HEATHER ELIZA WALKER
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31 May: The architect's daughter's garden

31/5/2021

 
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A run of beautiful weather at the end of the week meant outdoor jobs. Laundry got out drying on the line, and B started work on building a new concrete step, and, of course, tending the garden originally created by my parents - my architect father who built and maintained the structure of the garden, and my creative, educator mother who planned and planted and weeded and nurtured it. I can sit and stare at plants for hours, working out how they grow and develop and start their cycle all over again. B and I did a lot of weeding and separating plants which had grown up through their neighbours and in the process I always find mysterious weird things, some are pictured above, which I am sure inform my drawings unconsciously.

I also potted up some cuttings and repotted some house plants including a cactus I had given my mum in 2006. It was so tiny and perfect in its lava-like form I think she believed it to be a decorative ornament because she never watered it, although she had green fingers and was a gifted gardener. Consequently the plant seemed to remain dormant and didn't put on any new growth in eleven years. I began to water it regularly about 4 years ago and I was astonished by how it took off, and now it has quadrupled in size. After all those years of neglect followed by sudden vigorous growth I thought it was probably time to pot it on, and oh boy did it need it! Its tap root was like a parsnip, massively strong, and all the roots had grown through the plastic pot holes and transformed into a sponge-like, flat mass. I cut the old pot away and trimmed up the roots except for the parsnip, which had thrust itself through a drainage hole and grown all around it in a big bulge. All I could do was snip into the collar of plastic to loosen it and hope the plant will push it off in time. I didn't think to take a photo but I'm sure somehow it will find a way into my work, it was kind of scary-horror.

24 May: In No Way Pure

24/5/2021

 
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Last Wednesday I completed the first drawing for 'The Architect's Garden' series. I hit upon the title In No Way Pure by accident; I overheard the words "no way pure" listening to something while I was working on the very last segment of the drawing. I just knew it was the perfect title, with a nod to Le Corbusier and Purist architecture, at the same time as referencing the promiscuous spawning activity of the organisms in the drawing. I hastily scribbled a note at the time, but omitted to note the source.

The phrase may have come from 
Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (Arena) on BBC iPlayer, but I'll have to watch that again to find out if that is so. I have no problems with watching it again as I have a Delia Derbyshire obsession. It could also possibly have come from Sisters With Transistors produced by Anna Lena Films. B and I purchased a ticket to watch the film on virtual cinema, but I feel that was too long ago (12 May) for the stage the drawing had reached by the time I heard the phrase. That's an amazing film, by the way, documenting the seriously cool women who pioneered electronic digital music. Even if you're not a fan of the musical genre, the trailer alone is worth a watch. I made screeds of notes in the dark while watching it which are pretty much illegible, but no mention of "no way pure" amongst them. If you are reading this off in the future (ooh, time travel - play that Dr Who theme again!) the links will most likely have expired, apologies for that.

Anyhow, I digress; as soon as I finished the drawing I began trying out some papers from the sample pack of Awagami Factory papers I received on 17 April. I have been itching to try them out, but wouldn't allow myself the pleasure until I finished the drawing, I just kept gloating over them until now. I used my main mark-making techniques on both sides of the sheets, pictured below are my two favourites. The labelled sides are the 'reverse' side with the 'right side' beneath; on the left is Kozo Natural Select 46gsm which is a lovely soft natural white, and on the right is Kitakata SH-16 36gsm, which has a most pleasant buff colour.
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16 May: Nearly finished

16/5/2021

 
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Just one small section to go now! I'm not even going to think about messing it up at this stage.
I'm not going to complain about free websites but Weebly logged me out while writing this post and everything I had written was lost, not even saved as a draft, and I don't have time to rewrite. Crapola. Lesson to self: write content in a different app, then copy and paste. Grr.

9 May: Bad lighting alert and WIP (in 39 Steps?)

9/5/2021

 
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It was a slow week as far as work went. The weather turned horribly cold - and it was my birthday yesterday! That turned out to be a very busy day, and for a couple of days before that I did a lot of housework, laundry and ironing (bed sheets, not the drawing this time, although it does need it). I also began the week pattern-making a new design, see my Binky McKee blog for that if you fancy a look.
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Apologies for the awful lighting, that's a Scottish spring evening for you, for the weather took a turn for the better today meaning it's warmer, thank goodness, but big black clouds on one side of the sky and brilliant sunshine on the other. Really hard to get even lighting under the circumstances.
I got in a good few hours' drawing today so here is the top section of the work gradually creeping across. I'll post a progress pic of the whole sheet when the light improves enough to get a good photo, at the moment when I try the top half looks creamy and the bottom half is burnt out with bright light.
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It feels as though the drawing is coming along in steps, which brings me to - the film The Thirty-Nine Steps. I have seen both versions half a dozen times each, but I have never read the book by John Buchan. However, I've been listening to an excellent reading of it on BBC Sounds in the audiobook section while working on this, what a ripping yarn! - but I would swear half of it isn't even in the films, in fact I don't know where the story line for the film came from. So far I haven't found any mention of wet stockings, sex interest, or the bridge in Killin (close to where I used to live) at all, yet the tale has us already returned from Scotland to London.

2 May: Brickworks

2/5/2021

 
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I continued with a bit of sketchbook work at the beginning of the week, following on from the experimental drawing I posted last weekend, trying a few different approaches to the brick drawings. You'll see the book is increasingly held together with tape because it's much easier to remove the page to work this kind of drawing; I need to keep turning the paper around without the book getting in the way and I get a better wrist position with the paper flat on the drawing board.
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It suggested the mosaic approach was good for this drawing, above is a small section I worked after the sketchbook drawings. I'm still very interested in a 3D approach for another drawing, perhaps with triffids growing out from it. Below shows the progress across the whole sheet to date, it's feeling very exciting.
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    Welcome to my work journal. I usually post here once a week on Sunday, but there are often 'bonus' posts in between of interesting things like growing carrot tops and avocado pits, the odd piece of work I do as Binky, and news items.
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    As well as the work you see here, I illustrate under the name of Binky McKee (my mother's maiden name was McKee, Binky was every single one of my great grandmother's many cats!)
    If you would like to visit my Binky website, please click the picture above.
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    Dissolving People

    A symbol on the footpath outside a local primary school gradually disappearing, photographed at intervals of several months.
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    Please note all images on this website are ©Heather Eliza Walker 2013 - 2020, and may not be used or reproduced without prior consent.
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