Suprise Mail

I've had my eye on Ana's wearables collection for a while, I love the fact that it's not just jewelry but a piece of art turned into jewelry.
And today I got my favorite one in the mail, yay!
You can see her entire wearables collection right here but be sure to check out her entire shop, it's filled with eye candy :-)
Have a great week,
Aleka

Moebius

On the 10th of March Jean Giraud passed away. Maybe that name means nothing to most people since he was know as Moebius, a very talented comics artist. Published in "babel", a Greek magazine dedicated to comics, his stories were always captivating: futuristic cities, fantastic worlds, the Arzach series, with a hero riding a pterodactyl were no words were spoken. Sorting through my collection of babel I find his stories, read them again, immersing myself in his universe. His work was not comics but art, simple as that.
Read, see.
Aleka

A zine

Taking part in our creative spaces every Thursday has been a wonderful opportunity for me to discover a lot of interesting blogs and creators. One of them is Emily Cater the woman behind Millicent Crow, who had a little giveaway going on and I actually won! So a letter was sent from New Zealand all the way to Greece and when it arrived I was very excited to open it :-)
I won a copy of her zine called "Denizens" and she also included a lovely screen printed birdie (I think I'll turn that into a brooch). I really enjoyed reading the zine, the few lines below each person were funny in a quirky/cool sort of way. You should check out her shop, she has beautiful gocco prints of old fashioned people and lovely feather brooches as well!
xoxo
Aleka

Apostolos Georgiou

One of my goals this year is to visit more museums in the city and see interesting art exhibitions, so I've been reading the papers hoping to find one that catches my attencion. One of these is the current exhibition of Apostolos Georgiou at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST). I fell in love with his truly large paintings portraying tender and sarcastic stories too, surreal moments filled with emotion and loneliness. Above are two of my favorite ones, at the EMST site you can see a few more and also see the space where they are showcased.
The museum is temporarily located at the Athens Conservatory and the show is until the 16th of October, you really shouldn't miss it!
xoxo
Aleka

A friend's show

My friend Alexia Tagka has her first personal show, from 12 to the 17th of August you can see her black and white paintings and engravings in the old school of Koukouli Zagoriou . She draws inspiration from the tradition and the people of her place of origin, Giannena. You can see more on her facebook page here.

Η φίλη μου Αλεξία κάνει την πρώτη της ατομική έκθεση, ζωγραφική και χαρακτικά, στο Κουκούλι Ζαγορίου στα Γιάννενα. Θα διαρκέσει απο 12 εως 17 Αυγούστου και περιλαμβάνει έργα εμπευσμένα από τον τόπο καταγωγής της. Μπορείτε να δείτε περισσότερα εδώ!

Monotyping - the kid version

I've been monotyping with my 4 year old nephew, well actually he's been doing it with a little help from me! I had a small piece of thick acrylic, he paints on it with temperas then we flip it over on the paper, press hard (he loves this part) and lift carefully. Ta da instant art! I'm definitely framing these, they turned out so great! Unlike the second page we did where he insisted on mixing ALL the colors together on the acrylic, that resulted in a brownish/greenish color not at all pretty.
To see a lot more creative spaces just visit our creative spaces!

Weekend finds

1.Red Wattlebird, Etching by Bridget Farmer
2.The Cat - original etching by GrazvydaArt
3.Small original feather etching by Fleurografie
4.June Bug - Original etching by Chartwellprint

One of my favorites blogs is Chantal's, she is a talented artist and she makes the most amazing lino prints among other things! Screen printing and linocut printing are took techniques I am familiar with since my studies were in the field of technologies of printing. However etching is one of the forms of printmaking that I am not familiar with and today I was introduced, through Chantal's blog to Bridget Farmer and to this blog post where she showcased step by step the inking up and printing process of an etching. So I did a little etsy search and came up with these lovely etching prints!
Enjoy :-)

A walk after the rain

I took a long walk today, here are a few photos. Now I'm tired so I'll sit by the fireplace and rest.
Also two advent calendars that I really enjoyed: Thereza's and Hanna's.

A habit

Still being lazy, so here are a few links to pass the time:

habit, such a great idea to see a day in the life of others,
Yelena Bryksenkova, if I had to pick a favorite it would be her sketchbook series. She is such an amazing talent and she has a blog too,
another showcase from doodlers anonymous, this one is about drawing a line from your favorite book. I am tempted but with so many books that I like it's so hard to choose!
Have a great weekend!

Found

I've been searching for a very long time for a cartoon I was watching when I was a kid. All I remembered was that there was this bunny with big ears that lived on the top of a building and would use a spyglass to look at his friends. Then he would make his ears sort of like a helicopter and join his friends. It didn't really have any dialogue so I wasn't sure which country it was from, though I guessed either Russia or Poland. Well today by complete accident I found it! It's actually Hungarian and called Rabbit with checkered ears. Unfortunately I could only find a small clip from the intro.
The video is from an amazing woman Lotte Reiniger, it's just so beautiful.

There

I'm back from my weekend trip to Andros, the Isamu Noguchi exhibition was brilliant and the island itself was lovely. I will be uploading more photos here, this lazy cat was so cute!
Tomorrow I will be heading of to the Peloponnese for a couple of weeks with no internet connection so posting will be kind of irregular.
One of my favorite blogs is here, I can get so sidetracked when there is a new post!
And an amazing photography blog here.

Research

I am preparing for my trip to Andros, researching Isamu Noguchi, packing bags and doing last minute shopping. During my internet search I came across Constantin Brâncuşi, very interesting photos of his work here. His photo reminded me of my favorite Greek sculptor Yannoulis Halepas, photos of him and his work here. His most famous sculpture is the Sleeping Female Figure (1877) at the tomb of Sofia Afentaki.
Halepas said that when the girl's mother came to see the clay model, to approve it so that he could make the final marble sculpture, she didn't like it and told him so. He then grabbed a sculpting tool and hit the statue at the chest, that made the head break off the body. Then the mother apologized to him saying she did like it. The sculpture, a plaster cast not the original, is at the first cemetery of Athens.

Butterfly

I will be going to this place this weekend, an exhibition of Isamu Noguchi's sculptures. Not sure if I love it, I guess I'm used to classic sculptures but it is interesting. I have big plans for next week too, this week I'm still on holiday.
This clay artist I do love.

My prize

My brother came in with the post and this is what he had for me! I won a giveaway at Doodlers Anonymous, a site with great stuff. The giveaway was hosted by the wonderful Thereza from tinyred, I just love her blog! I won a card game where the cards are designed by amazing artists such as: Thereza Rowe, Sarajo Frieden, Lotte, Lady Desidia, Esti, Alexandra Hedberg, Aris Moore and Kimberly Laurenti. You should definitely check them out, they are pretty awesome.
Also here you can buy your own pack of cards to support a good cause, you won't be disappointed!

Obsession

I'm in love with this combination. Orange and turquoise, I seem to be painting everything with these two colors!

I really like this.

For kids

Blip from Sean Mullen on Vimeo.

There is a channel on Vimeo for kids, I've spent nearly two hours watching videos. Funny, cute, simple, more elaborate they have everything. The one I picked made me laugh, a red blip and a blue blip take over the world. For more go here but I must warn you it's addictive!

New facebook and flickr

We just started a page on facebook, it's right here. I'm still trying to figure out how it works, hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon! I also started a new account on flickr here, to post my photos, I have about 3000 of them in my hard drive. Catching up will be fun, I started with my trip to Berlin in 2009.
I found this today.

Byzantine museum

This Sunday I visited the Byzantine museum with my friend Genny. I'm not very religious and things concerning religion generally don't appeal to me but I was pleasantly surprised. The museum was rather interesting and we spent nearly two hours looking through its collection of ceramics, paintings, mosaics. I loved the old books and some frames were so beautiful with such vivid colors! My photos unfortunately don't do them justice.
The exhibition we wanted to see was called archetypes, a photographic comparison of Greek huts and sheepfolds with modern architecture and art. You can read more about it here.

Glass

My sister took vitraux (stained glass) classes this year. These are some of the things she made, not perfect yet but she is learning! The shell is her favorite so far, I really like its colors too.
A friend send me this: Red Nose Studio, stunning 3D images. Edgar Allan Poe is so amazing, loved the raven on his head!

Findings

I find little treasures in my garden, this is what I found this morning. A perfect (but dead) butterfly and two almost white snail shells.
This is also a great find: Gary, so beautiful I don't think I have enough words to describe it! Just watch it and you'll be amazed!