A run of beautiful warm sunshine this week proved a big distraction - I didn't want to be indoors at all. We had a couple of barbecues, one evening we ate our evening meal as a picnic on the grass. The next evening we lit the barbecue again, but while we were cooking our marinated spatchcock chicken which I had prepared earlier in the day, the cold came back in and we retreated indoors to eat.
I did get my sketchbook and paints outdoors, though, and the pop-up tent went up as my 'outdoor studio' - which I am pleased to report I am getting quite proficient at folding up and putting away now. Last year there were a couple of hysterically hilarious antics, not aided by wine and B cracking jokes at my attempts. I bought the tent in 2016 and have used it every summer since, so 5 years practice is finally paying off! This might be my favourite one of the set of paintings finished last week. I feel the levels of stylisation and naturalism are in good balance, and it has a cosy, friendly feel. The warmth of the colours and texture photograph beautifully in the early evening sun.
The second painting in the series finished this week. I really do love working with texture! The lines drawn over the top are carbon copy paper, chosen not just for its delightful mark-making, but also because I can't see exactly where it's going because it's lying face down on the painting and I'm drawing through the back. The result has an innocence which brings a lot to this work.
These are quite small at 25x18cm, which gives the texture and marks a greater prominence. ... If not in the weather. If spring is going to be slow arriving this year I decided just to bring it on with flowery paintings this week. I like this kind of work to suggest tapestry or embroidery, so I used a heavy impasto consisting of acrylic gesso primer bulked out with whiting alongside gouache to create texture. I have tested it for stability and adherence as much as I can and it seems to be fine, it even has flexibility and will bend with the heavy Fabriano print paper I favour without cracking. Adding some dots details finished this piece by the end of the day, when it looked lovely in the low sun. The weather took another turn for the Baltic this week forcing me to move into a warmer room to work - it was productive, though, and very comfortable as my temporary HQs are on a lovely old brass bed. Very handy for hanging work in progress, it began to resemble the railings at Bayswater Road in London on a Sunday! I was saddened to hear yesterday's news of the death of Prince Philip. He was 99 years old, a national institution. Farewell and rest in peace, our Duke of Edinburgh.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! This week, some of my monsters developed two heads! - inspired by insects which often display a big scary face on their body or wings which isn't actually their face. At long last I worked out how to make Reels on Instagram with the image top left, above, and set it to "What's that coming over the hill" by The Automatic - great fun.
Still working in my sketchbook, I developed the floral theme a little further with my adoration of ikebana. I love the gravity-defying weirdness where truth is indeed stranger than fiction as they spring from preposterously tiny vases or shallow bowls apparently supported by nothing but moss. I am also preparing some textured Fabriano Rosaspina, a heavy card-like printing paper, for stand-alone works. I'm getting texture by adding whiting to my primer and using lots of scumbling. Yesterday I had some weekend fun making small yellow flowers from one of the paintings into a repeat pattern, which I am calling Pansy Riot. Can't wait to see it on some products. 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 ... 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! I began working on drawings in Procreate this week, based on and inspired by my collection of gypsy purses. I must have started the collection in or around 1995, when I used to go camping in the Cotswolds to get out of London, and discovered a wonderful shop called Cargo in Cirencester. It was filled polished wooden floor to white ceiling with Indian artefacts and textiles, with a special basket of colourful embroidered, woven and appliqué purses. I had developed an obsession with Indian artefacts years before as a student in Edinburgh, combing Cockburn Street Market for Mysore soap, embroidered cushion covers, cheesecloth blouses and batik printed maxi skirts (I can still smell the fragrances now) - so this wonder of a shop in Cirencester became a treasure trove for me.
I have a very deep affection for my little purses which I hope to convey in the drawings, with attention to details such as tiny stitches and unexpected decorative motifs. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Left: an umbel drawing which I have been working on for the children's book this week. Above: I particularly love the wild romantic treatment I gave it, using a couple of filters - it's kind of Granny's attic and old books. It puts me in mind of cyanotype photography. It won't be long until the illustrations are finished and I will be able to share full pics with the author's blessing. I am so looking forward to that, the book has been years in planning and now it's becoming real! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Another pattern this week for my Redbubble Store - birds and potted plants gardening, inspired by the fact that I have been doing a lot of gardening recently. I was delighted to launch this one on the full range of 'kids' clothing' as well as home décor, adult apparel, accessories - and of course, socks! I do love the socks.
Warm, sunshine-filled days must have gone to my head last week because I totally forgot to post this! I back-dated it while I was posting next week's, if that makes sense (beginning to feel a bit Time Lord)
Anyway, I took a bit of time out to tidy up my Redbubble Store and design a new pattern - birds and berries, all ready for Autumn. I am loving the way the pattern works on the products and I have discovered I definitely have a thing about socks. Here is last week's pattern on some products, too. I have been working on a pattern this week, continuing last year's initial experiments based on a watercolour. I remade all the flower motifs from scratch and assembled them into a motif for experiments. Left here shows the first play around with a tile, just seeing what looks good and getting a feel for how it might look in repeat. It is in a more advanced stage in the image below, in fact nearly finished following a few more experiments and alterations. I want to make a grid pattern, then a half drop version. There is a deliberate nod to the 1970s in the shapes and warm palette. The first play around had been put to one side while I continued work, but when I looked back at it It really reminded me of the '70s - of something in particular which I can't quite put my finger on. It's something like a cookery book, or a Clothkits design, or a kitchen mat; whatever it is, I am definitely going to have a go at recreating the look when I have finished this version of it. My birthday, with the full Blossom Super-Moon occurring at the same time. That, together with some super weather and B cooking his superb tikka chicken thighs on the barbecue meant one thing only - pop-up tent in the garden! The apple trees, after what appeared to be a holiday last year with virtually no blossoms or fruits, are going crazy this year, and this one is right in front of my tent door. This view, a glass (hem-hem bottle) of Prosecco, B's heavenly thighs (so to speak) on the BBQ, the radio playing quietly, birds singing in the warm evening sun ... living the dream.
I did actually do some work in the tent during the week, as well! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! It's March! To my mind, that mean it's now officially Spring, and March is coming in like a lion today with a big old blustery wind. I worked on my HEW website this week, and completed two more illustrations for the children's book before relaxing with this pattern put together from flowers which I made for one of them. I thought it had an appealing 1930s vintage look. I was particularly interested in the panel which resulted when I turned the original drawing 'inside out' to create the pattern fill - perhaps a nice scarf design to think about?
Happy Spring! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! When I was at art school still life was my favourite genre, I loved going to the college wardrobes and cupboards to select objects for my paintings. Now, for the last few weeks I have been organised enough to collect elements as I work into a scrap-book file so that at the end of the week I can make a still life with them. Although this work is digital, I have noticed that the process of composing and problem solving is the same as painting and in fact the end result resembles my paintings. Still collecting ideas based on coastal flora to use in illustrations, I found Sea Stock this week, and on Thursday I discovered that Sea Bindweed and Beach Morning Glory are actually the same plant - I have yet to identify the little yellow flowers which I originally thought were Beach Morning Glory. I would never have known there existed such a wide variety of plants which grow on sand dunes in the UK; now I'm looking forward to visiting the beach in summertime for a good old poke around to see what I can find.
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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