug a hole in the road and kept on digging until the hole was so deep it reached to the centre of the earth.The next sequence of images began with a short hip hop song and ended with the 10 minute long, ‘Discotheque’ – a song about a big black guy.Having a longer time meant that I could develop this drawing before fading it out….…then a quite different atmosphere with the girl on a swing for the song, ‘Uncle Honza’……and morphing this drawing into an urban scene for the song, ‘Deti’.It was great to be back ‘on the road’ again and I really enjoyed this evening of drawing.  So – a big thanks to Jirka and Honza for the music and also to Dima for taking the photos!

Time to re-start the blog!

Since I broke my arm at the end of March I haven’t been able to do much drawing –  which I found very frustrating indeed.  But once I got the plaster cast off, as part of my ‘rehabilitation’ I went along to the ‘Karel je King’ 700 year anniversary open air event on 14 May held at at Stalin in Prague and joined in the Tagtool open session.Seven weeks without doing any Tagtool drawing….I was very out of practice but it was great to be able to join in the fun at this event! (And thanks to Sid Svoboda who took these photos for me.)I had another opportunity to do some drawing at the monthly Tagtool jam session on 30 May at mo.ë in Vienna, meeting old friends and joining in the drawing with Maki, Iink and the rest of the crew.Below are a couple of photos from this jam session.Last Friday and Saturday I was drawing at two events in the Czech Republic, first in Klatovy, at the concert given by Mutanti hledaj východisko and on Saturday night at Meander Festival at Loket.  Dima took lots of photos at both events so I will save them for separate postings later this week.

I was invited to make Tagtool drawings by Margaret Unknown, one of the members of Egotrip 27, a Berlin-based ‘traveling group of improvising beings currently on tour’. This event consisted of six separate improvised performances featuring noise and electronic music – and my drawing had to be totally improvised too, which was quite a challenge!  There was no raised stage at this venue.  The wide angle lens in the Epson projector covered both the wall behind the musicians and the floor in front of them which created a lot of interesting possibilities for drawing .

Below are some photos from the first performance of the evening…

…where, because the projection  area covered both wall and floor, I could ‘play’ with the illusion of some parts of the drawing being in front of the performer with the shadows in the background drawn on the wall.Each performance was only about twenty minutes long so I had to react very quickly.  As there wasn’t time to build up a lot of detailed imagery I chose to use a mix of abstract and figurative elements.  I began with transparent layers of red and black for the second performance…

…from which I developed this landscape on the wall behind the musicians.Below are photos of the performance by our friend Margaret Unknown.

A mirror was placed centre stage for this improvised theatre piece……and I ‘painted out’ the rest of the wall in order to focus on the performer.

Tagtool drawing provided the only light to the stage between performances. In the photo below, during one of the breaks between sets two musicians ‘tune up’ before I faded to black signaling that the next performance was about to begin.Back to black, red and white for the next improvisation…

…incorporating both real and drawn silhouettes in the drawing on the wall and selectively illuminating and hiding the performer within the drawing.

Below are photos of the instrumental trio who gave the last performance of the evening. First I laid down a textured background on the wall…… superimposed the two large figures…

…and ended by adding the small silhouettes in the background.Egotrip 27 is a most interesting collective and I had a great night of drawing at this performance.  They are currently on an eastern European tour and I really felt privileged to have this opportunity to provide the visuals for their performance in Prague.

I have often listened to Matt Elliott’s music while drawing in my studio but I have never heard  him play live, so it was a particular pleasure to be able to do some Tagtool drawing at this concert at A Maze in Tchaiovna. The basement concert room at this vegetarian/vegan restaurant and community hub in Prague was not large, but putting a white sheet over the small window above the stage provided a good background for drawing.I made the drawing above to show the Tagtool to Matt and discuss the idea of drawing during the performance. Although our Epson projector easily covered the whole alcove and stage from floor to ceiling, during the performance I kept the images fairly dark, only drawing on the rear wall behind the stage.  Dima took both photos and some video of the concert – the video was rather dark but I have lots of photos. Here is a selection…

The first drawing sequence ended in monochrome so I decided to introduce some warmer colour for the next song……returning to more sombre watery imagery for this ‘drowning song’.

Back again to monochrome……

…and then a return to colour for the last song.It was great to have this opportunity to hear Matt Elliott perform live.  After the concert Andy, who runs Tchaiovna, took up his fiddle and joined Matt on stage for an impromptu number and I did the drawing below.

Then some members of the audience wanted to know how the Tagtool worked so I did some more drawing……while in the bar the jam session went on till late.It was a most enjoyable evening – the perfect mix of music and good company!

On Saturday 7 February, once it got dark, we went out with our projector, generator and Tagtool to do some urban ‘projector bombing’. In the afternoon we had gone with Don Moss to look at some possible locations, and the gable end of this huge building, set back from the road with very little ambient light, despite its dark colour looked like an ideal wall for a nice evening of drawing.  Also it would be easy to set up all our equipment in the children’s playground in front of the wall. In the evening we brought our gazebo with us too, a last minute decision that proved extremely useful, as no sooner had we started up the generator and switched on the projector, it started to rain quite hard. On the plus side, the bad weather meant that the sky was quite dark.  I began by testing the Tagtool colours and, as can be seen in the photo below, our Epson projector coped really well, even with the dark brick part of the wall.I decided just to ‘grow’ my drawing out of the graffiti  at ground level…..…and then change the composition by developing a landscape behind the figures that would reach to the top of the building. Because of the rain there weren’t many passers-by and the only audience was the friends that we had invited, standing under their umbrellas – but it was wonderful to have this opportunity to draw on such a large scale.I ended my drawing session with three really enormous heads and then it was time for me to ‘hand over’ to Don Moss.

Don Moss uses the Tagtool for iPad, and for working outside on the street this definitely a much easier option than my big, heavy ‘ old-school Tagtool all-in-one’.  It’s also very well suited to his elegant calligraphic style of drawing.He made some nice animations too and here are three stills from one sequence…The rain stopped and the sky lightened but our Epson projector still gave a beautiful bright image – and, as a bonus, all the drawings were reflected in the wet tarmac of the playground.  Very nice!After two hours of drawing it was time to pack up.  I was tired, a bit wet but happy – all thanks to Don, Lenara, Ernst, Bjela and the rest of the company whose enthusiasm and hospitality had ensured that we had a really great time in Berlin!

Drawing on Saturday 6 February at the Turkish duo FezayaFirar‘s ‘Elektronischer Salon’ at Gelegenheiten in Neukölln.It was great to have this opportunity to draw with Emre and Melech again.  This concert was held in a former butcher’s shop on a street corner and although the shop was not big, it had a lovely warm  atmosphere. The white tiles of the interior were an ideal surface for Tagtool drawing too!Our Epson projector gave an image that covered the whole wall from floor to ceiling and the big shop windows on either side of the door meant that the drawing could be seen clearly from the street – nice!I only had a short time to test the Tagtool and projector while the musicians set up their equipment.  Then I made this landscape so that there was a drawing for people to look at before the concert began. Because we forgot to pack the chargers for our cameras (typical!) I thought there might be no photos for the blog – so I must say a big ‘thank-you’ to our friends Don Moss, Bjela Prossowsky and Kuba Pešek  for kindly sharing their photos of the concert with me.  (Result – lots of high quality photos which made it very difficult to make this selection!)

When the concert began I covered the wall with transparent colour….…and used this as a background for some line drawing……adding figures in black and white in the foreground……and then some really big heads……and below are two photos from the last drawing sequence of the concert.

My first big Tagtool session of 2016 was this temporary floor to ceiling mural  at La Fabrika, where Vložte kočku were holding their 8th anniversary concert on Wednesday 20 January.  I had made live Tagtool drawings to accompany Vložte kočku’s programme, ‘Otázka času’ at this theatre in Prague last year, and for this year’s concert Dima made a new design of LED lights and projections for the stage.  I made this Tagtool mural in the afternoon during rehearsals so that there would be some artwork for people to look at in the evening in the bar when they arrived – and also during the interval at the concert.It was great to have this opportunity to use the Tagtool to make a really big painting.  The Slévárna studio at La Fabrika is a wonderful space and on the black screen ‘wall’ our Epson projector produced vibrant colours and lovely velvety blacks.  I was able to take my time and build up the composition slowly using lots of layers of drawing.  The photo above shows the scale of the work… …and this is a photo of the drawing as it appeared in the monitor attached to my Tagtool workstation.  In order to cover the whole wall in the bar from floor to ceiling our projector had to be mounted at ceiling height at the opposite end of the hall.  Unfortunately the cable that I had brought to connect to my Tagtool only just reached to the ground, which meant that I had to stand directly underneath the projector and at this distance I was too far away to see any detail in my drawing.  Having this little monitor to glance at from time to time proved to be very handy!

Below is another photo taken from my monitor that shows the finished mural.

Tagtool drawing at the Berg orchestra concert held in the Museum of Music in Prague on Monday 7 December. The concert opened with the first public performance of Slyšíš ty ptáky (You hear the birds), a new work for soprano and orchestra by the Czech composer Jana Vöröšová. Below is the text of Ivan Wernisch‘s poem.

Slyšíš ty ptáky             You hear the birds

Slyšíš, ti ptáci                You hear the birds
volají,                               calling,
jako by volali                 as if they were calling
tebe                                   you

Ne, mne ne                     No, not me
volají                                 they call
mé jméno,                       my name,
mne ne                             not me

Jak rád bych věděl,        I would love to know,
co znamená                     what means
mé jméno                         my name
v řeči ptáků                      in birds’ language

I made the practice drawings below at the rehearsal on Sunday.It was great to have this opportunity to hear the music and to try out ideas for drawing before the performance. The pierced wall and interior stairway of the museum made for a very interesting drawing surface but as Slyšíš ty ptáky was quite a short piece of music, (under 10 minutes long) I had to draw very quickly!

I was also asked to provide a visual accompaniment to the final piece in the programme, Giya Kancheli‘s ‘Midday Prayers’. For this music ( which was about 25 minutes long) I kept the drawing very slow and minimal, using mostly transparent layers, beginning in monochrome and only adding colour towards the end of the work when the boy soprano began to sing. For parts of the drawing Dima made some animation and fading for me, following the tempo of the music.  Below are some screenshots taken from his video camera.

Drawing at the children’s charity fundraising event organised by Letní dům on the riverside at Mala Strana in Prague on Thursday 26 November.This was a great location for Tagtool drawing! On the causeway leading down to the water’s edge there were tents for refreshments and the sale of paper lanterns to float on the water. The evening began with a puppet show for the children, followed by music from the Tango Jazz Band.While people were watching the puppet show I developed this landscape with foreground figures on the facade of the Containall building…
…and when the band was playing I drew on the wall next to the stage too.From my position at the edge of the little park above the causeway I had a clear uninterrupted view……and this official photo also shows the Panasonic projector provided by AV Media – a big powerful beast with a lens the size of a tea-plate giving super bright images that could clearly be seen from across the river – great for this kind of event!While I was drawing Dima took lots of photos, including these of the stunning view of Charles Bridge from the riverside and the crowds of people waiting (with the swans!) to float their lanterns on the water.Here are some more photos of my drawing to accompany the jazz band….It was great to be able to draw on such a large scale and while the band was playing lots of people danced in front of the wall and took photos. The grand finale of the evening’s entertainment was a spectacular performance by the Hypnotica Fire and Light group and for this I ‘erased’ the figures on the wall to provide a cool blue and black background……and then took a short break from drawing to enjoy the fire show. After the fire show crowds of people remained, taking photos and watching the lanterns floating on the water.  This was a really enjoyable family event and I was very happy to have this opportunity to do these Tagtool drawings in this wonderful location – despite the cold weather!

This photo was taken before the concert given by Mutanti Hledaj Východisko at Club Fléda in Brno on Friday night.  It’s  a practice drawing for their song ‘Johana’, about a big wild boar –  not my usual subject matter!  At the concert I also drew an urban housing estate, landscape, mutant animals and children to accompany Mutanti’s set  but unfortunately as Dima wasn’t able to come to Brno with me I don’t have any photos from the performance itself.

I was very nervous about having do this Tagtool session without Dima to help me (the first time this has happened!) , but thanks to Lukas Bejbl, who not only helped set up the Tagtool but also manned the gamepad for the animations, everything worked out just fine!

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