June 2015

On 13 June from 7.00 p.m. to 1.00 a.m. many of the galleries and cultural institutions in Prague had free entry and special events for children and adults.The photo above shows the drawing I made to announce the workshop at the Veletržní palác organised by the National Gallery Education Department. Young visitors were invited to make drawings inspired by the current special exhibition, ‘Kokoschka and Prague’. At one end of the hall there was an artist demonstrating drawing in watercolours while at the other end I had this wonderful big wall (all to myself!) for my Tagtool drawing. For the visitors there were easels, paper, watercolours and a variety of drawing materials, Dima set up our two Tagtool minis for people to try and dotted about the space there were models posing.Some of the models were sitting for portrait drawing but Hana Dokalova, who was organising the workshop, suggested that I should draw the model who was doing short poses in the centre of the room. I wasn’t quite sure how this would work as a Tagtool drawing and it took me a while to decide what to do….…so I started off fairly tentatively…… then drew into the silhouettes to make the image a bit more coherent.This was a wonderful place to draw! And despite the amount of light both from the street outside and from the galleries above, our new Epson projector gave this good bright wide angle floor to ceiling image. (But unfortunately it wasn’t easy to take photographs of such a large drawing with my little camera).As well as this great location I had such a good model to draw…
And here is the final image…I’ll end this post with a collage of Dima’s photos of children drawing at the two Tagtool mini workstations. As usual, the Tagtool proved to be very popular!

I’ve only now found the time to make a selection of photos of the Tagtool drawings I did on 22 May at Barbacka for Kristianstad’s Kulturnatten! This was a long session, making a number of different drawings, beginning at 10.30 in the evening and ending at 1 am and, although it was quite cold, fortunately it didn’t rain (like on our last visit!) But just in case, we put up our gazebo and also had a tarpaulin handy to put over the projector (which was on the roof).My Tagtool was in the courtyard and I was drawing onto the building overlooking Barbacka – quite a long projection distance. This building presented some quite difficult drawing problems, as the brickwork was dark red and there were lots of windows. However, by prior arrangement, the lighting on the building and street lamp outside had been turned off (which helped a lot) and our big Epson projector gave good clear images, even before it was completely dark. As the photos above show, in the courtyard there was a very festive atmosphere with lots of coloured lanterns which were made by students in the Barbacka workshop.
Throughout the Kulturnatten event different groups of musicians were playing in the courtyard. The accompaniment to my first sequence of drawings was a solo improvisation by Ali Sabah, a master oud player from Malmo – his superb musicianship was a real joy for me! (hear him play on this YouTube video)
Earlier in the week, Dima and Torjus Wrangell, Director of Barbacka, had made a selection of clips of films from the archives of Kristianstad Museum for me to ‘draw over’ as part of the evening’s performance. This is something I haven’t done for some time and it was great to be able to use such interesting images from the 1930’s of people skating, processions, public meetings and and other local events.
After the archive films of skaters and city dignitaries, some figurative drawing….
…and also this landscape….…then another combination of film with a drawn image…….followed by some more ‘pure’ Tagtool drawing.I ended the evening’s drawing by using two very different pieces of film footage – below, leaving only a small piece of film visible ‘behind’ the drawing….…then Dima projected this rather strange footage (from a trade fair I think, showing contemporary furniture in a kind of ‘dolls’ house’ setting). To this, I added the little silhouettes of figures in white, ‘drawing through’ the film….
…leaving the little figures dancing over the facade to end my evening’s drawing.1 am – time for me to announce the late-night event of Barbacka’s Kulturnatten, and to relax and enjoy a performance by techno-duo J-Nilz and DJ Gazoline!

Our visit to Sweden ended with two days of Tagtooling at Barbacka, Kristianstad Municipality’s cultural centre for children and young people. On the Thursday afternoon and evening we held Tagtool workshops in one of the centre’s buildings which was normally used as a rehearsal room. This was an ideal venue (no windows!) to hold daytime ‘drop in’ Tagtool drawing sessions. One wall had a big projection screen and in addition we covered another wall with white fabric which meant that we could set up four Tagtool workstations.As the collage of photos above shows, everyone was totally focused and absorbed in drawing – and below, here is some of the work they produced.Playing with colour….and experimenting with fading….Using both solid and transparent colour….

as well as having fun playing with shadows and ‘drawing round’ each other.


On Friday 22 May it was ‘Kulturnatten’ in Kristianstad, with the museum and gallery open in the evening, a concert in the main square and a number of other events. In addition to their evening programme, there were a number of special daytime events at Barbacka, including this Tagtool children’s workshop.This proved to be just as popular as the adults’ workshop the day before. I took lots of photos of the children’s drawings and the parents did too!
Before the evening events began I decided to do a bit of drawing myself……a frieze using the three Tegtools and projectors we set up for the workshop and below, a landscape with lots of transparent layers using my Tagtool All-in-one.

After I faded out this drawing it was time to move my Tagtool into Barbacka’s courtyard and mount our big projector on the roof in preparation for the evening drawing performance. (My test drawing heads this post – but I will leave the rest of the photos for Part 3 of our visit to Sweden.)