HEATHER ELIZA WALKER
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    • BRAVE OLEANDER
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21 September: About asemic writing

21/9/2020

 
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The finished drawing. I talked a bit on Instagram this week about the asemic writings I often use in my work. It began by colouring in all the o’s in my school jotters with a pen, followed by all the other closed letter forms, mostly in Latin class. That was quite a few years ago now (nearly 50!) - I just never stopped doing it. At the same time I discovered I could draw on my eraser with biro and print with it - my jotters must have been quite an un-scholastic mess, but I found it all fascinating. I even picked up a couple of words in Latin at the same time.
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After discovering the medieval pottery of Samarkand and Nishapur while at Edinburgh University, my filling-in and elaboration of letters became properly fancy. I loved, and still love, finding new forms in text. Although this detail started off as actual hand-written words, I now have absolutely no idea what it originally said. I am intrigued that it still retains the sense of text in spite of being unreadable and devoid of meaning. I think of it as seeing sign-posts in the language and script of a foreign country. You know what they are, yet you are unable to decipher them; they simply remain exotic and mysterious in their existence.

PS We finally sold that house and warmly welcome the lovely young family who moved in on Friday! It has been a busy weekend.

13 September: I finished the volcano drawing

13/9/2020

 
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I haven't scanned or photographed the finished drawing yet, but here are four details from the drawing (WIP last week) which I finished yesterday. The work has been pressed now, so it’s not so wrinkly. It contains my frequently visited themes of the origins of Earth, with comets and volcanoes, weather systems, and unreadable text - and I decided to keep the loose thread on that little stitched cloud I talked about last week because it is suggestive of wind-blown rain.

The materials are Lawrence Arts oil-based relief printing ink (beautiful colours) and mapping pens on Kozu Shi paper. Sadly, production of Kozu Shi ceased around 2015. Apparently many independent paper makers in Japan are one-man bands, so when they retire or die the papers go with them. When I heard the news I rang around all my suppliers and bought up every last sheet I could find. I have enough left for one more series of small works like this one (h295mm x w245mm) and perhaps one more large drawing like Brave Oleander. I do have a good replacement lined up from Lawrence Arts - if that is still being made - it is almost (but not quite) indistinguishable from Kozu Shi, and just as strong.

23 August: Monotypes and new work

23/8/2020

 
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Monotype drawings have been a long-term favourite of mine, ever since I learnt the technique in 1981 at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. I began some new work this week, bearing in mind what I was thinking last week about allowing more space for the work, and decided to start with monotypes of my father’s old templates.

It meant (horror of horrors) having to clear out my work space, involving a lot of shifting things around and putting things away to make room for my toughened glass plate on the table, which in turn led to an incredible amount of dusting. A rethink and reorganisation of the work space is a great way to begin a new series of work, though, and I was excited when I could eventually begin! As usual there was the initial panic that nothing would come of it and that I wouldn’t ever be able to make art again, but the best thing is just to start somewhere and get marks onto those scary blank sheets of paper. I love the monotype process so much it it was just a few moments before I was totally absorbed. The marks, accidental and deliberate, are their own inspiration. Below is a detail showing lovely stony textures and pale lines left on the plate by the drawings which happened earlier.
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MAY 11: Frame frottage works

11/5/2020

 
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A number of warm, sunny days last week got me out into the garden, working in my pop-up tent. It fills up rapidly with art materials, papers, tools, brushes, pencils, pens and jars of ink and is all rather precarious. The wind at one point was flapping the tent walls so hard the whole tent was leaning and threatening to spill my water jar. At one point the jar of ink fell over, luckily inside an old, thick-walled leather satchel which has seen it all in terms of art material accidents - the lid wasn't on properly, and ink spilled into the corner of the bag in a puddle, strangely enough in exactly the same place which bore a stain from a similar accident years ago. Such hindrances I took in my stride - they go hand in hand with working in a tent, and I managed to power through a lot of work making frottage prints of two wooden Indian frames as a basis for riffing on the templates theme.
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After the frame prints I made monotype drawings of some of the templates. Here are some of the templates cut out and thrown down on a piece of paper, ready to use. I thought they looked like a strange alphabet, flying up in the wind to form words.
By the end of the day, the remaining ink on the glass palette not only bore the residue of beautiful marks but had the perfect consistency to make monotype drawings.

4 MAY: Links to the past

4/5/2020

 
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I discovered a liveliness in the work this week, and was surprised when I began to recognise work from my past coming through. I am going to hark back to my days at Gray's in Aberdeen again, because something in the distribution of weight, tone, shapes and marks goes right back to then. Around 1983 we had a class trip out west to sketch the sea and mountains (I think to Tighnabruaich, I may be wrong). Following on from the monotype landcapes I talked about previously, I had begun to develop landscape paintings using lots of inky splotches and dark areas crossed by even darker spots and lines, but on that trip it really came together. Unfortunately I can't find any of those now, but I did refer to them a few years ago in a large sketch book, where for three pages I made little drawings of fruits using every mark I could imagine and a number of tools to make them, including home made quills from bird feathers, and my finger tips. I haven't worked this way for ages, and I am really enjoying it - it's weird how some things just never go away.
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These fruits were ideas to decorate ceramics.

7 MARCH: Templates on wood veneer

7/3/2020

 
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This is the first template work on wood veneer, which I made for B's birthday card. It sports the letter B, and paired images to reflect the Pisces star sign as planned in the diary of templates work last week. It was more difficult to make than I imagined, although I made it in exactly the same manner as the ones in the diary of templates. I wanted to work with the wood to strike a balance between the collaged and painted shapes, and to allow the wood the illusion of coming forward in some areas.

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6 OCTOBER

6/10/2019

 
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An exciting creative time! I have always found autumn to be a time of high mental energy and fresh starts, possibly because of the association with the new academic term. It’s a time of year I loved all through years of school and as a student, and still each year as it approaches I get the thrill. It brings double excitement for me right now: firstly, the Brexit Art Machines being installed in London for the month - and my Confused Flags are in the stacks to vend! I really am so excited! I am making more at the moment. Wobbly borders, misfit motifs, double-sided issues, foggy substrates and crossed meaning are my favourite themes, along with very some confused stars and stripes. Here is one of a star nudging boundaries:
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The second excitement is the start of Folktale Week 2019 on Instagram, which I will be joining as Binky McKee. I have written about it on The Weekly at my Binky's site, please take a look if you would like to know more!

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

29 SEPTEMBER

29/9/2019

 
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I delivered my first six Confused Flags for Artobotic’s Brexit Art Machine this week. The idea of art vending machines selling random works of art is new and exciting! I know many of my friends and colleagues contribute regularly to the art machines, and I am delighted to be taking part alongside them.
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Flag no.2 has a fold-out which the owner can play with, creating a new flag by opening it out over the other half of the support:
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28 JULY

28/7/2019

 
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Comets keep making an appearance in my work. I thought it would be fun to see how my treatment of them has changed over the years.

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14 JULY

14/7/2019

 
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Now, this is an interesting journey I am taking. I had thought my drawing of sprouting chestnuts was going to be one of the easiest to take further, which is why I chose to work on it at the beginning of this project. It wasn’t as plain sailing as the last one, however, in which Chinese-style floral decorations from a bowl sit well within swirling cloud forms, and the two techniques hold a nice conversation.

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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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