A Voynich inspired sketchbook page, above; I used a small pointed brush to suggest embroidery threads. By the way, I love the colourful rafia table mats which I have beside me all day, they have daisy shapes and are so cheery. Below is day one of a watercolour sketch with interesting inky marks which I think look like silk, flowing over the slightly buckled paper. It will be worked on further, using the Procreate sketches from last week as a reference, as this one pictured below - delicate, frondy and wispy and full of movement. We'll see where the watercolours take me, I really haven't a clue at the moment! Also, I'm so focussed on the children's book at the moment that I'm not doing very much else, so it may be a little while until I get back to the watercolours.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! An accidental inspiration happened this week when I began switching off some visible layers on a little still life of a pot of flowers I made a couple of weeks ago. The result is pictured above left; much as I loved the zigzags which decorate the original, I was interested in the open drawing and the distribution of tones, colours and shapes accompanying the line-work. I began to experiment with opening up spaces on some Voynich based sketches. This led me onto drawing flowers with lots of movement, as though blowing around in the wind. I don't know where the stylised pond at the base of the above image came from, it was just a sort of vision, but it does seem to contain the Voynich spirit ... ... and then I wondered how a Voynich inspired drawing would look with my favourite drawing of a cactus, both also bending in the wind. Why not? I am loving my new texture I made for these and the way I am playing with transparency. I definitely see these works in Procreate as possible sketches for watercolour paintings. Thanks for visiting, see you next week
I have been cutting out a lot of bird shapes in mulberry paper in Procreate recently, so I quickly collaged this together for an Easter post. - birds bringing Easter eggs. A very Happy Easter to you! Such a lovely time of the year, the days are getting longer and the sun is out and blossoms and buds are happening.
Thanks for visiting, see you soon! Synchronised flying! I became very interested in this collage when the birds suddenly became a pattern in the landscape, it's a novel combination. I'm sure it's got something to do with living beneath the flight-path of geese crossing the sky to and from a local nature reserve. They form huge skeins and the air is full of their chatter and gabble as they pass over, a beautiful thing indeed. The geese here are one of my pareidolia finds in damp patches on paths on the park.
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! 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.
Some sunshine yellow to welcome in the merry month of May! I do wish we could have a bit more actual sunshine, it has been bitterly cold here in Fife this week, with very cold nights and some frost in the early morning. Flowers, very sensibly, are refusing to bloom in the real world but are still going strong in my work.
A run of beautiful warm sunshine this week proved a big distraction - I didn't want to be indoors at all. We had a couple of barbecues, one evening we ate our evening meal as a picnic on the grass. The next evening we lit the barbecue again, but while we were cooking our marinated spatchcock chicken which I had prepared earlier in the day, the cold came back in and we retreated indoors to eat.
I did get my sketchbook and paints outdoors, though, and the pop-up tent went up as my 'outdoor studio' - which I am pleased to report I am getting quite proficient at folding up and putting away now. Last year there were a couple of hysterically hilarious antics, not aided by wine and B cracking jokes at my attempts. I bought the tent in 2016 and have used it every summer since, so 5 years practice is finally paying off! There's nothing like a Valentine's card to say Spring will come around again soon. I designed this for Instagram and sent it to B.
I started working on roundels like this in 2019 and never used them for anything. I have been pulling out different drawings this week to put into repeat with some surprising and interesting results, and found them during the process. My interest was rekindled when I saw possibilities for densely figured patterns. I think at the time I didn't really know what they were, so they got shelved until now. I had forgotten all about them, but now I think they resemble crocheted mats and I see good possibilities for my Granny's Attic collection in my Redbubble shop.
This week I began to organise my new patterns into collections for my Redbubble shop. It's a useful thing to do because I can group themes together and be inspired to produce work to harmonise; as my main interest is in interior design, I can visualise throw pillows, blankets and duvets with differing patterns working together in a calm and quiet way. I am keeping 'scrapbooks' like this one on the side while I'm designing ranges, which suggest ideas and combinations for new works.
Sitting at home, finding floral motifs - a nice way to begin this new blog. I sketched textiles and ceramic pots in my living room as a starting point, and experimented with different ink pen marks and watercolour; a favourite page from my wrinkly sketchbook.
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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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