I was looking for a completely different tome in my bookcases this week when I came across this delightful little book I had forgotten all about. I bought the book for B's birthday years ago because he is very much a shed man. At the time I loved it because it was quirky and about sheds, but now, having fully developed my drawing style, I appreciate it all the more. Each of Nigel Peake's detailed drawings has its own creative charge, for instance this shed balanced on unfeasibly delicate legs. I didn't want to scan too many images for fear of spoiling the binding by flattening the book, but the back cover shows beautiful little slices of colour which appear in some of the drawings. It's no surprise that Nigel Peake studied architecture at the University of Edinburgh. The book drawings were made in 2006-2007 when Nigel was only 26 years old. The playfulness of a young enquiring mind inhabits an astonishingly mature style. The ingredients of a shed: nails, timber, felt, slate, stone and rust - what a wonderfully inspiring collection of materials. It's a great book for dipping in and out, it was a lovely rediscovery and I have passed some enjoyable times with it this week allowing my eyes to ramble through the stories of each shed.
Here is something from my botanical Pinterest collection. As is often the case with Pinterest, no information is provided about the engraving, but I guess it's about cell formation in plants. I did find related engravings on BibliOdyssey posted by Peacay on 2 June 2011 consisting of beautiful botanical micro-anatomy plates from Anatomia Vegetal by Frederick Elfving. (I can't provide a link directly to the entry because I couldn't find it in the blog archives and the entry's url is locked). It is a very interesting blog altogether.
I can't help thinking of beautiful curtains when I look at this engraving! The drawing above is a late night Procreate doodle inspired by a rootball which came out of a pot in the garden - I must have been watching too much news recently. I think it would make a wonderful etching.
I frequently walk past an old linen mill which has been converted into a unit of small businesses. I assumed, viewing it from a distance, that the sign-board outside was a map and was struck by its delicacy, but this week I walked into the grounds to inspect it closely. It turned out to be a surface crackled and split by weathering over time. Below, it reads: Entrance. I am entranced by this entrance, it is quite beautiful - where does one enter the map? It's all a bit JRR Tolkein. It makes me think of Robert Ryman's white paintings of the early 1960s. If I could steal this sign-board, cut out the 'map' and hang it on my wall, I would.
In my childhood my Dad (leading draughtsman and architect) would encourage me to deconstruct boxes, carefully folding them out to see their flattened shapes. It is a practice I have continued ever since with undying fascination, so I was particularly interested in this collage/drawing by Eva Hesse which reminded me of those shapes. Below are two paintings on paper of cisterns by my partner Bernard. He has them hanging in his work shed, and when I was there the other day after seeing Eva Hesse's drawing I was struck by the nice relationship they all have and how they talk to one another. I came across Eva Hesse's drawing online: Forms Larger and Bolder, an exhibition of a selection of her early drawings held at Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin, Ohio) last month.
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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. |