I'd like to begin, this post, by thanking everyone for their prayers and positive thoughts for helping us get through this past weekend with "Irene". It was a white-knuckle ride but we made it through and we are left with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude for coming out of it the way we did.
We have minimal clean-up, here, and were only without power for a brief few minutes! There are many left without power and it might be days before they get it back. Parts of our area has serious flooding concerns, roads are closed due to downed trees and power lines, there are so many stories regarding, this storm, that I couldn't possibly cover in this post.
Wherever Irene hit, she certainly left her mark and there are some deaths, unfortunately, being reported. I'm sure we'll be hearing lots of things about Irene for a long time to come.
Right now we are thankful and my heart goes out to those who have much to recover from the storm.
I, for one, never thought we would ever see a day when a hurricane would come up the coast as far as it did; perhaps I took that for granted that it could never happen here. I was listening to some scientific reasons for it on TV last night. But, I never felt living here was the perfect place. Northeast living does come with its challenges. And; where is the perfect place? I do not think that it exists. Based on religious beliefs, heaven perhaps, but I'm talking about the now.
I've come to the conclusion that the perfect place, for me, is right here in New York because my family and friends are here. That is the answer, for me, and all that comes with living, in this area, is worth it. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else because my heart is here. This storm really got me to thinking, through my fears, the stress of not knowing what was going to happen, listening to those terrible winds and the non-stop rain, I never thought, once, that I'd like to be any place but here.
The rewards we are getting now will be a week of mild temps, dry air, bright sunshine and cool nights. Thank you! I do feel we deserve it and the calm weather will help with recovery and resuming our daily lives. Yet; more than ever, feeling the true spirit of living is one day at a time - and not taking anything for granted.
Again; thank you all for the comforting words you've posted and sent to me. Hope you and yours are all safe and have a great week ahead.
I leave you with a picture of a journal page I did the day before the storm hit. It is called "The Ice Skater". I created the page with a Citra Solv-treated National Geographic page. I began painting around the negative space that I saw of a figure who appeared to be ice skating and adding some collage. I loved the free-motion appearance of the figure, seemingly peaceful, calm, and joyous in her skating. Honestly, today? I could go get a pair of skates on and do the same!!!!! :)
Best always........................Love, Marilyn xxoo
This is a recent journal page I worked on trying to come to grips with my fears after hearing predictions about Hurricane Irene.
I have never been much of a summer person for a couple of reasons; the heat is the main reason and I do not do well through summer storms; maybe it's a carry over from a scary experience I had a long time ago. But; it was an unforgettable one.
Now; Irene is the "mother lode" to me and so many people are in its path of destruction which is very disturbing to me. It's a very big storm and the East Coast is bracing for it or trying to anyway.
We will get the effects of Irene on Sunday and I need to come to terms with my fears. We will get deluged with rain and damaging winds; that is what is predicted.
This all just leaves me feeling very vulnerable and ill-at-ease; maybe we all have fears that we are not ready to face yet.
Today is a lovely day, here, and I will try, my best, to focus on the now. Maybe that is the message along the way through this journey, or should I say "journal" of life - live for the now!
It felt good to release some of my feelings on a journal page in my way.
I will pray and keep positive thoughts for all who already have and will be effected by Hurricane Irene. This has been quite a year for natural disasters and I say enough is enough!
All be safe this weekend!
Much love - Marilyn
This is a recent page in my journal. Drying time was a bit of an issue with this as the background is done with plaster gauze, spackle, Gesso, then acrylics. We've had such humid weather but the past couple of days have been gloriously cooler!
The heart the figure is holding is made out of corrugated cardboard using the plaster gauze and spackle, too. I added one of my French vocabulary card words.... le plaisir (pleasure) on the heart to symbolize what a pleasure it is, for me, to have my art journal to turn to.
Hope you all had a great weekend and are experiencing a good beginning to another week. I can't believe, in two weeks, it will be Labor Day weekend! Yikes!
My best to all of you! Love much - Marilyn
Misty Mawn offered a wonderful online class a few months back called Stretching Within. I was one of her students and I found the class to be challenging, refreshing, amazing, and so enjoyable. I would take another in a heart beat. I learned so much.
I came home, yesterday, to a recent issue of Somerset Studio (Sept./Oct) and any time I receive my subscription issue, I have to open it up right away and scan what inspirational articles and techniques are in it.
What to my surprise was an article written by Misty regarding her online class offering. Included in the article, were students' works including mine! (shown here). I was honored to be among such talented and creative people for this article. Thank you Misty!
I also want to mention, for those of you who follow Cathy Bueti's Blog, she has an amazing article in this issue as well. Congrats Cathy! It was a pleasure to be in your company! :)
Hope you all are having a good weekend and your weather is peaceful and bright. Ours has turned really beautiful, the past few days, and we haven't had to turn on the a/c in awhile! Life is good!
Much love always......................Marilyn xxoo
Sophia got to the beach, this summer, and absolutely loved it! She loved playing in the sand!
I worked on this 5 x 7 watercolor, while she was gone, as I was missing her and it helped me with thoughts of her. The photo, of her, here, is one that I took awhile ago and I decided to insert it in the picture with Photo Shop.
This weekend I am going frame shopping to put this in and present it to Sophia's parents as a memory keeper.
The watercolor was based on a photo I took a few years, back, in Rockport, MA (one of my favorite areas).
I hope you all are having a good week; we are coming upon another weekend soon. Our downpour rains have stopped and we are now enjoying beautiful weather! I hope you are, too!
Peace in your hearts and minds....................Love, Marilyn
I am sharing photos, here, of a process for one of my favorite background techniques. I used to make books out of brown-paper bags and I have a number of bags in my art stash. I decided to start using them in my art journal activities.
I tear up pieces of the paper bag and using gel medium, adhere them to my substrate overlapping the pieces. I have also done this without tearing - just using a larger piece of the bag but I prefer the torn pieces as they add so much texture to a background. Once I have adhered the torn pieces to the whole page, I then go over the whole area with gel medium and while the gel medium is still "setting up", I go in with a texture stamp. Here; I used the Lego pieces I "borrowed" from my grand daughter :). I then let this all dry completely.
The next step is to add white gesso to the page and while the gesso is still wet, wipe off areas with a rag or paper towel until it looks like a "white wash" and you can still see the Lego imprints. Let dry and begin your art work.The first two photos reflect this process.
I just love the texture that is created and shows through no matter what I am adding to the page. I also like to leave open areas of the background as you can see in my finished piece.
The finished piece reflects my continuous dream of getting to Italy someday. The image is my own transferred onto the page, sketched over and painted, the olive branch is hand drawn and painted and collage was added with woman's collar and flower embellishments.
I hope you all had a nice weekend. We are at the beginning of a new week and wish you a safe, healthy and happy one!
Best to all! Much love, Marilyn xxoo
I call this journal page "The Gardener". Again; transferred ink-jet image of my own drawing onto journal page and went from there. I find I enjoy the transfer system a lot because I get a very faint image, after, and the facial features actually change with this which I think is neat. I can go back into, the transfer, and add more pencil lines and paint as I want. I had a little trouble with her hat but - it's my journal page and not going to hang in the Louvre. :) The flowers are actually a Donna Downey foam stamp using two colors of acrylic paint with a foam brush. 
The little bird is collaged.
I picked up some vintage French vocabulary cards on Ebay a few weeks back and while I love them for collage purposes, I'm finding they are a good way of learning French!
I used la fleur (flower) and fournir (to provide) and felt was appropriate for "The Gardener". :)
The background was done with, what is becoming to be, my favorite technique. I will be sharing that process in near future.
We have another weekend coming up. It's already the second week of August! Whew! How fast time is going.
I am wishing you all a joyous weekend, ahead, be safe and enjoy the moments!
Much love, Marilyn xxoo
Quite awhile ago, a dear friend and I got together and worked on using Citra Solv with National Geograhic magazine pages. There are a few ways to apply the solvent (Youtube offers a number of videos on techniques) but my space is limited, here, so we brushed on the liquid using foam brushes. I had purchased a box of old National Geographic magazines off of Ebay and went through the pages to make sure I didn't want to keep the magazines or pages in tact. That is how I came to save my gorilla page (see older post). :)
This photo is an example of one of the pages that I treated with the Citra Solv. I love the fact that it leaves areas that can be brought out to create a whole new story. The house in the background was very hidden and I brought it out with a fine-point permanent sketch marker as well as the dancing couple. I used watercolors, stencils with molding paste for the flowers and the moon was created with a handmade stencil and gesso. I sketched in the face.
The original background had a lot of people working in a field and lots of tall grass. The Citra Solv kind of blends the ink around the page - it's a really cool effect.
My recommendation would be to do this in a well-ventilated area as ,even though the solvent is a natural cleaner, it has a very strong orange odor. And; while I love the smell of oranges, it can be over-powering in a small area. The orange aroma still lingers on the treated pages even after fully drying. That I kind of like :)
These pages make for wonderful background starts for journals, canvas, etc. I adhered the treated page to my journal using gel medium.
Thoughts of all of you and hope your week is going well for you. I can't thank you enough for your lovely feedback you leave for me, here, as it makes me feel good about what I am creating! I couldn't do what I do without you!
Much love - Marilyn xxoo
Many years ago.......and yes, it seems like many years ago, :), I signed up for watercolor classes in my area at a local art gallery/studio. It wasn't a good experience, for me, as I just couldn't seem to "control" what I was doing and, frankly, my instructor was not one to tolerate not doing it her way and all she kept telling me was how behind everyone else I was! Well - let's just say I left the courses before I got kicked out :)
I've since started to play around more with my watercolors, in my own way, with a little help. Martha Lever's Color Drop Flower online workshop sure gave me a jump start. Her comfortable style really helped me become more friendly to watercolors. She's offering another online workshop beginning Aug. 15th and it's her Poppies class! I cannot wait.
I also took Alisa Burke's online class, awhile ago, and enjoyed her style as well. She covered a lot of color theory which I was desperately in need of. It actually got me to go out and get a color wheel :) Who would have thunk it? :) But; I loved the informal approach to her backgrounds and incorporating lots of doodling, splattering, just some fun things that really helped me enjoy water coloring and I can definitely incorporate this in my journal art with stamps, stencils, etc. All those things that I have been using with acrylics.
This photo is of one of my water color pages in my journal. I had a blast with it! The butterfly is one of Tim Holtz' stamps that I stamped and then added watercolor touches to. You might also notice a date stamp mark in the background.
I had an old date stamp, here, from my working days and decided to start using it on my journal pages. It's great to look back at the pages and see what date that I created a certain page.
Hope you all are enjoying your weekend. We're upon another new week starting tomorrow. Stay safe and healthy and I'll be back towards the end of the week.
Best to all! Love, Marilyn xxoo
Here are two more pages in my new journal.
The one with the gorilla and babies is a transfer (and one of my most successful ones, I might add), of a favorite magazine page from an old issue of National Geographic. I must have had this image for, at least, 3 years. I guess I was waiting for the right time and place to use it.
I think all the clips of seeing the latest movie version of "The Planet of the Apes" has inspired me to use the image. I've always loved gorillas - just the thought of them and were never scary looking to me. I love their eyes! I was a huge King Kong fan, too. :) I do intend to see this new version of "The Plant of the Apes" in near future. I understand there's a strong message to the movie regarding protecting this species.
In terms of my journal page using the image of the mom gorilla with her babies, I really didn't do much to the page but transfer the image, added some textural marks and the word PROTECT. It seemed that was all that was needed. Now; I can have this image preserved in my journal.
The second photo is of a page following. I used one of my own images, again transferring it, then adding collage, etc. to a textural background start. The flowers are molding paste with a stencil.
I am wishing you and yours a lovely weekend. The extreme heat is relentless in parts of our country and, here, we are in the soup, again, although not quite as hot. It's the humidity that is so heavy; I just got back from my walk and I'm drenched!
Sending cooling thoughts to those in the extreme heat!
Best to all of you.........................Love, Marilyn
This is a photo of a recent page in my new journal. The woman's face is my own image that I transferr
ed onto the page and then sketched in the rest of her body.
The texture in her shirt is stamping into slightly damp Gesso with some Lego blocks that have the dots on the back? Sorry Sophia - Gamma borrowed a couple :)
Hope you and yours are all doing well. Our stifling heat has broken,some,with lower levels of humidity and it's so good to have windows open once again. I am sending cooling thoughts to all who are still effected by the extreme heat.
Much love - Marilyn xxoo
