the Swedish house in Kavala

or "Gästhemmet i Kavalla" have been my home for the last three warm weeks. You can read more of the house on this link (you can switch to English if you prefer it but you'll lose the images" It's a really wonderful house with a lot a space for eating (or reading) Day time the the house is rather quite everybody (scientist, scholars , authors and an occasional artist) works but evening time the different eating places fill up The roof night time is quite spectacular, day time its almost to hot And a big thanks to Carita, Stella and all the inhabitance of the house, today my family missed the plane here (due to me booking in my name and Lufthansa not allowing for name changing) I go a wonderful support. we managed to get another (last minute reservation) here and they will arrive to Kavala this Sunday instead. A week on the trusty autoblogger will blog for you.

That's it I've had it!

as it happened this came to be the last drawing I made from Kavala (for this time?), this time I sat under a tree and just besides an op en garbage can (the really are large trolleys here in Greece), small bug's kept dropping from the tree making my skin crawl. I hope to do more real life drawings from my home town Sigtuna and Stockholm when I get back (if the weather admits it)

The last push

Time is running up, this Friday my family are coming and we are going to take a weeks holiday at Tassos, (an island just outside of Kavala). I made the left part of this in the old town of kavala, the right part at the docks. It's hard to draw floating boats, there constant in motion making the perspective very hard to get right I had to stand up and draw this one, not used to that made the body hurt a bit This morning I decided to try and run up the hill to the cross on the top, halfway there I met a man with four canine motivators (i.e large stray dogs), the dogs kept me motivated all the way up to the top they where just a pace behind barking like mad, I might be able to market this as a new way of training.

In this town every pigeon is an art critic

While drawing this picture a pigeon (probably not liking what he saw) tried to destroy it by spreading some fresh guano over it. Luckily it hit me instead and as always I was protected by my king size hat.. Not so pleasant company today, just one man who sat in his car the whole time it took to finish this one and a lot of dried dog turds, I guess at night this is dog territory

drawing while talking

this is a fishing boat I made this morning, I sat at a park bench almost in the shadow. A middle aged couple came and sat beside me and as a funny coincidence they where Swedish (not many tourist in Kavala, mostly Bulgarians, Romanians and Germans) . They where surprised that I could draw and talk at the same time, hey I can dance the cha-cha and draw at the same time! Made this one yesterday at the beach, it was a Sunday and the Greek and I have a little different view on personal space (we northerners are used to have quite a lot and only in extreme cases do we choose to sit close to strangers). I do not see the Greeks as pigs it's just that it's easier to draw a lot of pigs than a lot of dogs, I guess I look more like a pig than a dog.

There's a wedding in town

Saturdays seems to be the day Greek people get married, while drawing this drawing a pair decorated a car. Every car that passed it honked it's horn. It's a rather trafficated street it feels if was I to continue with this (street drawing) I would easily shorten my life expectensy with 10 years, never mind I'll soon be back in the forests of Sweden.

This is where you start paying, with sweat

Well drawing the first page was in the shadow, the second I was in the glory that is the sun. I left half baked, the sad thing is if you find a really charming house in this town it's sure to be in heavy decay.

the labors of Herakles

Slaying animals and cleaning out barns are so passe

A new drive for public transportaion, spent the better part of yesterday sitting on a bus or waiting for a bus. I visited Tassos

a window of opportunity

When I sat drawing this an old Greek lady spoke to me, my Greek is not that good but I think she hoped for the destruction of all the old Tobacco buildings in down Kavala. When in doubt if you're in Sweden or Greece, remember: Greek City Swedsih City

the Draughtsmans Sombrero

The day before the last I went up to the highest point in Kavala, there I found a Cross and this little building maybe it's for monitoring the inhabitants. Ellis was a bit concerned that all the sunlight should burn my bald head, Ellis apparently never heard of the Draughtsmans Sombrero, a must for the outdoor Artist..

Improving reality

When I draw the wires a couple of days ago I noticed some minor flaws in the Design as you can see I fixed most of the flaws. Even the digger seemed to miss someting Will color this later it's cloudy today in Greece

Beach sketching

Made this sketch while relaxing at the beach after drawing the extractor of the last post, now I'm off to the beach yet again. There was some kind of rave party in Kavala yesterday so not to much sleep... In Greece the laundry dries in under one hour if you hang it in the open, the joy, the joy. I think I will wash alot here in Sweden you never can be sure when the next rain will come

You mean you travelled 2400 km to draw that?

well greece is not ll about fired food and whine, people have to make a living to. This picture depicts the unlikely combination gas station and restaurant, maybe it's a common combination around the world. When I come to think of it's pretty common i Sweden...

Phillipi

Spent a rather hot afternoon at Philippi, the place where Caesars killers where fought and defeated. this is St Pauls (or was) Basilica. A Ionic capital a corinthian capital, could find any Doric ones, maybe they had gone out of style by then..

My wifes solo show

My wife Cecilia is having here first solo exhibition, the show opens this Thursday, August 28th, between 5 and 7 pm. It continues until September 17th. Wish I could be there! This is where you start paying with sweat The day before yesterday I took a stroll up the hill to a little chapel, the heat and the climb made me sweat uncontrollable, luckily the place was empty and with a soft breeze rather pleasant. Afterwards I choose to stay on my room, a room with a view, this little church has the unfortunate habit of tolling it's bells at 7 am. But at that time I ought to be awake already

Ali doesn't live here anymore

Strolled up to the old town and came up on this stout fellow as it happens it's Muhammad Ali, who where born in Kavalla of Albanian origin he came to be Vali of Egypt (there's a rags to riches story for you) Drawing car is not on of my specialties (I worked with car games for 5 years but failed to get interested by them) but as I here I thought I must start draw things I'm not so good at drawing. Taking some time of I went bathing at the local beach while listening th a group of aspiring rappers (or wannabe juvenile delinquents) I made this design for a laptop at the same time. I have a rather hard time finding something useful to do at the evenings, I fail to meet any of the other inhabitants of the house (I might have e and remember, don't mess with the green pigs

Urban decay

Kavalla used to be the center of the Greek tobacco industry you can still see remnants of a glorious part while strolling through the city. If you come buy a interesting or beautiful building it's almost certainly in heavy decay. This first I did while sitting on a heavy trafficked way, a kind man stopped his car and gave me some water and a bottle of juice, very kind. Hopefully the graffiti on the wall means nothing in particular, if you are able to read greek please see if you can decipher it's meaning. As a downside to drawing on place my but tend to hurt after one hour or so, hopefully a rich Greek Diet will put some much needed lard on my bony behind..

there's electricity in Kavalla

It took me quite some time to get down to business doing actual real life sketching, this is something I used to do quite a lot but I tend to draw more and more from my imagination. The temperature was well over 30 degrees (that's centigrades folks) my only companion was a stray cat, they are so small here in Greece makes our Swedish cat's looks like Pumas. On my way home I managed to get lost, Kavalla is like a labyrinth well at least I did not meet any Minotaurs and at last I bought a map and found my way back. I must have the worst sense of direction in the world.

Flight entertainment

One of the advantages of keeping a sketchbook is that no time is dead time, yesterday I went by airoplane from Stockholm to Kavalla over München, the trip took all-in-all 12 hours. This gave me ample time to draw, though my fountain pen started acting strange while in air. I've tried to put some of my thought back into the drawing, if you care to read the comments you might (or not) get a clearer picture of the thoughts that crosses my mind while drawing This is the first thing I saw this morning when looking out from my room, the Swedish house in Kavalla is beautiful (mor pictures to follow) everything breathes culture (how did I get here?) on a side not have you noticed when the airplane brakes you can see the planes intestines? rather unsettling. Now I will go where only mad dogs and Englishmen goes....