My partner is a modular musician, so there is music or sound (not always musical!) all around the house every day. The notion that music doesn't exist until it is played absolutely fascinates me and to see this big rack of buttons, sliders, and dials with its spaghetti tangle of cables and blinking lights suddenly burst into life at the flick of a switch is a wonder. Where was all that sound until that moment? Does it lurk unseen in the cables, and where does it go when it's all turned off - back into the electric point? The fact is, it's in the musician's brain. I think I just wanted to pinpoint something physical in these drawings because my brain gets as tangled as those cables thinking about it.
Phew, what a week that was - Captain James T. Kirk actually went into space, aged 90, and satellite Lucy is off to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids for 100,000 years to discover the origins of everything. It's quite overwhelming.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, I just keep drawing: I start each drawing with a statement at top left, like the chord played in folk music before the jig starts up and the devil's music gets everyone delighted and dancing. It's followed by a succession of whirly characters, then towards the end at bottom right I make a couple of extended shapes to indicate a slowing down, before a big triumphant flourish at the end. It's a sort of duuuummmm-de-Boom! sound, but in pen. While I'm drawing I'm thinking shapes evocative of musical instruments: cellos, violins, tubas, flutes. Radiating shapes represent swelling melodies amongst firework bursts of sound. There is a pulse or rhythm indicated by the punctuation of black shapes, which originated in my asemic text drawings (is there such a thing as asemic music?) Paradoxically, this is a quiet, slow practice which helps to sooth away all the terrors of space, in every sense. This is the third drawing for submission to Open Eye Gallery's upcoming On a Small Scale exhibition. The second submission to Open Eye Gallery annual Christmas show. Last week's drawing brought up a much better suggestion for its title, still in Polish theme, from an old university friend on Instagram: 'Mazurka'. I like it! ..."usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent "strong unsystematically placed on the second or third beat" (Wikipedia). My friend nailed it, so the first drawing shall indeed be titled Mazurka and not Polka as I originally thought.
I was thinking of a title for this one, but I've found it now. It has a sombre rhythm and references to tubas and brass, and unintentionally some of the black shapes resemble funeral urns - so I'm thinking more in terms of a New Orleans funeral parade: those great, joyful celebrations of a brilliant life lived. For my younger brother, Robin, who tragically passed away in June. He was a musician, luthier, roadie, and a keen lover of black soul music; and a passionate believer in Scottish independence. He was at the frontline of many marches, carrying the saltire flag. He even designed a new saltire for Scottish independence which is in use today. Somehow I think he chose the title for this drawing himself, the mischievous spirit! He jinxed earlier attempts of mine to title the piece, I typed it wrongly at least five times. Robins Parade it is, then. I'm leaving the title ambiguous by omitting the apostrophe on Robin, so it could equally be the song-bird's music at dawn. Both interpretations are meaningful. Last week's pencil drawing on manuscript paper turned out to be a good study. Needless to say I am most happy with the choices and decisions I made, the drawings are now positively singing to me. This is the first completed musical drawing for Open Eye Gallery's On a Small Scale winter exhibition. I think I am going to title it Polka - that's what came into in my head when I was drawing this, and it definitely looks like there is dancing going on, maybe a polka, or an eight-some reel or strip the willow?
It's interesting to see how, from a distance, this does resemble sheet music. Benign Little Town
15 x 21cm, gouache, mapping pens and printing ink on Japanese tissue This is the third work I submitted to the Open Eye Gallery’s On a Small Scale annual Christmas exhibition. This is just about my last work on Kozu Shi tissue paper, which ceased production about 4 years ago. When I discovered it wasn’t being made any more I rang my supplier, Lawrence Arts, who kindly dug out all their remaining sheets for me. Apart from two small pieces, these works for the Christmas exhibition have finally used it all up, but I have already found an excellent replacement from Lawrence Arts. The entire exhibition will be available online this year, for the first time in its history, alongside selected works on show in the gallery. The gallery is open by appointment only at the moment, for details and contact details please visit the gallery here. My 'honorary brother', Ian, has been in Venice for a few days. We grew up together in the same street in Scotland and did our spell in London at the same time, but now he lives in Germany so I don't see so much of him (especially these days when nobody sees much of anybody!) but we speak twice a week on the phone. Every day when he was in Venice he sent me photos of his hotel and places he had been, which I am sure unconsciously rubbed off on me because as I was deciding on a title for this one I realised there were references to canals, Renaissance buildings and motifs, the romantically scruffy and slightly broken feel of Venice, misty vague shapes, and I noticed the unreadable writing in a foreign language (asemic text) had a distinctly dangly appearance. Ian had sent me a photo of the most beautiful old Murano glass chandelier (in his hotel bedroom!!!) which made a huge impression on me - I love it so much, I reckon without knowing it the chandelier influenced the delicacy and suspended nature of the lettering.
So, this one is titled Letter From Venice. It will be going off to the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh for inclusion in the annual Christmas Exhibition On a Small Scale along with two other works of A5 dimensions. The exhibition is going to be online for the first time in its history. It was a good move on the Gallery's part because who knows which Covid alert tier Edinburgh, or any of our cities and towns, will be in next month. If the spread of the virus doesn't slow down it could happen that non-essential businesses will be forced to close their doors again. If that does happen, the show goes on - three cheers for the internet! Here’s the latest drawing Steam Machine finished except for ironing, and that may have to wait a while because I procrastinate all ironing terribly, including artworks. I have eight in total lined up so far in this series, each measuring 285x225mm, but I will be taking a break from it now - to get on with works for the Open Eye Gallery Christmas exhibition!
Called ‘On a Small Scale’, each year in November one of the Open Eye’s beautiful big galleries (it is an elegant Georgian building in Edinburgh’s New Town) is banked on all four walls with A5-size works, tiled tightly together, and it always looks amazing - a colourful mosaic of all the artists works which beckons the viewer in for close inspection. This year, for the first time in its history the exhibition will be launched online. This is to allow social distancing in the gallery where selected works will be on show, but I do find it exciting to think an online presence will give the exhibition a global reach. Artists are invited to submit up to four works measuring 148x300mm, but I have already prepared a series of 12 from which I will select four for submission to ‘On a Small Scale’. I generally work in series so it suits me to work this way, leaving me with eight for other exhibitions. 7 great things about this week ... 1. The Open Eye Gallery opened its annual winter exhibition On a Small Scale yesterday. Can't wait to get along there to see all the artists' works and how my Confused Flags look! See today's home page for details. 2. Everything turns golden at sun rise. 3. Aircraft trails in a clear blue sky and identifying their flights on Flightradar24. 4. My Greyhound Dolly-Meg in her woolly winter jumper, such a jolly dog (or a 'Dolly jog' as we call it as she trots around the house with her toys). 5. Sparkling frosts - really putting me in the mood to get on with making Christmas cards. Hello glitter! 6. We finally got on with clearing out a room full of junk and organising books - ah, space at last. 7. The moon is so beautiful right now, a golden curve low on the horizon. It reminds me of Samuel Palmer's painting A Hilly Scene (c.1826-8) which has been a big favourite of mine for ever. Image: Tate And now it's time for me to say ...
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I took a trip to Edinburgh to deliver 4 Confused Flags for the Open Eye Gallery Christmas exhibition On a Small Scale, during which the walls of one gallery are banked with A5 works. The new flags are a lot larger than the miniatures I made for the Artobotic vending machines, although still small at A5. The beauty of delivering small works is that I can carry them on the train, and the train journey to Edinburgh has been one of my favourite things to do since I was a little girl, so here are 7 great Edinburgh-themed things I saw this week: 1. I never get tired of the views from the Forth Rail Bridge. On one side there is the expanse of the river with twin drilling rigs in the distance towards the estuary and the North Sea, and on the other the two road bridges and views to Grangemouth, the Ochil Hills and Ben Ledi towards the west. 2. The new Queensferry Crossing is splendid. There are great views from the rail bridge, and the sight of all three bridges is stirring. I was at the opening of the Forth Road Bridge in 1964, aged 5, and remember the days of the old ferry when there was only the rail bridge - what a time to be alive this is! Visit Scotland has some great images of the three bridges here. 3. Edinburgh has begun to celebrate Christmas vibrantly, with the market and plenty of other events and attractions. See what’s on at Edinburgh’s Christmas. 4. The massive St James project is going to be so exciting and impressive when it is done. It has a brilliant website here. 5. Edinburgh Trams. Their presence graces the city with a most international atmosphere; they even have their own Wikipedia page. 6. Edinburgh Castle. The train passes at its foot with amazing views upwards over its towering rock to the mass of its walls, turrets, and windows. It makes me think of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.
7. The Ingleby Gallery has acquired a beautiful building in Barony St, not far from the Open Eye. NB: For a more enjoyable way to find information, I only link to sites which do not carry pop-up or video advertising. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! After a very busy couple of weeks I got back to work making larger confused flags for the Open Eye Gallery On a Small Scale exhibition. This is an annual event hosted in the run-up to Christmas, when one of their beautiful Edinburgh New Town Georgian galleries is turned over entirely to line the walls in banks of A5-size art by gallery artists. The works are presented simply unframed on the walls in a grid formation, an exciting melting-pot of ideas, materials and colour (the artists' party is great, too). Affordable small works mean a great chance to buy art for Christmas!
It has been interesting to scale up from the miniatures I have been making for Brexit Art Machine, I can fit in more drawing to combine with ideas of obfuscation, disorder, transparency and confusion. I am enjoying the flag invention more than ever as I make flags 14, 15, 16 and 17 in the series especially for the gallery, and then watch out in 2020 for some more miniature flags for the vending machines. 7 great things about this week: 1. Waves aren’t made of water: I watched David Malone’s The Secret Life of Waves on BBC iPlayer. Poetry, philosophy, life and death, needles blowing bubbles, and Professor Michael McIntyre’s fab lab’s wave box at Cambridge University complete with rubber ducks - marvellous. 2. Brexit Art Machine is in London, with my mini confused flags loaded alongside works by brilliant artists in the vending machine! It is popping up at selected venues, and was outside the Houses of Parliament a couple of days ago. 3. A friend making an extremely speedy recovery from a knee replacement and looking fabulous and happy after years of pain. 4. I found a beautiful, tiny insect exhausted on the kitchen worktop. I smeared a strawberry beside it and observed through a magnifying glass: insect found its way to the spot of juice and fed by dipping its proboscis. I noticed it had a pair of curly antlers fringed spectacularly with hairs. After a while it had enough energy to fly away and I felt nurturing and deep-down happy. 5. Coloured pencils so soft it's like drawing with eyeshadow. 6. Relief. When pain, worry, nightmares and things that go bump in the night disappear and you feel yourself again. Maybe it was the full moon. 7. Getting back to work in my room. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I am delighted to tell you that the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, added these new works to their website this week. They can be found on my artists page. It is lovely to have them out in the world so soon after completion! The Open Eye's Recent Acquisitions page is always worth a visit - I have many favourites there, but a special place in my heart is reserved for the wonderful work of Christopher Marvell. If I had the spare cash, I would hope the lion sculpture I fell in love with last year is still available - there is a place in my house for it ... oh well, dream on!
Thanks for visiting, see you next week! I had a lovely surprise during the week when I received a cheque from the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh - they sold my small drawing of a fig and rainclouds! I hadn’t been able to get any work to them for their On A Small Scale exhibition in November, owing to the house move and my studio being upside down. However, the gallery must have hung work in their keeping on my behalf - and sold this one. A huge thank you to all at the Open Eye! Thanks for visiting, see you next week! The opening of my exhibition Brave Oleander at the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. I am privileged to be showing my work at the same time as two other artists in the galleries at the Open Eye: Alasdair Gray and David Forster RSW. A huge thank you to everyone at the gallery for their hard work, and to my friends for the incredible support they have always provided. The private view was a great success, with the chance to speak with so many wonderful people - it was great to meet you all! Brave Oleander runs until 21 April; Alasdair Gray Selected Work 1962 - 2018 and David Forster Edgelands both run until 23 April. The sculptures around the gallery are by the wonderful Christopher Marvell who has caused me serious coveting. Thanks for visiting, see you next week! Photos: stills from a video filmed at the private view by Andrew Barnard at Sure Shot HD Video Production. THANKS, ANDY!! - Knobbly tree - Brave Oleander (detail) - Thorny stems - Brave Oleander (detail) - Valentine's chimney - Brave Oleander (detail) - Hairy stems - Brave Oleander (detail) - Knobbly tree, the other side This week has been all about finishing and scanning my new drawing, Brave Oleander. This is the title piece for my exhibition opening 6th April at the Open Eye Gallery, 34 Abercrombie Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE. Also on show will be Falling From Trees, Before There Were Saturdays, and a selection of small drawings. I hope you can come along! MONDAY : Updating my website all day TUESDAY : Flat skies and common lime fruits in the park; a walk to buy a very special 96-year-old a birthday gift WEDNESDAY : Folding to make Christmas cards: tree shapes everywhere! THURSDAY : Beginning to design the cards, and getting recipe inspiration for easy dinners to refresh our evening menus (ordinary life has to go on, too) - delicious food and photography by Taylor at Food Faith Fitness. FRIDAY : It literally took all day to compose two short sentences describing my upcoming solo exhibition for a short press release - it's really difficult! (Brave Oleander is scheduled at he Open Eye Gallery 6 - 23 April next year) SATURDAY : Two different designs for our Christmas cards 2017 SUNDAY : Cards design no.1 in full production - on a properly sparkly, frosty morning with classic Dickensian Jack Frost window framing in my room |
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. |