Category: Life And Times

29 December: A shiny star called ....

29/12/2020

<<<<<<<< Twixmas in a pandemic >>>>>>>>

6 things to do on the twixy days

Wear the dreadfullest of Christmas sweaters and take a selfie with dog, teddy bear, or small child.
Take a sparkly clean, pretty jar with a lid to a serene park and bottle the air, making sure nobody with Covid symptoms is nearby (germs carry a long way in the cold). Take it home and sniff it.
Make a pair of thick socks into monsters, put your feet up and watch a classic Christmas film on TV between them. Photograph the scene between the monsters.
Wrap squares of ‘healthy’ dark chocolate in foil and hang on the tree. Unwrap one and feel how much good it does you as you eat.
Watch The Belles of St Trinians all the way through at least twice. List trivia which could come in handy in the event of a Zoom quiz with the neighbours.
Find out the name of the shiniest star you can see in the night sky. Drop a pin randomly in Google Earth or Maps and note the name of the place where it lands. Put the two names together to make your porn-star name.

Finally, compose a 6 to view collage of your achievements. It should be tremendous. Post it on social media.

May you find things to make you happy and rejoice, even if your plans are not as they ought to be.
<<<<<<<< Wishing all a happy and healthy 2021 >>>>>>>>

20 December: Christmas calling

20/12/2020

One of my favourite Christmas decorations, a phone box, seems appropriate this year because most of us are going to stay in touch with each other remotely over the festive season. FaceTime and Zoom shall abound, and Santa will be kept busy at Amazon instead of popping down the chimney for a dram and mince pies. May you have a fun-filled holiday, even if it isn't what you hoped Santa would bring, and enjoy.

2 November: On a Small Scale exhibition - works submitted

2/11/2020

Star Making Machine 150x300mm
Ink, monotype and gouache on Japanese tissue

I finished three works for the On a Small Scale exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery this week. Usually I catch the train to Edinburgh to hand them into the gallery, it's a highlight of my year - the beautiful journey across the Forth Bridges followed by a warm welcome when I arrive at the Gallery. This year was different, though, due to coronavirus measures. Fife, where I live, is in tier 2 restrictions at the moment while Edinburgh is higher in tier 3, and people have been told to remain in their own health board districts and not to travel unless absolutely necessary. I decided to post my works this year.

Read on for the maelstrom (or should that be Mailstrom?) of Jobsworth which followed ...

19 October: WIP and a so-so sewing session

19/10/2020

I am making plans for what I'll be doing with the small scale works now the monotype ink has dried thoroughly. At the moment they are being pressed flat, so I will be starting work on them this week, aiming to have four ready to ship to the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh by the end of the week. This one pictured above returned to an old favourite shape I have used a few times in the past, which comes from an old wooden Indian salt box. I drew around it onto a piece of card to use as a template alongside my Dad's old ones.

I got nothing done yesterday because I was making face-masks in colours for autumn and winter wear - I say masks, but in fact it took nearly 5 hours just to produce one. I had only intended spending a couple of hours on it, but I was working from a tutorial which I loved, but which I simply could not get to work. The new masks differ from the ones I made earlier in the year in that they have vertical pleats instead of the horizontal ones more commonly in use, designed to be more comfortable because the mask doesn’t touch the nose and mouth; however, I just couldn’t figure out the measurements. I spent a while cutting out a template as per instructions and everything, but it still wouldn’t work. There wasn’t enough room to make pleats by the time it was stitched up, and I noticed at this stage it was already mask-sized before any pleats went in. I’m wondering if the measurements given were for the finished product and not the cutting size? In addition, my sewing machine simply would not sew over the elastic straps so I spent ages faffing around before realising it would be so much easier not to try with the machine, but to leave holes to poke them in and hand stitch at the end.

Eventually I did it with gathers around the nose and under the chin instead of pleats, and it was a success in the end so at least I got something out of the day. It was much more breathable and comfortable than the others, too. It was fine for me, but much too small for B! I’ll be back on mask-making this afternoon, this time I’m going to work backwards with the measurements to get the dimensions for cutting out the fabric. Look at all the scribbling and scoring out all over my mask template! It's not my tidiest work.

19 July: Where have I been?

19/7/2020

We have just had the busiest 3 weeks. As soon as lockdown restrictions were eased here in Scotland it was all hands on deck as we focused our full attention on our old house which has been on the market for nearly two years. We do have buyers, an enthusiastic young couple who are a perfect fit for the property and itching to move in, and it was actually all systems go on the sale back in February. Of course everything then suddenly came to a halt, and we couldn’t even get out to the house to do routine maintenance and cleaning etc until 3 weeks ago.

It’s an old house and had been sitting empty all through the winter followed by lockdown, but in all that time it had fared better than expected. Nonetheless, the usual list of tasks and jobs had stacked up along with the cobwebs, and naturally we wanted to make sure the house was as spick and span as possible before the buyers made their first visit since before lockdown. It was lovely to be back there, cleaning and repainting, warming the place through and generally bringing it back to life. It was a very rewarding time, but any thoughts I may have entertained about getting any artwork done during that time quickly vanished. Also, we had disconnected the phone and internet when we moved out, so no blogs or Instagram happened at all. To cap it all, once we finished work on the house we both came down with a nasty norovirus type tummy bug last week.

However, everything is done and we are much better now. The world is beginning to open up a little into the ‘new normal’ and things are moving on - so I am hoping that this coming week I will be able to start getting back into my work. I always try to make both my blogs as different as possible to reflect the differing areas of my work, but naturally, as Binky McKee and Heather Eliza Walker are actually both me, this week’s entry will have to do for both! I did give Binky's a winter photo and used a summer one here to make them a bit different.

22 June: Praise indeed!

22/6/2020

I was honoured to receive this comment when I posted this work on Instagram the other day:

To me, your work is a really inspiring example of how to take a set of artistic questions, ideas, and feelings and truly explore them, rather than just skating the surface ...

I was bowled over by this, not just because of the praise but because it came from an artist I highly respect and admire. Known as Daniel, please check out his Instagram Graphopathy - it is fun and inspiring and very intriguing.

Titled Ball Game, this work is available on my Etsy store, listing here

20 APRIL: No.98, two to go ...

20/4/2020

Up to no.98 now, I have definitely decided to stop the templates diary in favour of making artworks in their own right once I have reached 100. I'll continue with the book itself as a sketchbook for experiments, rather than a diary, as I have several ideas lined up to try - at least, for as long as the book can be closed, it's already bulky with so much thick paint and collage.

29 MARCH: In lockdown

29/3/2020

It’s a strange old world out there right now, and at times focus has been difficult. Even things like the lockdown quiet outside enabling bird-song to be heard uninterrupted, the total absence of cars from a normally busy street and lack of aircraft sound are fascinating. I find myself standing at the window far more often these days, taking it all in.

23 MARCH: Combining marks

23/3/2020

I began introducing and mixing up some of my usual mark-making techniques in the diary of templates. I do six a week (Saturday and Sunday are both on one page in this diary) and have made 74 drawing's with my Dad's old templates now; by the time I get to 100 I hope to see something distinctive and new emerging.

4 MARCH: Happy Birthday B!

4/3/2020

Six template drawings: I waited until today to post this because it's B's 60th birthday. These 6 are all based on the letter B, and use two main elements to reflect the Pisces star sign. They are development work for his pressie and were made in top secret, although I am so transparent I bet he guessed what I was up to.

Happy Birthday, B! XXXX

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