Is there a touch of spring in the air? Wishful thinking perhaps, but sunrise is now 10 minutes earlier than before the solstice, and sunset a good half hour later. Burn’s night is a mere week away, a significant day-changer as the northern hemisphere gains 5 minutes more daylight, adding extra minutes at each end of every day towards the brightness of Valentine’s, Candlemas, and heading for the spring solstice. Even now the long shadows resemble sundials rather than dark hollows, snow and ice have melted away under the strengthening sun (for the time being, anyway) and the pace is beginning to quicken as little birds chirp, snowdrops bloom and daffodils in green hoods shoot from the earth. The prettiest crescent moon in the southwestern skies is a benign sickle of hope.
Yesterday on our daily walk in the park we saw all our fellow dog walkers at once, taking advantage of the goodness of the midday sun, tails wagging joyfully as they greeted one another enthusiastically with a sniff on the bum. That is the dogs, not the walkers, to be clear; we humans are carefully socially distanced as becomes the British at the best of times, never mind during a pandemic. It all inspired this illustration of a ridiculously jolly Sunday’s Child: “The child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny, and blithe, and good, and gay”. Stay gay, my friends! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! ... Not a comment on events of 2021 so far, just thought I’d be dramatic and make the first post of the year Death. This is my contribution to Folktale Week #5. I know I haven’t put #4 here yet which is a lovely festive pic, but as I said - love the drama. Tarot reading is not something I’m familiar with, but I heard once that the card Death doesn’t represent actual death but rather a new beginning, which is good for a new year. Just to make sure, I looked it up on Wikipedia: “According to Eden Gray and other authors on the subject, it is uncommon that this card actually represents a physical death, rather it typically implies an end, possibly of a relationship or interest, and therefore an increased sense of self-awareness. In fact, Gray interprets this card as a change of thinking from an old way into a new way. The horse Death is riding is stepping over a prone king, which symbolizes that not even royalty can stop change.” So that’s okay, then. I like the bit about a change of thinking from an old way into a new way, seems apt. Try telling the bit about royals not stopping change to Harry and Meghan, though ... Thanks for visiting, see you next week!
A very Merry Christmas to all!
It's probably not what you had planned, being a bit of a strange one this year - Christmas in second lockdown for at least 3 weeks from midnight onwards. What will become of Hogmanay? Goodness knows what that will be like! Probably not that different for me, I always struggle to stay up until midnight, to be honest, and I haven't been into the revels of New Year since my early twenties. Perhaps this year I will manage to sneak off to bed with a hot water bottle before midnight, although knowing me I will most likely suddenly decide to stay up this year, just because I don't have to - bring on Jools Holland's Hootennany, hurrah! If you have had to change your plans and miss all the company normally associated with this time of year, I do hope you are making the best of it and finding something to rejoice in. Giant Toblerone, anyone? Here is a cheery festive animation of Cat annoying Dog having eaten too much chocolate! - yes, I did finally manage to work out how to post a GIF here. As usual I was overthinking it and it turned out to be very simple in the end. I wish everyone a very Happy 2021. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I don't know what happened to this week's post, I had so much I was going to write about and simply ran out of time. Here is Courtship, day 3 of Folktale Week - a pair of Wally Dugs, in a mantlepiece romance! Maybe later I will update with some interesting facts about Wally Dugs, but in the mean time, as always -
Thanks for visiting, and see you next week! Ritual was prompt no.2 in Folktale Week. My contribution was a comical sect of Staffordshire cats, with a nervous new recruit second right. I wrote this paragraph to accompany it: When the first flurry of the season began, the Secret Society of Worshippers of Snow donned their magnificent crystal caps and gathered in the Castle. They climbed a lot of stairs by candlelight and made their way along the north passage, which came to an abrupt end at a very big and important looking wooden door. There was a small doorbell at the side which the leader pressed. “Ding-dong” it innocently chimed, and the door swung open to reveal a long, thin stone pavement suspended in mid-air, spanning a ghastly ravine plunged in darkness. Heavy drapes lined each side which did nothing to assuage the terrors inspired by the infinite drop below their feet and worse soaring above their heads, but cross the void they must to reach the Chamber of Ice where the ritual took place every year. I got excited this week when I got to grips, at long last, with Instagram Stories. Thanks to Folktale Week I found it necessary to understand how to work the format, got the hang of it (eventually) and loved it - I have found a lovely place for my animations! I spent a few hours working out how best to export mini videos made in Procreate for my stories as well as posts on @binky_mckee . Thanks for visiting, see you next week!
Folktale Week 2020 has just finished, the most enjoyable week on Instagram. People are just so talented it blows me away! Different artists’ interpretations of the prompts were so unique, original and personal I felt quite daunted, if I’m honest - and proud to be involved. For the next few weeks I’ll share the illustrations I submitted here on The Weekly.
This year’s FW began, appropriately, with the prompt Birth; after much thought, I decided to make an illustration of a birth commemoration plate for a kitten. I chose a kitten because of the cat themes running through my work, and of course the name ‘Binky’ being that of all my great-grandmother’s cats. Based on by my own birthday plate (quite vintage now, ahem) I also sought inspiration from contemporary British and international ceramics, having studied ceramics in London for four years; plus, of course, I see so many beautiful examples on show whenever I visit the galleries in Edinburgh. October 1st’s entry in my calendar reads: “Make Christmas cards by Hallowe’en”. There is a reason for that: although early October seems still to belong to late summer, it takes an abrupt turn half way through and Hallowe’en is definitely the gateway to winter followed by everything associated with Christmas. And I forgot Folktale Week was in November. It’s happening right now, and in spite of having had one whole month’s lead time following the prompts release I still ended up doing last minute Folktale illos this week, because I made my Christmas and birthday cards at the beginning of November instead of what my organised self told me to do in October. So, no blog this week, but I’ll be writing about my Folktales here soon, and it’s back to work on them now.
We have so many friends whose birthdays fall between November and January that it has become an annual ritual to make birthday cards as soon as the Christmas cards are done, and it is free licence to mess about with every craft material in the studio (hem, spare room) plus anything I can purloin from B's shed. This year the hot glue gun came in extremely useful.
Looking at these birthday cards laid out together drying, I thought this would make a lovely pattern. It's been a while since I did some pattern-making, so that's something to look forward to for the new year, if not sooner. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! At the weekend I started the seasonal task of making this year’s Christmas cards. I got all the cutting, trimming and white painting done on Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday it was the more enjoyable job of adding faces to the snowmen and gluing on silver snowflakes and a fluffy scarf blowing out in the wind. The process was considerably faster this year, thanks to B lending me his hot glue gun which made a huge difference. I usually dry the cards on all the upstairs radiators, and this year I found the fastest way to add details like the red noses was to arrange the cards on the radiators first, then apply the details in situ. It was good fun! I have rubber stamps on order for the greetings to go inside which should arrive tomorrow or Thursday. The idea is to finish making the cards, and then focus on work for Folktale Week. 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's all about Folktale Week at the moment, even though it isn't happening for a month. The combination of Hallowe'en, folktales and spooky fairy tales is a heady one indeed for an illustrator, and the unearthly and the preternatural get into our work, often through the back door or creeping in from the edges. The prompts were released today but I haven't seen them yet. I plan on making an Instagram post on Wednesday or Thursday to share them. It's just such an exciting time, and unites the Instagram art community in a bubble of activity; people share and chat to one another like no other time of the year. I don't think the organisers realised how big it was going to be when they launched the first Folktale Week just three years ago, but well done to them for having such a wonderful idea! Please check out their Instagram profiles listed below:
@jennifermpotter @sofiamoore_studio @deborah.j.stein @nicallanart @laure_illustrations @rachaelschaferdesigns @debrastyer @louve.draws @matejalukezic @thebrotherskent @chelslarss @tanja_stephani And, as always - thanks for visiting, see you next week! Yes! It's that time of year again - Folktale Week is approaching! After all the insecurity and doubt about my work last week, I made this image for Folktale Week, and it has been incredibly popular, tripling my likes and engagement on Instagram. It has had several shares, mentions and a repost. It only goes to show decisions about work should never be made in haste!
Pictured below is the piece I was on the brink of tearing up and binning; thankfully something about it made me hesitate at the last minute, because I had it to work with for the Folktale Week announcement. It was great fun to do, and I enjoy lettering in monotype because you have to do it backwards and it comes out a bit wonky! 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!
Birds are everywhere at the moment both in and out of my work. Long skeins of geese gabble across the skies on their way to and from Vane Farm RSPB nature reserve on Loch Leven; and the pigeons seem incredibly tame this year, sitting on the fence eyeing us up as we walk past with the dog. The crab apples are turning red which means plentiful winter fruit for our residents.
I love this time of year, today the sun is shining and autumn colours are starting to glow through the green. |
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Welcome to my illustration blog, where I share what I have been up to during the week.
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 - about 40 of them during her 94 years of life. Currently I am working on illustrating a children's book, pattern making, and of course I can't resist a good Instagram challenge such as Folktale Week or Inktober. 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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January 2021
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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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