A Graphics Artist's Diary

By Panagiotis Lampridis

Panagiotis born in Athens, Greece was given, not a mythical but real superpower, as an artist. He knew from an early age he had talent. However, his fairly open-minded Greek parents, like many other Greek parents expected him to become a lawyer or a doctor. Irreverent, comedic, and honest this mini-biography anecdotally shares how Panagiotis's drive to succeed as an artist lead him down some rabbit holes at a time when the Greek economic crisis was at its heights. In this lovely, heartwarming, hard-luck life adventure you are likely to find yourself all the while laughing through his hilarious journey.

a Graphic artist’s Diary is a wonderful, easy-to-read story about what one will do to find when they know they were born with a talent to find their purpose. His message; follow your dream until you find yourself living it. Bumps and all...living in your bliss is worth it. But first, you must know yourself...see who you really are.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordeee
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781946274618

Panagiotis Lampridis

Panagiotis Lampridis was born in Piraeus, Greece. He is a graduate of graphic design school and has been working as a graphic designer since 1997. His love for painting and creating, in general, led him to graphic design. He even won a design contest on Greek Television. Panagiotis has participated in four group exhibitions and many solo shows of his work.Currently, he writes for social interests' websites. In his other works, he's won first prize for a one-act playwriting competition that was later performed on stage, and he's also won first prize in a poetry competition. Deepening his artistic talent, he dabbles as an amateur musician who writes lyrics and composes. An avid sports fan, he was a professional athlete. " a Graphics artist's Diary " is his first book.''

Book preview

Chapter 1

Olympic artist

When I was a youngin’, right around the early 80s, not too much was on my mind. As a young boy, my main concerns were when the ice cream season would begin and if my favorite Greek soccer team, Olympiacos, would win the championship. Nowadays, you can have ice cream just about any time of the year, but back then, there was a season limit. Ice cream in the wintertime was decisively a no-go. If you dared to beat the crowd and ask for the first bite of a winter cone, lucky was the last thing you would be. Outstretched little pink hands to Mom for ice cream money would get this response, Come on now! You’re gonna buy last year’s expired leftovers? Wait until next month. Needless to say, you’d be the one left frozen into eternity if you expected money!

Back then, in the 90s, due to the decade of drought, the worse Greece had seen in one hundred years, there was a shortage of Olympiacos titles being played. The most successful football club in Greece (their very name inspired from ancient Greek Olympic games), and I had the chance to celebrate three or four of their seventy-seven wins. But the decade of drought ushered in the stone age; no water, agriculture decimated and that caused childhood trauma. But aside from these, I can’t say I had any serious problems. Later on, when I grew up some, and the bottom head was inserted into the equation, things started getting complicated. Allow me to explain.

Until puberty, the wall above my bed was delightfully decorated with posters and pictures of my glorious Olympiacos team. Centered was our superstar player, a guy with a big moustache. What a man, what a hero! One bed over, my brother had his own posters plastering his side of the wall; the disgusting rival team, the green ones, featuring their superstar, a clean-cut guy. Those guys have been softer than butter back since when they started in 1905. Real losers, if you ask me. Every week, we’d re-decorate our walls in the battle of walls, which involved a lot of ass-kickings and poster teardown-ing.

As time went by, we toned down the ass-kicking; the blows started to hurt more! I also began looking into the musical side of things. I added a little bit of Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi to my wall. That was all good for a while, but then this new head kept asking, what’s up? ‘Don’t you want to pin some ass up there too? What’s up? The sky! Yeah, of course, I do!

Mom’s and Pop’s reaction was a rather chill one. They were raising boys—Greek ones. Puberty-wise, it’s what is expected of teenage boys—so no problem. MY issue with the wall was Aesthetics. Houston, we have a problem! How could I smoothly mix my soccer hero player and his moustache, Jon Bon Jovi’s long locks, Michael Jackson Moonwalking and Cindy Crawford’s ass on my wall of fandom without clashing? Huh?

Right there, my dear people, was when raw instinct took over—that innocent era when my inner artist wouldn’t allow a view of tastelessness above my headboard. And then, just like that, organically, I was initiated into the art world of Collage. Note to reader, talent identified.

Since my first attempt at a collage was successful, I expanded my decorative talent to school books and notebooks. I had plenty of material thanks to huge men’s magazines published at that time to cover a whole lot of books.

Every month I’d impatiently wait for my neighborhood newspaper stand to post the new editions of eye-candy ‘bibles’ with the same anticipation of any hip hop head, The Source and XXL.

Delightfully, too, every month, there was an almost life-size centerfold of the era’s top model; Naomi, Cindy, Linda, etc., and I would post them side by side, directly across from my bed. When I woke up, what was the first thing I’d see? Them gorgeously plastered on the wall, and I’d pretend they were my rotating girlfriends; what a jerk-off typa thought! The bottom head in full force.

Besides erotic stimuli, these monthly publications offered an artistic dimension, which, in my case, translated to my aforementioned first contact with the creative process. This collage thing, that is.

It got to me so bad that cutting pictures out of magazines wasn’t enough by a long shot, so I