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. Comments are closed.
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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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April 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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