Showing posts with label Pictoplasma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pictoplasma. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Doodling Again: Day 17

A new Creature-Doodle:



An old Creature-Doodle:



Doodled during Pictoplasma Conference talks in 2009:



Doodled at home - while trying to keep up the sketchbook momentum established during the Pictoplasma Conference talks in 2009:



PICTOPLASMA


Cheers,
LaLaVox
www.lalavoxbox.com
mildredlovesyou.blogspot.com/
The LaLaVoxBox.com Doodle Gallery
(unlikely to be updated anytime soon, but thanks to this
blog, now continually acquiring new future members ;))

Monday, April 18, 2011

Doodling Again: Day 16

A new Creature-Doodle:



An old Creature-Doodle:



I have run out of sketchbook pages of Doodles from this year's Pictoplasma Festival (there was much less light on the audience during the talks this year than in 2009 - and perhaps I was also a bit lazier this time around too - who knows?), so I'll just begin posting 4 pages of 2009 at a time instead of the usual two...

Doodled during Pictoplasma Conference talks in 2009:





PICTOPLASMA


Cheers,
LaLaVox
www.lalavoxbox.com
mildredlovesyou.blogspot.com/
The LaLaVoxBox.com Doodle Gallery
(unlikely to be updated anytime soon, but thanks to this
blog, now continually acquiring new future members ;))

Thursday, April 14, 2011

In Love With The Missing Link

Each Pictoplasma festival and conference has its own underlying theme. The 2011 theme was The Missing Link. Pictoplasma yetis could be seen running around the city from time to time leading up to the festival itself - especially on the day of The Character Walk.



I fell completely in love with these softly rustling and irresistibly swishy creatures! (Too bad the video of me hugging one didn't save properly...) I love the way they look, sound, and move. Here is a small collection of video footage of them:

LaLaVox Visits a Pictoplasma Yeti from LaLaVox on Vimeo.













Kudos to Peter and Lars for inspiring us all with these events again and again!



Cheers,
LaLaVox
mildredlovesyou.blogspot.com/
The LaLaVoxBox.com Doodle Gallery
(unlikely to be updated anytime soon, but thanks to this
blog, now continually acquiring new future members ;))

Monday, April 11, 2011

Doodling Again: Day 10 (Sketchbook Shame)

Doodles are coming in this post, but I will indulge myself with much text first... Blah, blah, blah...

...Why "Sketchbook Shame"? Well, mostly because I hardly ever use my sketchbook.

During my years as a student, when it was expected of me that I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere I went, I did - but wrote in it much more often than I drew in it. At the time, it often seemed more interesting to me to paint my surrounding in words rather than in drawings.

I hardly use my sketchbook these days either.

One of our most faithful Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin patrons - a fellow named Michael - has his with him at all times, and whips it out like a photographer whips out his camera, to record his surroundings.

And then there are all of those wonderfully prolific and inspiring artists who speak to us at Pictoplasma festivals and conferences, and show us pages from their sketchbooks - which are filled with their genius scribbles and concepts-in-progress.

I do neither of these things. I indulge in life-drawing once in a blue moon (in spite of the fact that I co-host the Berlin branch of that life-drawing-meets-cabaret/burlesque extravaganza Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School). And I generally don't even doodle in my sketchbook either.

I draw stuff on sheets and bits of paper. Maybe I respect the bound nature of Moleskines and other sketchbooks too much. This finished quality of the object makes me feel weirdly unworthy to fill it with my unfinished thoughts - since I can only know afterward whether I consider my images worthy of being included in a bound book, I guess...

During Pictoplasma events I have simply forced myself to ignore this stifling little demon in my brain, and have sat doodling into an actual sketchbook during any of the talks that were well lit enough to allow it. The doodles that have ended up on these pages along the way have either been directly, indirectly, or not at all influenced by the artist speaking.

I posted 2011 and 2009 examples of these pages this past Friday. I will post some more in this post forthwith. And, although I will return to my Post-It-sized Creature Doodle format for the posts that follow this one, I will continue posting sketchbook pages too; by tacking a couple of them at the end of each of my regular Doodle posts.

And here, at last, are today's offerings...

Doodled last week during a Pictoplasma talk:



Doodled during a Pictoplasma talk in 2009:




Cheers,
LaLaVox
www.lalavoxbox.com
mildredlovesyou.blogspot.com/
The LaLaVoxBox.com Doodle Gallery
(unlikely to be updated anytime soon, but thanks to this
blog, now continually acquiring new future members ;))

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Pictoplasma-Induced Trance States

I remember when Pictoplasma was still a glob of goo in a Petri dish; little more than an idea, represented by a new domain address with one animated gif jiggling a little dance at us from a bit of HTML code.

The 1st Pictoplasma book was published in 2001, and ended up becoming a sort of must-have coffee-table encyclopedia of modern character design. Some of my Creature Doodles where included in this first publication (as well as being featured at an earlier version of its - by then - much expanded Pictoplasma website).

And then, in 2004, the first-ever Pictoplasma Conference pressed its large footprints into the concrete and soil of my beloved Berlin. This international event filled four sleep-deprived, euphoric, Utopian days with trance-inducing input-overload.

The conferences and festivals since then have never had the emotional impact on me that this first conference did, but they are still magic, not-to-be-missed happenings.

And I've found that Pictoplasma trailers, ads, and screening-openers have often managed to capture tiny, encapsulated versions of the feeling that these events seem to inspire in me; a mysterious and sublime quality that always draws me in. Here are some examples...

Pictoplasma Festival 2011 Opener

Pictoplasma Festival 2011 Opener from Pictoplasma on Vimeo.


Pictoplasma Animation Festival Intro 2007 - by Oh! Sägas


Pictoplasma - Characters in Motion - Vol.3 Teaser


Pictoplasma - Characters in Motion - Vol.2 Teaser


Characters in Motion 1
Teaser for the Pictoplasma Animation Festival 2005 and the published DVD.


I am now preparing to enter the stormy seas of this very particular input-overload once again starting tomorrow; to "immerse myself in character", as the organizers of Pictoplasma themselves so aptly put it...

...Beginning with tomorrow's Character Walk, which is something everyone can join in, even those without festival passes! See you there?


Cheers,
LaLaVox
mildredlovesyou.blogspot.com/
The LaLaVoxBox.com Doodle Gallery
(which is still long overdue for an update,
but is now gaining new future members on a daily basis ;-))