So, there I was, sitting at the kitchen table, a mess of art and craft stuff all around me, wondering what on earth I should do. I didn’t feel like putting the last strokes on the large painting… Afraid to finish it? Afraid to start a new one? No idea why, but there I was…
I had a pile of stones remaining from the project I made for a hotel this summer among the things I needed to sort, pack up or get rid of, and thought ‘why not make some Christmas stones?’… I had the gift bags, so why not?
I made two types – some with Christmas designs and colours, and some with silver and gold foil.
I’ve been going a little crazy with the foil lately. I’d never worked with it before so it’s been fun to experiment. Stones aren’t the ideal items to foil as they aren’t at all absorbent and the glue takes forever to dry… however, I’m really pleased with the way they look.
I even tried the foil on one of my little air-dry clay bowls and it came up nicely.
For the little bags, I created a stamp for the foil stone bags, stamped them and added a touch of gold foil which makes them really pop. For the more Christmas themed stones I used stencils to decorate the bags.
I think the presentation of these stones is really up there. I hope they sell as stocking fillers or small gifts this Christmas.
I have always loved stitches where you don’t expect them – in wood, on paper, etc. When I found this bit of wood on the beach, with the big crack down the middle, I thought it would make a great project to ‘stitch up’.
After giving it a thorough clean, I drilled tiny holes for the wire as well as using some of the old nail holes to create the stitches. I added some raffia, a rusty heart and some dried lavender. It might not be a statement piece, but its sweet and I love it.
I love making something out of things I find on my walks and using bits and pieces I collect, finally giving them a purpose.
This was one of those quick and easy, ‘don’t think, just do’ projects I love cause they come out of the blue and are finished in no time at all, yet still give me that feeling of having achieved something special.
I’ve begun working on a series of paintings for the exhibition I am planning next summer. I thought I’d share the first one to whet your appetite.
This is the painting which gave me the inspiration for the series. I love old buildings, the falling down, crumbling walls, the rotting wood, the paint chipped doors and windows. The whole abandoned feel of them. It’s something I photograph every time I walk the small streets of the islands (or Athens, to be honest).
I’ve always been drawn to the juxtaposition of the old and the new in its ugly forms – beautiful decaying buildings for instance, with modern day graffiti on them is one of my favourites.
Or, as in this case, the beautiful patina of the old door and cracked walls with the discarded cola can and cigarette butt.
In an experimental mood, I added a little silver foil to the tin can make it stand out a little more. Not the neatest job, but its rubbish anyway, right?
I love this piece and hope others do too. I’m excited about this series of paintings that show the beauty of days gone by against the ugliness of today – the effects of too many people and not enough care about the beautiful places we live in.
And, as usual, this is painted on a recycled canvas.
Another commission to share today, one which took me forever to do. I mean, I started them fine, back before summer… but then it was summer. Busy with grooming and mom being sick and visitors and all sorts of busy summer things.
Up to that point I had only done the structure of them, ie cardboard, masking tape and wire so I needed to move onto the clay or papier mâché part. Since the buyer didn’t want these finished in fabric, I decided to use air dry clay for the whole thing.
And I’m glad I did cause I love the way they turned out.
Given the brief for these guys was ‘something easy to dust’ I opted to spray them with white gloss paint, something I’d never done before as a finish for my work. But I’m really happy with the result.
Thought I’d share a quickie work I framed the other day. I say ‘quickie’ even though it was weeks in the making… mainly cause I had no idea what I was going to do.
Firstly, I glued an old, yellowed book page from a stack of throw away books I’d collected to a sheet of cartridge paper to create a background to work on like I did here, then I left it for ages, sitting on the kitchen table among the hundreds of things I was going to get to ‘soon’…
While working on one of my large paintings I decided to experiment with the texture building paste I’d bought, so I mixed up some paint and applied it to the paper, thinking I would do a small painting of a wall and stairs. I let it dry and as I looked at it, I felt totally uninspired to continue, so I let it sit and think about its sins a little longer.
Thing was, the more I looked at it. the more I liked the simplicity of the colours on the background and didn’t want to make it into anything other than a background.
Sometime during that period, I saw a FB post about a guy who created art by doing backgrounds then whacking paint covered sticks and branches onto his canvases. Hm… This was only small so I couldn’t go whacking the hell out of it… but I could try pressing something onto it… that might work.
And that’s what I did. Since it was a neutral background, I wanted to do something to bring it to life. I had some of those fuzzy dried flower arrangement things from other projects, so I chose my colours, et viola!
I used the same ‘flower’ to print the image in 3 different colours and I liked it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever done before, but I was pleased.
I had a small frame that fit the work, and I had flat white spray paint, so I sprayed the frame, gave it a bit of rub in spots where the paint hadn’t gone on well, and there it is.
At this point comes the warning/disclaimer. When doing spray painting at home, don’t pull the cap off the spray paint with a vice grip and the determination of a fat man going after the last chip at the family dinner table. I pulled it off (they do like to make them almost impossible to pull off!) and pulled off the spray nozzle at the same time. Putting the nozzle back on caused all kinds of grief as you can see.
But hey, it’s pretty normal for me to have paint all over my hands, my clothes, my shoes… no one expects anything less.
You might notice a bandage on one finger…? I got that while rummaging through a toolbox to find a screwdriver. Instead, I found a razor paint scraper (the kind you use on glass) without its protective cover.
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.
junk4joy 