Its been a busy, social day today. Lunch with friends and meeting new people. A great way to spend a Sunday.

On the art front, its more dilapidated and abandoned buildings, boarded up windows and remnants of lives lived in in the house, with the clothesline still in place.

I’ve begun to use photos I’ve taken of old doors, windows and buildings on Paros as my inspiration for these small paintings now. I’ve been taking photos like these for years, may as well do more than just save them.

Soon I’ll be able to share some photos of my childhood too! A good friend of mine is scanning dad’s slides and I’m seeing photos dad took for the first time. Dad didn’t print out many of his slides, only those he chose to print so he could send them to relatives in Greece, so most of my childhood was recorded on slides I’ve never seen.

I had a slideshow/preview today and I’m excited!!

All up dad left about 1000 slides. I sorted through them while in Athens last and I tossed out a ton dad had bought of buildings in places in Asia he’d visited – they were just postcard type slides. And others which were landscapes in Australia which meant nothing to me, no identifying features. But I’m slowly going to get the rest scanned and sorted and put into some printed photo books. That way I’ll have a book to share with mom and other family.

It’s all very well to have everything in digital form, but sometimes you like to look through albums… However, I much prefer photobooks.

During COVID I put together some photobooks, one for each year pretty since the books I’d made in Australia, from photos I had on my computer. I still have to do 2020-22 … and of course now I’ll have to do the early years in Australia.

Probably the early years of mom and dad from before they met too. And our early years in Greece…

So much to do!!! And they’re not cheap. But I think its worth doing, just one at a time.

z

A lot darker than my usual stuff, but I love the way this turned out. It reminds me of a charcoal drawing I did at art school – the assignment was to paint light. I painted a dark room with sun streaming in a window. I’m not sure where that is now, but it hung in my house every time I moved till I came to Greece.

This piece is once more on the smaller matboard pieces my friend Antigone gave me (offcuts from her framing shop). I like the slight texture of these boards, not as rough as the canvas paper I used yesterday. And the small size means its easy to do in a day. Larger pieces, like the one on my easel currently, need a lot of time spent on them so they’re more a long-term project.

Today I woke up feeling like painting, which was great, so I took advantage of that getting straight into it after my morning coffee.

The original plan had been to deal with the basement store room in the morning – otherwise known as ‘the rat house’ – but I painted first!

My next door neighbour and I had got the local handyman to clean our store rooms and fill all the holes the critters were getting in through. He did a great job. He moved everything out of our units, sealed all the holes, put mesh on the louvre part of the doors, and swept and even mopped using bleach.

Needless to say, the broom, mop and bucket he used are being put in the bin and will never see the inside of my house again.

Today we went down donned in rubber gloves and masks to tackle our stuff. Some was put straight in the bin. Other stuff had to be re-wrapped cause the old bags were covered the rat and mouse crap. Everything was washed down with bleach and put back in neatly.

Its not so scary going down there now. I mean, its still damp, being underground, and I hate putting things in storage there, but at least they’re no longer covered in poop. Eww. Even the smell is much improved.

Now I think I may even store stuff down there and visit a bit more often to keep an eye on the rodent situation. If I see so much as a tiny hole being gnawed into a pipe or wall I’ll get onto it immediately.

They’ll still get in, I’m sure, but hopefully our store rooms are no longer superhighways in and out of the place.

z

Well, whaddayaknow… another window with a cat!

I really had no inspiration today and had to force myself to sit down and paint. Took me ages to decide what to paint, and in the end I went with another window.

Its not totally finished yet, but the paint needs to dry. I layered it on quite thick this time… I figured you’d forgive me for posting an unfinished piece… at least I did something! I was so tempted to just give up.

This piece a wider than the first ones I began the month with, but approximately the same height. So not very big. And its on canvas paper instead of board.

That’s about it for today. I’m very uninspired. More tomorrow. I hope I get my mojo back.

z

Mid-way through the month. Time sure is flying by.

I wonder what I’ll do when the month is over? Will I continue to paint on a daily basis or will I get lazy and let life, work and responsibilities take over as they invariably do?

I read an interesting article today about that very thing. It was about taking cold showers and the benefit of them, but the main point of it was about forming a habit (which everyone says takes 30 days) and then maintaining it. The big thing is maintaining it. The woman writing the article said that it was easy enough to form the habit, and she was able to stick with it for a year, but then it became harder. She wrote that willpower and habit will only take you so far. You need something more to keep a habit going.

That something is the feeling you get from the habit.

By concentrating on that, there is no need to rely on willpower or force to continue. It’s something you want/need to do.

Sort of like drinking coffee in the morning.

I remember that’s how I felt years ago when I became addicted to the gym. I was like so many people, going through the motions 3-4 times a week, working on a program written for me by some gym instructor, getting nowhere.

One day a new instructor was taking me through my new 3-month program and he stopped halfway and said, ‘This program is doing nothing for you. What do you want to achieve?’

I said what we all say: ‘I want to firm up and lose some weight.’

He said my program was simply maintaining me pretty much where I was. What did I REALLY want?

So I pointed to a poster on the wall of a woman who was feminine but muscley and said, ‘I want to look like that.’

He looked me up and down and said, ‘You can do it but it will be hard work.’

I said, ‘I’ll do it, but I warn you, if I don’t see results in a month, I’ll get bored and stop’.

Well, I saw results. Huge results in a month on his program which involved me going to the gym 6 days a week. It was hard work, but I loved it. In fact, after a month I was addicted to it cause I felt so good. I craved the feeling of sweating. And the gym became a big part of my life.

… Oh boy I wish I could l get back there again. It really was a great feeling. I did for a few months before I left Tasmania to come to Greece. The secret (for me) was to find the right gym. One where I felt comfortable, challenged and liked the people.

Anyway, this post was meant to be about art… and it is.

I love the feeling I get when I’m creative. Sometimes I become frustrated when something isn’t working for me, but when it is and I finish something, it feels great.

I love the feeling of achievement, and even more I love the feeling of wonder at the things I create sometimes… its almost hard to believe they came out of my hands.

That feeling is worth sticking with it for.

So here is today’s art – I was bored of flowers, so here are some vegetables. Red ones!

I love the vibrancy of these images and I wanted to keep them sort of limited in their colour scheme. But I added a splash of yellow and green for the pop. I think it worked.

One more square frame and 4 more pre-cut small cardboard squares to go!

z

Yes, you are seeing the same thing I posted yesterday, but with one addition.

Turns out I couldn’t find a ready-made frame to fit 3 little paintings, so I bought these square frames which fit 4 of them!

I chose to paint an orange flower to finish off the set, on a purple background. That way they’re all connected by colour.

I may have to paint the frames black, but I like the light wood. We’ll see on that.

I haven’t chosen the correct layout for them yet either, but I painted the cardboard edges black and got some black card stock to mount them on when I frame them. They really pop on black. I’ll share photos of the finished product when its ready.

Meanwhile, the wind continues and the weather doesn’t encourage too much time outdoors. When the sun comes out its beautiful but windy. When the sun disappears, as it has all throughout the day, being chased by clouds, its chilly. Eh. Its March. Traditionally a windy month on a windy island in a group of windy islands.

Not a skerick of progress has been made on an online shop. I think I need to get up and sit at the computer and focus on that alone for 2 or 10 hours or so… Sometimes I really hate all this online stuff. It’s very necessary, but it takes up so much time! Just maintaining an online presence (for grooming as well as my art) is so time consuming, and I know I don’t do close to enough.

How do people do it? Manage to run an online business and still be creative?

Beats me.

z