I got the printer working (miracle, it's wireless, and will printers ever work first time?) and printed the line drawing I made in Procreate last week. Above is the first stage in pen on semi-opaque paper laid over the print, in my 'portable studio'. The photo looks fuzzy because of shadows cast by the ink drawing over the print. While I was drawing I scribbled a few notes - the foreground pot reminded me of the legs on Gormley's Angel of the North in Gateshead, and I also began to think of umbrellas and other pleated forms. Progress stages above show, top left, a digital version with blacked out background, closely following the original sketch. Top right shows starting to fill the drawing with shading; bottom left shows shading of the outline complete, and the right hand side is just where I wandered with it afterwards. I let it go, although it wasn't what I intended; I wanted to reproduce the original notebook sketch on a larger scale and I'm not sure about the added elements coming from the pots - I had intended focusing on the fluted forms. I'll keep going with this one, though, then perhaps begin again another drawing sticking to the plan.
I decided to begin new explorations into the finned and fluted by recreating the original tiny sketch in one of my 2014 notebooks. It only measures 9cm wide and I want to make it twice that size now, so I took a close-up photo with my phone and transported it into Procreate on my iPad (which, incidentally, is as old as this drawing) and made a basic outline tracing. I will print this digital tracing at the size I want to draw it, so I can retrace it in pen on semi-transparent tissue and make it into a new drawing. It won't be hard to get back into the way I was thinking at the time of doodling the first one, but decisions have to be made - which marks will best suit today's work, where flutes begin and end, what the forms are doing, etc. Giorgio Morandi has been a giant inspiration for me since I discovered his work while attending Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1970s. This is one of my favourites. It is held in the Estorick Collection (lots of info and some phenomenal Morandi works to view here). I love how bizarrely free and joyous the drawing is in spite of the taughtly etched mark-making. Interestingly, he made the etching some 10 years (maybe 12) after the original work - so I don't feel so weird about picking up on something again 10 years after the first version on a 10-year-old iPad. I'm in good company! - and oh boy, I would love to own one of these.
As is often the way, I was looking for something else when I came across this tiny drawing. It got me thinking again about this branch of work which got superseded at the time (probably because it was followed closely by a holiday in Berlin where the art in the streets and galleries opened my eyes to new possibilities of what art could be).
I searched out the notebook to revisit and was surprised it was from nearly 10 years ago, which seems strange; the thought of it in my mind still feels so fresh. Maybe it is fresh because I'm thinking about it in a different way now. At the time it was almost a throwaway remark in the notebook, but now it's beginning to mean something else. Anyway, I am excited about it so it's up for a revisit now, and drawings will begin in my 'portable studio' (last week's post) soon. It actually goes right back to the very beginning of this blog: June and July 2014 when my drawings were taking on the linear motifs which have since filled them. Well, not really an entire studio but this little set-up is ideal for small drawings. A nice sturdy zip-up folder with places for pens, rulers, protractors, curves templates or whatever I want to use. It even has a built-in calculator which I probably won't use for drawings, but you never know when it may come in handy. It has a good capacity for a number of different papers cut to a size slightly larger than 15 x 21cm, Open Eye Gallery's On a Small Scale dimensions.
This is how I worked on the drawings for the 2023 Christmas exhibition; I started them in my studio space, put them in this folder and took them to day-job in the car, where I was able to put in a few minutes here and there during breaks. So, this is good - I have begun the new year by setting up a way to work on the move. I know I do this every year, but - ice patterns! They are stunning. These ones formed on the same glass tabletop in the garden as those of December 2021 - but this time, on the underside of the glass, the top only having a mist of frost. The top photo was taken through that mist and is lovely in its own right - the photo below was after I poured a jug of cold water over the tabletop to dissolve it, and the patterns can be seen clearly. Incidentally, I discovered while writing this entry that older links on some posts aren't working. I guess it is related to when I switched from using the dot-co-dot-uk address to the Weebly one, due to high hosting costs. I'm not sure if I can fix the links, so apologies for that. Nonetheless, I am so grateful to Weebly and Square for providing this space for free.
The January chill set in right on time this week, bringing beautiful displays of ice patterns - this one was on my car window. This was thankfully on the outside, but there was also a bit of frosting inside, too - the car has been letting in water which is pooling in the rear passenger footwell (we think it may be something to do with the sun roof drain hoses).
I wish everybody a wonderful 2024, and hope 2023's problems reach a peaceful conclusion. It's been a rocky ride since 2019 when Covid first struck, and the whole world can also definitely do without the blatant acts of terrorism, greed and war which have ensued. B and I made a 'no presents' rule this year, especially as far as the kids are concerned. We told them to hang on to their hard-earned cash, and instead we would just exchange hand-make cards - even if it was a photo sent by email with some writing on it, anything to save them spending money in these hard times. This is the card I made for Mr. T. The simple frame is from George at Asda (unbelievably costing the same to buy as an average single Christmas card). I removed the glass and used the frame as a substrate for the card. The 'sky' is made from some insulation packaging material studded with tiny resistors (Mr. T is an electrician), the droplets are from an old chandelier I stripped down a few years ago and the snow and clouds are Dacron appropriated from the waste bin at work. An umbel I had used for printmaking, some foil snowflakes left over from previous Christmas projects and some of B's natural linen he uses for his paintings make the foreground of the landscape, and the little 'books' stuck to the bottom of the frame are cut up pieces of piping from chairs we regularly strip at work.
Pop over to my Binky blog to see the 'card' I made for Molly and Ben! From birthday cards onto Christmas cards - the dining table still in workshop mode. I know I'm not going to get them posted in time for Christmas - Asda has run out of 2nd class stamps, it's too costly to send them all 1st class, I already used the ones I had posting to Europe and a birthday card. I'll have to be better organised next year!
It seems a funny time of year to be making birthday cards when I really should be getting on with Christmas cards, but we have a lot of friends with birthdays coming up soon. This is a big sheet of Fabriano Rosaspina decorated with wax resist, ink and homemade rubber stamps. Trimmed down and mounted on cards, each becomes a miniature painting ready to send out as birthday greetings. See more I made on my Binky blog.
This week one of my Dictionary.com's subscription mails was about angel numbers. I am neutral on that subject, but find the idea that the universe may be sending personal messages in repeated numerical form which can help us navigate our personal lives interesting. Being numerically synesthetic, colours being the only value I associate with numbers, I find them problematic. Even simple addition or subtraction (even on a calculator) present such kaleidoscopes of confetti (forget long division, it makes me want to pass out) that the whole reason for trying to do the math in the first place just evaporates. Letters and texts, however, I have no problems with. So, perhaps forms I see repeatedly which suggest script could be my 'angel alphabets'? - it appears to me there is no reason numbers alone have to be transmissions from the other side. If my angels know me, they won't bother with numbers, but lettering and text I can deal with any day. The first image at the top, which somewhat resembles Sephardic script, is a line of laundry reflected in the barbecue lid; the one above is a log burning on the fire, also a bit Sephardic looking - perhaps carved in weathered sandstone, or to be found on a wind-eroded mountain-side. And below is my favourite social media post on the subject ... Hahaha, well said!
The Christmas exhibition is now available to view and purchase art online! So many wonderful Scottish artists have created postcard-size works especially for the event once again. And here are my little pieces joining the party! Browse and enjoy the exhibition.
Every year at about this time our little neighbourhood gathers to clear fallen leaves from the grass in our communal circle of trees. We wait until the leaves are almost completely down and get together on a Sunday afternoon to get busy filling compostable bags by the dozen for collection by the council and call it the 'annual leafathon'. It's a sure sign that autumn in almost over and we are at the gates of winter; today was the day. This is an illustration I made in 2019 in my Binky McKee capacity.
I actually missed the event for the first time in years. I woke up feeling poorly, but nonetheless I got dressed up in warm clothes and boots ready to go outside and help, but felt so rough B advised me not to. I acknowledged I wasn't up to it. Some kind of virus has been doing the rounds at work for about 2 weeks now, some people testing positive for covid, others with the same symptoms testing negative; I guess I had caught whatever it was, as I have had a head cold or something all week (I took two covid tests which showed negative). It's possible I was washed out and really tired. I just stood like a rather sad figure at the window watching B out there with the neighbours, all being very jolly and covered in leaves. A sort of bonkers astrology suggested itself to me in this fourth work I entered for the Christmas On a Small Scale exhibition. The basic materials are exactly the same as the three other drawings, the first layer being of a monoprint drawing in sepia and indigo inks using some of my Dad's old architectural forms then working back into it in mapping pens.
I do enjoy working at 210 x 150mm. I used to think it was A5, 210 x 148.5mm, which is a conventional sketch-book size, but soon discovered that the extra 1.5mm of the boards supplied by the Open Eye Gallery looked wrong with an A5 drawing mounted on them. The beauty of small scale work is that tiny elements make a huge difference, which is great for my kind of mark-making; the merest stroke of the pen, the texture of a line, each grainy smudge, and the paper itself assume a significance which is often lost in a larger work. This year I worked on paper sheets cut just slightly larger than the gallery boards, keeping them in a zipped folder acting as a drawing-board as well as safe transport for working on the move. Once the boards had arrived from the gallery I drew around them in pencil and carefully trimmed the drawings to the right size, which worked perfectly, in spite of my fears of cutting into the mount board and making wonky, torn edges. I thought it would be a good idea to work this way in future instead of using sketch-pads; I can dip in and out of drawings on interesting papers, and amass a collection of drawings all the same size. By next year, if I am invited to submit work to On a Small Scale again, I should have a good selection to choose from (just remember to buy some nice new sharp scalpel blades for trimming!) Ships That Sail is the third work submitted to On a Small Scale Christmas exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh. Watercolours make their way into this drawing which is some way between map and diagram combining weather events, plus a large compass-like star, sails and navigation; again making use of my Dad's naval architectural templates (no idea how they should be properly used!)
On a Small Scale exhibition will be available to view and purchase exclusively online on the Open Eye Gallery's website from Saturday 25th November. All works in the exhibition are 15 x 21cm, either portrait or landscape format. This is the second drawing for the Christmas On a Small Scale exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh. The materials and method are exactly the same as Dawn Chorus in the previous entry.
I used hand stitching in this work coming from the rainclouds to suggest magnetic movement, while turbulence is drawing up into the magnet shape from the earth below. Air vapours in the top right of the drawing puff out from a second brown magnet, like a reflection of the event; it's all about the mysteries of weather, condensation, and how I have always felt pulled towards the north. I imagine the invisible energies to be like this in Iceland (the continent, not the retail chain!) The works all arrived safely at the gallery, in spite of storm Babet forcing the Forth bridges to close at the time I sent them off by Royal Mail. On a Small Scale exhibition will be available to view and purchase exclusively online on the Open Eye Gallery's website during November and December. All works in the exhibition are 15 x 21cm, either portrait or landscape format. |
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. |