Birthday Fun at the Museum

This post is belated, as my birthday was actually last month.  But, I'm finally getting around to updating my blog.  For my birthday, I requested that we go to the Denver Art Museum, where they were having a special exhibit of Degas' work.  I like the Impressionist painters, so it was really fun to go and see this exhibit.  It was a fairly cold day, so I was glad to be inside with my family to view beautiful artwork.

As we looked around and I saw quotes by the artist, I was reminded about the part of me that has always wanted to do artwork.  It's rather hard right now, as I'm so busy suddenly taking over the duties of the lead teacher in our preschool classroom and preparing to go to Japan.  But, I think that no matter what we are doing, we can be making our lives a work of art.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the Degas works.

It seemed that Degas' favorite subjects to paint were dancers and horses.  We also saw an exhibit about art that included animals in all of their works.  I know when I draw, I like to draw our cat, Jenny.

Here is one of with a cat in it...

I especially liked this one, since it is a Japanese woodblock print.

One of my overall favorite paintings I saw in the museum was this beautiful painting of a horse.

 Our whole family agrees that our favorite type of art is landscape art or art depicting nature.

We also enjoyed seeing works of art from around the world, both old and new, including these from Japan...

A cute dog made in 2010 and...

This Haniwa pottery horse dates back to about 500 AD.

And a guardian lion-type  mythological creature from Thailand, similar to some we saw in the Bangkok airport.

We also were fascinated with items that had been discovered along the Silk Road.  According to Wikipedia, the Silk Road period was from the second century BC to the end of the fourteenth century AD, a great trade route originated from Chang'an (now Xian) in the east and ended at the Mediterranean in the west, linking China with the Roman Empire.

We had a great time as a family and I felt inspired to do more to try to make my life a work of art each and everyday.  I am thankful to God for giving me my life and my family to share it with.  What a great way to celebrate my birthday!