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…

Whatever.

z

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.

z

This is something I worked on with my niece Eleni before summer. She wanted to do something creative, to paint or sculpt or something.

I had a small MDF board lying around which I offered for her first go at painting with acrylics. She chose the theme and the colours and, with my guidance, she began to work on it.

The first thing you need is a background, so using a sponge she applied the colours she wanted to produce this abstract green and yellow base.

Once that was done, I sketched in the shape of the pineapple for her so she could begin to apply paint. This is how it ended up looking. Not too shabby for someone who has never picked up a paintbrush in her life!

Sorry the photo is a bit blurry but it’s the only one I have at that stage.

Eleni didn’t want to continue with it after that and asked me to finish it for her, which I did the other day. To be honest I was sick of seeing it lying around (like so much of my art)…

This is the finished product. All that remains is to give it to Eleni to put in her home. It didn’t turn out bad at all, I think. All I did was deepen the shadows, add highlights and basically give it more depth and detail.

Well done, Eleni. I look forward to working with you again after the busy summer season.

z

I’m very good at doing eyes. I know that. So, I decided to focus on eyes for a little while ’cause I also love doing them. So I’ve done a few pieces of white marble with cat’s eyes which are fascinating and greek island related.

Why do I feel I have to do island related paintings? Well, ’cause I think people who live here, visit here or have summer homes here might be looking for island related items for their homes…

But while I sat there painting, late one evening, mom watching TV from the couch, I played with a few other themes.

Some whales instead of the usual fish…

And another bright octopus.

Not sure what you all think of these, but personally, I like the eyes best. I’m thinking dog eyes, horse eyes, alpaca and cow eyes cause they are particularly soulful… and even human eyes…

I just need to go out and find more pieces of marble. All I have in my collection now is small pieces, more suited to small bugs, like my bees.

Remember my bees?

I’m quite fond of my little bee, currently living in the USA.

Maybe I will do more bees… Though I am running out of space to keep my rocks and marble pieces…

I’ve been picturing a wall mounted narrow shelf, made from pallet wood, to hold it all. It would be really heavy of course… and I’d need the time and access to my tools… Maybe in winter…

z

Not long ago I bought two long rectangular canvases to paint on, and last week, with Peter and Kelly on Syros, I converted my home back into a studio to do this painting. It’s not like I haven’t got about 6 unfinished paintings lying around needing work…

The brief for this one was something beachy, in neutral tones to go over the bed in an air bnb. Once I decided what I was going to paint it went pretty smoothly, though there were a couple of false starts… Hence (good word) it took me almost all week to finish it.

Given my entire kitchen/living room is my studio, I painted on my kitchen table and set it on the stove to dry between sessions. That way I could look at it when I wasn’t working on it, to decide what it needed. Its my process. I need to live with my work a while before I decide its done and can sign it.

My life is in a constant state of moving things around – off the kitchen table and bench so I can cook, back so I can work, from here to there, from there to here but a little to the left, then back again…

And now mom is staying with me, I have to cook almost every day… Mom is a real greek housewife and she expects me to be one too… sigh… I never cooked every single day, but I make her breakfast every morning and I cook lunch one day, eat leftovers the next. However, I must make a fresh salad every day.

This is not easy for me; I don’t cook much. Not since quite a few years ago when an ex felt the food I cooked wasn’t filling enough cause there was not nearly enough meat to satisfy his manly hunger. Since then, I basically cook what I want to eat and if you/he/anyone doesn’t like it, they’re welcome to cook for themselves.

So, the studio has been sacrificed to the kitchen gods. At least for a while.

But mom is getting stronger every day (thanks to my amazing cooking!) and hopefully she’ll be back to full strength soon enough.

BTW – The staged photos are thanks to Photoshop… After all, how else am I going to stage something when I don’t have the wall space?

Here is a photo of it in its new home:

z