I know you will be wondering where the artist Heather Eliza has gone, and why Binky McKee the illustrator has taken over her blog and doesn't get her own website, but hey - it is all me, and the fact is this is what I am working on at the moment (and I really need to update the Binky website!)
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I am ploughing full steam ahead illustrating a children's book, which presents a dilemma when it comes to publishing work on social media: naturally, it is totally against the rules to share work for a book before it is published, but in the mean time you want to keep your social media accounts alive. I can, however, share spin-offs from my illustrations without revealing characters, settings, titles or themes, while at the same time building on work for the book. This is what I have been doing on my Binky McKee Instagram, and this week I chose a cat themed week in the wake of folktale week (which I thoroughly enjoyed!)

So here are my cats from the week, I hope you enjoy them. Don't worry, Heather Eliza is still plotting away at a new body of work! And still clearing up my work room following our house move. I am taking a few days' holiday from Instagram whilst focusing on the book and sorting my work space.

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

Folktale Week on Instagram! Here are the interpretations of the prompts I made as Binky McKee for the event, reading clockwise into the centre:
Small black cat heralding in the week
Forest, Day 1: she listened carefully to the trees.
Magic, Day 2: Philippines folk tale of The Boy Who Turned Into a Stone.
Witch, Day 3: the recent graduates were the worst!
Ghost, Day 4: the Green Lady of Pitreavie Castle, a local tale in my home town of Dunfermline.
Insect, Day 5: an African American story. God was tired after creating the world, all the plants, and some of the animals. The flowers were complaining of loneliness, so God snipped bits off them and created butterflies, which to this day still accompany the flowers.
Mirror, Day 6: I illustrated my own story for this one: Nobody believed the mirror worked, for it remained blank and impassive during the day. However, at night it threw back into the world everything it had seen. That day it had collected only flowers and filled the dark with scents wild and exotic.
Animal, Day 7: The little red fox sat every evening at the edge of the wood, waiting patiently.
Centre: my post for sharing the prompts, 10 days before the event.

For more details, please visit Binky's Instagram
- and don't worry if you are missing Heather Eliza's work - my work-space is almost usable after the house move now and there is new stuff brewing!!

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

Folktale Week on Instagram took place this week. It was a wonderful week of my Binky McKee illustration account on Instagram being taken over by amazing interpretations of folk tales; lots of interaction, discovering incredible talent and making new friends. Here are some of my interpretations of the prompts: day 1, Forest; day 4, Ghost; day 5, Insect; and day 7, Animal.
I know this blog is totally Binky McKee at the moment, but illustration work has taken priority of late.
For more details on Folktale Week, do visit my Binky Instagram where I have links to the organisers of the event who had incredible vision and worked hard to bring the illustration community together and encourage artists to interact - it was a huge success for everybody who took part!

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

This week I discovered I really like working in close-toned stripes and had a bit of a 1970s revival, plus at the weekend we began an exciting project rescuing period stained glass windows which my Dad saved from the house across the road in the 90s when it was modernised. We are rebuilding them for a window in the house with a Space Invaders theme, this is the first digital mock-up using pieces of original glass - it should be great when it's done!

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!