I have been collecting together various elements of recent drawings. Photo app collage features are great for being able to see everything together all at once - it helps me not to forget ideas I have had along the way, while noting developing themes.
I have been working on the design for this year's Christmas card. I decided to base it on a little sketch I made from a drawing I saw in a dream last week.
About two years ago, I was curious to see what filters people were using with their photos on Instagram etc would look like applied to drawings. I made my own custom filters in Photoshop and experimented with a set of ‘Superhero’ cartoons I was making at the time.
Above is a compilation of recent drawings the way I post them on Instagram, playing around with those filters. This compilation of nine recent bug drawings reminded me of flies fossilised in amber. When I was a little girl my Grandad (”Bumpy Yoyo”) had a piece of amber with flies in it, and I thought it was the most magical thing I had ever seen (apart from the prism he also had). He would tell me how the flies got in there and how old they were, which boggled my mind. Reflecting on this memory today, I began to wonder what kind of flies are preserved in amber - they must be very old. How do they compare to the flies and bugs which populate our world today?
This is a great headline! Curious about the evolutionary process of the leaf insect, I was Googling their predators when this statement popped up in my search returns. Unfortunately there was no content when I followed the link. It suggests to me, however, that pandas might eat leaf insects: I know leaf insects are often called “walking leaves”, and Pandas include several leafy greens in their diet and share common habitats with leaf insects in China. I suppose that pandas may occasionally grab a leaf insect, or walking leaf, for a snack, mistaking it for a real leaf. This wouldn’t be a problem for the Panda, as they like to include a little animal protein in their diet as well as leaves. I couldn’t find out much else about what eats leaf insects. I bet slugs would - I know they eat just about anything leafy in my garden and porch, and enjoy the occasional insect as well as greens, so pandas and slugs probably eat leaf insects. I did discover stick insects will eat them too (which seems cannibalistic as they are so closely related) but only when other food is scarce.
I have yet to find evidence that humans eat leaf insects, but I would imagine they fry up nice and crispy ... I am a great fan of bookplates. I dream of winning the lottery and becoming a collector of bookplates. The ones pictured here are by Estonian artist Vello Vinn, dated 1971 and 1970. These and more by Vinn can be found at The Digital Exlibris Museum.
I had never heard of Vinn until one day I was rambling around the marvellous 50watts drooling over Russian bookplates, and accidentally stumbled across Vinn’s illustrations for Helvi Jürisson's Putukajutud (Insect Stories, 1983, Estonia). I fell head over heels - possibly because of the insects, but also the intricacy and humour in the drawings ... |
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. |