I moved my blogging day from Sunday to Friday, so there is a bit of catching up to do here. Continuing with the Yay Flowers half-drop rework, I altered the outline drawing to the brown colour shown above so that leaves crossed the skinny stems of the two cupped flowers, eliminating an irritating whippy movement in the pattern. At the same time I changed the direction of the green stem in the top left flower. Next, I filled the outlines with colours. It was a nice, clean finish, but took a long time, and the potential of filling the repeat details in the wrong colours was high. I realised that in the long run it would be better to create colour separation layers for consistency in the balance of the design, not only for making speedy colourway changes but also providing the option of adding texture with clip masks. Having achieved this nice balance using colour-drop, I separated the design each colour onto its own Procreate layer. It was necessary to remove the outlines between the elements for use with clip-masks to avoid 'furring' of the lines, which would print with a fuzzy appearance; above shows how four of the five separations now look. Here is the final result - a nice, fresh pattern. I like the cartoon effect of the outline version, but feel the pattern is now a lot more open with improved flow, and I look forward to playing with different colours and textures.
As a note, until now I have just kept textured finishes for interest in blog posts or Instagram. However, recently I have been working with fire-retardant and blackout fabrics which have a plain, bland surface, and noticed patterns with added texture do work well on these materials. So, moving forward: flat and clean versions for weaves and nap, and texture for smooth cloths and papers as well as blog posts - it's good to know! Finally, a half-drop version of Yay! Flowers ! Years on from its very beginning, I finished the outline drawing for colour-drop with any palette this week. I put the trail of links in last week's post, which can be followed right back to experiments with a watercolour sketch in March 2019. Here's a version I made for testing the pattern, filled with the glorious technicolour of my 'Naturals' palette, spiced up with a vivid red (and, yes, I'm still very much into the arch presentation!)
This pattern goes back quite some way, this link will take you to the previous 2021 version where you can follow links right back to its very beginning. It is a favourite of mine, so I'm happy to invest time on it. In 2021 I made the clean version (below) but it didn't occur to me to keep an outline version to make new colourways. It was early days in 'clean' work for reproduction, and I thought I could just keep colour-dropping over previous colours, but I soon discovered the outlines get degraded that way; so the only way I could change the colours was by using curves or HSB adjustments. Both methods are fine, but limited in tonal values by the original. Finally, I remembered this was something I wanted to do, and it was the perfect thing for the January lull before the end of the holidays. Also, the previous pattern was a block repeat and I had always wanted to make a half-drop from it; so, at the same time as redrawing the original outlines I began work on that too. I also made an arch-shaped clipping mask for blogs and Instagram posts to make patterns look more interesting (otherwise the feed just looks like a pattern-book) which I liked so much I have probably over-used it here, but above is my 'River Moth Tonight' pattern (still haven't thought of a better name) looking very bonny in its archway!
Ok, I cheated a bit here - this photo was actually taken on January 6th, when the seasonal cold came in. I just didn't have a nice photo to greet the new year at the time, but this beauty developed on a glass tabletop overnight - so soft and feathery in appearance. So ...
<<<<<< A VERY HAPPY 2024 TO ALL! >>>>>> |
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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.
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April 2024
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All
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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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