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.
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. Dawn Chorus was the first drawing I finished for the Christmas exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh. The paper is a Japanese printing tissue, which is a delicate-looking semi-transparent material which also happens to be strong.
First, I laid down textures of printing inks in sepia and indigo, drawing around some of my Dad's old architectural forms. Once that was thoroughly dried and set, I used mapping pens to draw clouds and shapes and vapours. I then added hand stitching using red domestic cotton and black upholstery thread salvaged from bobbin-winding at work. The whole effect is floating and peaceful, making me think of winter or autumn day-break. The shapes in the upper half of the picture are how I imagined bird-song to be notated; not the mad lustiness of the spring and summer chorus, but rather the sort of meditative tootling and twittering small birds make at that time of year. 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. My thumb is already so much better that I have been able to set to work on my drawings this week. It is so good to be working on paper again. I have been collecting ideas and elements digitally in Procreate on my iPad for months, and now it is great to be actually drawing out those forms - challenging at times, switching up my drawing techniques for the good! For example, the star shape seen to the lower right of the photo above was fashioned easily with the aid of digital streamlining tools. I now had to work it by hand using a ruler with a precision which I found daunting. I procrastinated making the physical version horribly, but actually enjoyed the work when eventually I plucked up the courage to get on with it. Just beginning to sew stitching into the paper in this photo. I like the awkwardness about it, I can't quite control where the thread is going to wander using strange media like Japanese tissue instead of fabric, but I like surprises!
So now the work for the On a Small Scale Christmas exhibition at Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh is under way, and it is exciting melding together digital explorations, my day-job as upholsterer seamstress and fitter, and my drawing techniques. Talk about transferrable skills. On Monday morning I was at work drawing and cutting scrolls for armchairs from card. It's quite nice cardboard and I was able to bring the spares left over home - they would have been binned otherwise. I reckon I can cut 4 little boards from them for work to submit to the On a Small Scale exhibition, saving the gallery having to post some to me. I need to run a test first; I want to laminate wood veneers onto them. I'm not sure how the mix of materials will work together but I don't see a problem if they are clamped under weights, and allowed to set slowly until nice and flat. They should meet the requirements of being no more than 2mm thick, measuring 21 x 15 cm in any orientation. Mine will be in portrait format as usual. Above are previous gouache paintings on wood veneers from 2015; I am thinking a cross between these and the drawings from one of my sketchbooks pictured below is where I want to be. I like to work with systems crossing other systems, and I think these would look handsome with space between the linear outlines filled with colour in bands so the wood grain can flow underneath.
My invitation from the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh to submit work for their annual On a Small Scale exhibition arrived this week. Schemes and plots for working on a larger scale than usual have been hatching in my brain, but now I am turning my attention to what would work well on the smaller postcard dimensions required for the show. I love taking part in the exhibition, this year I am going to have to be organised about it and make decisions early, list and order any materials I need, and plan the logistics ahead of time because I am so busy at work.
I put together a collage of some of the ideas floating around in my mind to help nail them down, so hopefully from this melange of sea-monsters, a beautiful cross-hatched Morandi drawing, glaciers, stars, navigation charts, comets and finned objects, something will emerge. I posted a work in progress image on 9 October, before completing additions of red accents in the little red clouds. I only just realised I hadn't updated here with a finished image of the work which will be included in Open Eye Gallery's exhibition On a Small Scale which opens online on Saturday 26 November - this Saturday already. So here it is now.
Ooh, getting close to Christmas now, how exciting! Four works mounted on boards delivered to the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh for their Christmas Exhibition, On a Small Scale.
These will be available to buy exclusively from the gallery's online exhibition, which runs Saturday 26 November until Friday 23 December. They measure 21cm x 15cm (portrait). See previous blog entries for large images and details, or feel welcome to get in touch with me via my contact form if you would like any further information. Floresence is the fourth drawing I am submitting to Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh for this year's annual online Christmas exhibition On a Small Scale. All works in the exhibition measure 21x15cm in either landscape or portrait format. After I handed in my works I realised I didn't mention 'monotype' along with mapping pens on paper in the materials description on the backs of the works when I was writing the labels - I think I was too focused on spelling 'Awagami Kozo' (the paper used) correctly! So, in case you were wondering, the monotype parts are the fuzzy brown marks resembling stony textures, plus impressions of plants. These were laid down first in oil-based relief printing ink and allowed to dry thoroughly before working into and around them with black and red ultra-fine mapping pens. I probably forgot to mention it because the oil-based ink takes quite a long time to dry, and I just live with the papers around the studio in the mean time, forming ideas as to how to approach the works and what they might become. By the time I actually get around to the drawing bit they have become intrinsic to the paper itself in my mind, so it didn't occur to me to mention it.
I titled this drawing Breeze because of the large seed head wheeling in from the right hand side, breathing life and movement into the other forms - it feels fresh, like a May morning. I have been enjoying working in two colours, too. I delivered my works to the gallery yesterday, in the most dreadful weather. B drove us there in a pea-souper of a fog, particularly thick over the Forth, and heavy rainfall combined with the fog by the time we reached Edinburgh. Visibility was so poor we managed to get lost on the way and somehow ended up in Dean Village - a real treat, because neither of us have ever been there before, and it was beautiful in spite of the ghastly weather. It was also lovely to see the gallery again, I couldn't spend much time in there as B was driving around the block to pick me up outside, but I could see there was a colourful Glen Scouller exhibition (the last day of it) and I glimpsed a John Bellany painting on my way out - a shot in the arm of good art in the flesh.
Every spare minute sandwiched between my training course and home life just now is being spent on drawings for the Christmas exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh, as the handing-in deadline approaches fast. Titles for the works are beginning to come to mind as the drawings progress. This one is definitely about volcanoes and primordial life forming in plumes of red and ash grey vapours. The paper is Awagami Kozo, the pens are fine mapping pens, and the shadowy shapes are monoprints taken by rolling a small inked roller over bits of plants in oil-based relief printing ink. The training course, by the way, is brilliant! This week I have been working in a sewing cabin learning how to thread and drive industrial sewing machines to overlock, trim, embroider and construct cushions and seat covers. Basic skills, but I'm hooked. I never realised how physical sewing is - always seemingly associated with a gentle female pastime, I have found in fact I need leg muscles of steel and a lot of stamina to control those machines and get through the daily work-load. Night cramps in muscle groups unaccustomed to such work were painful. Respect to all those machinists who churn out our Primark garments.
Next week I get training in woodwork skills ... exciting! Red ink work added, a few little creatures hidden in the growth, and this one is almost finished but for a few red accents I want to add. I will be submitting this alongside up to three more, depending on how much I can get done, to the Open Eye Gallery for its Christmas exhibition On a Small Scale.
I have a busy time ahead, entering the fourth week of an eight-week training course which I am benefitting from hugely. It has been a steep learning curve! - and my dear 'honorary brother' is coming over from Germany this week to stay for 9 or 10 days. Four works trimmed and mounted on boards, details written up on the back, and all ready to go. Last week B drove me to Edinburgh to drop them off at the Open Eye Gallery in Abercromby Place. I would normally take the train to pick up the mount boards and then again a few days later to deliver the completed works, but I sprained my ankle rather badly three weeks ago and the walks to and from the train stations, although short, were out of the question. A shame, because I look forward to these annual trips. They have a sense of occasion and I never tire of the wonderful crossing of the River Forth; I'm also at leisure to stop for a chat with the wonderful Open Eye people, and to wander around and ogle all the beautiful art when I get there. Before the pandemic the Edinburgh Christmas German market was open at the time of delivery, too, which I absolutely loved.
Travel by car was an altogether different experience, however ... |
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!)
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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
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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. |