HEATHER ELIZA WALKER
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10 January: Looking the other way

10/1/2021

 
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I’m not even going to mention the start 2021 has made already, it’s really packed a punch. Let’s just hope what comes in like a lion goes out like a lamb. As for yours truly, blame it on that and the cold weather if you will but madam has become ever more lazy and loathe to leave the snuggledom of a hot water bottle under a duvet. However, drawing bricks has become a thing again in my life after a 7 year hiatus, and here is an experiment. I’m not sure this blog goes back far enough to link to what I was doing in 2014 but if it does I will link here. (No? Maybe I’ll mention it in the next entry). I’m sure it has nothing to do with new lockdown and staring at walls. Nothing much has changed there for one like me who loves to stare into space or watch paint dry, but some may find a resonance!
This week I changed the alarm on my phone to Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. It’s a Tune!

I was talking about getting stuck a few weeks ago, and I know something that seems to work for most is the simple art of doodling. Preferably on the phone or watching TV when the brain isn’t engaged, some interesting things can come out when you’re looking the other way. They can often go into work or even lead to totally new things. I cut out my favourite doodles and paste them into a notebook.
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4 October: Steam Machine finished; On a Small Scale - new work!!

4/10/2020

 
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Here’s the latest drawing Steam Machine finished except for ironing, and that may have to wait a while because I procrastinate all ironing terribly, including artworks. I have eight in total lined up so far in this series, each measuring 285x225mm, but I will be taking a break from it now - to get on with works for the Open Eye Gallery Christmas exhibition! 

Called ‘On a Small Scale’, each year in November one of the Open Eye’s beautiful big galleries (it is an elegant Georgian building in Edinburgh’s New Town) is banked on all four walls with A5-size works, tiled tightly together, and it always looks amazing - a colourful mosaic of all the artists works which beckons the viewer in for close inspection. This year, for the first time in its history the exhibition will be launched online. This is to allow social distancing in the gallery where selected works will be on show, but I do find it exciting to think an online presence will give the exhibition a global reach.​

Artists are invited to submit up to four works measuring 148x300mm, but I have already prepared a series of 12 from which I will select four for submission to ‘On a Small Scale’. I generally work in series so it suits me to work this way, leaving me with eight for other exhibitions.

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6 September: New work in progress

6/9/2020

 
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Because I work so closely when drawing and it’s no fun getting ink on sleeves and the sides of hands, I had to wait until the monotypes I mentioned on 23 August had dried perfectly before resuming work. I used monotype to draw template forms because it lends a stony, earthy texture, so now I am adding things associated with the air and sky. Aerial puffs, steam, comets and clouds are beginning to populate the drawings, all natural events, unpredictable, wobbly, and transparent in contrast to the templates. I often use stitching because it throws me (sewing is not exactly my forte) and the results often add a comedy moment. I stitched the little cloud in this drawing, and it looks shy and fragile. I haven’t yet decided whether to leave that little loose thread in place or cut it off; I’ll see how it looks when the drawing is finished and ironed.
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16 August: Into space

16/8/2020

 
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I spent some time photographing details of templates drawings from my diary this week, exploring those passages which use more space. The spaces aren’t exactly negative, being activated by broad, loose brush strokes which offset tighter marks. Their opacity complements semi-transparent areas created with tracing paper; tight marks meet a mist of gestures, so they are apparently being released into mid-air. The sensation is that they might eventually disperse, but there they are fixed in the world of the drawing.
Moving forward, I want to explore giving the drawings more breathing space - and use more colour.

26 July: Blueprint

26/7/2020

 
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I was photographing some of the templates diary work during the week when I noticed I was getting good images of some used carbon paper. I had been drawing templates through it to get that particular blue line, which somehow manages to be crisp and fuzzy at the same time; also, I love that particular blue colour. After the sheets of carbon have been used over and over I had noticed the shiny side becomes an intricate lace of inverse lines left by pressing through the back with a biro to transfer the line onto paper. I have tried so many times to capture it - scanning, fancy lighting, getting close up with the camera, but to no avail - no detail showed up at all in the images.

I had cut template shapes from the used carbons for some compositions in the diary, and these were amongst the photos I took this week. The natural light of summer was so good I saw that at last I had managed to capture those elusive lines! They were so interesting I brought them into Procreate on my iPad, cut them out, and composed this image - maybe an idea for a painting?

2 FEBRUARY: Colour!

2/2/2020

 
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When I collect templates in my diary my interest is simply in revealing shapes. I never set out to drawing anything specific; however, as I work ideas suggest themselves which influence the progress of more detailed drawings. Here are six from this week, reading from left to right:

1.  Cactus garden
2.  Map of a park
3.  Morning sunshine surprise
4.  Satellite and space station
5.  Elton John's piano
6.  Map of a village with pond

I used Prismacolor Premier pencils in these drawings. Coloured pencils are not a medium I have really used before, but these are great for this work being surprisingly soft and luminous on Japanese tissue, and I am becoming a fan.
​Incidentally, I am coming to the end of my supply of Kozu Shi paper, which is no longer being made. I think I already have a replacement lined up, though: Lawrence Art Supplies stock a very good Imitation Japanese which I discovered a few years ago and kept in mind (I hope that's still in production!)

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

26 JANUARY: Chemistry sets and coffee machines

26/1/2020

 
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I am a shape collector! Monday's was a template of chemistry flasks, and Tuesday's came out resembling a coffee machine.
This week's six, and six great things this week …

1  We had chatty cocktail hours every evening with our dear friend, visiting from Germany…
2  … and he gave me his old iPhone! A coveted tool - I’m using it just for the camera, which is excellent
3 Got laundry dried outside on the washing line two days in a row, so satisfying to be out in the fresh air
4 The new moon passed without drama this week. I love the fact it is a daytime moon when it is in its new phase - still there in the sky looking at us, we just can’t see it
5 Burns night: we had haggis recently, so we chose sausages this year to go with our neeps and tatties, and it was delicious. One of my favourite lines in the world is from his poem Sweet Afton: “Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den”, so evocative
6 After Burns night the days really start lengthening:
Sunrise 8:20am, Sunset 4:32pm
compared to the darkest days just after the winter solstice:
Sunrise 8.45, Sunset 4:42pm
- a whole 35 minutes extra daylight, getting more and more every day

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

19 JANUARY: Painterly templates

19/1/2020

 
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This week's 6 template drawings using my Dad's old templates, and 6 great things about this week:

1. My lovely bestie flew in from Germany, we have had some great chatty drinks in the evenings. He's not getting any shorter, he seems to be about 6ft 7 these days! (I could be the shrinking one, of course).
2. Back to Binky illustration work on an ongoing project which I am determined to have finished by Easter at the latest. It's a children's book which is top secret until it has been released.
3. The sun is now rising earlier every day - easier to get out of bed!
4. Working page layouts in BookWright, I love that kind of work. It brings out the old graphic designer in me.
5. Stunning frosty mornings with bright sunshine.
6. I am really enjoying collecting templates in my diary, discovering invisible forms. 

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

12 JANUARY: Found objects can be templates, too

12/1/2020

 
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The second week of collecting shapes from my Dad's old templates and found objects. The templates I used on each date were:

6th: Miniature model car kit
7th: Two nautical templates hand cut by my Dad. The red outlines are chain links, the green shapes I’m not so sure - I think they were guides for drawing specific curved objects related to boats
8th: Miniature model car kit
9th: Template as 7
10th: Chain links, template used like a stencil
11th & 12th: Stencil types again: chain links and model car kit.

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

29 DECEMBER

29/12/2019

 
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This time last year I began to play with the idea of using templates in my drawings. I had inherited a lot of technical templates after my Dad passed away in 2017, some of which he made himself. He was a leading draughtsman and naval architect, and no doubt would find a great deal of humour in the sense I try to make of his tools. I find the forms fascinating and like the idea of using them in ways they were not deigned to be used. I want to incorporate them into my work combined with unreadable text and make them into plans nobody can build, and allow them to convey a sense of joyous unknown logic. The idea of working with cut spaces, or missing forms, is appealing to me. I used a few templates in my Confused Flags recently, and look forward to taking the idea further in 2020.

This Christmas has provided rich pickings for new forms: the image on the right is the remains of a miniature build-a-car car kit after the car parts had been pressed out. To the left, a notebook containing early template experiments I made a year ago, The notebook itself is an interesting Duplicate Manifold Book, supplied by the government for Public Service (in the 1960s by the looks of it), also found amongst Dad's possessions.
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I was a bit disappointed that the duplicate function doesn't work any more, but once or twice I inserted a piece of carbon paper to see what would happen when a drawing duplicates in a different medium.

To see the finished car kit model photo visit The Weekly at Binky McKee.

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!
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    I work a LOT in sketchbooks and always have several on the go. My dad was an architect and naval draughtsman, and after he died in 2017 I found heaps of old templates while clearing out his study. Always having been an avid collector of shapes, at the beginning of this year I bought a WHSmith A5 diary to use as a sketchbook specifically for work based on them.
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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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    Candle-light shadows. I set up little 'night theatres' in my bedroom. As darkness falls, I light strategically placed candles and watch the plays begin. A perfect activity for the darkest days of winter.
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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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