Are you where you ought to be?................

Today is one of those days when it is too beautiful to stay inside all day. The temperature is perfect, the sun is out and there's a delightful breeze! Soon, after breakfast, I turned to my husband and said..................."why don't we take a ride to Schoharie today?" Schoharie is this little country place that is not far from us; about a 45-minute ride and even though it's a small town, it offers much beauty in every season.

You've probably either heard, me say, or read it a hundred times that I feel art is a path. I took my camera figuring I would see if I could get some cool shots to add to my stash here.

The first shot, I took, was of this sign that was in front of a small church in town. I LOVED what it said; very profound I thought and I could actually relate it to many things in life. Then, not far up the road, were a bunch of sunflowers, which I love, and what did I find among the sunflowers was a sign that said The Rocks!! Even my husband reacted! I had to get a shot of the sign amongst the sunflowers and then took a close-up shot and put a cool poster filter on it. Funny, huh?

I took another shot of more sunflowers with some pretty magenta-colored flowers.

The black and white photo is one that was, in color, but I turned it into a black and white; thought it was more artistic in my eye. The chairs made me feel so relaxed and calm just looking at them.

I have a few more pictures, from our road trip, and will upload in a couple of days.

I hope you all are having a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

Prayers and positive thoughts go out to the people who are currently evacuating and who will be effected by the latest hurricane - Gustav! It's so hard to imagine that New Orleans could get hit, yet again, just three years after Katrina hit!

Thanks for stopping by today........................Much love - Marilyn

"Life Goes On"......................... :)

Life Goes On (http://lifegoesondeb.blogspot.com/) is one of my favorite Blogs to visit. Deb is very creative and can meet any art challenge out there. She recently awarded me with this JavaBlu Award and I am very much appreciative of it.

Thank you Deb!

My philosophy on these Blog awards is one that I am very honored and touched to think that I have inspired someone enough to give me an award; it really makes me feel so good. You all give me wings to reach higher and to not be afraid of that blank canvas that sometimes glares at me as if to say......."now what are you gonna do"? :)

As a recipient of this Blog award, I am supposed to pass it on to 5 other Blogs that I feel deserving. Again; in line with my philosophy on these awards, I just cannot narrow it down to just 5 blogs.

Therefore, I am passing this award on to all who I have linked here on my Blog. Each and every morning, with my first cup o' joe, I visit your Blogs and am equally as inspired by the art that I am viewing and the words that I am reading.

Thank you all for your daily inspirations, taking the time to visit, here, leaving your supportive words and comments.

I wish you all a safe and happy weekend ahead. Can you believe Labor Day weekend is upon us??????? WOW!

Love to all............................Marilyn

"Midnight in Beijing", 8 x 10, Acrylic/Mixed Media

It's hard to believe today is the closing of the Olympics. I've really enjoyed watching them when I could. I think I will always remember the Opening Ceremonies; what a mix of artistic and technological splendor!

This is a picture of a mixed-media painting I just completed today. It's done on 300 lb. hot-press watercolor paper with acrylics and some collage elements.

I taught a class on Saturday called "Two for One" where I shared with students how to create an abstract painting using just two colors of acrylic paints. This piece was my start for teaching purposes. I brought it home and decided to create a finished painting with it in honor of the Olympics. :)

I hope you're all having a fun weekend and hope your week, ahead, is good to you!

Thank you for visiting! Much love - Marilyn xxoo

"Dance, Live, Love".....................

Acrylic/Mixed Media

16" x 20" stretched canvas

I have so far, to go, to really be comfortable drawing, let alone, painting a figure. This was actually my second attempt to do this and is my first that I am somewhat happy with; oh there's that inner critic again - geesh!

Anyway, believe it or not, this painting started out as a nature scene with rocks, high peaks, etc., and I just didn't like it. I gessoed the whole thing and started over and this is what the painting is turning into! I started seeing a figure when the gesso was fully dried, some colors were popping out from below and one thing led to the other.

I still have some adjustments to make to the figure; she looks a little scared, to me, but I will work on turning her expression into a happier one. After all, she's supposed to be enjoying life! :)

Have a happy day and ..........................Dance, Live, and Love!

Hugs, Marilyn

Students' Works Part I.....................:)

Today I taught a class at the Albany Art Room that is the first part of three. The technique begins with black gesso, leaving white spaces of interest, and painting, stamping with texture items and art stamps on heavy-weight watercolor paper. We worked on a large size and used mats to mark off areas that we really liked to use in future art projects.

I loved what the students did with these!

The first two were created by Karen Schupack (Proprietor of Albany Art Room). Karen used a couple of her very own block print stamps!

The next one was created by Jim Summa. He was able to mat off a whole 8 x 10 piece; as an abstract painting! Cool, huh?

The last two were created by Oona Edmands. I really like her white areas and balance of colors!

Fantastic job everyone!

I hope you're all having a safe and happy weekend. Love, Marilyn

Students' Works.............................:) Part II

I have the privilege and honor of teaching at the Albany Art Room here in Albany, New York. It's a wonderful atmosphere and offers a marvelous variety of art classes, art supplies, and artistic offerings for children as well as adults. I cannot express how much I am enjoying my teaching experience there. It feels more like I'm sitting down at the art table, in the classroom, with friends sharing art!

Last week I taught a two-part series of an Altered Arts class. This was an introduction to the world of altered art. We worked on a wooden box and I shared a technique with students on creating a "grid collage" of sorts and we had the option of finishing it off with beeswax.

The top picture is the beautiful creation of Karen Schupack (who is the proprietor of the Albany Art Room). I love Karen's art; she loves to include her daughter's illustrations in her art which I feel is a fantastic idea and makes her pieces so meaningful.

The second picture is the lovely creation of Oona Edmands. Oona really makes art an emotional journey and puts her heart and soul in every project.

The bottom picture is of the beginning of my box; haven't quite finished the details.

I am waiting for one more picture from a student who took this class and should have that during the week.

I love sharing students' works, with you, and plan on doing this often. Their art deserves to be shared with others.

Love, Marilyn

"Faded Memories"....................

I was having some Photoshop fun this morning after visiting my favorite Blogs here.

I just love the brush tool and the ability to create custom stamps with Photoshop.

I've had this photo, in my stash, for a very long time and always felt that it had a cool ghostly look to it and was calling, to me, to do something with it :)

I'm wishing you all a very safe, happy, and artful upcoming weekend.

Love to all..............................Marilyn xxoo

Shane "Potsie" LaVoie....Celebrate a Life

Today mark's a date that is very heavy in our minds and heart here with our family and friends.

One year ago, today, my son lost his best friend, Shane, in a motorcycle accident. One of these pictures is one that was taken on my son's wedding day just before the ceremony (July 7, 2006).

Shane is the second one in from the right.

My son was over yesterday and we talked a lot about Shane; and David would like the approach to be more of a celebration of Shane's life than to look at this specific day as a celebration. David has been struggling with missing Shane; their daily conversations, sharing their love of baseball, the outdoors, their loves in their life, etc. David recently had his upper left arm tatooed with a cross and Shane's initials put in the middle of it. He said it offers him much comfort. It's a beautiful tatoo, really, and it was very emotional to see it. I took a picture of it, here, to share.

We all miss Shane; his smile, his personality, he always made everyone feel very important. He really listened to everyone that he was with at the time. His sense of humor was unlike any I have ever experienced; he was quick on the comeback, a real grinder but not done in a mean way; everything he did was with love of the people that meant the most to him.

I have to admit, with approaching this date, I have been feeling a bit sad, but when I think about celebrating Shane's life, and not his passing, it does offer me much comfort. I can still have him with me when I watch the Yankees play (Ted can really think about him when they play the Sox), I can think of Shane when I see a crow. The crow symbolizes Shane, to me, as a crow played a very significant role in Shane's burial ceremony. Shane was an American Indian (Mohegan) and the cultural ceremonies were included in his funeral; they were beautiful rituals.

Posting this and sharing this, with you, has offered me great comfort. It is my small way of celebrating Shane, who meant so much to us here. We miss him and are finding ways to comfort ourselves so we can truly celebrate his life.

We love you Shane!!!!! GO YANKEES!

I am wishing you all a safe and happy day! Even though you didn't know Shane.......hug someone you love today!!!!!

Hugs to all of you..........................Marilyn xxoo

"Mardi Gras"..........................

8 x 10

140 lb watercolor paper

Watercolor, acrylics, India inks, collage

This is a picture of a fairly recent painting I did. This is quite a jump, outside the box, for me.

It was one of those happenings that occurred studying the flow of the inks and watercolor. I turned the paper around searching for what comes to mind and all of a sudden I saw a fish! It must be because of all the rain we've had here! :)

I have since matted and framed.

I wish you all a happy day! Love, Marilyn xxoo

Part 2; Finding the Beauty and a little Photoshop fun.......

I really am enjoying the comments left in my previous post with the pictures of our neighbor's tree that was taken down. There's nothing like an artist's eye I say :)Thank you for the wonderful comments, left, and for those, of you, who are just visiting, please feel free to leave your comments to previous post. I love reading what you are all seeing in these pictures.

Here are the last two of the pictures I took of pieces of the tree. The second one is a little scary; kind of looks like a monster's mouth, to me, but there's more, there, I just need to focus a bit more on it.

The last picture is of a little Photoshop fun I had last night. Remember my "Uprooted" painting (previous post)? Well; I used it as a background and altered it with some solarized filters and fun brushes. The beauty of photoshop!

Again; please feel free to use these tree pictures; they make great texture backgrounds or overlays.

I wish you all a happy day; be safe and enjoy the rest of your week.

Thanks for visiting...............................Love - Marilyn xxoo

Finding the beauty.......................

This weekend was very busy here with garage sale, tree service taking down trees in our neighbor's yard, roofer's working on another house next door - nuts!

This morning while having my coffee out in my favorite room of the house, I looked down at what was left of my neighbor's tree which is piled up in our yard as we're giving the wood to my husband's son who heats his "house" with wood. I really stared at the wood pieces and I found such beauty in them! I took some pictures and I think these will make some very good subjects for some painting starts.

The first picture is of part of the tree that fell over our house about a month and a half ago. This is the roof over my favorite room in our house. We were fortunate; no one hurt and no significant damage to the house. We will have to have the roof area replaced but it's not due to the tree falling.

Take a good look at these pictures and let your eyes and mind find your own beauty in these wood pieces. You may use these images, if you choose, as I'm going to use them for painting subjects and they will not come out looking like these at all. I'm learning more and more about painting and I've had opportunities to see the final results of some artists' works and their beginnings; it's amazing from start to finish!

I'll be adding a couple more images of more tree pieces soon for you to enjoy as much as I am.

Beauty really does surround us and I'd like to think taking these pictures, will kind of keep this tree alive in some way :) Corny, huh?

I'd love to read what you are seeing in these pieces if you leave comment :)

Hope you're all having a terrific weekend........................Much love, Marilyn xxoo