(And yes, I did notice how the barbecue grill 'speaks to' last week's images!)
Happy Easter! A weekend of tasty food: Molly came to stay on Friday until Sunday morning and made hot cross buns with B which were out of this world. The weather took an unexpected turn for the better and it felt as though summer was arriving, so on Sunday evening B and I had our first barbecue of the season - Easter fell so early this year it wasn't quite as warm as usual for an Easter BBQ once the sun began to dip, but it was great to be outdoors, and fun.
(And yes, I did notice how the barbecue grill 'speaks to' last week's images!) Still looking for ideas to make into fluted or finned pots for the nasturtium drawings, I wasn't turning up much at all. Then I was doodling away while B was watching car repair videos on YouTube and saw a splined shaft on Shed Racing. A Google search later produced lots of interesting shapes! So here is a sketch inspired by - drive shafts. It would appear I was looking in the wrong places for what I had in mind! The way splines catch the light was exactly the idea I had in my head, so I made this quick sketch on iPad.
These alabastra have been such a distraction, every one I look at is more fascinating than the rest and I can't resist tracing the feathered movements of the decoration in the glass bodies. This week's one I made into a vase by giving it a little foot, so it can hold a tangle of nasturtiums. I feel it wouldn't be very stable in real life!
I had a bit of a digression this week when having failed to find any fluted pots around the house to draw for my nasturtium tangles, I started an internet search and got totally side-tracked by the beauty of Hellenistic glass alabastra. I thought the intricacy of the feathered patterns, although it doesn't catch the light in the same way as fluted forms, could perhaps work just as well, so I began tracing some on my iPad. While drawing the movement of the molten glass I noticed a the similarity to wheel-thrown pottery in the upwards anti-clockwise spiralling motion. I had to find out more about how the glass bottles were made, so off I went down a fascinating rabbit-hole. A YouTube video by Getty Museum proved most informative (I would never have known the core was formed with a mixture of dung, clay, sand and water!)
It is so true that drawing, even if it's from a photo, helps to reach an understanding of an object in a more thorough way than just looking. I was also interested in the scale and proportions. Alabastra are generally quite small, made to contain perfume, and my drawings are most likely larger than the original objects, so the handles appear larger in comparison to those on a larger vase. Another detangling session later, and I cannot believe the loop-the-loops these plants make! I really couldn't have made it up myself. These mad convolutions seem to happen when the flowerhead withers and drops away to reveal the fruit pod.
|
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. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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). <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
All
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
April 2024
(Sorry the archives don't nest!)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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. |