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

"Uprooted".................

16 x 20

Acrylic/Mixed Media

This is an abstract piece I am working on. I still have some line work to add, to it, but I have been experimenting with these Dr. Ph Martin Bombay India Inks and think they're really terrific. They come in little bottles with eye-dropper lids and the ink is wonderful for dropping into water! It creates wonderful and spontaneous surprises.

I call this piece "Uprooted" because the initial inks created a vision of a huge tree (the thick blue area there on the left) that has been uprooted due to a storm. We've been getting lots of storms, lately; another one tonight. We did have a neighbor's tree fall on our house about a month ago. That was quite scary! Thankfully, no one was hurt but, perhaps, this painting was subconsciously in my vision because of that experience. I always say art is a path.

I added some Japanese papers to this piece, for texture, and also collaged Asian script paper throughout in areas as well as around the whole canvas.

Hope you are all having an artful weekend!

Much love - Marilyn

Wylde Women Award :)

I have been nominated for the Wylde Women Award by Heather Robinson (http://creativesolace.blogspot.com/) Please visit Heather's Blog, when you can, it is jam-packed with her beautiful art and words!

Thank you Sweet Heather! I so appreciate this.

I am, in return, nominating all of my favorite Blogs, here that I have linked on my Blog. I cannot express, with the right words, the inspiration I get from all of you! You are my morning "cup of joe"!!!!! Thank you!

I was also asked, with receiving this award, that I link Tammy Vitale's Blog here http://:www.tammyvitale.com/ so she can visit all of the Blogs that I have linked here. She will really love her visits.

Thanks, again, Heather and I am wishing you all a safe, happy, joyous and artful weekend ahead.

Much love, Marilyn xxoo

Texture, texture and more texture...............

This is a picture of two canvases I recently completed. These are those odd-sized canvases (4 x 12) that I really enjoy working on.

The reason I photographed these, like this, is I'm going to hang one on top of the other with eye screws. I want this to be a wall-hanging of sorts and there will be about a 2" space between them.

I haven't titled these pieces, yet, I'm still thinking on it. It was very difficult to get a good, clear shot of these as there are so many textures in these pieces as well as metallic paints and bright colors. I started out with a very thick layer of gel medium, stamping into it, making texture marks with different tools, writing in it, etc. I let that dry and then started painting.

Have a happy day everyone! Love - Marilyn xxoo