The days are getting steadily brighter now, so much so that I got out my Dad's plan drawings for a sailing yacht designed by one of his friends. Following on from Neruda's boats and talking about drawing templates, these are the beautiful mathematical curves I mentioned previously, a long-time source of fascination to me. It was good to see them spread out on the floor over white sheets of paper to photograph, see the work of my Dad's hand once more, and to get into detail with the camera on my phone. These days I feel I am looking at them with completely new eyes ... ... and I never realised ships have buttocks! I had never noticed this until the camera picked out the small lettering so clearly. We live and learn.
Working on more chair lugs this week, the cutting templates had been traced onto fabric and I was struck by the resemblance to my Dad's naval architecture plans. The templates are arranged for economy on the fabric, placed close together, fitted around each other, and drawn around in pencil. Darts and letters for positioning when sewing up are marked on each, resulting in an intricate and mysterious composition of subtle tonality across an expanse of about 250 x 150cm. The back of the fabric is a slightly mottled stone colour with shades of delicate greyish-blue along the sides, which adds to their beauty. As I cut the fabric around the pencil lines before sewing the pieces together, the 'negative' spaces in the form of waste scrap material emerged from between them and began to take on the forms of boats, ships, and submarines in my mind. My request to take them home raised a few eyebrows, but consent was gladly given and my colleague even kindly found a bag for them, so now I have quite a haul of the residue of a process, pictured above hanging over a bar to flatten out the creases. The leap of imagination which turns flat drawings into finished 3D objects is amazing, but these leftovers are going to play a part in quite a different process of flat drawing - the inverse of templates, the spaces around chair lugs, which become boats. I have frequently used my Dad's curves and other shapes (intended for things unknown to me in his drawings) as in this detail above; click on the 'Template Drawings' tag for lots more. My brother was a luthier, and I also have a few brass plates of his which were made for cutting F-holes in violins which have featured in my drawings, such as the one above where it's right in the middle of the picture. However, when I get around to it, this will be the first time I have explored the spaces left between templates, making them into boat forms related to my Dad's practice as well as Neruda's poem.
Inspiration during the week visited at work in the form of scraps left over after cutting around templates for chair lugs. To my mind they are boat shapes, which fits well with an idea for a project I have been playing around with in my mind for years to make work about a line from Pablo Neruda's poem If You Forget Me : ... as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. My first idea, years ago, had been to make lots of small clay open canoe forms with inclusions fired into their cavities to represent the aromas, light and metals, and arrange them as if travelling in a river to flow around a space. Later, however, after my Dad passed I inherited his architectural plans. Amongst them are drawings for a large yacht which was built some time in the 80s, I think. These particular plans have been a source of inspiration for me ever since. The mathematical beauty of the drawing's abstract sweeps and curves expressed in simple bare lines negated my first idea of using rough clay for work based on Neruda's words: too clumsy, I thought. I had begun to feel paper might be a better choice; the fact Neruda uses the word 'little' to describe them indicates a vulnerability, delicacy, or fragility. Then, some time ago I unconsciously started 'doodling' paper shapes into tiny, long boats. I hadn't even noticed what I was doing at the time, but after one had hung around in my work room for a couple of years I realised I was still thinking about Neruda's boats. You can find Neruda's full poem after the Read More break.
The incredible ice patterns I photographed during last month's cold snap got me collecting a few of my favourite photos of ice and other crystals (bleach residue in the sink) taken over the last 8 years.
When I was a little girl my Dad was a keen photographer. In those days it was all captured on black and white film developed at home in a darkroom. He often worked with his friend who was a professional photographer living close by, and one day he was cleaning the developing tank in his friend's studio and spotted ferny crystals which had formed at the base. He took a contact print directly onto the photographic paper and developed it. It was absolutely extraordinary and at the time I thought it was the most enchanting thing I had ever seen, complex and delicate white crystals against black (I also always thought it was a photo of ice on a window until my Dad corrected me years later). Unfortunately the print he made has been lost, but it's still in my mind, and I am constantly looking for a replacement. These crystals come very close. I have been thinking a lot about how to make them into drawings, here are some examples of my efforts to translate them digitally and by hand on paper. Somehow I really want to get inside those amazing structures. The inverted image top left below is interesting, and below right is one of my Binky illustrations of a wintry cat. Already it seems to me the light is changing, reflections are brighter, and a ray of sunshine is going a longer distance now than before the solstice. I don't know why, because the angle of the sun hasn't changed, if anything it's a degree lower than on the solstice; and sunrise is even a few minutes later. However, solar noon and sunset are slowly growing later by the day and we are approaching perihelion day on the 4th January - I image those factors contribute to the subtle change.
In the mean time, since Christmas B and I received lots more cards in the post, only delayed slightly by the mail strikes - further adding to my guilt-trip because I didn't send any cards out for the first time in my life this festive season. What an old Scrooge I have been, and I can only apologise and express my gratitude for the physical ones which arrived on my doorstep as well as the calls and messages from others. Anyway, I wish all of you a very happy 2023 and thank you all for your kind thoughts and Christmas greetings. I'll make sure that my cards for Christmas 2023 are bigger, better, more sparkly, and made on time to send out this year! There's a high resolution (Dad joke, I've been pulling too many Christmas crackers). |
Welcome to my work journal - a weekly update on drawings, work in progress, doodles and day-dreaming.
I changed the website address a few months ago, so some older links on previous posts are broken. If you click one of those and it takes you to a strange page, simply replace the .co.uk after the heatherelizawalker. with weebly.com and it will work again. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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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. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Dissolving PeopleA symbol on the footpath outside a local primary school gradually disappearing as the image breaks up and wears away until eventually it is obliterated by leaves and barely discernible. Photographed at intervals of several months between February 2021 and November 2022, oldest at the top.
(My shoes look so new in the first pic, and note the transition to new phone in the last photo). <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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April 2024
(Sorry the archives don't nest!)
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A 2013 work book, still very much in use Please note all images on this website are ©Heather Eliza Walker 2013 - 2020, and may not be used or reproduced without prior consent. |