Gradually, bit by bit, I have been adding to this illustration and appreciating its details. I have worked a version to make a 4-part Instagram post making use of them which I will be posting soon, but before then I want to brighten up my profile page with a few brighter images. However, it has been challenging trying to do much work during this week's cold snap. I showed photos and wrote about our ice-scaped windows (the fanciest in town!) on my Heather Eliza blog, but didn't mention some of the other issues. It was so cold in the house our devices stopped charging and nothing would work until we put them all on hot water bottles. It took so long scraping and defrosting the car in the early mornings that I lost what is often my best part of the day to squeeze in a little artwork, even if my devices had been working; and the need for hot food before going out at 7.15am took a lot of extra time. B was a marvellous help with it all, making sure my flask was filled with hot soup and my stewed fruit didn't burn while defrosting the car - it has been a week of getting up at an unearthly hour every dark morning and racing to get dressed before getting paralysed by the cold!
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I set aside the illustrations for my new book for a while. There are two reasons for this; one, I like to be absolutely sure I'm on the right tracks; two, I have been saving them to make Big Sixes for Instagram and to use here on this blog - handy for posts while I am making work for the Open Eye Gallery's Christmas exhibition in Edinburgh, which can be seen on my Heather Eliza blog here.
This was the first illustration I began in early July this year. I am planning to use it for a 'Big 6' on Instagram. Last week when I was looking for a group of 4 matching collages and only had three, the only thing I could find to fit the mood was the pattern shown above. I took it and treated it in exactly the same way as the collages without thinking. I was very happy with what I had done; the 'painterly' textures and overlays I make for my collages breathed life into the pattern tile and made it into a little artwork. It now had character. Surface and colour variations plus softened borders suggested light moving across the pattern, the way it might on a piece of material. I had found a new pattern thing! I hadn't thought of it before, but just because the tile has to be super flat for printing on fabric, which gives it quite enough texture without adding any, doesn't mean texture has to be absent from blog posts.. The fact is, pattern design tiles just look boring on their own, especially in their flat, clean print-ready form. It's fine if I have actual fabric samples, or a photo of my wallpaper design in a real room etc to show, but in the absence of any of these things I find I have to get a bit more creative about how I show them. I had been making 'sketchbook page' collages before, but felt I had run the gamut with those a while ago and had been wracking my brain for something new. Of course I went on to experiment with this new idea on other pattern tiles.
We had such a fun, busy weekend last week that I didn't get around to blogging. This is a catchup, and you can see here what it was all about. Here are some previous works I remade during the week in new textures and new colours. Below, inspired by the Voynich manuscript, was my favourite because its rich, velvety colours and the tiny lines make it look like an embroidery. In the same week I also got interested in honing in on details and redrawing each one, an interesting exercise in composition and detail. I am compiling several Instagram posts to use when I get back to work on my book of ditties illustrations, so I don't have to keep interrupting my work flow - and it is so relaxing to be able to play like this and learn at the same time.
A gate sprouting vines and flowers crowding to escape - poor Harold the custodian owl! I get the feeling that a full moon falling on a Friday, as happened this week, must be particularly potent. I put together the above image for Instagram as a spin-off from one of my recent illustrations. This week I reworked some of the illustrations for my own book of ditties. It's only when I'm some way along the road that I hit a mood for the illustrations and they begin to settle, so I spent a couple of days consolidating and updating some of the earlier ones; all are now looking good and consistent.
Before moving on to the next illustration, I spent the weekend working very quick sketches. It's the age-old dilemma; while working hard on a project which has to stay under wraps for a while, what does an artist do to maintain an online presence? I either reuse elements of an illustration and make them into something different (such as Harold the owl) or have a good, swift-working brain-storming session. It's a great exercise anyway and helps to loosen up. New ideas come spilling into the work with the rapid flow, and I end up with nice pieces for social media like this colourful reel and story I made for Instagram. To avoid chaos and inconsistency I find it best to stick to one method for fast work, which I hope makes a good counterpart to the finished illustrative work, and doesn't make me look too schizoid. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Above, nine details of two illustrations I am currently working on, and below, one of the illustrations converted for a post for social media. On Sundays I review what I have done during the week and select a couple pieces to work into something new. I find the exercise useful for opening my mind and exploring new directions. I particularly liked the simple honesty of Brilliant Day, it reminds me of vintage samplers or Quaker art.
These are double spread illustrations, both spin-offs adapted for my Instagram from my latest book of dreadful ditties and dodgy doggerel verses. Posted as two consecutive images which work individually, but fit together as one image when the grid falls that way. As one makes a whole image the other is broken into two; quite a nice dynamic to add extra interest.
The exuberance of spring, and my workroom warming up enough to sit in there for longer than 3 minutes resulted in the annual burst of joy at getting back to real materials! See March and April of last year. I started on a few watercolours during the week. It wasn't that easy to find my groove after a few months of digital-in-the-dark-days work, but after a couple of false starts the ease and looseness began to flow. I am also experimenting with something new to me: working watercolour together with coloured pencils. I have always been more of a gouache girl. Still working on iPad before it gets completely light in the mornings, I also finished this camping pattern with colourful teepees, an idea I have had in the background for a couple of weeks. I am enjoying compiling these collages of my work from the week and posting them on my Instagram. I am using lots of bright new colours right now, which I love - it's great to lighten up. Here we have watercolours, dots and teepees from the week alongside weekend revisiting work from last year - and a new profile pic.
Thanks for visiting, see you soon! My best nine posts on Instagram this year. I am so grateful for every single like and comment, and for those wonderful people who have supported my work for years.
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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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