A Must-Watch This Weekend: 8 Minute Documentary The Pixel Painter

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

If you're like me and you need a little inspiration/motivation to get a particularly gnawing creative project done this weekend, look no further. The story of a partially-blind 97-year old digital artist named Hal Lasko has been going viral since an incredibly touching short documentary about his work was shared on Vimeo this week.

Lasko was a designer by trade, as well as a draftsman during World War II. In spite of his failing eyesight, his artwork is painstakingly precise, and done pixel-by-pixel entirely in MS Paint. When most people talk about pixel art, '80s, '90s, and modern indie game design might come to mind. If not that, then the little animated doll gifs you can find all over DeviantArt and Tumblr and anywhere else that creative teenagers call home online. What Lasko does has a much more vintage flavor to it. Some of his work would feel perfectly suited hanging in Pete Campbell's living room, while other pieces have a pointillistic style that could make Seurat blush.

You can see more of Lasko's work, learn more about him, and of course order prints from his website. Honestly after watching this mini-doc I feel pretty guilty for ever complaining about spending more than a half hour touching something up in Photoshop.

Please share this post with people you like:

Tweet

Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Jo Yardley]

Truly wonderful documentary, thank you for sharing.

[Eric]

I have the strong suspicion that this is a viral marketing campaign by Microsoft, I am actually pretty sure about it.

[elizabeth (16)]

@eric you cynic lol

@hal \o/

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Wonderful

[Sinjin]

This was so inspiring... thank you for sharing!