Mostly cats, plus a few fish populate my work at the moment. I am sure this is unconsciously autobiographical, as I am looking after a cat and a goldfish for neighbours. I love cats, but don’t have one myself now so it is a pleasure to be privy to Minnie’s hauteur. She likes to make it clear she is way above associating with me, but every so often suppressed silliness breaks through, and she prances about chasing a glittery Santa head on string.
The goldfish is interesting, too. I don’t think he has a name, but I call him Michael Fish (after the weather man on TV). I don’t know how it happened, but the fish lost his tail one day - and it grew back! This, apparently, is a thing fish are capable of. Michael wears his new one like a chiffon train, swishing its delicate, sheer fabric behind him as he swims about his tank, which contains a satisfying mixture of plants and weird little models of towers. It’s a world where tiny castles and miniature forests make a goldfish look as big as a god in his watery sky, and real plants look like the one in Jack and the beanstalk! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I made a return to working with my hands this week, as opposed to digitally!
Procreate on iPad was a miracle during the house move, requiring no space or materials other than a stylus and a charger which enabled me to continue to work and generate new ideas (when there was time). I created some digital work which I find truly wonderful - see last week's post. At the beginning of this week, however, I was struggling with it. In the end I became aware that I was trying to replicate my freehand drawing methods and it wasn't working for me. I tried every brush and everything the digital brushes could do, but I was going silently mad in the process. I know there are artists out there who effortlessly produce work in Procreate and create their own brushes to suit, and I can't tell the difference between their digital and hand-made works, but I was spending hours - days and hours - and getting frustrated and wasting time producing hellish, ugly, stiff, overwrought works. In the end I thought that was nuts. My studio is well enough organised now to be able to work by hand and get it into Photoshop. I set up my room so I have a drawing table and a Mac table with a large enough monitor to finish hand drawn and painted work for Redbubble, so here is what I came up with: a floral watercolour, beginning work on a very lovely pattern; a design made from home-made rubber stamps, and a cyan line drawing of a spaced-out cat in a garden - I don't know yet what will become. I will continue to work in Procreate, it is an amazingly powerful tool for iPad and I enjoy using it. I have created many works over the past year, discovering fascinating ideas which I wouldn't have happened without it (see previous posts!). But I have to say it was lovely to get out the pens, pencils and watercolours again, too. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! This week I worked on the tightest drawing I have made to date, inspired by illustrations in a 1930s gardening encyclopaedia I found (probably my grandmother's). I worked in Procreate with gel-pen streamlined to the max to produce the repeat pattern of andromeda, which looks great as a scarf, and on throw pillows and just about everything on Redbubble's products.
To loosen up a bit after all that tension, I played around with a folksy ear-of-wheat based pattern, which in an altered state formed the posh rug these kitties are playing on for this weekend's Caturday hashtag on Instagram! It was so nice to get out a painterly brush and play with cats and colours. It's a bit of a rough idea so far, but I will tidy it up and make it into something, because it worked really well. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Following about 10 days of research into licensing artwork, I finally made the decision to open a shop on Redbubble. I have been asked so many times recently if there is somewhere my work can be bought online, I thought it was about time I got on with it. This last week has been a steep learning curve, but very exciting, and it appeals to the graphic designer in me. When I was 14 years old, I used to produce endless designs for decorative letter papers, notebooks, cards and envelopes with the dream of launching my own stationery line, and I'm now nearly 60, so it really is time!
At the moment I am systematically going through my Instagram posts for Folktale Week and Inktober, resizing them and cleaning them up, starting with my own personal favourites and my 'best nine' of 2018. I love the process of redesigning them to suit the different products. Some of the works I leave in the square Instagram format which looks great on throw pillows and art boards, but not so great on the Redbubble greetings card format, so I make different versions to suit. I finished this design yesterday, which is a reworking of my grinning Cheshire cats. I am delighted with how it looks on all the products! I have a long way to go before I can officially announce the 'grand opening', but it's a great journey! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! It snowed, and I was inspired to make a forest with kitties staring at the viewer from behind trees as though caught in the act.
This is the only new work I made this week, because finally I have made the decision to get some of my images out into the world for sale. It has been something I have been looking into since 2013. At first I thought I would open an Etsy shop, which I still might do at some point, but right now I couldn’t handle all the emails and post and packaging associated with a store front as I have neither the time nor space. I am also not keen on laying out money for stock that may not perform well, and I have nowhere to store unsold work. I have been looking into various platforms for a while, and finally settled for Redbubble which is a print on demand platform. The site has a really laid-back vibe which I like, and I love the products they offer for printing; I am particularly excited about mugs, notebooks, cards and post cards, phone cases, bags and pencil cases as well as art prints and acrylic blocks. It has involved a lot of research and a huge learning curve, as well as getting down to cleaning up artwork for a really crisp, professional finish, and playing about with my images and designs which let’s face it, I love doing but so far it hasn’t yielded much of interest to share either here or on Instagram because everyone has already seen the images. I understand I won’t make a living through Redbubble, but I am very interested in licensing designs and any extra revenue stream from royalties on sales is very welcome, no matter how small. Besides which, it’s so satisfying to get your work out there and see it on different products! When I was 12 years old my biggest dream was to have my own line of stationery, and I used to sit for hours on end drawing designs for letter papers, envelopes, greetings cards and note books. It’s nice to see not much has changed in 48 years! - except I have graduated to a much larger room in the house, and I enjoy the ‘homework’ associated with what I do these days. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Continuing autumnal themes on Instagram as we go into the darker days of the season, I have been keeping colours warm and deep with plenty of soft glowing tones. Oak trees are figuring prominently because we have piles of them driven into corners around the garden, which I started drawing a couple of weeks ago. I was attracted by their broken shapes - some had little holes in them - and their beautiful colours which looked great against wet grey paths. There is also a small cat helping crows to tidy the leaves - of course! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I am still ploughing full steam ahead illustrating a children's book, which presents a dilemma when it comes to publishing work on social media: naturally, it is totally against the rules to share work for a book before it is published, but in the mean time you want to keep your social media accounts live. I can, however, share spin-offs from my illustrations without revealing characters, settings, titles or themes, while at the same time building on work for the book. This is what I have been doing on Instagram, and this week I chose a cat themed week in the wake of folktale week (which I thoroughly enjoyed!) So here are my cats from the week, I hope you enjoy them. I am also still clearing up my work room following our house move. I am taking a few days' holiday from Instagram whilst focusing on the book and sorting my work space. 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.
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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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