Virtual New Zealand and

Additional Blog Challenges 

May 3, 2012 

  "Extraordinary TRAVIATA...living her fullest life!" 

Inspired by the challenge blog 4X4 FRIDAY (that tasked artists to create anything they wished to create,) I thought I'd do a tribute piece to honor the incredibly wonderful opera I saw recently at the Met in New York City...La Traviata. I love the theme of living life to its fullest (hard to do when you know you're dying of tuberculosis) as did the opera's heroine, Violetta... La Traviata translates to mean "one who goes astray..."

I hope you're well and life is treating you gently. I've been playing catch up this week...lots of laundry and errands that needed to be done because I was away last week. But, as always, I must make time for "art stuff" ... 

For ART and SOLE's POSTCARD CHALLENGE 2012, we made our virtual journey to beautiful New Zealand. Since one of my correspondents (Bahati) is an indigenous person from a small Ethiopian village, whenever he travels, he's interested in the plight of those original country residents. In the case of New Zealand, that would be the colorful Maori people. 

SUNDAY POSTCARD ART's challenge was to use the theme "CELEBRATE" for our creations... I did! 

Finally, the TAKE A WORD blog wanted to see a piece with a BLACKBIRD...of course, Edgar Allan Poe immediately came to mind with his RAVEN... 

Once again, thank you for stopping by. I hope to see you next time. Have a happy, healthy week...

Hugs,
abbyj

 

FAIRYTALE NORWAY: 
REAL-LIFE LONDON 
April 29, 2012 

   "A week of RAIN in London!!!"    

But, no complaints here. My daughter and I escaped to London for a week of fun, during which we met up with our cousin from Glasgow, Scotland. We had lots of laughs, some good food and drink and saw many sights, both common and unusual! Some quick memories...before we met our cousin, we indulged ourselves in HIGH TEA at a posh department store, Fortnum and Mason- pretty much our first stop, just to get us in the British frame of mind!

 

We enjoyed seeing Big Ben, standing guard over Parliament,

 the Tower Bridge, keeper of the Crown Jewels,

a particularly pretty Tube stop at Tottenham Court Road...all tiled designs...

and finally, our Cousin Lynne, Michelle and I enjoyed some time in a few pubs...

We enjoyed some great "girl time" together as we shared 3 years worth of news. Isn't reconnecting with family wonderful? 

I didn't have much time for my usual art challenges this week...in fact, it may be a few weeks before I'm back in the challenge groove again...but I did complete this week's ART and SOLE POSTCARD 2012 challenge: we all made our virtual trip to Norway. I met some of the SAMI people...the only indigenous people in the country. Traditionally, they followed the reindeer herds so they were nomads. They used their reindeer for milk, meat, hides and also as draft animals for their carriages...their vehicle of choice. They lived in tents of reindeer skin, but in winter they lived in low stone houses covered with earth...good protection from northern Norway's fierce frost. Today, the Sami are more stationary and have branched out to fishing and farming. As a people, they have suffered as have our Native American Indian nations- they too have been robbed of their culture and language by their government. But they, too, have fought to survive and are still an integral part of the country that is Norway! 

SOARTFUL CHALLENGES called for a wedding anniversary theme. I chose a gypsy couple from my Kingdom of Girellygog (my imaginary gypsy kingdom)... they're the sweethearts celebrating their anniversary!

That's our visit for this week! Hope to see you next week...time seems so short. Sorry I didn't get to visit everyone's entries this week...hopefully, next week!!!

Hugs and love,

abbyj