Lockdown Sketches – Week Six

Day 36: Week Six of full Greek Lockdown and my sixth and last week of daily lockdown drawings. Really enjoyed this drawing of an ancient wooden door, with its rust and peeling turquoise paint, revealing a previous life as a yellow ochre door.

Day 37: This drawing was done from one of my photographs taken on a walk way back in 2010… back in the days when I used to lead walks. These days I’m a bit of a slouch! Anyway, I was drawn to the low eye level of the photo, looking up the street and up to the roof tops. I also loved the little walled courtyard of this house. Back in 2010 I was a bit obsessed with walled gardens and secret courtyards as we didn’t have one then. Ours was probably the only house in the village without an ‘avli’ or courtyard garden. It’s a long story… but we did manage to acquire the little walled garden which had previously belonged to our house. I honestly have no idea which village this house is in though – it would entail some sleuthing through my old walking notes to find it’s location.

Day 38: When drawing the dark interior space at the top of the door I somehow slipped into cross-hatching. I quite liked the bold effect, so continued shading with ink and decided against using any colour on this sketch. That’s actually a fresh goats cheese hanging from the left side of the door next to the drying red onions.

Day 39: Another drawing done from an old photo taken on a walk. This roofless mud brick house was one of several deserted dwellings in the hamlet of Paneika, north of the village of Melitsa. Again I abstained from the use of colour as I liked the look of the two black and white drawings together.

Day 40: Sketch of one of the many small chapels in Koroni Monastery – one of my favourite places to draw. This chapel overlooks the church of Elaistria and looks towards Zaga beach. I particularly love these little white metal crosses on the railings along the wall. There’s quite a drop on the other side of these railings.

Day 41: This sketch features two styles of the pottery which used to be made in Charakopio and the neighbouring village of Vounaria. Up until the early 1970’s there was a flourishing pottery industry around in this area. For years, huge quantities of pots were hand built to transport oil, olives and other produce far and wide. They were loaded into ships and transported from the port of Koroni. Sadly the pottery industry no longer exists and all that remains are clusters of large pots standing around in gardens here and there. One of the last ovens used to be in the olive grove behind my studio and when we re-built the dividing wall, we discovered it had been made mostly with mud and big chunks of broken pottery.

Day 42: The last of my daily lockdown sketches features the door of Fouli’s Taverna in Harakopio. This taverna which is at the bottom of our street, just beside the church, is known locally for having live Greek music on Friday evenings. In the summer, customers sit outside the church and in the street to watch the trio of musicians perform traditional music. Usually, the later it gets, the more dancing in the street happens. This year, because of Covid, who knows if this will be possible or not…

I’ll be taking a break from daily sketchbook drawing for a little while, now that the shop is open again. I’ve really enjoyed the discipline of the daily commitment and it’s great to have a physical record of these six weeks in lockdown – such a strange period in time. A few of these photos will likely be reproduced as giclee prints on paper or on stretched canvas and made available from our website soon. Meanwhile, if you see one you like, just contact me to find out more about prints.