Lovely light-filled flowers to herald in the spring for Easter: I made this watercolour from 2019 into a half-drop pattern over the weekend.
I painted this watercolour especially with pattern-making in mind, but couldn't work out how to do it back then - I had still to develop the method I use today on my old iPad, but finally, here it is! Normally at Easter I would be outside in the garden with my watercolours in my popup tent, but this year the holiday fell too early and the weather left a bit to be desired. The spring flowers weren't quite out yet, and no sign of blossoms on the apple trees. I didn't get around to making jelly bunnies or a cake this year, either, because it just didn't feel seasonal. However, Molly arrived with a super spicy and fruity dough recipe for hot cross buns, so in the end we did have an Easter theme in the kitchen. Words cannot describe the fragrance as they were baking. I had so much fun drawing on the envelope and inside B's birthday card it made me think I should do more of this kind of drawing. I just sat and let it happen without too much thought, my mind simply spilling onto the paper. The invention was just like being a kid again, and B loved it. The card itself was one of the ones I made back in December, which I set aside for B at the time - there's always one in a batch which turns out a bit special.
Ok, I cheated a bit here - this photo was actually taken on January 6th, when the seasonal cold came in. I just didn't have a nice photo to greet the new year at the time, but this beauty developed on a glass tabletop overnight - so soft and feathery in appearance. So ...
<<<<<< A VERY HAPPY 2024 TO ALL! >>>>>> I started making birthday cards back in early July, but only got one done - so now all the December and January birthdays are coming up fast, I had to get on with serious card-making. Luckily I had cut and folded all the card backings, so just the images to make up and mount to do now. I started out without the faintest idea of what I was going to do, but after a few experiments and fails this is how they started: a sheet of sprigs. Some wax resist drawn onto them with a candle stump, watercolour and a selection of rubber stamps later and hey presto - enough cards to last until next summer. Of course, there are families and couples and I don't want to send the same card out to these folks, so there are companion cards in a different style which I made up at the same time - see those on my Heather Eliza blog.
It was time to clear away all the fallen leaves today in our neighbourhood annual 'leafathon', a sociable and fun tradition which dates back goodness knows how many years (we moved in as a young family in 1971). Even after 1984 when I lived outside of Scotland I would make it a date to come home and lend a hand before I moved back in 2006, and in fact B's daughter now does the same, travelling up from Englandshire to bag a few leaves when she can make the date. Eventually, B and I kept the house for our own following my parents' passing, so hardly a year has gone by when I have missed it - but this year I was unable to make it. I had some horrid bug (not covid, according to my nearly out-of-date home tests), felt ghastly, and judged it wise not to risk passing it on to some of the older residents. So I sadly stayed in the house and watched everyone having a great time from the window with a strong sense of FOMO. Ironically, the illustration above was made in 2019, just as Covid19 was sneaking into the country through the back door.
This is the first weekend I have had to myself since mid-July. We have been incredibly busy since then: as an indirect result of the Edinburgh Festivals the day-job went crazy with 650 chairs to recover for the Scottish Assembly Rooms while they weren't in use in addition to all our regular work. Throw into the equation 3 lots of house guests, dog-sitting and cat-sitting to cover various owners' holidays, and different commitments in the evenings and weekends - you get the picture. I did manage to get some pattern-making done simply by stealing 5 minutes here and there, working in the car during lunch-breaks. I had set aside images for my blog but didn't get around to posting them so I back-dated those then made these two catch-up collages. Top row: Zico in the garden with a bolted rocket plant, hurrah! Molly arrived: modular fun with B, and Kirkcaldy beach with Zico Middle row: B's beautiful olive bread and squash soup; pizza making day (hilarious photo which Molly superimposed onto a Kirkcaldy beach pic; pizza looking like a 1970s cookery book photo which I love, Bottom row (pun intended): Rude food - Molly and I had fits of hysteria discovering a pair of buttocks in a butternut squash in Aldi, followed by spotting suggesive lollies (I thought we were going to get thrown out) - and somehow we managed to make some of B's rustic breads into more rude food. So, Wildflower Garden had a makeover with a rearrangement of the colour separations, and together with Crazy Daisies both were given new colourways based on old velvet shades and my favourite Peruvian cardi.
New work is underway, too ... Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I lost my stylus for this entire week. It meant I couldn't work properly on my iPad without it, so little in the way of new work this week, but luckily I had these two collages I made last week to post here today. Until I lost the stylus I had not realised my level of attachment to it; we have been through so much artwork, so much discovery, and so much delight together. It had become a natural extension of my hand and therefore to my brain, and that hand felt quite bereaved without it.
From the title of this post you can probably guess what happened, but if you would like to hear the whole story, read on ... 1. My beautiful goddaughter, Molly, turned 30 today - it doesn't seem 5 minutes ago that we were in the land of Tamagotchis, fluffy pens and Furbies, and only about 5 years ago when (she'll hate me for saying this!) I gave her her first pumpkin soup on Hallowe'en at the age of 9 months. She absolutely loved it, and couldn't get enough. A little while later B was totally the hero of nappy-changing.
2. I've had my head down all week and finished all the illustrations for the children's book I've been working on. I took ages designing the background pictured above for a double-spread, only to realise that the binding cut out the centre so it didn't match up (you'd never think I worked for years as a layout artist). A quick redesign sorted out the problem. 3. I learnt a new word from BBC's Winter Watch this week: coprophagous, or dung-eating. What a lovely word from the Greek kopros = dung + phagein = to eat. I think I feel a beetle drawing coming on ... 4. Storm Malik arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning. I was looking after Minnie the cat across the road, went out at 5am to let her in, and nearly got blown over by the wind. I found Minnie sheltering beneath a bush in her garden, and she didn't hold back in telling me what she thought of it. I thought her meow-meow-meow-ing would wake the neighbours. 5. It was Burn's night on Tuesday. To celebrate our handsome and virile Bard's life, B and I raised a few glasses of Scotch at dinner and we ate the most delicious Perthshire haggis, neeps and tatties. Mr Robert Burns was really a terrible rascal, but the Scots kind of admire that, especially as he cared deeply for his wife (dubbed the 'most patient wife in Scotland') and his many girlfriends. He bequeathed us all a legacy of beautiful love poems inspired by the women in his life which wind elegantly around his immersion in, and passion for, the nature which surrounded him. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Happy Burn's Night!
I came across this weird and wonderful old engraving of a set of pipes a while ago, but could never think how to use it until now - it has everything required for Burn's Night! (Except the whisky, of course). This is something I love doing: making collages in a digital sketchbook, using all sorts of bits and pieces I'm working on at any one time. It's something I can do anywhere in odd moments, and they make lovely posts for Instagram. I knew I had a busy time coming up making birthday cards, Christmas cards, shopping, gift-wrapping, and getting the Christmas decorations out; so I had a sketchbook binge and created a few collages to keep Instagram lively.
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! 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! Spring is here, making our daily lockdown walk in the park an absolute pleasure. The wind has been cold but it's warming up a little and the sight, of budding and blossoming and shooting and sprouting is wonderful.
Back home to work after this! I actually haven't got much to write about this week, I'm just keeping my head down and beavering away at illustrations as usual, I am really looking forward to being able to share them here. Thanks for visiting, stay well and safe, see you next week! I had imagined I would have lots of time on my hands and get lots of work done in these extraordinary times of lockdown against the spread of coronavirus. It is true that reduced traffic outside brings peace and tranquility, but ironically I have never been more social. People having unexpected time on their hands means much more Face Time calls and get togethers on Zoom, as we bring one another cheer and chat to those who are in isolation. B and I have been more regular than ever dog walking as our 'one-a-day outdoors exercise' walk. Shopping takes so much longer because of social distancing measures in the shops, followed by cleaning down all the purchases when they come into the house. I have actually been forced out to the shops more often than usual; normally we would get two home deliveries a week, but now so many people are working from home that high demand on delivery slots makes it difficult to get one.
I did, however, spend a few days this week on my Redbubble store, continuing to make greetings cards, post cards and pin buttons from my 100 cats project, plus refreshing old patterns and adding a couple of new ones to decorate the products. Thanks for visiting, keep well, and see you next week! Back in January, I took a series of photos of deserted play parks in my home town. At the time I felt they had a poetic quality, abandoned in favour of a brand new super-swanky play area with amazing, creative equipment for children to explore, literally with bells and whistles. Reflecting now on these photos they seem premonitory, as the new super-swanky one today lies just as deserted following government advice to keep children away from play parks. The UK has been in official lockdown against the coronavirus for a week now.
As far as my work goes, it's business as usual, except there are no interruptions to try and avoid! It's very quiet outside. The birds sing clearly and the chestnut buds are swelling daily. I worked on the children's book illustrations, tidied up my Redbubble shop (focusing on greetings cards and postcards from my 100 cats project), and started work on an interesting pattern. Of course, the Heather Eliza drawings continue as well. I don't get out much at the best of times, so not much effort required here for lockdown! Thanks for visiting, stay safe, and 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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All
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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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