Not everyone's a PIcasso when it comes to long exposure art—though some of you guys aren't too far off—but even Pablo himself couldn't replicate the precise, geometric light illustrations created by Nils Voelker's Lightdrawing robot.

Voelker, a German designer, says the robot is still in the prototype phase, but from the look of things it already has the Christmas tree and house routines down pat.

The prevailing "lightdrawing" technique for humans—waving a LED key chain around in the air like a madman—is not the easiest to master; at best you get a nice halo over your head, at worst you get a big ugly mess of light. But Voelker's Lightdrawer putters along, cool as a cucumber:

Robot Drawing with Light from Nils Völker on Vimeo.

Using a robot might not be the most fun way to paint a long exposure Christmas tree, but at least this way people will be able to tell it's a Christmas tree when you show them the picture. [Nils Voelker via Designboom]