I have a very special scrap of fabric which I keep in my work room, hanging on the wall in a frame. It dates from about 1973 or 1974, and it is special because it represents a magical Christmas. My parents didn't have a lot of spare money back in the 70s, so for my 14th or 15th Christmas Dad had built, in secret, the most beautiful rocking chair which he painted white. My Mum made a cushion for its seat, and covered it in that fabric. They also gave me a book of Arthur Rackham illustrations, and the album Now We Are Six by Steeleye Span. I was absolutely blown away! I love the fabric so much that over the years I have made countless drawings of it. It gives me a very special feeling, which a friend once told me is called 'congruence'. About 2 weeks ago I started a new drawing of it in earnest, using Procreate so I could use the layers as colour separations. I am totally fascinated with the way colour can completely change the feeling of a textile, and could literally play around with different colourways for ever! The top left square here is the closest to the original colours. I had a wonderful time experimenting, I find it therapeutic at times when the dreaded block happens and helps to get me back on track with my work. The most difficult thing to do here was to limit my experiments to just 9 for this post! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! It’s the full moon, and this morning’s is a ‘super blood wolf moon’! A total lunar eclipse gives a reddish tint to the full moon, and during this time the moon will be slightly closer to the Earth than usual. Plus, the January full moon is known as the wolf moon or great spirit moon - giving us this wonderfully Harry Potter-sounding ‘super blood wolf moon’. We have begun to have small flurries of snow and frosty nights here in Scotland, so I drew this scene with ice crystals and snowflakes tinged pink by the blood moon falling around two silently-staring wolves. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Back to work on the children's book illustrations (which naturally i can't share until the book is out), but here is a drawing I made during a limbering-up session - a crow breathing flowers to herald in the spring. I know it's a bit soon to start thinking about spring flowers, although the snowdrops are already out in my garden; last year we had The Beast From the East blow in about 10 inches of snow overnight on the last night of February. The snow slid off our roof above the kitchen door and made a pile that nearly covered the door to the top, making it impossible to get out that way! It's not uncommon for us to have snow in March here in Scotland, so I suppose we still have all that drama to get through before the flowers really come out! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! HAPPY 2019 EVERYBODY! I spent the last few days putting away the Christmas decorations and getting them up into the loft. After that I couldn't muster the energy to get into anything too serious - so I took a day out and used the time to explore areas of Procreate which I had never used. It never does any harm to get to know your tools better, and I found the Drawing Guide plus radial symmetry. I had so much fun trying out different brushes and marks with it, I was quite fascinated, learnt a lot, and produced what could be some beautiful headscarf designs! 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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