Karla Burns

I attended the Paperjam Live Draw Event tonight in Belfast for Culture Night Belfast ’09 in the Cathedral Quarter. It wasn’t what I had expected, but I thoroughly enjoyed the night. I am not too sure what I expected but I thought it would be controlled, and an organised piece of continuous design, timed and pre-organised or prepared, but instead I was met with a large grey wall, that had a continuous circulation of illustration, none of which flowed together, nor where consistent in content and I loved it. There was no control, there was no strict design theme or style or content. It seemed it was an anything goes approach as though the designers just went with their gut, the brief was blown wide open to any interpretation. Whoever wanted to pick up the pen could, and just draw whatever came into their mind. This complete freedom added mystery and suspense, you didn’t quite know what was coming next. They projected some jpeg typography design and other work they had previously created, along with drawings of the Superman logo, t quick portrait sketches, and some abstract lines and doodles. There were a couple that really stood out; a beautiful illustration of a cupcake and an intriguing cartoon style cactus, each illustration differed in style and theme.

The artist of the cupcake was a local guy called Alan Thompson.