Sunday, April 14, 2024

Art and When Food is Art too

 Hi everyone. I hope your weekend is going well.

      Some of you asked if the cats and dogs in Friday's post were strays, and I don't really have an answer to that. I did see cats waiting to get inside of doors, and I did see people feeding cats in places where there were no doors. I am not certain about the dog photos either. They looked in good health, and perhaps they could have just been pets of employees just hanging out. I did see a few dogs I suspected were strays, and that made me very sad. Both of my dogs were rescue dogs from the southern US, and it's not just a problem in other places. I think Miss Maddie was one of those strays that wandered around and managed to evade being caught for a while. She had a very stressful time adjusting to being in the house when we got her, and she was good at escaping places. She could even get herself out of a dog crate if you weren't careful.  We don't know her backstory at all, and not that we know too much about Pete, but we do know he was rescued as a young puppy being left out in a box. 

       OK, enough about dogs and cats.

     Today I have 2 pages, both from my Greece Travel Journal with geometric forms on them. I am linking up to Valerie's challenge at Art Journal Journey.  My first page is all about the evil eyes you see for sale when visiting Greece. These are popular tourist kitsch souvenirs that are supposed to keep bad things from happening to you.


Now that you are refreshed about what evil eyes look like, here's my  journal page.


     My background is blue cardstock. I started by sticking down the big evil eye in the middle that says Greece on it.  It's a sticker I picked up in my travels. Then I created six smaller evil eyes. I started with a couple of paper punches to make the blue and white outer edges. I didn't have a punch small enough for the light blue ring, but I did have some page reinforcers (you know, the little sticky rings that you put around hole punched notebook pages). They were the right size so I stuck those down, used a blue paint paint to color them and then added a black Sharpie dot in the middle.

     Once I had these evil eyes glued down, I used a white paint pen to make the strings they are hanging from. I added the kitty chipboard image at the bottom and decided not to add any details to him. I also decided to make a brick floor for him to walk across, similar to a brick pattern I saw while on my trip.

     And here's the other page that I made. It's not a very exciting page, but it does have a big square in the middle.


I wrote down some of the foods (there was so much good food) I ate while traveling, and I created this  middle square based on a sign we saw while in a small town north of Athens. 


     I used this sign as a rough inspiration for my page. On my page the square is the cardboard from  inside of a fat quarter that I recently bought (and used to make this journal's cover).  To copy the words from the sign, I used sticker letters based on what I had, nor did I worry about matching this sign exactly, except for the actual words.

      We ate lunch at the restaurant with the sign out front, and we had a fabulous meal. It was our most expensive meal of the whole trip, but well worth it.  Since the menu was only in Greek, and the owner's English was limited (but better than our Greek), he took us right into the kitchen to show us what was available for food.  Plus, his wife had made the special of the day, and she gave me a big spoonful to taste to see if we wanted any of that.


We started with salad.


And here was a special.  It was shrimp in a tomato with vegetable sauce. 


Then we had some langostinos (little lobsters that are crayfish sized)  served with this to die for mustard-butter sauce.



Then we finished with some grilled flounder.


We ate so much food, but it was all very very delicious. The good thing is we didn't need dinner that night either.


Then the owner brought out this delicious little bite of dessert.


After all that food, we had to close our eyes for a few minutes and soak up the sun,


and watch a ferry boat take some passengers in from and then out to one of the Aegean islands. 


I hope I didn't make you hungry. I certainly made myself want this meal again. 😏
I'm linking up to Gillena's  Sunday Smiles also. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.




































20 comments:

hels said...

Fresh sea food is a real pleasure, especially if the pleasure is increased by lying backwards in the sunshine. Grilled flounder is sublime.

Iris Flavia said...

My doc is from Greece. A cute guy. He uses his colleague´s gloves cause he can´t get new ones. They are small and... pink :-)
We laugh about the cliché.
We have a cat here, black, well fed, not afraid of people, stray? Always in for a belly-rub!
Love the "evil" eye. And Feta!!! Oh, shops are closed on Sundays... but I have Greek olives!
Have a good Sunday, hugs

David M. Gascoigne, said...

Your card is a great representation of your visit to Greece, Erika, and maybe the evil eye will protect you even in New Hampshire! So much food, so much pleasure. More than I eat in all three meals on an average day, but I would give it my best shot! All the best - David

Tom said...

...I'm hungry, off to breakfast.

Angie's Recipes said...

You have me seriously crave some seafood!

CJ Kennedy said...

I love your evil eye page. Yup, protect the kitty. That food looks fabulous. So cool that you got taken into the kitchen. I wouldn't be able to move and would need to rest at the table after that meal. Hope you get out this morning. Sounds like we might have showers this afternoon.

The Happy Whisk said...

I love closing my eyes in the sun. Your art is wonderful to look at. Food looks good. This past week I added seafood back to the meal plan. So happy to have it back.

Valerie-Jael said...

I love both pages, but those food pictures make me very hungr! Great idea to use those evil eyes to make a collage for my challenge at AJJ, thanks so much! Have a good start in the new week, hugs, Valerie

*Vicki* said...

Oh wow I love the inspiration you've taken from that photo for your AJ page! The colors are so pretty and I love the added cat with it too! Oh my word so many lovely photos and it looks amazing! I think you look very satisfied in that one photo! LOL Glad you had a great and enjoyable time!

Anonymous said...

Delicious seafood and the evil eye page is a great tribute -Christine cmlk79.blogspot.com

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Seafood is our favorite choice for dinner and everything looked great at yours, Erika, except for the lagastinos as I would prefer the little lobsters were not staring at me while being consumed for dinner.

Jeanie said...

I love how you interpreted your journal pages, especially the one with the cat!

Lowcarb team member said...

Oh that food looks delicious.

I hope you've had a good weekend, enjoy the coming new week... April is zooming by!

All the best Jan

kathyinozarks said...

The food looks soooo delicious-what a treat

Mae Travels said...

All the food looks fabulous, especially the fresh fish. Sometimes it really does feel as if an evil eye has been thwarting one’s well being! I wish those talismans would really work to avoid it.
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

What a brilliant idea to use the hole reinforcers in the Evil Eye. And the colors are so good, too. Of course, you had me at cat!!

Wow to that Greek food. Nice that both the pages were perfect for Valerie's theme at AJJ, too. I can't believe how much food you left on the table when you were finished. Yes, I am now very hungry.

Aimeslee Winans said...

Great progress on your travel journal and what a yummy spread, xoxo

Neet said...

That food looks and sounds delicious. How did you manage to eat all of that? What struck me was how nice it was of the owner to take you into the kitchen and then for his wife to let you have a taster. What a wonderful experience. Wow!
Love your page with the Greek evil eye pendants. I was amazed at how good a representation you got of the smaller ones, the colour matching was perfect. Well done.
Hugs, Neet xx

pearshapedcrafting said...

Fabulous page as well as wonderful pics of your food! How good of the owner to show you the food, which, by the way looks absolutely delicious, hugs, Chrisx

Mia said...

Of course you made me hungry, Erika. This food looks sooo yummy!!! Debra seems to enjoy the meal and the sun. As for your page, it is simply gorgeous! Kisses,my friend.