Sacred Ancient Symbolic Art

Rome is full of this sort of religious wall art. They are on the buildings outside almost on every street. It does not matter if the street is a quaint little side street or busy and crowded. I was so enthralled by them all.

I loved the canopies and shelving like in this one above. 

I have made these and some of my other Rome photos into art cards. I've decided to sell them on Etsy. I guess I had an ah ha moment, so for now I'm back up and running on Etsy.

This week Inspiration Ave's theme is religious art so I'm entering these.Click the link to check out more art. 

Thanks for looking.

Charlie

Day Six Orvieto

Pottery In Orvieto

Duomo Of Orvieto

View From Orvieto

On the sixth day of my Roman Holiday we took a day trip to Orvieto. What fun to get out of the big city of Rome! More fun was taking the train! We saw all kinds of neat things including gypsies. I wish I could have taken pictures of them. A funicular takes you up to the top to where the city is located. I never rode one of those before. We went to Orvieto because it is known for its pottery and they were having a special pottery market in the town square that morning. We missed the early train so we did not make it to the market, oh well. We still got to go shopping and I got a couple of small items anyway.

Orvieto is in the wine region of Italy, so they have their own wine as well. It's a white wine. We tried it at a local restaurant. It was very good, loved it. It's also known for that beautiful church, picture above. It's called the Duomo of Orvieto. I wish I could have stayed in Orvieto longer. It was beautiful! 

Street Scene In Orvieto

Inspiration Avenue Charity Auction for Angel Faces

Inspiration Avenue is having it's annual charity auction today. Stop by the link here and look through some great art and make a bid or two. All money goes to benefit Angel Faces.

Change

La Celestial

I started her before the trip to Rome. I'm so very happy that when I got back I was able to pick up where I left off and finish her. She is my mother earth but more. She is everything girly that I love including all my favorites: a pink dress, flowers, butterflies,stars and a halo of flowers. To give her hair texture I used embroidery thread. That was fun doing and I think it really turned out well. This photo does not do the painting justice. There are so many layers and textures you can not see in this photo and the color is much more vibrant.

I will continue blogging about my trip to Rome here soon. 

I'm  trying to figure out what I want to do with my art. What direction to go?  Before the trip I was so scattered with my thoughts and lost a lot of my creativity. I know it had a lot to do with the trip. I was just too excited about going. I have let my Etsy store go to the wayside. I'm tired of the things I have in there, so I'm letting everything expire and then I guess I'll  have to do a makeover. In the mean time I have joined a new art web site that sells your photos for you and gives choices of prints, canvases or framed prints. It is called imagekind. I have always loved taking pictures and I feel I have a pretty good eye. I have tons of photos that I have taken in the past which are beautiful and are begging to be shared. I've wanted to sell them on Etsy but could not come up with a feasible way to offer them to the public. This site does it for you. I don't have to run across town to get giclee prints made, pay for them and then hope they sell on Etsy. Also I ran into the same problem with making giclee prints of my art. This is something I'm working on now. I still have to make a great photo of the art. I think a new camera might be in the near future. Next problem is Etsy. I really don't want to shut it down. I'm thinking and pondering and pondering and wondering. Hummmm? What to do ??? What to do? Change in in order.

Vatican Museum

Exit door

We finally made to the Vatican Museum. This was the number one site I wanted to see in Rome other then St Peters Basilica. I guess I was not sure what to expect. It was a lot bigger then I thought and tons of  unbelievable art! I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it was so crowded. people were always in the way and I felt like cattle being herded through. Even so, I was not disappointed.

 Map Gallery 

Other then the Sistine Chapel, the map gallery, tapestry room and the Raphael rooms are my favorite. You can not help but gawk at everything. I was so busy staring I did not have the inclination to take many shots. No one could take pictures in the Sistine Chapel anyway. I'm not sure why they let you take photos in the other rooms. The art in the Raphael rooms are awesome too.

The School Of Athens by Raphael

This one by Raphael is interesting because it has all the great thinkers gathered together in this one painting/fresco. I like it because he painted Michelangelo into it as well. Raphael was in this room painting while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. Maybe a little competition was going on....who knows.

Michelangelo by Raphael

You can get an idea of how big Raphael's paintings are just by the size of this photo. This is a picture I took  of Michelangelo from the painting The School of Athens right above. Pretty cool!

I'm so glad I had my Rick Steves' book. A tour guide would have been needed if I did not have his book. I really don't think I missed anything by not purchasing a professional guide. But I have to stress you do need something whether it's a tour guide or tour guide book. There is too much to see. You might miss something important and may not know what you are looking at.

The Sistine chapel is case in point. There is so much on the ceiling, you can not possibly know what it all means.

Another day in Rome

View from top of Castel Sant' Angelo

 

View from top of Castel Sant' Angelo

St Peter's Basilica

The day we toured the Castel Sant' Angelo we thought we were going to have it easy. Well, you can't tour a castle without taking a hike all the way to the rooftop. It was a lot more walking then we anticipated. However it was well worth it just to see the beautiful views represented in the photos above.

After the castle tour we walked to Piazza Novona, a busy piazza we visited on our first day in Rome. Jerry rested his knees at one of picturesque cafes while drinking wine and people watching. I shopped, toured more churches, drank a little wine and ate gelato, not in that order  :)
Not a bad way to spend the day in Rome.

Piazza Novona

 Piazza Novona

Enjoy!
Charlie

Around Ancient Rome

Arch of Constantine

We are in the Colosseum looking from a birds eye view over some of  Romes ancient ruins. This is the arch of Constantine. Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in 312 AD. Before that one was killed for believing in Christianity. I'm sure you might have watched the movies where Christians were thrown out to be slaughtered by the gladiators....maybe even in the Colosseum.

Ruins

Another Church

Margaret here checking to see if the door to this church was open. All the churches in Rome close form 12 noon to 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. We missed visiting  a slew of churches just because we were site seeing in the middle of the afternoon. Oh well that meant we took lots of cappuccino breaks or wine and cheese breaks depending on our mood.  Many of the restaurants close during these hours too (not so much in the touristy areas). I think it's their siesta time.

Guess who this is.

We walked and walked around the Roman Forum and Palentine Hill. Not too many shots were taken during this part of our excursion. These two sites were not my favorite part of the journey, but I'm sure being dead tired on my feet had a lot to do with it.

Oh well.... but.... we still had time to go look for one more church before we left the area and that was St Peter in Chains Church. I had to find this church because it had a Michelangelo in it. 

Michelangelo's Moses

This ended day 3 in Rome.

My Roman Holiday Continues

Ruins around Colosseum

Touring the Colosseum

 Inside Colosseum

 Colosseo

Is this cool or what? 
Rome is so old. 

This day was our first day on our own. No Marcia to lead us around. We messed up a little getting off the metro and got really turned around. We did  a lot of unnecessary walking. However, I thought it was a good thing because we needed to figure out how to get around by ourselves with the map.

                 Sooo by the time we were to tour the Roman Forum I was so tired that I did not enjoy it at all. Here are a few pictures of ancient  Rome and the Roman Forum. 

Ok blogger is making me mad. It refuses to let me hit carriage return. It is loading pictures wherever it pleases. I'm not going to be able to finish this post. I'll see you tomorrow.

Day Two Roman Holiday

Fountain of Trevi

Here I am at the Fountain of Trevi. I'm not too crazy about this picture of me.....bad hair day. My flat iron did not fit properly with the converter I brought for the outlet conversions,so it did not work at all the whole time we were there. Everyone said I looked more European with the curly hair...yeah right :) Oh well I let it go and now it's part of my new year, new me motto. I'm not straightening my hair anymore....at least more then not.

Santa Maria del Popola

This church has two Caravaggio's in it. Wow this boggles my mind. This is just another church out of many that are unassuming outside and amazingly beautiful inside. Unfortunately too dark for pictures, and you cant' take pictures of the Caravaggio's anyway.

Spanish Steps

 This area around the Spanish steps is a fun gathering place for everyone day and night. Streets leading up to this piazza have some high end shopping.

Spanish Steps at Night

 Sorry about the blurry picture, but I'm not that great of a photographer and night time shots are hard for me. I love to take pictures at night though.

 

Night time in Rome

This street is just off the piazza close to the Spanish steps. Ok we did not spend all day at the Spanish steps. We came back here in the evening on another night.

Inside a Church

I don't know the name of this church. It is one of many we stumbled onto on our second day in Rome. I can't read Italian and it was not mentioned in my tour book. Just another church in Rome, no famous art inside just amazingly beautiful!

Basilica San Marco

Ok here is another church. I hope you don't get tired of churches.

Our third day in Rome we toured the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
More pictures to come.
Hugs,
Charlie

Roman Holiday

Pantheon

 St Peter's Basilica Square

On the first day we saw Piazza Novona, the Pantheon and St Peters Basilica. Three sites that were on my must see list. St Peter's Basilica is awesome. It is huge! Huge does not say enough. It has some unbelievable art: Michelangelo, Bernini, and Raphael. The best part for me was we attended mass there. I'm catholic so that was a real treat.  The Pope did not say mass at this time because he only says mass on Sunday and Wednesday. I have some beautiful shots inside but some did not come out great because you can not use flash. This was the case in all of the churches we went into. There are over 300 Catholic churches in Rome. We saw a few on the tour list. I could go back just to take tours of the churches. One is more beautiful the next. 

Inside the Basilica

Just to give you an idea of how enormous it is.

Enjoy,

Hugs,

Charlie