August 2015

I planned to travel with Dima and just enjoy the festival but when we arrived we discovered that KinocirKus were using a big 20000 lumens projector(!!) Nicola said it would be nice if I could do some Tagtool drawing (which was great – but of course I didn’t have my big Tagtool in the van!)No problem – Dima had this controller and his Fujitsu Lifebook laptop in his backpack….and this worked just fine (although for drawing I would much prefer to use sliders rather than turning controller knobs and the projection tent was a long way from the stage so I couldn’t see properly any detail in the drawing).The big projector covered the upper part of the stage and also the trees behind it.While I was drawing Dima took these photos…

When it was getting late I decided to do some scary heads in the trees….

We had a really good time at the festival and I will end the post with a big ‘thank you’ to Nicola for this unexpected opportunity to do some drawing!

Tagtool drawing to announce Mutanti Hledaj Východisko’s second performance on Saturday night in the Pub Stage tent at this very popular Czech festival held in the beautiful countryside at the castle in the village of Valeč near Karlovy Vary.
Their first song was about a bear…
….and after that it was time for me to draw some mutants….


As it had proved very popular with the audience at Festival Beseda u bigbitu, between drawings of the ‘mutants’, I made more abstract sequences while Dima did some fast-moving ‘machine gun’ style animation (no photos of this of course!). I think that this kind of technique works well with Mutanti’s electronica/rap performance – and makes for a more varied visual accompaniment in keeping with the range of their music.
But to end this post here are two nice girls…. and not a mutant in sight!

Projecting above the stage on to the ceiling and chandelier in this club in Prague.Dima took lots of photos for me – here’s a selection…

In the photo above, new band member Vladislav (left back), plays to cimbalom.
Because the stage was so small there was not enough space to put up the screen behind the band. Projecting on the ceiling proved to be a good solution and between the drawings we did some abstract animated sequences (with Dima doing ‘machine gun style’ animation) but as Dima was controlling the gamepad I haven’t any photos of these! Instead I will end this post with two drawings for the song ‘Kone’.

On Saturday night I was doing drawings for the band Mutanti Hledaj Východisko. They were performing in this big tent at the festival – very nice for Tagtooling! Above is my test drawing – and our lovely Epson projector gave this super bright image (which shone right through the canvas so the tent glowed outside in the dark!) At the performance Dima took lots of photos for me……with some audience participation, where people were trying to make shadows to ‘catch’ the mutant animals I was drawing to accompany the first song!
Then in a darker mood, a song about a sídliště (housing estate)…and now here come the mutants….
The drawing below was to accompany a song where a father addresses his son…… and then the mood of the programme changed again…

Although several of the 13 songs in Mutanti’s 50 minute programme contained their characteristic ‘mutant’ theme, morphing from one drawing to another to match the changing atmosphere of the songs in the performance meant that this was a very intense drawing session for me. Below – a monochrome landscape with clouds animated by Dima (giving me a two minute break from drawing!)After that, a rainbow and some more mutant children….
….then back to the housing estate….…and ending with mutants under a blue moon (a very appropriate ending as this was the night of the blue moon – which was really shining in the sky outside!)