Playing with some watercolours today, still finding my feet after being in Athens for so long.
It’s always like this. I come home and I spend the first few days unable to do anything. Sure, this time round I’ve been much more social than on previous returns, but between going out to meet friends or groom dogs, I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I have to do around the house.
UGH.
I’ve washed some clothes but still haven’t unpacked my suitcase… only removed items I needed in order to live. Talk about lazy!
Oh, I did manage to do some shopping. I needed to do that cause the fridge was totally empty.
And walked Lainee on the beach.
I need to get back into my own mode, ya know? All this time in Athens I’d sort of gotten into an ‘Athens routine’ I need to unlearn. Soon as I get back into ‘home mode’ I’ll have to go back to Athens again…
I saw something on FB the other day – it said ‘when a door closes, open it again. That’s how doors work’.
Funny.
Not sure why doors and windows are so interesting to me or anyone… maybe cause they supposedly hold secrets behind them, or oppportunities, or memories, who knows. I’m sure that if I put my mind to it I could write a whole essay on the symbolism of doors and windows. Closed ones. Blank ones.
But for now, they are just gorgeously old crooked and chippy doors and windows in delapidated or abandoned old buildings.
So here is today’s painting. This time I’ve added a cat, ’cause cats are everywhere in Greece.
People now feed them more than they kick them, so although you see tons of cats, few of them are of the scaredy cat variety who run from humans. A lot of them are friendly, some are timid and elusive, but most of them are no longer terrified of humans. And most of them are no longer so skinny.
The main problem is that a lot of people are still against neutering in Greece. They think its ‘unnatural’… they would prefer to see the island over-run by starving and dying cats than to neuter them. And somehow, it seems that to a lot of the older generation of greeks (and I’m sure, plenty of younger redneck types) its much more ‘natural’ to deal with unwanted kittens and puppies by tossing them in the sea, or dumping them in rubbish bins.
On my way to Paros right now so I’m sharing something I did yesterday… cheating, since I really don’t think I’ll be in the mood to do any painting or sketching today.
I didn’t sleep much last night so I’m tired and I’m going to quiz night tonight… so other than unpacking and being HOME, I don’t think I’ll do much today.
I love quiz night. I’m hopeless at it, but I love it nonetheless.
In fact, I love games that can be played in teams. Trivial pursuit, pictionary… I love getting together with friends and playing games. Not that I do it much. I had started doing a bit of it before I left Tasmania, but ended up giving away or selling all my games before coming to Greece. Probably a stupid thing to do, cause I have a lot of english speaking friends on Paros, but at the time I thought it would be hard to find people to play with.
Oh well. Live and learn.
Still, it’ll be nice to see my friends again. And to walk on the beach.
I’m too brain dead to write much right now and we’ve only been travelling for an hour. Three more to go…
Another day, another small painting. I think I mentioned, these are done on offcuts of matboard which would otherwise have gone to waste… so I’m still recycling. Perhaps not as much as when I work on old canvases or broken marble or wood offcuts, but still recycling and making use of unwanted things!
I’m going back home tomorrow so I’m packing and making lists so I don’t forget anything. Had a brief panic ’cause I couldn’t find my keys, but found them! phew. They were in the first place I looked, and the last place… Because I looked in my bag first, didn’t find them, searched everywhere else I could think of, then rechecked my bag and there they were.
D’oh!
I’ve got some cuttings from plants from my aunt’s garden to take home and pot tomorrow and mom made a cheese pie which she will pack for me to take with, so I have something to eat on the ferry and dinner for tomorrow night. Gotta love moms! Of course that means I’ll have a huge suitcase of stuff to take back with me, my handbag, Lainee’s crate and a bag with the cuttings, cheese pie, water and all the last minute stuff I want to toss into it. Talk about travelling light. Never happens.
That’s how I am – I start something new and I get all excited and I go like crazy for a while. Then something happens and I get bored, or busy, or lazy and the roll ends. And when I get the urge to create again, its onto something else.
That’s why I do so many different things. Cause I can’t settle on one thing. Its think it makes me interesting but not successful.
I think successful artists are the ones who focus on something that interests them or they’re good at, and they plug away and work hard and promote their work, yada yada.
Me, I create cause I love to create… whether its painting dog portraits (which incidentally, I get paid for!), I paint on rocks or marble cause I enjoy it and sell some here and there, I sew things when I get the sewing bug cause I enjoy it, I remake dolls cause I enjoy playing with dolls, I remake furniture cause I love it…
See the thread here? I do things I enjoy. And if people want to buy them, great.
Not a reliable way to make a living really.
In other news, Lainee had her ultasound today and she’s fine. She has some problem with a valve in her heart, which we knew, but that he doesn’t think its gotten any worse and that, in his opinion, she doesn’t need medication for it… she’s been on medication for her heart for about 3 years. And she has an issue with her gall bladder – sand or something – it may or may not get worse and may or may not cause problems for her in the future.
So all is right with the world now she’s feeling better. Complete with an extremely smooth belly and a couple of bald spots on her chest.
My friend Antigone, who owns a framing shop, gave me small pieces of matboard to paint on, all cut to approximately 4in x 8in. Nice and stiff, with a slightly ribbed texture, they’re ideal for small paintings, almost miniatures.
I gotta say, working small suits me, though I enjoy working large as well. I’ve mostly always worked large, preferring A3 and up in size, since I use pastels and charcoal, ’cause I can use my entire arm to create my marks.
The tactile element has always been a big thing for me, going back to my printmaking days where I learned to use the ball of my hand and french chalk to wipe my plates, not like the kids at art school who used pages from phone directories… philestines…
Then of course, working with pastel means I not only use my hand/arm to draw, but my fingers and hand to smudge and blend.
I love ‘feeling’ my work. I’m even doing it with acrylics now, using my hand and sponges on the larger canvases, my fingertips on the small paintings.
Working small is what I do with the marbles and rocks I paint. They are a totally different ballpark of course, they don’t absorb paint, I put it on and let it dry before adding another layer of colour. With the acrylic, it dries fast so I layer it more than blend. I have bought a slow drying medium which I won’t try till I get to my own studio (ie my kitchen/living room)… I’m used to living amongs my art… my mother isn’t!
Another quick sketch using tea plus red wine. Turns out the red wine is a huge disappointment. Nothing red about it… just a stain. Not a particularly good one either, I admit I was hoping for something redder.
So its back to pencils, tea and the new acrylics. I ended up buying a box of 36 small 20ml tubes cause that way I have all the colours to play with, and when I run out I can always buy what I need. This set is to keep for use in Athens, since it looks like I’ll be here quite a while this year.
I have tons of paints on Paros, but of course, you always need more paint… especially favourite colours. But I work bigger on Paros than I do here, so the mini tubes are fine for here.
I really hate having two homes. You sort of need two of everything if you live in more than one place. Sure, my HOME is on Paros, but since mom lives in Athens I’ll always be here for some time in winter to be with her… not to mention the constant renovation projects I seem to attract.
So, till I go back to Paros, hopefully by the end of this week, I’ll continue working on smaller works for my daily art. Bigger ones are more like weekly art than daily. Sometimes monthly…
This one might actually be my favourite one yet. I mean in terms of pencil and tea. I loved the donkey as a pencil sketch on its own, not sure if the coffee improved it, but this one works. The patchy cow and the splotchy background are a perfect match.
I’m happy with this.
Seems I’m on a sort of barnyard animal streak. Not sure how long it will last, but I’ve always loved animals and cows, donkeys and hares have always been favourites. Though I’d never tackled a hare before.
By the end of this month I think I’ll have to work on finally selling stuff online. The sketches are small at a little over A5 size, easy to post, and totally affordable, even if I sell them with a mat board.
I’ve been looking into restablishing my etsy shop, which has been opend and doing nothing for months or looking into an art online shop. Its a lot of reading and research and testing and it will take time to work it out.
On a positive note, my new smaller/newer/more portable laptop has arrived finally and this is the inaugural post using it! YIPPEE! And so far it seems the WordPress app actually words properly on it!
Its so much better and faster than this ancient old tablet and so pretty! I’m donating the old tablet to a nephew to play games on. He’s happy. I’m happy. Win win.
They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. Let’s see… maybe after a month of daily art I’ll keep at it and not take long unproductive breaks. Hope springs eternal.
Then again, with summer coming up and with it being the busy season on a tourist island, who knows…
Today I share a quick sketch of a hare looking startled to be featured on a blog. This time I got bored of working with boring ol’ pencil cause I can’t really smudge and work it with my fingers, and can’t get the depth of tones I’m used to with pastels or charcoal.
So, I started to wonder what I could use to give it that extra dimension, given I’d already donated the crappy acrylics to some underage budding artists, and had no other art supplies on hand.
I found tea bags. Handy as a beverage and an art material.
Never one to knock back the chance to work with tea (having stained my share of fabrics and doilies with it) I decided to give it a go. Thing I discovered about using tea as an ink is that tea gets darker as it dries, so bits I thought looked too pale and went over ended up a little darker than expected.
Still, I rather like the effect. Art meets clumsy tea drinker.
Meanwhile I thought I’d give coffee a go as well. Since we don’t have any instant coffee at home in Athens (my go-to for coffee staining) I asked mom to make me a greek coffee to paint. She thought I was going to paint the coffee cup and even put it in a nice cup with matching saucer. Instead, I dipped my brush into it and added a bit of dimension to the donkey I drew on Day 1.
Its a totally different colour and unlike the tea, it doesn’t darken as it dries. Its more of a WYSIWYG medium.
(‘What you see is what you get’ for those unfamiliar with the old fashioned graphic design term. Pronounced wiz-ee-wig.)
I got my new acrylics today but not sure if I’ll jump right in or if I’ll play with tea a little longer.
If it wasn’t for the last minute nothing would get done around here!
Today’s contribution is a pencil sketch of a donkey. It brought back memories of art classes at Campion school, working with soft lead pencils. Its been a long long time since I worked with pencil only.
Even before art school I sketched with charcoal. There are so many types of charcoal to chose from… willow, konte, pitt, in stick or pencil form… there’s never been a need to pick up a plain old fashioned pencil for anything other than scribbling a quick note.
A few months ago I saw a shop that sold more than those horrid HB pencils, so I got myself a 2B and a 4B. Since the traumatising experience with the crappiest of crappy crap acrylics I bought by accident, I had no choice but to venture down memory lane and remember how to work with pencil.
It not only brought back memories of high school art classes, it also reminded me of sitting at my desk in 4th grade, sketching horses and tall skinny girls with my best friend as the teacher droned on about history or math.
It wasn’t too painful… (sketching with pencil, that is. Math was painful!) I might try it again.
Although I ordered proper acrylics to pick up tomorrow.
z
ps… I worked on the donkey a little more, adding a touch of greek coffee to give it a bit of depth. Seems rather appropriate – greek coffee for a greek donkey.
junk4joy 