What happens when a group of mad artists decide to hitch a plane to canberra to visit the Masterpieces of Paris Exhibition and the
Portrait Gallery of Australia?
We have a FAB weekend- FUN, ADVENTURE and BEDLAM!
20th Feb, 2010-
It all started at 4am on saturday morning. That damn alarm clock went off, and we dragged ourselves from bed, ate a quick breakfast and headed to the airport to catch our 6.50am flight.
Once we arrived, we headed to our hotel to pick up our pre-paid tickets and
then high-tailed it to the gallery, only to be greeted with this site......
QUEUES!
QUEUES!
I have never seen so many people waiting to get into an exhibition.
The queue wound down the pathway and around the corner.
The strange thing is, this exhibition was SO popular- this queue is actually of people with pre-paid tickets!
After about 30 minutes of waiting outside, we finally got up to the gallery doors.
Then as we walked in the front doors, this is the view we found.......
MORE QUEUES INSIDE!
Around 30 minutes , we finally walked into the actual exhibition. WOW. WOW. WOW!
Then i got to see my favourite artworks from Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec and Monet.
(Of the 140 masterpieces we viewed, Redhead (bathing) by Henri Toulouse Lautrec, Starry night by Vincent van Gogh and monet's Lily Pond were my absolute favourites).
BEAUTIFUL!
BEAUTIFUL!
Our group even sneaked into the children's interactive room, where the kids could create their own masterpieces whilst surrounded by the master's artworks.
As we didn't get a chance on this trip to bring our own paints and easels along, it was very tempting to stay in the kids room and paint with them. but we continued on. With a portrait class due the following tuesday, we knew we had heaps to look at and learn from.
After spending 7 hours viewing the Master's of Paris exhibition, as well as the Ned Kelly and the Australian Exhibition, we headed back to the hotel.
While SOME of our group caught nanna naps, Sue Dianne and I chatted whilst enjoying our first bottle of complimentary white wine. (We were lucky, as one of our travel companions was a non-drinker, so he kindly donated his bottle to a worthy cause too. lol)
Dinner at the Italian Club around the corner was very entertaining that night. (I REALLY wished i had taken my camera on the night, to capture the 80+ italian stallion strutting around dancing, shirt undone to the waist, the high belted trousers and of course the many gold chains and pony tail of grey hair. A legend in his own lunchtime, me thinks.)
Sunday morning, we all met up for breakfast and then walked to the Portrait gallery.
We viewed the exhibition called Idle hours.
This is one of my favourite paintings from this exhibition, and it was painted by Hilda Rix Nicholas.
At the end of the weekend, the group caught a flight at 3pm, and experienced a very turbulant flight home. Lucky for us, we had a very good lady pilot at the front of the plane, and we came to a beautiful smooth landing in Melbourne.
Safe on ground, we finished the weekend off at Sue's place having a cup of tea.
Then it was home to the family to talk the rest of the night, about my very exciting weekend away.
