Oh, the joy! Real paper, real paints, real everything again. Overnight this week it suddenly became spring, and there was warmth in the sun meaning I could get back into my work room. It's freezing in there and dark over the winter, but this week I opened it all up again and the absolute joy of natural work spilled out all over! So exciting - I have wanted to paint monsters for ages, so I started work immediately with a wild prolific madness. I am so genuinely happy! Don't get me wrong, I thank the Lord (and B!) for my iPad Air which has enabled me to keep producing through the most difficult of times, not just cold weather but during my parents' decline in health, the subsequent house move, and selling our former house during the horribly difficult times of the Covid plague. Periods when I didn't have a room at all, just shuttling back and forth in a car or a removal van and providing for wonderfully supportive friends who pitched in to help. Recently I have derived immense satisfaction from finding a way to make perfect patterns with basic technology digitally 'by hand' that's not actually carving woodblocks, and I've come a long way without Adobe products or automated patternmakers.
Being a trained painter, though, nothing beats the mess and randomness of the studio and I am so, so happy to be back. The freedom! I should also mention B and I had our first dose of Oxford AstraZeneca exactly one week ago today. It was an extremely well-organised event, really quite an exciting and pleasant experience with wonderful and competent NHS staff and heating in every booth. No side effects or symptoms to report, we should have some level of protection by next week. Pattern-making was my thing this week, and looking back on the work now I am surprised at how much I managed to get through. A few are simply different colour-ways of the same pattern and I still have to double-check my repeats, but an experimental upload to Redbubble looked good. I enjoyed working in a sort of retro 50’s drawing style, it comes naturally to me and flows and suits floral scatter patterns very well.
Believe it or not, what gave me the biggest challenge was designing the simplest thing of all - a polka dot pattern. Easy within a defined space, but try getting an flawless digital repeat without ‘snap to grid’ or pixel counting functions. I had to resort to hacks, diagrams - even maths, horror of horrors! - but I got there in the end. It makes a lovely soft secondary pattern for backgrounds to run behind a primary pattern. I dressed up Doggie in some of my work to make an Instagram post slightly more interesting than just a square of pattern. If I had thought about it at the time, I would have posted a patchwork image like the one above as a second swipe image, it’s quite attractive. Maybe next time ... I have been so grateful for good weather recently - for getting washing done and out on the line! I have been doing daily washes of B’s work clothes and weekly washes of dust sheets (there are about 8 massive sheets plus old bedsheets) and towels while he has been redecorating the old house, in readiness to hand over to its new owners. The regular loads of towels and bedding also must not be neglected, and I also capitalise on good drying weather to launder all the dog’s bedding. Yes, she has a bed in every room and the task of stinky-fighting is never ending. On top of that, house guests who impatiently waited for lockdown restrictions to be lifted have come tumbling in through the door in a whirlwind of joyful reunion - more bedlinen, cooking, barbecues resulting in a delightfully busy time.
So, I haven’t yet managed to start back at work yet quite as full time as I had imagined. I have started gathering things together, but that’s as far as it has gone. The photo above is a detail of my shopping list on the fridge door the other day, showing creativity must out one way or another! Doodles everywhere. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Just a little vignette I designed for the book this week, with cute bunnies by moonlight. The work is going really well, and I have been having fun designing a pattern using lots of little elements which appear in the story. I have also started on the design for the book cover, recovered some some missing text from the author and hand lettered the last page to match the first page. I see the hand lettered pages as being a sort of voice over introducing and closing the story - in the voice of Tom Baker!
This trio of ladies singing and humming evolved from character studies for a leading lady in the children's book I am working on, and I am sure it came from the current lack of hairdressing facilities! I got into the details of the different hairstyles in a big way, as my own hair grows more out of shape and shaggy in not a good way every day. It was a bit of fun which provided something to post on Instagram.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! A sea-themed week. I have worked on seaweeds, crabs, fishes, sand dunes, and shells. I discovered a few things to do with seashores, including Sea Bindweed which will definitely be making an appearance in my drawings soon - and I couldn't resist making a little pattern with delightful yellow Beach Morning Glory.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! This is how B and I spent our Christmas afternoon - modelling like crazy! These great gifts were from Molly and her husband Ben: miniature kits. Mine was a pack of coloured play clays, referencing my pottery days, with instructions to make a Happy Llama. I did, and made him a little friend and a garden of flowers with the leftovers - I had the best time playing and inventing. B’s kit was a little racing car, rather more challenging than my kit and took more time to build, which kept him busy and in his element all afternoon. It’s so cute and beautiful, and goes really fast on its tiny wheels - not dissimilar to the Caterham 7 he used to run before the Lotus Elise he has now, so it's clear where the inspiration for this gift came from!
We have a £5 Christmas gift rule in our family, and it is great fun. Nobody must spend more than £5 on each other, just put as much thought and imagination as possible into finding a gift. One year I made Theo a bunch of sock monsters using all the odd socks I collected during the year left behind after his stays with us; this year he gave his time to replace the aged fuse-box with a modern trip system for our Christmas present. For our part, B and I had a lovely afternoon tracking down gifts for under a fiver in the pound shop - we found a 1000 piece jigsaw for Molly the demon ‘puzzer’ for £4.99, and horror slime with a spider in it plus an Aldi Beard Wash for her husband Ben, eminent YouTuber Beardo Benjo who specialises in horror gaming. Look out for a beautifully groomed beard on his channel! Thanks for visiting, see you next week - or next year, should I say! Check Fizz Creations for Make-Your-Own kits and other cool products! Christmas cards all finished, posted and delivered! The design is a rubbing of the lid of an old Indian box, made by passing an inked roller over Japanese tissue laid on top of the box. Once the ink was dry a shmoosh of glitter glue (obligatory) added a sparkly sheen, which looks speckled in this scanned image. Somewhat bizzarely, I also got into Peppa Pig this week ... I often listen to YouTube videos while I work, and one day I suddenly noticed an autoplay anomaly had taken me into the middle of Peppa Pig - Official Channel - I had never seen a Peppa Pig episode before, and I really liked it! I have seen them all now, several times, loving the drawings, fully developed characters, stunning compositional sense and clear, soft colours. The sound track is as good as the animations, rich with fun little touches of giggles, gasps, and 'uh-oh' sounds which carry the stories along smoothly. I find the whole series beautifully put together, and think I can learn a lot from it. The schoolroom clips are some of my favourites, I love the differences in scale between the characters. I realise I have come rather late to the Peppa party and nobody is going to be surprised by this, but it has made a very happy and relaxed atmosphere in my work space! It's quite inspiring.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week - and in the mean time of course, have a very ... This year's poster for the run-up to Folktale Week, starring Binky the cat Yes, Folktale Week on Instagram begins one week today! Time has flown since the prompts were released and I haven't done anything for them yet, but I made this poster for the occasion. I love the opportunity to invent weird little creatures and have the license to mix them all together to suggest or tell stories of a folksy nature.
It is such fun how these creatures come about, and once they creep in they are there for good in my stories! They seem to introduce themselves. The other two cat-like figures in the illustration came about from my bedroom curtains. Prone to idle gazing and pareidolia, about two weeks into the 100 cats project, I saw cats all over them, revealed by morning light glowing through the figured cloth. The 100 cats project, incidentally, will continue; it had to go on the back burner for a while to make space for the Artobotic machines project, specifically work for the Brexit Art Machine which was on a deadline for the end of the month. Looks like we've had an extension to that now! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! More can be found on Artobotic vending machines plus pics of the work I have been making for them at The Weekly on my Heather Eliza Walker site.
Folktale Week 2019 is upon us! It hasn’t actually started yet, but the build-up is a busy and exciting time. It begins tomorrow when the organisers announce the prompts which are shared instantly by everyone, and all participants work in secret on their pieces. Then, on November 4th, Instagram will transform into a week long explosion of colourful folktales when everyone starts posting their work. It’s global and spans all time zones, so each day is a 24-hour celebration as artists from all over the world make their posts. The variety of work is breath-taking: last year saw illustration, photography, papercraft, cosplay, modelling, embroidery, felting to name but a few!
Folktale Week will be running on Instagram November 4 - 10. Fancy joining in? Search #folktaleweekand #folktaleweek2019 to find the talented developers who initiated it last year, and look out for the prompts tomorrow! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! The three little kittens, they lost their mittens, And they began to cry, "Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear, That we have lost our mittens." "What! - lost your mittens, you naughty kittens! Then you shall have no pie." "Meow, meow, meow." "Then you shall have no pie." The three little kittens, they found their mittens, And they began to cry, "Oh, mother dear, see here, see here, For we have found our mittens." "Put on your mittens, you silly kittens, And you shall have some pie." "Purr, purr, purr, Oh, let us have some pie." The three little kittens put on their mittens, And soon ate up the pie, "Oh, mother dear, we greatly fear, That we have soiled our mittens." "What, soiled your mittens, you naughty kittens!" Then they began to sigh, "Meow, meow, meow," Then they began to sigh. The three little kittens, they washed their mittens, And hung them out to dry, "Oh, mother dear, do you not hear, That we have washed our mittens?" "What, washed your mittens, then you're good kittens, But I smell a rat close by." "Meow, meow, meow, We smell a rat close by." The Three Little Kittens from the Mother Goose Collection (poem usually attributed to early 19th century American poet Eliza Lee Cabot Follen).
I so much enjoyed working on these as part of my 100 days of cats project. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it was suggested by a fellow Instagrammer, Karen Edward. Please visit her website here, and if you are ever in the beautiful East Neuk of Scotland you must visit Funky Scottish, her café and gallery! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Funky Scottish 41 High Street, Anstruther, Fife Cakes, coffee, tasty lunches and beautifully made arts and crafts Playing about with cut-out cats, paper and pressed flowers and leaves, I couldn't resist giving my cats silly names! It seems to add to their characters, and stories start to form around them. May I present today, from the top row reading left to right:
1. Daphne Dorkington 2. Patricia Spoon 3. Gloria Grumps-Bypass 4. Mimelsa Mimsyboot 5. Mademoiselle Fou Fou 6. Suzi Spoon (Patricia’s twin) I have more lined up to do, including two cat portraits - Minnie and Mimi (actual names, but I may give them a silly surname!) Thanks for visiting, see you next week! 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! Still working on illustrations as Binky McKee, since last Monday I have been on Hallowe’en themes! October fun. Here we have Tattie Bogle, some candy skulls, a haunting in pink, and a Tattie Bogle's boyfriend. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Still on the subject of faces and heads, I had a binge drawing session yesterday. It was tough going at first because I have been feeling a bit blocked when it comes to the human face for a few days now, but I find if you just start with something - anything at all - eventually the frustration works itself through and something inspirational and personal pops up to grip the imagination. After that, you are up and away and the flow is back. In the end I made enough drawings to post on my Instagram for the rest of the week! 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.
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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