Last week when I was looking for a group of 4 matching collages and only had three, the only thing I could find to fit the mood was the pattern shown above. I took it and treated it in exactly the same way as the collages without thinking. I was very happy with what I had done; the 'painterly' textures and overlays I make for my collages breathed life into the pattern tile and made it into a little artwork. It now had character. Surface and colour variations plus softened borders suggested light moving across the pattern, the way it might on a piece of material. I had found a new pattern thing! I hadn't thought of it before, but just because the tile has to be super flat for printing on fabric, which gives it quite enough texture without adding any, doesn't mean texture has to be absent from blog posts.. The fact is, pattern design tiles just look boring on their own, especially in their flat, clean print-ready form. It's fine if I have actual fabric samples, or a photo of my wallpaper design in a real room etc to show, but in the absence of any of these things I find I have to get a bit more creative about how I show them. I had been making 'sketchbook page' collages before, but felt I had run the gamut with those a while ago and had been wracking my brain for something new. Of course I went on to experiment with this new idea on other pattern tiles.
We had such a fun, busy weekend last week that I didn't get around to blogging. This is a catchup, and you can see here what it was all about. Here are some previous works I remade during the week in new textures and new colours. Below, inspired by the Voynich manuscript, was my favourite because its rich, velvety colours and the tiny lines make it look like an embroidery. In the same week I also got interested in honing in on details and redrawing each one, an interesting exercise in composition and detail. I am compiling several Instagram posts to use when I get back to work on my book of ditties illustrations, so I don't have to keep interrupting my work flow - and it is so relaxing to be able to play like this and learn at the same time.
A gate sprouting vines and flowers crowding to escape - poor Harold the custodian owl! I get the feeling that a full moon falling on a Friday, as happened this week, must be particularly potent. I put together the above image for Instagram as a spin-off from one of my recent illustrations. This week I reworked some of the illustrations for my own book of ditties. It's only when I'm some way along the road that I hit a mood for the illustrations and they begin to settle, so I spent a couple of days consolidating and updating some of the earlier ones; all are now looking good and consistent.
Before moving on to the next illustration, I spent the weekend working very quick sketches. It's the age-old dilemma; while working hard on a project which has to stay under wraps for a while, what does an artist do to maintain an online presence? I either reuse elements of an illustration and make them into something different (such as Harold the owl) or have a good, swift-working brain-storming session. It's a great exercise anyway and helps to loosen up. New ideas come spilling into the work with the rapid flow, and I end up with nice pieces for social media like this colourful reel and story I made for Instagram. To avoid chaos and inconsistency I find it best to stick to one method for fast work, which I hope makes a good counterpart to the finished illustrative work, and doesn't make me look too schizoid. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Brick walls and ladders were still a focus this week, with some more playing around with the themes. I enjoyed the visual storytelling of birds making use of a ladder, then the chaotic patterns of ladders below which was massive fun.
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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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