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.
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.
I think I mentioned working on half the kitchen table. Not much space, but enough to work on smaller projects like fridge magnets and rocks. Since I still had some wooden shapes, I’d gotten on Temu, I decided to go ahead and finish them all. I also found I still had some magnets, so I was able to finish them.
I used acrylic paint to do these, and a very very thin rigger brush to get the fine lines.
I love these little plant magnets, though I’m not thrilled with the mushroom ones…
I love the cats too and am thinking I need to do more of these. Maybe a little bigger. Maybe as coasters as well…
Remember these?
This is what they look like now. The evil eye, a very popular theme in Greece. Much better.
I had some more of these round flat pieces so I did some more simple colourful sea urchins.
Remember these?
Now they’re starfish. Or they could be urchins if that’s how you prefer to see them. But they’re not. They’re starfish.
I had a few more of these half rounds so I made more stylized urchins. I think I prefer these 3D ones, but both are nice.
Lastly, remember these fish – the top ones were made using the wood burning marker and the bottom ones were decoupaged.
This is what they look like now. Much more fun!
I’ve ordered more wooden shapes, some of the same and others in different sizes, not sure what I’ll make when I get them, but they’re fun to work with!
These little magnets are cute and make great little presents of the ‘stocking filler’ sort.
Yes, I know. I’ve gone and done another disappearing act. But as usual, I have great excuses.
I’ve been busy grooming dogs in the morning, working 5 hrs every afternoon/evening at a travel agency, and trying to get a swim, a rest and some food in between.
Unfortunately, art has gone by the wayside as is always the case… its always the first thing I sacrifice. Cause its easy to do. Jobs for money get 1st priority, then food, then rest. Even the dishes get more attention than art… as pitiful as that sounds.
This coming feom a woman who didn’t mop the floors for weeks…
So, for now I’m sharing the last 2 small pallet trays I painted. I found the trays and couldn’t resist them cause they seemed cute, and just added a few touches to make them cuter.
The first one got fish, cause, well, everything gets fish pretty much. The second got an octopus… just because.
Other than that, life is pretty much as always. The island is still full of people but its a lot quieter than last month. I yearn for winter and quiet. And time to myself, to be at home for whole days at a time where I don’t have to see anyone at all… or be anywhere.
Oh lockdown, where are you now?
Is it healthy to wish you could just be left alone to do your own thing?
I bought a tiny folding bluetooth keyboard which I’m trying out on the phone. It will take a little getting used to if I’m to use it to do stuff like this, but it sure will be handy for connecting to the TV for searches and other typing needs.
Whatever.
Hopefully I will find/make some time to do some art soon. I miss it.
I realised I’d never posted about the apartment I’d been renovating this winter – just one in a long line of apartments I’ve had to renovate since I got to Greece. One more to go. Then I begin working on MORE houses… but that’s another story.
So, here are the photos of the place finished. The photo above is what you see when you first step in the front door.
This is what you used to see more or less, a bit more to each side – mind you, I was in the middle of packing up when I took the before photos, so its a mess.
This is the corner opposite the front door before:
And now with the bookcase gone and the floor re-finished:
(You can see the plain flat normal white door to the hallway in the above pic – replacing the old swinging doors.)
Far corner before.
Same corner after. I absolutely love the new (non-yellow) floor!!
But starting at the beginning – the entrance. It used to be a dark peachy colour which, with the red marble floor, made it very dark and gloomy. Its now bright and cheerful.
Right next to the front door as you enter, is a kitchenette. There used to be a radiator along the wall next to the front door, then a door into the kitchen. Since the place is now divided into two apartments instead of 1 large one, I put a small kitchen where the bar used to be.
This was how it was, with the bar and the door to the kitchen (yes, another swinging door, dad loved those – terrible when bringing food or drinks from the kitchen to the dining room):
This is the same area now, with the bedroom to the right:
I got rid of the bar (gave it away to anyone who would come take it, it was a big heavy, solid mahogany piece. I blocked in the awful coloured glass brick bottle shelves and put cabinets from the old kitchen in its place.
Below is a different angle on the same area now. There is room for a fridge and stove. In Greece the stove doesn’t come with the house. Most tenants have their own I was told.. Therefore, there is space for a stove.
The dining room is now a bedroom, with a wall alongside the fireplace.
This is what it was like before:
Now the dining room is a spacious bedroom with tons of wardrobe space. (Sorry, photos below are before the floors were re-finished.)
There is now a proper door to the smaller hallway. This is how that looked before. Swinging doors are so awful!
And now. A shorter hallway with a floor to ceiling cupboard:
This was the small, crowded, impractical little bathroom before. It had a door into the master bedroom far right, the shower to the left right behind the door which was so small the shower curtain would stick to you when you showered, a tiny sink to the right and barely enough space to swing a cat.
Now it feels so spacious. The door to the bedroom was closed off. The large window was replaced by a smaller PVC one and the shower now takes up the entire back wall which is so much better. The sink and space for a washing machine with cabinet above all sit on the left side, including the toilet which was moved over a bit to where there had been a bidet.
Outside there is a wrap around balcony and we put up a wall to separate the two apartments.
I don’t have the money to replace the bannisters yet, but one day I will. Something a little prettier than the Perspex which has discoloured so much over the years.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the tour. The place is rented now finally, which is one less worry on my mind.
I needed a pepper mill. I have peppercorns and no pepper. No ground pepper… So instead of buying ground pepper I thought it would be better to buy a pepper mill and use the peppercorns.
So I went looking. There were tons to choose from… but in the end I decided to try to personalise a simple wooden one I found in a local shop.
I gave it a quick light sand and began with a bit of leftover creamy white chalk paint. Then I painted circles in a stylized greek ‘evil eye’ design and finished off with some dots. Cause, why not.
Its random in its design but I think its unique and I’m happy with it.
Just one small bit of creativity finished quickly one afternoon. I’m ready to cook now.
I figure its time to get back to sharing art and creations. This is one I did while I was in Athens last.
Its taken me a while to get back into the mood to post…
The house still feels empty without Lainee next to me and I can’t remember how many nights I slept with the door unlocked cause it was always the last thing I did before bedtime: walk Lainee and lock the door when I came in. Without her to walk, I’d just go to bed and forget the door. So now I try to lock the door as soon as it gets dark.
I’ve been busy. I did what I said I’d do: I made my home into an art studio/gallery. I’ve had a couple of open studio days and they went well. I’m grooming. And when I have free time, I am as creative as I can… Most of the time. I still have lazy days. Thats life.
Now I have to organise myself and decide what days I’ll be ‘open’ and what workshops I want to offer… It seems like an easy decision but I have a mental block. I can’t decide…
Turns out stairs are really hard to do. Somewhere between the beginning of a step and the end of the step I get lost.
Anyway, here is today’s offering. I went back to doors and windows cause I couldn’t find my cloud photos. I will find them however.
It was a strange day today. The sea and sky were both grey, no wind, totally still. And kinda warm too. Strange but also nice. Lainee and I had a short walk on the beach and I collected a ton of sea glass. More than on any other single walk. All the waves lately have obviously brought it out.
Lainee is once again having bursts of diarrhea. One night she woke me up 5 times to go out… that was after I gave her leftover rice from the chicken korma I made. I didn’t give her any korma itself, but she licked the plate and that might have caused it. I don’t know. She’d never been so sensitive before. She used to be able to eat anything I gave her without any trouble.
She is better again now, but it looks like its gastrointestinal dry food for the foreseeable future. Poor Lainee. And poor me. Ugh.
I’ve always loved the idea of painting clouds, but had never tried it.
So today I thought it was time to give it a go.
This is how this painting started:
And this, of course, is it finished:
I am actually quite pleased with it.
I even started searching for other photos I’ve taken of cloudy skies but couldn’t find them. Hopefully I’ll find them tomorrow so I can try another one.
Its been a really busy day, and a very frustrating one at that.
I hate technology… I’m one of those people who hate getting a new phone/computer etc cause I have to set it up.
Computers and smart phones are meant to make our life easier, but things keep changing and every update and upgrade seems to make things more complicated.
It might be my age speaking here, but I remember this being an issue when I was much younger and working as a graphic designer. You’d just get used to a program and they’d upgrade it and things which worked fine didn’t work any more, things got moved to different places, new things (which were usually good) appeared and you had to re-learn everything again.
Or they stopped making a program you knew off by heart and you had to learn a new one.
I kept up. I did my job. Then.
Now, it seems every time my computer or phone runs an update things are different. Facebook keeps changing. And everything is somehow connected – which you’d THINK would make life easier, but it doesn’t.
Today I spent time trying to set up a Facebook/Instagram shop.
Its not the first time I’ve tried. I’ve spent hours on this in the last year or two. I did set up my Junk4Joy page as a shop initially but never did anything with it, then they changed their shops and added Meta and now its so much more complicated.
People keep saying ‘read this’ or ‘here’s a link’ etc. I’ve done all that. I’ve read stuff, I’ve watched Youtube videos. They’ll say ‘click on xxx and then select xxx’ etc but nothing on my computer, in the app or on my browser, is in the same place where theirs is!!! Even the wording is different sometimes.
Please tell me I’m not crazy.
All I want to do is streamline my FB accounts/pages, match up my Instagram account names, and have a shop where I can sell my stuff. Is that too much to ask?
Maybe I should just go open a Shopify shop, pay for it, maybe they’ll make more sense.
Mind you, that doesn’t solve my different accounts.
I need a fairy god-IT-person. Or a 10 year old.
Whatever.
I’m tired.
What I did manage to do today was close my Etsy shop for good. It did well when I first opened it, but kinda died.
Even that was a nightmare. In order to close the shop I had to first pay the AU$1.98 I owed them. Which I tried to do using Paypal… But Paypal won’t let me log in without sending a text to a phone I haven’t had since leaving Australia. There is no other way to log in. I can answer my security questions, which I did, but then they want to send me a text to the old phone and they don’t even give you the option to say “Hey dudes! I no longer have that phone so I can’t receive any texts! Is there another way, like, say, for instance… send me an email?”
No. That would make too much sense.
And unless I want to call Australia, I can’t get in touch with them. There is no ‘chat’ on their site and no way to email them with a problem. I can do a search for an answer in ‘the community’ but I can’t ask a question without logging in!
Can you say ‘vicious circle’?
I managed to close the shop by adding a new credit card to my account. How does that make sense?
I still have my CafePress shop, but I’ve barely added anything new to it in years, so its barely selling. I should close that too, but eh, it doesn’t cost me anything since they’re a print on demand company.
Remember when I wondered how you can be an artist and have an online shop/commerce site and manage all the posts and ads etc? Well… this is where I’m at. About ready to give up.
I swear, if Greece allowed street markets, I’d just sell my stuff at a stall. But there are no street markets in Greece. Only the farmer markets (laiki) in the cities and those are not for art and craft and handmade items.
junk4joy 