Jude’s Travel Words blog’s topic for Life in Colour this month is the color blue. Jude challenges us to find “unusual” blues! OK, I’ll do my best…
Life in Colour: Blues
L-APC: Large to Small
Lens-Artists host this week, Patti, has given us an interesting challenge: Pick a color and choose photos with objects of that color from large (like a wall or a building) to small (like a mushroom or an earring). I picked two colors: White and Pink.
WHITE
Largest: a snowy landscape
Large: a round white barn…
…and its door
Medium: Our niece’s wedding dress (with blue embroidered flowers!)
Smallish: Styrofoam chest with ribs and intestines
Small: Flower – hydrangea blossoms
PINK
Large: Pink building façade
A little less large: Pink ice cream truck, “The Original Rainbow Cone”
Medium, whole: Andy Warhol cat
Medium, in pieces: Bridal Shower Jeopardy
Medium, Pretty: frilly dresses & Medium, Patterned: 60s dresses
Medium, delicious: Birthday cake
Smallish: Umbrella
Small: Orchid
CFFC: Males & Females
More comparisons this week for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge! This week it’s males vs females. But I am going to make it females (first) vs males (second)!
Lions – I’m not lyin’! (Ngorongoro, Tanzania)
Maasai people – in a village
French people with dogs by the sea in Normandy
Mallard ducks
Ancient Egyptians: Queen Nefertari and King Ramses II
Selfies: Amsterdam
Two people making funny faces & wearing glasses: father and daughter
Artwork by American artist Charles White: Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep (1956); Harvest Talk (1953)
Children laughing: Chicago Botanic Garden
CFFC: Old vs New
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge has a great topic this week: Old vs New. In keeping with Cee’s order, the old is on the left, new is on the right.
People
Flowers: Black-eyed susans
Cats: my grandcats
Tall man-made structures (ancient Egypt, modern Chicago)
Pink vehicles
Big churches (Cologne Cathedral, Moody Bible Church)
Art (Rembrandt, Warhol)
L-APC: The Alphabet
The Alphabet starts with “A” and that is the subject of Lens-Artists’ photo challenge this week, starting appropriately with the amazing letter A!
I have a file of letter-shaped things. I got the idea for it when I saw this cute little ladder in our neighborhood and immediately thought of the letter A!
My brother-in-law sings in a barbershop chorus called The Arlingtones. It is based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
In Cairo we visited the Museum of Islamic Art. Arabic writing is an art form in itself!
In the spring, swans mate and lay their eggs. In early April, the female has laid 2 eggs and by the end of April, she has laid all her eggs!
April 7 
April 23
CFFC: Dark Red
Cee’s fun Foto challenge continues with a color theme. This week is dark red including maroon and burgundy.
Kinda Square: Art Through the Ages
A couple of weeks ago we went to the Chicago Art Institute. There were three special exhibits I wanted to see: El Greco (16th century), Monet (19th century), and Malangatana (contemporary). There are many kinds of art and these artists illustrate how art has changed throughout history.
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known today by his Spanish moniker El Greco, was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He usually signed his paintings with his name in the Greek alphabet. He moved to Toledo, Spain in 1577, where he received several commissions. He worked there until his death and it was there that he painted his best known works. His dramatic style was not well understood nor well accepted by his contemporaries, but has found appreciation in recent times. On at least one occasion, his patron was displeased with the painting El Greco had produced according to his commission, and while the painting was accepted and hung in a church, he only received half the amount he was supposed to have been paid. His most common subjects were religious themes. (Information obtained from Wikipedia.)
Claude Monet is one of the most famous and beloved impressionist painters; in fact, he was one of the founders of the French Impressionist movement. His interest was to capture the natural environment of the French countryside, and he would often make several versions of the same scene in order to capture the changing light and passing of the seasons. In fact, the term “impressionism” comes from the title of his painting, Impression, soleil levant which was in the first exhibition mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the traditional Salon de Paris. (Information obtained at the Chicago Art Institute and Wikipedia.)
Malangatana Ngwenya (1936-2011) was an artist and national hero in his native Mozambique. His paintings depicted vivid and colorful allegorical scenes, drawing from traditional religious practices, his cultural background, and life under Portuguese colonial rule. The paintings in the Art Institute’s exhibition were completed between 1959 and 1975, coinciding with Mozambique’s liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rule.
Posted for Becky’s October Kinda Square #27 photo challenge.
FDDA #31: September
Fandango’s last theme for his Dog Days of August is “your plans for September are.” Do you have any? If so, what are they? They can be anything, from posting more (or less) frequently on your blog, taking a trip, learning a new skill, getting married, engaged, or divorced, getting more exercise? Or are you just going to play it by ear? Share a story, a poem, a photo, a drawing, some music, or whatever you wish to share about your plans for September.
I don’t have any specific plans for September except to enjoy the warm weather while it lasts. Due to Covid-19, I don’t have much of a choice. But my husband and I are going to go out more: We have a day trip planned for this Thursday to go to the western suburbs to see some kitschy things I found out about in the newspaper. (Stay tuned! I hope to post pictures!) We can’t stay overnight anywhere, unless we don’t mind being quarantined for 14 days afterward (yes, I do mind!).
Another excursion we will be doing perhaps next week is to the Chicago Art Institute. The parking is a bitch and we don’t feel comfortable taking public transportation so…we’ll just have to pay for parking. I’m a member so there’s no admission fee. Right now there are two very different exhibits I want to see: special exhibit on El Greco and another on an artist from Mozambique with really wild, colorful art.
I also will make plans for a future trip abroad. If I book a tour before the end of September, the company I’m planning to use (Overseas Adventure Travel – I strongly recommend them!) will give us a couple of discounts. So I will be spending the next couple of weeks perusing their catalogs. That will be fun!!
Other than that, it’s the same-old same-old, doing the things I’ve been doing to wile away my time for the past several months: reading, blogging, exercising, working on photo books of past trips, artwork.
As the election approaches, I hope to get involved in some get-out-the-vote initiative.
CFFC: Made by Humans
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic Anything Man-made.
Monday Window: Chagall
One of the “must-sees” at the Chicago Art Institute is the Chagall windows. They are located at the end of a long hallway, in the same room with replicas of other famous artists’ Chicago artwork (such as the Picasso sculpture whose original is in front of the Daley Center).
Posted for Ludwig Keck’s Monday Window challenge.
