HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

February 12, 2014

 

 

To each and every reader of this blog...family, friends, soon-to-be friends...Happy Valentine's Day! Hope it's a day that finds you with at least one loved one around you!! :)

Some new pieces of art to answer blog challenges...

Flicker's DIGITALMANIA introduced us to the art of the very well known  Romanian photographer and artist, Caras Ionet. Here are my pieces inspired by Caras...

[Although this picture may look a bit surreal, it is truly based on a photograph I took while staying at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya. The giraffes are welcome to come into the manor house...or put their heads in the windows to get "treats" or a friendly hug from the guests. My daughter and I had great fun!]

SUNDAY POSTCARD ART was interested in finding out about our favorite pet...mine was named KELLY. She was a Yellow-Naped Amazon parrot who talked, sang, danced and provided day-long dialogue if engaged. Here's Kelly...

 

 

THE THREE MUSES called for art that was black and white...

 

and that's it for current challenges. I wish you a wonderful Valentine's Day! Hope to see you for the next posting of Life...the Vivere!

Big Hugs,
abbyj

THE HEART TURNS TO LOVE

February 7, 2014

 

Hi Folks!

Well, it's not Valentine's Day yet, but my thoughts for art have turned to love and the heart...like this one for SUNDAY POSTCARD ART paying tribute to a heart that's blue...

Here's a little LOVE graffiti for THE THREE MUSES...

Finally, for the TAKE A WORD art challenge blog, even the butterflies were flitting around a girl thinking of her love !!

Thank you for checking in...hope you're near your loved ones for the coming week... after all, it's almost Valentine's Day!

 

Have an enjoyable week.

Big Hugs,

abbyj







Clocks,  Bridges and Nature, Oh My!

February 4, 2014

 

I hope you're well and have had an enjoyable week. What a fun week and weekend I've had... New York City in some balmy weather...sunny and warm(er) than it's been in Central New York!! My cousin and I had tickets to the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Puccini's MADAM BUTTERFLY. The voices were superb, the costumes and colors vibrant and the story...tragic. Interestingly, they used puppets to represent two children as in the photo below... they were eerily lifelike! The puppeteers were in black in the background.



 
This weeks art challenges were most enjoyable. For example, COLLAGE OBSESSION asked for "bridges" and I didn't get to it until late...so, I'm posting my entries here instead of on the C.O. group site... Since I was in NYC, I looked out of my cousin's window in Brooklyn and this was the picture I saw...I can see both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges...



then, I remembered an incredible bridge we saw while we were in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam...called a monkey bridge because it seems that only a monkey could make it across. They're typically made of a only a few bamboo logs and one handrail. But, the name really comes from the stooped monkey-like posture people had to maintain when crossing, so as not to plunge into the river below. There aren't many of these bridges left...only in the remotest areas.

The current COLLAGE OBSESSION theme is to create a piece showing one of nature's homes...

SUNDAY POSTCARD ART requested art about Italy. I took one of my many photos and created this... from Venice with love!

Clocks were of interest to the TAKE A WORD challenge blog...

Finally, Flicker's DIGITALMANIA group introduced us to artist Anna Higgie, who does interesting collages. Here's one of hers...

 and here's what she inspired me to create...

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you like what you see...and will stop by again!
Enjoy your week...
 
Big Hugs,
abbyj

ARTFUL READERS CLUB

THE QUEST by Nelson DeMille

January 31, 2014

Welcome to my first review for 2014! Nothing like starting with a blockbuster, but, sadly, not as much of a blockbuster as many of DeMille's other tales!

THE QUEST is a rewrite of a book DeMille wrote four decades ago, but the theme is timeless... a search for the Holy Grail. Interesting to note that he wrote this book long before any of the Indiana Jones movies or any of the similarly themed novels like The Da Vinci Code were conceived. He wrote it before stories about treasure hunting for ancient objects or deciphering medieval mysteries became a cliché.  This is a story about a trio (2 journalists and a photographer) that goes to the jungles of Ethiopia to cover the fighting between rebels and Haile Selassie loyalists, but ends up searching for The Holy Grail.

There's a lot to like here...there are Indochina and post World War II Soviet prison camps that play a role in the development of the two male journalists; there's a female photographer that's  sexy,  beautiful and   mysterious, putting herself in harm's way; there's a great description of a terrible yet historically significant time that shows the depravity of human nature... and there's terrific imagination by DeMille in using the Catholic Church to set in motion a chain of events that lead to a priest being held in captivity for forty years and ultimately to our three journalists searching for Christ's Cup. That said, there were times when the story was slow...unusual for a DeMille read. There's none of John Corey's wit and sarcasm (the protagonist in several of DeMille's other books,) , no anti-terrorism excitement, no consistent page turning madness...I missed that!

Would I recommend THE QUEST... most  definitely, but expect a departure from many of  his other   action-packed novels. It's different enough to stand out and keep the reader's attention, but not what I was expecting to find in MY quest!

Thanks for stopping by. Please join me for my next posting when I'll be sharing art,  photographs and more thoughts.

Hugs,

abbyj

REMEMBERING...and CHALLENGES

January 28, 2014

 



Hi Dear Ones,

For me, the month of February is a special time for remembering two of my closest and dearest...  my Mom's birthday was February 3rd...she gave me my love of music... and my Nana's was February 12th...she taught me how to love! In the photo above, there are four generations of women on my Mom's side...my Mom, Nana, Michelle (at 1 year 5 months,) and me! If we were to make that photo today, there'd be  an additional  generation... Michelle's daughter, Lilly, now 9!



 

On to the art challenges...TAKE A WORD asked to see something about "couples..." My art turned to romance!

 

SUNDAY POSTCARD ART only wanted to see "faces." My face is braving the snow...appropriate for a Central New York woman!

 

I did two pieces for THE THREE MUSES  this week because the first one..."word..." is a bit late to enter on their website. We were asked to pick one of our favorite words and illustrate it. The word I picked was a long word...  SESQUIPEDALIAN. I know many more sesquipedalians than I'd like!!

 

Their request for this week is a piece of art including a silhouette...

 

So pleased that you stopped by for this posting. Please come back soon...and enjoy the rest of your week and weekend!

 

Big Hugs,

abbyj

 





SOME FUN CHALLENGES

January 21, 2014

 

 

Hello from the frozen north! At the moment, we're experiencing extreme cold after a couple of days of snow...that's the weather I know and love!! :) Crazy...I know!

 

My art this posting has nothing to do with cold and snow... SUNDAY POSTCARD ART requested art based on a night sky...I had fun with this one!!!

 

COLLAGE OBSESSION brought some color into the challenge equation declaring that  the Pantone  color for 2014 is "radiant orchid." Here's my piece using 2014's favorite color... 

 

 INSPIRATION AVENUE had a passion for mice...not me!

 

Finally, Flicker's DIGITALMANIA group challenged participating artists to create a piece of art inspired by well known mixed media artist, Lynne Perrella. I fell in love with her Ancram Collages. My collage was influenced by my upbringing in New York City... it's made up of some family photos and miscellaneous other photos.

 I really enjoyed this week's challenges...I hope you like them and will stop by for my next blog posting of LIFE...THE VIVERE.

 

Enjoy your week...be safe!

 

Big Hugs,

abbyj

LET IT SNOW...

January 18, 2014

 

Our beautiful blanket of snow has returned making everything look so clean, pure and peaceful. The theme of two of my three pieces of art for this posting have to do with the snow...no surprise! I hope the snow hasn't slowed you down at all...if, indeed, you have snow where you are!

SUNDAY POSTARD ART has requested art in a monochromatic theme...snow in the big city!!
 

 



TAKE A WORD challenge blog asked for art with a moon included...my moon appeared while it snowed!

Finally, we move from the snow to the far away and very warm South Pacific, to Papua, New Guinea for INSPIRATION AVENUE. This is a place that I've always wanted to visit. I picture it to be similar in many ways to my beloved Africa. Perhaps some day...

Enjoy your week... stay warm (or cool, as your geography dictates!)

Hugs,
abbyj 



THE REST OF THE STORY...

January 11, 2014

 

This was quite a week for those of us on the east coast...severe snow and ice storms were the norm! Overturned tractor trailers along the highways were not an unusual sight!

It's warming up now...snow is melting. But, I look forward to the next snowfall...NOT snowstorm!!

This weather is so different from the mild temperatures we experienced on our Christmas riverboat trip along the Rhine to the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland...all of which had no snow at all!

In my last post, we went as far as Strasbourg, France. In this post, we go to the finish...Lucerne, Switzerland!! Our next stop after Strasbourg was Breisach and the Black Forest in Germany. This densely forested, mountainous region is famous for its traditional cuckoo clocks, cherry schnapps, Black Forest cake and is the setting for numerous legends and fairy tales.

From Breisach, we took a short ride to a beautifully restored Alsace town, Colmar. Laced with pedestrian-friendly streets, half-timbered houses, canals and world-renowned museums, Colmar is a storybook place!

It's the home of the Maison des Tetes (House of Heads,) so named for the 111 heads decorating its façade...

 

and it's also the onetime home of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, designer of the Statue of Liberty...a version of which we found at a traffic circle.

 

 

 

The following day we bid farewell to our riverboat and crew and headed to Lucerne, Switzerland for a few days. Our hotel was right on the beautiful and busy Lake Lucerne.

 

 

One of the most striking sites in this city is the famous 1821 Lion Monument...sculpture of a wounded lion commemorating the Swiss Guards who died while defending Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. Mark Twain said it was "the most moving and mournful piece of stone in the world..."and indeed, it is! Click on the photo to see more detail. (In fact, you can do that with all the photos!)

 



Lucerne has some of the most unusual and beautifully painted houses.... like these...

and a house decorated especially for Advent! Each evening at 6 PM, the numbers would flip and new window revealed.

The famous Chapel Bridge is a 670 foot-long wooden bridge that spans the Reuss River. Originally built in 1333, it was rebuilt in 1993 after a devastating fire.





Finally, the extraordinarily beautiful Lucerne Cathedral...

Our Christmas trip each year renews our spirits and makes us even more thankful for all the gifts with which our Creator blesses us. One of the things we most enjoy is meeting locals and exchanging some stories about our lives... conversations, photos... it makes us more compassionate, understanding of lifestyles that may differ from ours and reaffirms our feelings that people are the same no matter where they are! This is a shout out to our newest friends, Eric and Sabrina, with whom we shared dinner at a Lucerne Christmas Market.

 

 Thanks for checking back. Hope to see you for my next... enjoy your week ahead!

 

Hugs,

abbyj