Working with the gouache paintings I made last week, I made some butterflies to go with the poppies (top right) and created a new pattern. I am loving this work! Next week I intend to work on the poppies pictured top left. I am uploading them to my Redbubble account, it's always exciting to see them on the products and tweak around with them until they look just perfect. Thanks for visiting, see you next week!
This week I developed two of the experimental patterns I made previously from my Easter sketchbook. I was delighted with both, but particularly liked the image above for the clarity of its jewel colours offset by the black background. I love how they look on Redbubble's products; for some reason I am usually most interested in the framed prints, pillows and mugs - I guess home decor is my thing!
My shop on Redbubble is growing, there is still a lot to do but I am finding my way around the platform nicely nowadays and I love it. I feel more confident about it now, so here is a collage of four of my designs on pillows. I finally feel brave enough to link the image to my account, so please click if you are interested in taking a look - and you can also explore some of the truly amazing artists producing very cool designs on Redbubble. 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! I have had fun with ferns this week! The design above shows a ferny dither with no repeat pattern in 4 colourways. I made them for one of my Redbubble collections which I have named ‘Granny’s Attic’, and I was delighted with how they looked on the different products. I enjoyed getting my head around the logic of fitting the elements of the design together.
It gave me the idea that I would really like to design large, delicate ferns in white line to print on black and other deep colours. I have a vision which I particularly fancy on throw and floor pillows. I believe in making things I would like to own myself, and letting the fun happen; I reckon if I like it, I am sure other people will, too. I worked on fern drawings for a few hours today, playing around with a couple of ideas and trying different treatments. There is still a lot to do to get the design print ready, but I am happy with progress so far. In the mean time, I blogged some images and thoughts on that over at The Weekly on my Heather Eliza website. My plan for the coming week is to clean up a few more of my Instagram Folktale Week and Inktober 2019 posts which people have asked for, as well as to keep going with the new fern design. It won’t be long until I can do the ‘press release’ (grand term for telling my friends I have a shop at long last) - but it is such interesting work, I am loving it! 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! |
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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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March 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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