Drawinglive News

This was the venue for the Vložte kočku concert on 13 January – the former Richter Machine Works in Prague that has been transformed into a superbly designed and equipped art centre and theatre. Vložte kočku’s hour and a half programme entitled ‘Otázka času’ featured both new music as well as work from their previous albums. Below, a collage of photos of the stage set up at rehearsal and one of the many photos of the stage that Dima took during the performance.The matt black projection screens on the side walls of the auditorium were made of some kind of material that appeared to be completely opaque. However, the colours in my projected Tagtool drawings, as well as being really bright, could be seen on both sides of the screen dividing the bar from the auditorium – the reversed images making for a really interesting drawing experience!Here are some photos from my practice session during the rehearsal…Above, looking from the bar towards the auditorium…


…and below, Peter and Dima busy programming the LED lighting for the stage.The collage below shows the drawing that I made to welcome the audience before the band came on stage (with Peter and Dima still making some last minute adjustments to the programming of the lighting effects!).The Tagtool drawings during the performance were to be a sequence of three images loosely connected with the themes of the songs in the programme, meaning that each drawing took about 30 minutes to be ‘complete’. Below, some photos of the first drawing on the theme of landscape and memories….

The second drawing sequence, beginning with the icy pond to accompany the song, ‘Ryby II’ was in monochrome to provide a stark contrast to the brilliance of the stage lighting and Kryštof’s new illuminated electronics console …


And a return to colour for the third landscape….with horses (to accompany the song, ‘Koně’)….

and some children (a reference to the children’s choir singing in the song, ‘Bože’, who could hardly be seen on the balcony above the stage)

To end this post, some photos of Kryštof’s illuminated electronics console….…this was really spectacular!

On Wednesday 7 January ‘Flying Freedom Festival’ presented, ‘The Story of Gilgamesh’ – in a production combining music, theatre, puppets and masks….….and also my Tagtool drawing of the fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.After the performance the company entertained their friends with a party and jam session which provided me with a great opportunity to do some more drawing. I was able to stop from time to time to enjoy the party, listening to the music and taking photos. Here are a few from my first drawing sequence….


The walls of this historic building, recently reopened as a theatre, had been stripped down to expose the brickwork so all my drawing had this nice texture.The (very good and very expensive!) Epson projector that we were able to borrow from Lunchmeat gave beautiful bright crisp colours. The music was great too – making this the ideal Tagtool drawing experience!I tried combining drawn silhouettes with the shadows of the musicians and also creating an illusion of lines in the drawing floating around them on the stage.



So – a big ‘thank you’ from me to Lunchmeat for letting me use their beautiful new projector – and to all the musicians for providing such inspiring music!

With whisky, home-made shortbread and Dundee cake at midnight of course!But because our friend Janko Polak and his theatre group are staying with us over New Year, rehearsing in the studio, it was a really international party with ten different nationalities represented in the company playing and singing round the table in the kitchen – with Timur and Diamond (centre below) as audience!Then we all went to the studio for some more music making – and a little drawing session. Because some of the company had not seen Tagtool before, I did some quick drawings to show the functions of the different sliders – and the big red button to make it all disappear! Then it was time for some old-school jamming but I was so busy drawing (and partying!) that I forgot to take photos and only have these two showing fading from my demonstration session….
Playing with Tagtool – a great way to start the New Year!

Tagtool Play – some festive animation fun for all the family – guaranteed!We got this new FREE app from the Apple store when it came out on 19 December but have been so busy that I only tried it out for the first time on Christmas eve. Only the basic version is available now (in other words, it’s so simple that even I managed to make it all work first time!) but there are various add ons that will be available in due course…which sound very interesting!Once I had finished my little drawing Dima added the sound – and, Hey Presto! a festive greetings video that I will be able to email to all our friends to wish them a Happy New Year. And for regular readers of my blog here it is now, with our very best wishes for a Happy New Tagtooling Year!
As they say in the media, ‘You saw it first on Drawinglive News!’

A return visit to the Museum of Local History in Slany – this time drawing on the facade of the building. As this was to be part of the Christmas events in the town, the brief was to draw something seasonal – and also suitable for the museum.Over a photo of the front of the museum I prepared this Tagtool drawing in the studio, which Dima captured so that it could be speeded up to last about 15 minutes when projected onto the facade of the building. (The landscape, with Slany hill in the background, was loosely based on historic engravings in the museum’s collection.) The plan was that on the evening of the performance, as we had done previously at Mlada Boleslav, this projection would run several times – giving me an opportunity to do some ‘live’ drawing in between.We hadn’t been able to test the big projector that we were using beforehand and unfortunately, although its lens covered the whole front of the building easily, when it got dark we discovered that it was just not bright enough to project the coloured detail in the drawing that I had prepared. This was extremely disappointing to say the least! Despite the temperature dipping below zero, a large audience had gathered in the square to watch the performance so we had to make a last minute change of plan… I just drew live for the whole evening – mostly large heads in monochrome with minimal detail, which was the only option that was going to work in this situation with this projector. I’m glad to say that no one complained!
I’ll end this post with a video of the drawing that we planned to show…

After the official launch party for the new Tagtool at WUK, the following evening we went to the Kunstwerkstatt in Tulln for a little informal chill-out session with Maki, Seppi, Don Moss and Die. Puntigam.
Just like old times!
Seppi set up two projectors so that the drawing area for these sessions consisted of two overlapping ‘layers’, which enabled us to draw and animate using both the DIY and iPad versions of the Tagtool together.
In the photos below Maki is drawing with the new iPad Tagtool app. and I’m using my ‘old-school’ Tagtool, with Don Moss joining the session on a second iPad.



And here’s the second session of the evening – Die. Puntigam drawing with Maki.I’m sorry I don’t have any video for the blog to show Maki and Die. Puntigam’s really interesting animation in this session – but instead I took a lot of photos. Here is a selection to show some of the different phases of their drawing.




All too soon it was time for us to pack up our Tagtools and go home!

The WUK Projektraum was an ideal location for this event. It was billed as a ‘celebration of the evolution of the Tagtool’ – and this is exactly what it was!The evening began with Maki making an illustrated presentation of the brand new Tagtool for iPad. The OMAi team have been testing it on their recent American tour (running workshops for young people in Greensboro, North Carolina as well as giving outdoor performances at a number of different locations, one of which is shown in the photo below).This exciting new Tagtool development, which looks like it will be really great for animation as well as for making ‘instant’ short movies, seems like a lot of fun! It will be available from the applestore from 19 December (and the best news of all – it will be a FREE app!) At the end of the presentation the whole OMAi team came on stage and received a big round of applause from the audience.
Next item on the programme was the performance by Weisse Wände – improvised music with live visuals by Maki and Iink (using the new Tagtool). After this performance the members of the audience had an opportunity to ‘have a go’ at using the new Tagtool for iPad – something which proved to be very popular, as can be seen from the photos below!
There was a nice party atmosphere with people chatting in the bar……while at the other end of the Projectraum I did some ‘old-school’ Tagtooling.In the afternoon we set up an ‘old-school’ corner using my big DIY All-in-one Tagtool as well as my original (vintage!) DIY mini. We used two projectors, our ‘short throw’ mounted on the ceiling to cover the big end wall and a BenQ set on a tripod next to the table with my mini to project on the side wall.Using these two different projectors made colour matching across the two walls quite difficult; while the ‘short throw’ gives a much larger image, the colours are less bright and, except in total darkness, it’s not possible to get a real black. Also with the ‘short throw’, when you are close up, the drawing appears as if seen through a mesh (which isn’t always visible in these photos). But despite these limitations, our ‘old-school’ set up worked well and I spent a most enjoyable evening just standing drawing….I moved between the two workstations developing the drawings – below, using the mini to draw on the smaller wall…
…and here drawing with my All-in-one on the end wall.Later in the evening the developers of the new Tagtool, Kolmich Creations, came over to have a closer look at our ‘old-school’ set up….I took this opportunity to demonstrate one of my favourite ‘old-school’ techniques – first drawing in solid colour, then doing a partial fade and then drawing into the remains of the original image with both solid and transparent colour so that the final drawing consists of a number of different layers – of transparent colour, faded colour and solid drawing all mixed together.Below are some shots of the final drawing sequence of the evening….It was so nice to meet up with old friends from the Tagtool community at this most enjoyable event – and great to see the demonstration of the new Tagtool. Now I’m waiting impatiently for 19 December to try it out for myself!

Presented by OMAi, the originators of the Tagtool, this promises to be the ‘not to be missed’ Tagtool event of the year! Tickets are free and you can get them online from the organisers – but this will be a very popular event, so if you can be in Vienna next week, don’t delay, apply for your tickets right now!

Meet the New Tagtool!
We are very pleased to welcome you to the celebration of the new evolution of Tagtool on Wednesday November 26th at WUK cultural center in Vienna.

The OMAi team will present their new creation, and give an exclusive insight into their own artistic work, which has recently taken them to the U.S., South America and the Middle East. The evening also features a performance byWeisse Wände combining improvisational music, image and spoken word, as well as exquisite projections by international Tagtool artists.

The new Tagtool is based on the proven formula of “live drawing and animation”, while opening up the concept to a wider audience. The new Tagtool will be available worldwide in December 2014.

Event Details

Wednesday, November 26th, 7pm
WUK / Projektraum, Währinger Straße 59, 1090 Wien

The performance was held in the inner courtyard of Slany Local History Museum. The projector was set up beside the decorative ironwork of the well to avoid it casting shadows on my drawing. As the weather was cold and dry we didn’t need to shelter the equipment under a gazebo so I positioned the Tagtool near the middle of the courtyard and by the time the performance began, despite the cold, the courtyard was crowded with people, both adults and children.Dima had assembled a nice varied playlist to accompany my drawing and the programme lasted for just over one hour (which I think was more than long enough for most of the people, especially the younger children, to stand outside in the cold!) I started with a suitably wintry landscape….…and then I began to draw something a bit more colourful.

An urban landscape to accompany the song, ‘Melancholy Man’ by Can Gox…

…and again something a bit lighter as introduction to my final drawing sequence!

Our friend Martin from Suncab invited us to do some Tagtooling at a gig in this interesting cellar venue in Strakonice on Wednesday evening. I decided to draw on the wall rather than the very small screen behind the performers. As all the lighting was focused on the stage it was very dark (great for drawing!) and the texture of the curved stone wall provided a nice extra dimension to the drawing.These are some photos of drawings to accompany the first set by Oswaldovi & Andrea Rottin. I hadn’t heard the band before and had only a couple of minutes before the show to discuss what I would draw – so it was all very improvised!Below – Oswaldovi & Andrea Rottin onstage.After the break I did some more drawing for the band playing in the second half of the programme. Photo below – Susie Asado, Berlin-based but from the US.She gave a spoken introduction about the subject matter of each song for the audience and was singing in English, so it was easier for me to try to make appropriate drawings as accompaniment. Here’s a selection…..So – it was another very nice Tagtooling visit to Strakonice. The club Jedárna had a very good atmosphere and I really enjoyed my evening of drawing!