This is one dog I especially loved doing. He belongs to a friend of mine and he’s a beautiful boy with a lovely personality and serious ball addiction.
He’s some kind of terrier mix with huge ears and a crazy coat.
Here is a close up of his face and those massive ears.
And a little 3D visual.
So, how did I achieve that coat you ask? Well, I thought the best thing for it would be to use gauze. I raided my medicine cabinet and took out some gauze which I dyed by soaking in coloured water: the black was diluted acrylic paint, and the tan was… you guesed it! Black tea!
I then cut up the gauze strips into sections and laid them over the figure in a way that matched Dizzy’s colouring and the direction of the coat.
I then brushed the gauze to loosen it up and give it a more ‘hairy’ appearance.
It worked out pretty well even if do say so myself.
Mind you, the coat is not soft and flowing. I had to fix him with PVA glue to make sure he stayed intact, but he’s a sculpture, not a toy, so I figure that doesn’t matter.
The friend that commissioned him asked about his eyes. I don’t do eyes on my dogs. I’m not really sure why, they just seem better that way. Maybe its because I don’t feel I can do them justice this way, not like I can in my paintings. Maybe its cause without eyes you can project your own eyes onto them, your mind automatically fills in the blanks and imparts the emotions that you want to see in the figures.
Maybe I’m full of crap. But I’m the artist, so I have creative license. Ha.
It’s been an ‘interesting’ couple of days. Well, a month+ actually. But I’m pleased to tell you it’s nowhere near sorted out yet.
See, back when I first arrived in Greece almost 6 years ago, I got my aunt #1 to sign a power of attorney for me to act as her representative for all things legal. She was already showing troubling signs of dementia and I needed it done before she lost it entirely.
Well, all went well for a little while. And then I found out that power of attorney here in Greece has a shelf life of TWO YEARS.
Yes. You read that right. Two years. Like she’s gonna get better in two years and take over her own affairs.
My aunt is now in the nursing home and, although she does have moments of clarity, she is far from being ‘of sound mind’. I was told that the only way to get to be her ‘guardian’ now would be to go through the court. Uhuh. Like I have the money to do that. Maybe not even the time… who knows… I know the courts are notoriously slow here.
Aunt #1 is now totally wheelchair bound, unable to support herself on her stick thin legs. She is so weak she can barely talk. But she’s clinging on to life and is eating and happy to see us when we visit though it’s horrible to see her like this.
When I decided that the best place for her was the nursing home (seeing as she needed round the clock care) I rented her apartment to pay for the nursing home. Back then it was easy. I had power of attorney to sign anything necessary. And back then we didn’t need a energy efficiency certificate for the house in order to rent it.
NOW however, we do need it and about 1.5 months ago I asked my engineer’s company to organise one for me. It’s part of what they do after all.
1 month, 4 texts, 1 conversation and 1 email later I finally received the certificate and checked it. The address was wrong and the photo of the property is wrong. Not only did the idiot who did it put the address down as the corner of x and xx streets (which is mom’s house, my aunt’s house faces only one street) but the google maps photo he included in the certificate was of the house OPPOSITE.
I replied, telling him where he was wrong, included a picture of the actual house and waited. And waited. And waited.
I still haven’t got a new one.
What I did get was an email asking me to get my aunt to sign an official declaration and have the signature authenticated in order to produce the certificate.
Funny. They didn’t ask for that first time around… another mistake? Or did some law change again? Hard to know in Greece.
So, I called the guy and said my aunt can’t possibly go sign the thing in front of a legal witness.
He suggested I speak to my/her accountant. Which I did. They say, yes, they can do it through the taxation department as they have all her log in details, but we need a telephone in her name.
Now, we took away my aunt’s phone even before she went into the nursing home casuse she would call people at all hours and tell them everyone had abandoned her even we’d just been with her for hours.
The accountant said, just go buy a phone in her name. So I went. And was told I need a declaration from her saying she was authorizing me to get a phone in her name.
Ring around the rosie indeed.
Why on earth do you have to get a new power of attorney as a carer/responsible person for someone every two years? Maybe everywhere. How would I know? It just seems stupid, dumb, foolish, irrelevant, ludicrous, senseless, brainless, dim, dopey, deficient, idiotic, imbecilic, meaningless, mindless, moronic, needless, nonsensical, obtuse, unnecessary, pointless, puerile, redundant, simpleminded, superfluous, useless, and a waste of everyone’s time.
As for needing her signature for everything, ok, I get that, but it just brings me back to “Why on earth do I need a new power of attorney????”
Who else would be responsible for her? My 93 yr old mother, her sister, or me, her niece. She has no children.
At least we don’t have to worry about her property after she dies. She has a will. But it would be fun times if she didn’t, thats for sure!!!
This is one of the dogs I worked on for myself while working on a couple of commissions which I’ll share soon.
I figured that since my first two dachshunds sold quickly (here is one, the other is at the bottom of this post cause I guess I never shared him on the blog… oops), that maybe making another for my Etsy shop (or ebay? or where..?) might be a good idea.
So, Fleur was made the same way as all my other dog sculptures, using recycled cardboard, wire, DIY paper pulp, air dry clay and then covered in decoupaged napkins to make her pretty and colourful.
I thought she would look best with a purple nose, so there it is! Before selling her, I’m considering giving the nose a shine with some varnish, just to make it shine… I think that will look great.
In case you’re wondering where I disappeared to, well, I have some great excuses. One is I went through a very busy stage, working at the travel agency and grooming dogs in my free time. The other is I went through a lazy stage, preferring to live vicariously through Netflix while holding down the couch. Can’t be too safe with those tricky couches.
Then I got inspired, so I’ve been working on a few things. Firstly, finishing my commissions (a deadline sure does help get you out of a funk) then moving on to my own work. And lastly, having stopped the office work and with things quieter on the grooming front, I’ve moved on to some tool related work. Despite the cold.
At least it doesn’t rain often on Paros. Not a good thing…
Oh, and a ton of home organising, moving summer clothes up and winter clothes down and sorting a ton of stuff to give away. If it doesn’t bring joy, get rid of it – isn’t that the saying? I also say “if I haven’t worn it in ages, it has to go”. Its my way of making room for new stuff (new or 2nd hand) which I will wear.
I am a natural organiser but I never seem to get as organised as I’d like to be. I have storage solutions coming out of my nose, but am I able to find something quickly every time? Nope. Cause it’s not totally, sensibly organised into a spot where it belongs!
sigh.
So anyway, look forward to being spammed with posts over the next few days. Hopefully I can keep up the work, the inspiration and the momentum of blogging again. I mean, what else are you gonna do on those cold evenings?
And, as promised, here is a pic of the last dachshund I made and sold on Etsy. He was covered in striped vintage fabric. One of my all-time favourites.
The summer season is almost over, though the island is still full of people and some days parking spots are still rarer than tasmanian tigers. Most days lately have been glorious, not too hot but still sunny and mostly not windy. Combine that with closed beach bars and almost empty beaches and its the best time of year for us locals to enjoy our island.
I’ve been working back at the car rental agency again to help out, as well as grooming when there is work. Its not a busy time of year for grooming right now. At least not here. Not yet.
Mom is doing well in Athens. I took a trip with her to settle her into the house and she’s been doing well since. Apparently she’s been taking short walks with the support of a friend to the little park opposite our house to sit in the sun and enjoy some fresh air.
The situation with my aunt #1’s house has finally been resolved. I think. I hope. I haven’t got the bill yet, but something like the 5th plumber I spoke to (one mom’s youngest brother brought over himself) organised someone to come poke around with one of those cameras they stick down pipes to see where the problems are, and then came himself to dig in our lightwell to fix the leak. Turned out the leak was caused by old ceramic pipes which had cracked in about 4 places, which let water seep into the ground causing damp in our walls.
He had to create a huge hole in the light well and even dig up in aunt #1’s kitchen, but he says the problem is fixed, new pipes all the way through now.
We live in hope.
Next order of business is to organise a genocide of the cockroaches living in the old pipes. Yeech. All these years I’ve been organising pest spraying around the houses, never once did I think to get the guy to go into the lightwell and spray into the drains…
Ick.
I could never be a plumber.
Other than that, life goes on with its many challenges and small rewards.
I’ve been working on more dog sculptures I’ll share soon, and some new paintings. But mostly I’ve been busy working and just trying to keep on top of things while maintaining a certain level of laziness.
As is evidenced by the lack of stuff good enough to share.
The national garden in Athens is a place I remember mom and dad used to take us to when we were kids. But I hadn’t been for many years. The other day a friend suggested we go have a coffee there and walk around a bit… a small oasis of cool in a hot Athens.
The old cafe there is quaint but so expensive… a double greek coffee was 4.60e or something. I can’t remember exactly, but it blew me away.
Still, it was cool and restful.
A nice little break from the headache that is my life at the moment.
So. what have I achieved in the days I’ve been in Athens? Well, I got a new credit/cash card to replace the new one I never received in the mail. I could have done that on Paros, but the deadline was approaching so I needed to get it done. That took 2 trips to the bank, but I was lucky. It was a quiet day so there was no waiting in queues.
I found a pet shop that sells BARF (raw) dog food for Vincent in the area so I didn’t have to go all over Athens to get it.
I got the paperwork together to apply for a new water meter for the unrenovated upstairs apartment – that entailed a trip to the local water authority office, then being told I needed to go to the main offices in another area get that underway. The application cost 63 euros. I now need to wait for about a month for the inspectors to come check out the position for the new water meter and will receive a bill for over 600 euros to get water connected. I need to go in in person to sign and pay.
Of course.
This is Greece.
I’m hoping I can give someone power of attorney to go in and sign for me and I can do an online transfer to pay. There is no way I want to pay another 100 euros minimum for a trip to Athens just to sign a piece of paper…
I have not managed to fix the issue with the water leak and damp… After trying 4 different plumbers (from before leaving Paros) who I’d speak to once and then never ever reach again, my uncle brought a guy over this evening who I gave the job to. I guess you could say I did succeed in organising it, but I’m told it will take AT LEAST two weeks to fix, given that they’re all busy and if a job more urgent than mine comes up, I’ll be dumped like a hot potato.
I found new tenants for my aunt’s house, but when they can actually move in depends on when the leak and damp issues are fixed. Which means they’re waiting and need to move asap and my aunt isn’t earning rent – which pays for the nursing home, so meanwhile we’ll have to cover any shortfall…
I really am over this whole thing. Old houses. Tenants. Being responsible for people other than myself.
There’s more. There’s always more. But I won’t bore you. Let’s just say my life right now is a mess.
How much can I take before I lose it totally? I think I’ll soon either be totally white haired or bald at this rate.
Why you may ask?
Well, I’ve had a sick mother all summer. And I’m lucky. I actually have one of those rare nice mothers who aren’t so annoying (or as infuriating) as so many others. And she’s getting better, again, fingers crossed.
But she’s been insisting that she return to Athens, to her own home, NOW, cause she’s sick of being isolated in my place on Paros, being a burden on me, etc etc. So, I began to organise her trip, someone to take her to a seat on the ferry by wheelchair. Someone to pick up her suitcases and put them on the ferry. Someone to meet her on the other end and take her home and carry her bags in and help her settle in…
But then the guy I’d organised for the other side get sick and ended up in hospital.
So here I am, on the ferry with mom, taking her to Athens myself, carrying bags, lending an elbow, trying to keep track of our luggage, carrying Vincent.
I couldn’t let her go alone.
A few days in Athens won’t kill me.
But they just might.
Cause its not just mom… its aunt #1s house too. The old tenants finally vacated 2 weeks after they were meant to. And I have spoken to two plumbers so far about locating and fixing a leak which has been causing trouble on both sides of the wall between my aunt’s house and where mom lives. Mould and all kinds of lovely things.
The previous tenant was an old lady with dementia with her carer, and her son would not let us in there to locate and fix the problem while she was there, cause he didn’t want to cause her confusion… so we now have a small window (getting smaller every day) to get someone in to fix the problem.
Cause of course, all this time (about 3 years now) I’ve been insisting that the issue is in THAT wall, but no one believes me. We’ve had pipes fixed on the outside of our wall. Someone else went into the light well to fix the issue in there… but the problem is not fixed. Cause I’ve been right along. We need to fix it on my AUNT’s side of the wall. And I need to do it ASAP before the next tenants go in.
And of course NO ONE returns my calls, or messages or anything.
Oh, and I have to see what the previous tenants left in the house. I told them to leave only the bookcase and wardrobe which belonged to my aunt and have stayed with the house till now, but now I’m learning that apparently they’ve left 3 beds which I ‘can do what I want with’… Which means they are now my problem…
I am so over this crap.
And all this time I’ve been trying to organise the plumber(s) and organise someone with keys to let him in, all over the phone, chasing things up 2nd and 3rd hand.
You’d think it could be done, but no. It can’t. I have to BE there. Like as if, if I’m there, I’ll be able to grab some random plumber by the collar and drag him to the house to fix the problem.
sigh.
But that’s not all, either.
I finally have some kind of paperwork I’d been waiting months for, for the upstairs apartment which we split into 2 apartments, renovated one and rented it out, leaving one to be renovated… In order to get power and water to the 2nd half I needed this paper. Now, I have to take it to some place in Athens (in person, cause if I try to do it online it might never get done!), and run around various agencies to apply for new connections yada yada yada.
Only then can I begin to renovate the 2nd apartment (with money I will miraculously conjur up)…
Between the paperwork necessary for everything, chasing up people who never call back, jobs that don’t get done, struggling to pay bills, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, etc, I’m kinda over this whole thing. I just wanna hide in my house and never come out.
Of course, I really really want my studio. My space. Space around me.
This was 2 weeks ago at our building site:
And this is now – the framework for the columns is still up, to be removed soon, but the roof is ready.
Sometimes I wish I’d never started anything. That I was content to live in a small one bedroom apartment with my small dog, and knit while watching TV and not have any desire to remake furniture, play with power tools, work on large canvases or paint on any surface I can think of, or play with any other forms of art.
In fact, living in Tasmania, without any family nearby, was really nice…
I have a cousin who has studio apartments for rent on Paros during the summer season. She’s always commissioning me to do various things for her studios (like the large paintings below), but this time she’s asked me for my little stone collections.
Normally she gives guests a small basket of local products to try during their stay, but this year she decided that for the rest of this season and next season, she will be giving them some of my small decorative stones as gifts.
So here are a few more groups on 5 I did for her, including the one above.
She also asked me to do some tic tac toe games. I’ve only done one so far because I need smaller stones for those and need to gather more:
Below is the packaging – simple cotton bags with her business name on the front, and either the game or one stone image so she knows at a glance what colour the stones inside are.
Here are the black and gold stones with their bag.
They’re fun to do so I’ll be doing tons more for her or anyone else who might want to give away small gifts. Anyone?
Mind you, I believe that anything over 3 is a good ‘grouping’ but 5 is better especially when they’re smaller items – of course 10 is even better if you put them in a bowl! But stones are heavy and not everyone wants to add to their luggage weight. So a small group of 5 is just enough. Guests always have the option of buying a second bag for themselves or as a souvenir. Stones collected from Paros beaches.
The weather turned suddenly today, like someone flipped a switch labelled Autumn. It was hot and windless yesterday but it’s cool today and it’s been raining all morning so far. It’s a lovely change when you haven’t had rain for months!
I love the smell of rain!
On the downside, since I groom outside, I can’t groom when the weather is dicey. Not till my container grooming room is up and running.
I’ve done just about nothing for days on end. Besides the occasional grooming appointment, aquafit classes, assisting mom with doctor appointments, being here and generally living day to day.
Oh, I did cook a basil and chili chicken dish yesterday cause I’m sick of eating greek food all summer. Mom loves to cook. And she cooks well. So, what am I to do? Deny her the one thing she enjoys doing when she’s up to it? I let her cook, then happily (or not) eat what she makes.
Though I have drawn the line at eating snails (gag) or ocra (eek).
We’ve made some simple pastas with vegetarian or bolognese sauce, and she’s made my favourite gouvetsi a few times which I’ll happily eat daily for weeks on end. The other stuff (lentil soup, chickpea soup, green beans in sauce, roast vegies with tomato, baked eggplant, stuffed zucchini in egg and lemon sauce and fresh baked bread…) are lovely, but not leftovers for 2 days. ugh.
However, reality is, I’m really tired of home greek cooking. I’ve missed my stir fries. And thai green curries. And even the odd air fryer fries.
I haven’t eaten so healthy this long in years!
As a result I’m sneaking in chocolate and ice cream when I can to make up for it.
But on the creative front, I’ve had no inspiration at all.
So, doodling on small stones has been way to relax when I don’t really want to do anything at all but refuse to vegetate in front of Netflix forever.
I also found a rock that shouted SHARK to me and had to bring it home. Here it is, with a friend.
I mentioned taking mom to the doctor. I’ve decided that it’s about time to sort out her meds once and for all. She’s been going to the public health clinics both here and in Athens and seeing different doctors so her meds were a mess. Never having been involved in mom’s healthcare before, since she was entirely capable of taking care of it herself, it’s all new to me.
I took her to a private clinic here on Paros to see a pathologist first, he ran blood tests and has recommended she see a cardiologist in the same clinic. Hopefully by the end of these visits and tests I’ll be better informed on her health issues.
And a little poorer.
While there, under the two birds one stone principle, I decided to ask him to look at my left ear which has been driving me crazy with an itch for the last couple of weeks. He referred me to the ear/nose etc specialist who, luckily, was able to see me right away. She stuck the world’s tiniest vacuum cleaner in my ear, sucked out some wax, told me it wasn’t infected and gave me a script in case it’s still itchy (it is) and said that’ll be 40 euros please. All in less than five minutes.
Sigh.
Private doctors are for those who can afford good insurance or have money. Not for us schmucks.
Whatever.
Meanwhile, the project at Agia Irini is proceeding slowly. All the framing is up now, and we await the concrete… though we still don’t have water… or power…
I bought some acrylic paint markers off Temu, and I must say, I love them.
I’ve spent a couple of afternoons playing with them and some of the smaller stones I’ve collected from the beach.
The pack I got was 12 colours but to be honest I only really like the black and the blue. I tried the green and and orange but they’re just not me. Those stones are now in pots on my patio… Maybe I’ll have a go at some black and red or black and green or something later, but I love the plain black or black and blue.
However, I wish the markers were thinner. They have a dot side and a brush side. But the brush is too thick for the kind of work I like to do. I prefer really fine lines and these are just too thick.
Still, they’re pretty cute. Not sure what I’ll do with these. They can be sold as a group for displaying in a bowl on a table I guess. They definitely need to be in a group…
It’s been a long time of watching Netflix, feeling lazy, uninspired and just plain uncreative. But then I had the idea of using the old tattered greek books a friend of mine gave me to make art. I’ve always loved using newsprint or book pages in my art.
She gave me a bag of old books, some of which were beyond donating. The decent ones went to a little bus stop free library here on Paros. The ones beyond repair were kept for my art.
Using PVA glue mixed with water, I first began by sticking some pages onto pages in one of my sketch books.
At first, I worked with pastels and above is the first one I did. Everyone loves donkeys.
Second was another donkey, ’cause I thought I’ll do a series of donkeys.
Of course, I got bored doing donkeys (’cause I’m like a 5 yr old) and decided to try something more vintage looking. For these next ones I used a different book (loose pages from what was once a book really, in much worse condition). They’ve gone a much darker brownish yellow.
I love old alarm clocks. I only have one tiny silvery rusted one here now, but I used to have a small collection of them in Australia. This is pastel also.
I love my coffee stains. Sometimes stains are accidental, I tend to leave my work on the kitchen table (my work surface) so accidents happen, but other times I rest my coffee cup on the paper on purpose just for the look it creates.
The coffee pot is pastel, watercolour and a bit of acrylic. Not my favourite.
Lastly, I thought a sprig of lavender might be nice. I did this in watercolour. Turns out that works pretty well on the stuck pages too.
I’ve been preparing more pages to work on but I’ve used proper decoupage glue for the next lot – not modpodge which I know is great because I’ve run out of that, so I bought another brand a couple of days ago. Not good. It barely sticks and the result if a much more buckled paper.
I did iron the pages (from the back) after they dried to make sure they were as flat as I could get them, but even ironing the ones I used the decoupage glue on wasn’t good enough for my liking which means I can’t really use pastel on those. I’ll have to use paint on those.
I’ll go back to using PVA.
The problem with PVA is that pastels won’t stick properly to the bits of glue off the book page. eh. I can work with that. Pages that don’t stick properly just isn’t working for me.
Next I’m working on some commissions and a couple more rocks just for fun.
junk4joy 