Tag Tool and Philip Schlee

Right now I'm preparing for the opening night of "Drawn Together, Drawn Apart" at Southampton City Art Gallery.  The exhibition presents the Philip Schlee Collection - new to Southampton - and makes connections with works already in the gallery collection.

My role is to draw with TagTool, a newly-released iPad app for drawing and simple animation.  The images will be projected live in the gallery's lecture theatre.  At the moment I'm the first up, followed by five other artists.

Several of us did a similar thing in November at Lighten Up in Guildhall Square, Southampton.  I have always loved the Civic Centre and the art gallery that is inside, so I was excited to be projecting onto a part of it.  I drew a lot of pieces from the gallery collection and was soundtracked by an electronic musician, Natalia Data.  There are some photos at the BBC website.  Here are some screenshots of what I put up:

I did some in advance and some live.  I'm often surprised by the results of a very quick copy - the challenge is to accept the unpredictability.  The portraits of women all came out looking much grumpier.  The huge beard is that of Lorenz Herkomer, painted by his son Hubert, a Southampton artist in the 19th century.

Tonight I have a longer session and I'll be responding to the Philip Schlee Collection.  The exhibition is about the role the drawing (preliminary drawing) plays in artists' practice.  I'll be playing with the different approaches to drawing and construction.

Drawn together, drawn apart: The Philip Schlee Collection of Drawings
18 January - 21 April 2013

From Southampton City Council:

The Philip Schlee Collection brings together drawings, prints and paintings by 44 artists working between 1920 and 2004. It includes examples of life and observational drawings, landscapes and compositional sketches.
Drawn together, Drawn apart reflects the eclectic nature of the collection and of the artists’ own approaches to drawing. The exhibition includes work by, Gillian Ayres, David Bomberg, Christopher le Brun, Roger Hilton, David Hockney, Peter Lanyon, Henry Moore and Paul Nash.
Philip Schlee (1924-2001) assembled the collection, with the assistance of his brother Nick Schlee, between 1992 and 2004.