Oh, the joy! Real paper, real paints, real everything again. Overnight this week it suddenly became spring, and there was warmth in the sun meaning I could get back into my work room. It's freezing in there and dark over the winter, but this week I opened it all up again and the absolute joy of natural work spilled out all over! So exciting - I have wanted to paint monsters for ages, so I started work immediately with a wild prolific madness. I am so genuinely happy! Don't get me wrong, I thank the Lord (and B!) for my iPad Air which has enabled me to keep producing through the most difficult of times, not just cold weather but during my parents' decline in health, the subsequent house move, and selling our former house during the horribly difficult times of the Covid plague. Periods when I didn't have a room at all, just shuttling back and forth in a car or a removal van and providing for wonderfully supportive friends who pitched in to help. Recently I have derived immense satisfaction from finding a way to make perfect patterns with basic technology digitally 'by hand' that's not actually carving woodblocks, and I've come a long way without Adobe products or automated patternmakers.
Being a trained painter, though, nothing beats the mess and randomness of the studio and I am so, so happy to be back. The freedom! I should also mention B and I had our first dose of Oxford AstraZeneca exactly one week ago today. It was an extremely well-organised event, really quite an exciting and pleasant experience with wonderful and competent NHS staff and heating in every booth. No side effects or symptoms to report, we should have some level of protection by next week. A mid-week bonus post - I finished a much softer rose brocade I have been working on at the same time as the watercolour texture patterns. The daffodils are out and spring is definitely on its way, so I used lots of daffodilly yellow against silvery grey to celebrate, and made these two shy little drawings. I particularly enjoyed the Roses marmalade jar drawing.
I stripped down this pattern to a flattened silhouette and really liked the simplicity. Another experiment in single colour - early days, and a little more detail in the floral motifs would be good, but so interesting!
And below is another simple outline drawing put into repeat - cool and chintzy. The other day the world gave a deep sigh of relief, picked itself up, dusted itself down and moved ahead full of new energies and optimism. I don’t know if I’m imagining things, it’s below freezing here and there is snow and ice - but also blue skies and later sunsets, and in the adjusted angle of the sun there already seem to be whispers of spring and the colours of birds’ eggs, rivers, icing on a cake, such gleeful secrets full of hope.
Trump's last day and Biden's inauguration. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Enough said! The prompts were released and I had such a load of fun making Staffordshire china cats announce them! I am very excited to start work on them, but of course they will not be shared until Folktale week begins on the 23rd of this month.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! It hasn’t been the easiest week. Indecision and insecurity about my work took hold when work with the monotype vases I was cutting out last week didn’t go quite as planned, and I panicked when my Instagram went quiet. I worried in case I was taking a wrong turn and getting distracted by the monotype process. I worried that the new work just wasn’t interesting enough. I worried I was being inconsistent.
I have been working purely digitally for a while, which I love - but I always end up with a hankering for the human presence of the hand, and the alchemy of materials. Above is a watercolour from one of my sketchbooks, with wax resist and simple, free pen lines, which I made a while ago. I am very interested in designing patterns which could contain this freedom, I haven't figured it out yet, but it's something which has been going on in the background of my mind for over a year. Also, I haven't a clue which pen I used to worked on wax! It has bonded perfectly with the resist - experiments required (and possibly a lot of spoilt pens). Above is a set of six little monotypes from the same sketchbook. I have always loved making monotype drawings. Using a glass plate rolled with printing ink or oil paint, paper is placed over the plate and I draw on the paper. It means when the paper is peeled away from the plate it reveals a mirror image of the drawing plus accidental smudges and textures. These surprises are exciting, and I use the technique both for illustration and in my Heather Eliza drawings. This week I began to isolate sketches from my book (I did write about getting my jugs out and working with them, but NO, that's SO wrong!! Raised a few laughs on Instagram, though) . Here is a rudimentary something I put together as an experiment. The original monotype drawing was made on hand-made bark paper which supplies the lovely colour and texture for the fuzzy ink lines, cut out and placed over a digitally created linen-weave background. It may take a while, but I'll see where I go with this. PS: I decided not to do Inktober on Instagram this year, I just have too many pots on the boil at the moment. I was tempted, but focus is required. Thanks for visiting, see you next week!
These two patterns were spin-offs from the second (blue) drawing in my last entry. Working in Procreate allows for a lot of freedom and experimentation with sets of shapes and colours, and it’s very satisfying to be able to produce new works relatively quickly. I say relatively quickly, but a lot of time this week went into designing the little birds - but I’m sure I will use them again in different works!
Two more offerings from my gypsy purse collection from this week. They have been put away since the house move, nearly two years now, and it has been great to get them all out and really look at them. I have even decided where I am going to hang them all now (but first there is a lot of redecorating to do!) Although I have spent hours staring at these beautiful little works over the years, turning them over and using a few of them - they make lovely colourful phone bags - I have been amazed at the difference between just looking, and actually going beyond looking to make a drawing. So many secrets have been revealed in their tiny stitches, so much joy in their colours, seeing how they were made meticulously by hand, and discovering minute decorative motifs I hadn’t really noticed before. It is so true that you never really know something until you draw it. It doesn’t even matter if you think you can’t draw and you aren’t happy with your work, the process itself does something to your brain, and you get to know your subject in a completely different way (sometimes literally inside-out).
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Sometimes it's hard to keep going when the news around the world keeps on getting worse. I have to say my work was plain old ornery this week and I achieved very little. However, some good things did happen to bring cheer; B's son (my godson) came to stay for the weekend with his friend in their fancy drift cars, which turned some heads. The energy of the young people was positive and the company most welcome. My very good friend had her birthday, too, and I made her the cute card above right which I liked.
I have wanted to draw the little plant mister above left for the longest time, so in the face of nothing else working I decided to give myself a treat and do it. I enjoyed it very much, I love its form and delicate little details and I decided not to clean it up too much, but to leave shivery lines here and there which seemed appropriate and expressive. Sometimes I feel when work feels stale and forced it's a good thing to have a break and do something just for oneself; it often injects something into the stuff that isn't working, bringing it back to life. I have a wonderfully wonky old candle stick which I might draw next. A collage of drawings based on patterns on Japanese Washi tapes. This was so much fun to do, finding ways to apply patterns to household objects and develop related themes to go with them, and it makes me think of mood boards.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! <<<<<<<<<< HAPPY 2020 >>>>>>>>>> A very happy and hearty new year to all!
I don’t usually make new year resolutions, but I made one this year and broke it already: to post more regularly on Instagram. It doesn't even have to be every single day, just two or three times a week; and here we are on the 5th day of the year, and I still haven’t done it. So I’ll make it a goal instead ... 5 Goals for 2020: 1. Finish the children’s book I have been illustrating for an author friend; I am currently working on brightening my palettes. 2. Get back to the 100 Days Project. This may or may not happen, as to be honest I had got to where I wanted to be by Day 50. I got as far as cat no.53 before breaking off to do seasonal work at the end of October. My 100 Days Project may turn into my 50 Days Project. 3. Make a zine - I have always wanted to make a zine! 4. Create a more organised work environment and find a way to keep distractions at bay. Some days all I have to do is open the door to take in a delivery, and the rest of the world jumps in at the same time! 5. Find a way to post more regularly and consistently on Instagram: better lighting to photograph notebook work, for example. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! My illustration for day 4 of Instagram's Folktale Week: the prompt was Smoke and I chose to use a drawing I made a little while ago collaged with outlines of trees on different layers of semi-opaque paper. It provided a good smoky backdrop to work on. I brought it into Procreate and added the smoke-dragon monster which made me think of the song Puff The Magic Dragon (1963) by Peter, Paul and Mary. I loved that song so much when I was little, and my Dad used to sing it to me all the time, but only the chorus and a few lines. He never got to the last verses, and I realise now it is really a sad song and I feel so sorry for Puff. It is still one of my favourite songs ever, and I found myself singing as I worked:
"Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee ..." Don't assume the song is about puffing drugs, as many did at the time (well, t'was the '60s). The band insist it contains no reference to drugs, being about loss of childhood innocence. The song was based on a poem written by Leonard Lipton in 1959 (the year I was born). I love the images the song conjures all the way through. There is a charming video with lyrics on You Tube, although be advised the sealing wax clip is a bit of a jump-scare - a bit visceral at first glance! I'll write a little bit about the last two days of Folktale Week in my next Weekly, then after that it's going to be Christmas card making and picking up where I left off on the 100 days project - another 47 cats to go, I think. I should have it done some time in 2020! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! PS Most of my links are to Wikipedia pages. I love Wikipedia, and donate to keep it free from commerce and advertising whenever I can. They are fundraising at the moment and you can donate here from as little as £2. "Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others." - founder Jimmy Wales says it all. If you can, please do help with whatever you can give. One of the perks of working over so many years is an extensive back catalogue to dip into as required. It was a big help over Folktale Week this year as I was so busy in the weeks before it started I ended up with only Sunday 3rd November to work for the prompts, with yet another busy week ahead for Folktale Week itself. Keeping the prompts in mind, I trawled through my archives and came upon illustrations from 5 years ago which resonated with the folktale vibe so much they could have been made specifically for the purpose. I hadn’t ever used them for anything else; the drawing above of a secret door for snails was perfect for Day 2, Secret, especially after bringing it into Procreate for some up-to-date tweaks. I made this one for Day 3, Path, in a similar way and altogether got the first five days done, catching up the following weekend making ‘Key’ for day 6, and ‘Crown’ for the final day on Sunday. I made it by the skin of my teeth, and thoroughly enjoyed the process.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Folktale Week began on Instagram this week, I love seeing all the different interpretations of the prompts! This is my post for Day 1, Home: the wanderer returns to a warm welcome. This year I am working with a hybrid technique, this is a watercolour with drawn plant shapes and frosty roundels in white Rotring, with gouache colour accents. I scanned it and and worked it further in Procreate, adding the cat and a few other elements to suit.
Look for #folktaleweek2019 and follow the hashtag to see hundreds of super-talented illustrators all working in different ways! Thanks for visiting, see you next week |
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Welcome to my illustration and patterns blog!
I illustrate under the pen-name of Binky McKee, McKee being my mother's maiden name. Binky was the name of every single cat my great-grandmother kept - allegedly about 40 of them during her 94 years of life. I changed the website address a few months ago, so some older links on previous posts are broken. If you click one of those and it takes you to a strange page, simply replace the .co.uk after the binkymckee. with weebly.com and it will work again. I hope you enjoy your visit! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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I keep lots of scrapbooks and sketchbooks where I develop ideas and design little creatures. Here's a peek inside one ...
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As you may know, I am also known as Heather Eliza Walker.
Click the image if you would like to find out more and visit my other website. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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May 2024
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This time, take a peek into my ceramic design sketchbook. I actually made some of the mugs, but I kind of prefer the drawings! The plate designs are painted on paper plates, a most liberating process.
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These watercolours are from my pattern sketchbook. I used coloured wax crayons to resist the washes of watercolour, also home-made rubber stamps dipped in bleach then printed on crêpe paper - the bleach takes out the paper dyes.
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A sketchbook I used for mark-making with unusual objects - corks, seed-heads, feathers, home-made rubber stamps, my fingers and lots of flicky things ...
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