The Perfect House Guest.......................

My husband and I have the privilege of dog sitting this Thanksgiving weekend for some friends of ours who went to New York City for their holiday.

This is a picture of Haley, a 5-year old Golden who is just the sweetest dog and is so well behaved. What a marvelous house guest!

I took, this shot, as she was resting after a long, brisk walk. I had this Kodak frame saved in my computer stash, so thought I'd use it in Photoshop with the picture of Haley. I converted to black and white but Haley is a beautiful honey-colored retriever with the most expressive eyes!

Her Master will come pick her up on Sunday evening and we know we're going to miss her when she has to leave. But; I feel it's kind of like grandparenting ya know? There will be more opportunities to have Haley has our guest, in future, and for our friendship with this wonderful dog, I have been truly thankful for our Thanksgiving holiday.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving with your loved ones and are enjoying your holiday as much as we are.

Much love always...............................Marilyn xxoo

"My Red Hat".....................

16 x 20

Acrylic/Mixed Media on Illustration Board

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Love, Marilyn

Sanja!

I have been nominated for this Kreativ Blogger award by Sanja! Please visit her Blog: http://loona18.blogspot.com/ .

Thank you, Sanja, I am so honored to received this award from you. It means so much to me to have offered you inspiration in return for what you offer me when I visit your Blog.

I encourage, all of you, to visit Sanja's Blog to see her beautiful artwork. She applies texture and just the right color to every piece that she creates.

I am supposed to nominate 5 other Blogger friends for this award and I just am unable to narrow it down to that number. Therefore, I am nominating all the Blogs, here, that I have linked as you all offer me such inspiration on a daily basis.

Thank you Sanja and thank you all for your continued support and never-ending inspiration; I am in awe of all that you do, not only with your art, but with your words!

Much love and all have a safe, happy and artful weekend...............Marilyn xxoo

Yupo

Yupo; when I first heard this word, out in the art world, I just could not imagine what it was. The word, itself, is a little funny.

I joined an art league, in my area recently, and I started hearing this word more and more and my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to ask.

Needless to say, I am now taking Yupo lessons!

Yupo is watercoloring on synthetic paper and I am learning from a friend, of mine, who is an experienced "Yupoist" (my word) :) and we get together, when we can, and she so patiently has been giving me instructions. Along, with her instructions, she has loaned me a couple of instructional DVD's so I can have something, on hand, here at home to refer to.

While I mainly work with fluid acrylics, Yupo has re-sparked my interest in watercolors! I used to take watercolor workshops, years ago, and never really got the hang of it.

The Yupo paper is actually a polypropylene material and originally was used for making signs. It's wild to watercolor on it! It is so forgiving and there are wonderful textural techniques to apply (which I love) and I can stamp on it, too, and the whites, in the paintings, are created merely by agitation! You don't even need white paint!

This is a picture of my very first Yupo painting! It's a little elementary but I really had a ball working on this. I can change anything I want to, when I want to, without too much trouble. The hardest part, for me, is getting used to doing a lot of "negative" painting.

I think I'm going to call this painting........."Outside My Window".

Thank you so much for visiting; your lovely and supportive comments are always appreciated.

I hope you are all having a good week! Much love, Marilyn

"Just Be".....................

This is an 8 x 10, Acrylic, Mixed Media piece that I had a chance to work on today. I call it Just Be as this image, that I found in a glamour magazine has a bit of a "tude" don't you think? She's very self assured. :) This image is a paint over technique that I did. I cut the image out, copied it in black and white then painted over it incorporating it into the collage. I love this technique and discovered it in an issue of Somerset Studio. The artist that created the technique is Lisa Bebi (her Blog is included in my list of favorites).

I decided to play with this painting in Photoshop (2nd picture) and thought this effect looks like the lights are all on her as she's struttin' down the runway at a designer fashion show!

I'm wishing you all a safe and happy week ahead! Love, Marilyn

"The Trio".................

I love altering my own paintings in Photoshop. The bottom picture is a picture of my original painting. I did this awhile ago; it's on a very large canvas. I call it "The Trio".

The inspiration, for this piece, came from a photo I took on a road trip to Schoharie over the summer.

I thought I'd have some fun altering it, a bit, in photoshop, too. (the top picture)

Love, Marilyn

SOLD!

I've shared a picture of this piece in an earlier post. It is of a collaborative piece that my friend Karen Schupack and I created for the Albany Historical Foundation project called "Built".

This weekend, on Saturday evening, was the silent auction event that was held in the Church of All Saints in Albany, NY.

I just got the good news that our piece SOLD and went to the highest bidder :)

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's funny because, while Karen and I are happy about this, there was also a little sadness to part with it. We were already discussing "shared custody" if it didn't sell. I definitely wanted holidays! Oh well; we have plans to do more. :)

I hope you are all having a happy and artful weekend.......................Much love - Marilyn xxoo

Tag; I'm it! :)

I have been tagged by Beth Moran. Thank you Beth! You can visit Beth's blog: http://beths-babble.blogspot.com/.

According to the rules of being tagged, I am to list 7 facts about myself.

Here goes:

-I am a morning person

-I love coffee

-Whenever I receive a magazine to read, I always start at the back

-I do not like tailgaiters

-Pasta (of any kind) is my comfort food

-I think I'm the only person in the world that does not like the TV show "How I Met Your Mother"

I LOVE anchovies!

Love, Marilyn

"Funky Pears"........................

I love pears! The shapes, colors within color, they taste good and I'm noticing, very often, subjects of paintings.

I belong to an art league, in my area, and we had the opportunity to offer some "priced-to-sell" art pieces for a two-month holiday extravaganza.

This piece is one of my entries. It is an 8 x 10 that is on watercolor paper.

When I took this picture, the painting wasn't quite finished. I've since added some gold leaf, postage stamps, a touch of some Asian newspaper strips and a butterfly.

Hope you're all having a good start to your week. I'm off to vote now :)

Much love, Marilyn