On Wednesday I made these two collages with last week's kite pattern, mixing them with a new version of a geometric design from last June, and a daisy one which is in progress at the moment. I am always trying out different ways to present my patterns in a lively way, rather than just showing them as a flat section. I am pleased with the freshness and clarity of these two. Thursday afternoon brought the glad arrival of two old friends from college days for an overnight stay, and on Friday morning I had a most valuable discussion about the book project I have been working on with pointers on how to approach my next one. I am enormously grateful to have learnt so much from my friend, and for his kind interest in my work, leaving me full of ideas. Then more joy followed on Friday evening when Molly arrived to stay for a week with us. All our happiness, however, was in direct juxtaposition with the incoming horrific news of the invasion of Ukraine. Just as we were beginning to feel things were returning to some kind of post-pandemic normality, forces of evil invaded the lives of hundreds of thousands of East European and Russian citizens, robbing them of their peace, security, and normal lives. In the light of current affairs, my happy work looks out of context; there can be little happiness for all those people at the moment, and my heart genuinely goes out to all those people affected by this unprovoked and barbaric action: not only the direct victims of the assault, but also to the people of Russia who do not want this war and do not condone these actions. I am trying to think of something I can do to express my support for them, but it all seems so trivial in the light of their sorrow.
I made a peace poster for Ukraine which I posted here on my Heather Eliza blog. At the beginning of the week, I really wanted to hurry spring along when we had a beautiful burst of sunlight and calm between storms. I noticed that the sea crests I was working with the week before suggested a rhythm or even a pattern, so I created this riverside scene with spring flowers and swallows. It's just a sketch at the moment, but it shows promise when arranged in a brick repeat (I'm a huge fan of those), so I may be working it into a nice clean pattern for reproduction in the near future. Then the winds came in in big, blustery gusts - far too violent to be flying kites, but it did put me in mind of lovely breezy days on the hills with our kites as youngsters. Above is a work I created called 'Kite Party' with pareidolia critters last year, but I never resolved it or posted it anywhere; so I got it out again, refreshed it with a lovely green hillside (with polka dots, of course), and rejigged some of the critters - and here we have a celebration of breezy (not hurricane) weather. It was actually so windy the dog was terrified during the stormy nights, and we had to move her bed further away from the fireplace where she usually sleeps because of the wind booming in the chimney. I personally love that sound, so cosy, but it did get rather loud and scary at times. Now, I have been moving back into pattern-making mode recently. I found the kites from the 'Kite Party' illustration very interesting. I separated them from the rest of the work, made clean drawings which should print well, and arranged them in a brick repeat. I actually really like this, in fact I fancy the grey-green colourway in the middle as wallpaper for our downstairs loo.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Catfish for Caturday, I thought why not? In a week which has been rather slow and uneventful (spring cleaning has begun, and the Christmas decorations are still locked away in an upstairs room for repairs before heading loftwards) it was rather nice to think out of the box.
Monday: I performed my yearly ritual of drawing up charts of sunrise and sunset times to see just how much more daylight we have since the winter solstice. I calculated 1 hour and 3 minutes, but by the time I write this journal entry it will be even more, as we are steadily gaining 4 minutes and counting every day. Tuesday: the first day of February is here! It's a great month, as the sun gets brighter and higher in the sky. There are shoots coming up all over the garden, and I dream of all the lovely flowers we will have. Wednesday was Candlemas, a day I really like; the thought of blessing candles is wonderfully Gormenghast - I can visualise some strange ancient ceremony of the Groan family being conducted in the castle. The best thing, though, is arranging garden snowdrops in a posy vase and lighting lots of candles, celebrating the lighter days and higher angle of the sun. (I took some photos of our snowdrops and posted them on my HEW blog). Thursday and Friday were about getting organised. My work room is cluttered with some Christmas decorations which were taken down on twelfth night. While most went back into the loft, others required packaging materials, replacement parts, and a bit of mending before they join the others the loft, so a couple of Amazon orders were required. I feel the need to get my room back! Saturday saw the completion of the second stage of the cover artwork for the children's book I have been illustrating, also this week; next week will be the third stage, and maybe the final. For fun in the evenings I often play about with my pareidolia creatures, making up little visual stories as I introduce them to one another. I made the one pictured above this week, and this one below a couple of weeks ago. 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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