Felipe Adan Lerma

Deciding When My Painting is Done, Part 2 – Stopping Myself Before I Ruin My Own Art (smiles)

My “stopping myself before I ruin my own art” sample above serves dual purpose – it was once a delicate single flower with a muted background.

I tried to “enhance” the flower (I was quite happy with the background), feeling it “had” to have a certain look or finish. Maybe it did. But, using my palette knife, I tried adding texture when I should have (I now realize) added glazes.

Behind the black backdrop behind the yellows is that former painting!

So at this point my shakey question to myself was, is this finished enough? I liked it. I was comfortable with it. But again I wanted just a few more finishing touches. And this time color and texture were added delicately, slowly, using both a palette knife and brush. I hope you like the result 🙂

Yellow Blooms Coral Accents ©Felipe Adan Lerma - 8x8 inch gallery wrap water soluble oil painting. — Yellow Blooms Coral Accents
©Felipe Adan Lerma

8×8 Inch Gallery Wrap Art
Full res image at –
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/yellow-blooms-coral-accents-felipe-adan-lerma.html?newartwork=true

Next post in this little series, “Deciding When My Painting is Done” I’ll talk a little about another very recent painting where I had added an object into a landscape abstract, it didn’t work, and how I solved the problem – I hope 🙂

Thank you so much for coming by – more to come! (smiles)

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America (FAA) – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *

Deciding When My Painting Is Done, Part 1 – Speaking to Myself (smiles)

Solo Flight Blue Sky - original oil painting ©Felipe Adan Lerma — Solo Flight Blue Sky
©Felipe Adan Lerma
Original Water Soluble Oil Painting 6×12 inches

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/solo-flight-blue-sky-felipe-adan-lerma.html?newartwork=true

Way back in the early 80s I restarted painting (after playing around with art in my late teens / early 20s (late 60s, early 70s), I mainly created abstracts and back then I would have declared this work finished before I’d added the bird.

I persisted in that way, despite a supervisor I worked under in Galveston (at the County Clerk’s office) suggesting I add “something” he could key on within the work to make it work for him, until I moved on to playful surreal work then my long term favorite, Impressionism.

Recently I’ve again returned to abstracts, and found myself haunted by this gracious man’s words. He’d liked my work, but it just seem complete to him. Somehow, nearly four decades later, I’ve come to the same conclusion: I needed “something” identifiable to feel the work was complete 🙂

Though not nearly as minimal, I see the lineage to a painting I just finished around the same time but knew was complete, “Birds and Sailboat in Paradise” and to another I completed the very 1st of this year, “Surfing the Light” –

– all of which I think will take me to “Deciding When My Painting is Done, Part 2 – Stopping Myself Before I Ruin My Own Art” 🙂

Because, if a work is really to be “my” work of art, I’m the one who really has to decide when it’s done. Right? No? Maybe? (smiles)

Thanks so much for coming by!

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America (FAA) – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *

Paris : PhotoPoem # 4 : “Music at Shakespeare & Company”

This is a special reblog of a post I wrote in Paris over six years ago. I noticed it as a Suggested Related Previous Post of mine at the end of my recent blog post, “About the Images in My Books, Part 2 – Narrative / Illustrative Photography and Art”.

After correcting/deleting a few bad links & no longer available info, I decided this post, “https://felipeadanlerma.com/2012/11/16/paris-photopoem-4-music-at-shakespeare-company/ – was indeed a great match for my current post 🙂 It’s got poetry and pictures, written & shot, during mine and my wife’s great 5 1/2 week stay in Paris for most of the holidays back in 2012 (smiles).

Also related of course is Part 1 of my current posts, “Images in my Books, Book Covers” – https://felipeadanlerma.com/2019/01/06/about-the-images-in-my-books-part-1-book-covers/ .

Felipe Adan Lerma

Paris PhotoPoems Series, #4 “Music at Shakespeare & Company”

Pictured Left : Slumming in Paris Part One, Arthur & Gricinda

Universal Amazon eBook Link – http://mybook.to/SlummingInParis1

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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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Paris : PhotoPoem # 4 : “Music at Shakespeare & Company”

Shakespeare and Company Store Front, Paris France

***

“Music Inside the Books”

inside

a second generation

literary bastion

quartered in an ancient gallic city

across time’s enduring symbol

notre dame

prayed the flowing seine

piano-classic played

stroked by a passers-bye-public

keys touched, kissed

like flowers bent down to the dew

pulling strings, sounds, of wonderment

conversing replies to any country’s words

joining forgotten inner movements

flipped like pages soft as the air

in the fertile arts of paris

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About the Images in My Books, Part 2 – Narrative / Illustrative Photography and Art

From early on I included my own images in small books of poetry, creating verses to illustrate what I saw and felt in the scenes, often of nature but relating to people.

Also relatively early, I matched images to my travel memoirs. One small book, “Love’s Travels – Vermont, Paris, Austin”, combines my images with my travel memoir with my own original prose poetry.

The category link to my Paris travel books currently available on Amazon is – https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_aps?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AParis+in+5+1%2F2+weeks&keywords=Paris+in+5+1%2F2+weeks&ie=UTF8&qid=1547239779 .

And the universal link to Love’s Travels (a great Valentine gift) on Amazon is – http://mybook.to/Loves_Travels_Vermont_Paris_Austin .

The three images immediately above (along with a few others) can be seen in my Love’s Travels collection at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=770274

Why? At the most basic level, it’s fun for me. Beyond that I hope folks find the combinations more interesting, enhancing of the book’s value.

Most recently I also joined photos from my trips to Vermont with my crime thriller novel, Queen.

*Two interesting side notes –

1) Queen, the crime thriller I’d created and copyrighted with images, included a copyright on those images. Nice 👍
2) Plus, because Queen has 74 images, and Love’s Travels has 14, I’m still working my way to posting all those onto Fine Art America (FAA) – so there’s much more in the books themselves, and, much more to still list at FAA 😊

And though not initially a goal (I didn’t set up an image site on Fine Art America until 2016), my two dominant creative interests, art and writing, are now joined! That includes paintings and photography from one end and poetry, fiction, and travel memoirs on the other.

Not a bad unpredicted conjoining! Due in large part, I think, to social media!

So what do you think? A happy coincidence? Or creative fate?
Or just happy like me it worked out that way, lol!

Next post I hope to have uploaded and post some more new oil paintings, all from December just passed (2018). They were basically done, but I hadn’t decided if they needed touch-ups, redo’s, or something added – but now, I feel I have them where I want them, a little bit of this / a little bit of that 😊

Thank ya’ll so much for coming by, and hope you’ll stop by again!

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html .

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *

You Are a Star

There are few folks out there as prolific and spot on as Regina Puckett – this is short, this is cute, and this is dead on true I believe 🙂 “You Are a Star”

Regina Puckett

You are a Star

Regina Puckett

Are you lost in someone else’s measuring cup?

Does someone else’s ruler have you reaching up?

Are you the notches on someone else’s belt?

Are you the cards someone else has dealt?

You are more than someone else’s expectation

You are more than someone else’s narration

You are more than even you believe you are

You are priceless, you are worthy, you are a star

49212313 - small cat with big angry male lion shadow

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About the Images in My Books, Part 1 – Book Covers

Please click links on cover images for links to the books on Amazon (universal links); & links on right-side images for their Fine Art America pages (gifts & prints).

And for more of my before-and-after images-to-covers, please visit my collection of samples at Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=712150 .

It started as just fun, picking pictures I’d taken, or using art I’d made, and using them to make book covers for my fiction and poetry and travel memoirs.

Then, with a deeper move into fiction, I chose images I had to illustrate the story, in this case, the multi-generational, adult and YA, crime thriller, Queen.

Most of my covers I’ve designed myself. Two though, I am grateful to say, I had the help of artist/musician/writer Nico Laeser ( https://indieauthorsupportanddiscussion.com/about/meet-the-admins/nico-laeser/ ) . One of those is pictured above, the cover (cropping, cover text, and tonal shift) for Queen; the other is for One Night in the Hill Country –

One Night the Hill Country, by Felipe Adan Lerma - multi-generational thriller set in Central Texas. — One Night in the Hill Country
By Felipe Adan Lerma

http://myBook.to/ONITHC

In this latter case, besides coming up with the cropping and tonal shift, Nico also came up with the sky. I manipulated the foreground coloring a bit and helped choose among the variations of the cover text. 🙂

Though I wish I could do all the image work myself for all my creative projects, it’s not only not practical (in terms of time for others more “calling-me” projects like painting), but I’m just plain not as skilled as folks like Nico. It’s really nice to have a community of creative folk!

Do you use your own images in books? Do you enjoy it? Or is it a mixed bag?

Next post, I’ll give samples of images I’ve use inside my books, to illustrate or augment the work, fiction and non-fiction (smiles).

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.htmlx

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *

My 1st Art Work of 2019 – Surfing the Light, Palette Knife Painting

Surfing the Light © Felipe Adan Lerma, 12x16 Palette Knife Water Soluble Oil Painting on Canvas — Surfing the Light © Felipe Adan Lerma
12×16 Palette Knife Water Soluble Oil Painting on Canvas

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/surfing-the-light-felipe-adan-lerma.html

Palette knife painting is quickly regaining my appreciation for the type of art I can create. I first tried palette knives back in the early 80s and find a new level of pleasure returning to it!

I should add, an important difference for me now vs the early 80s – besides several decades of creativity (smiles) – is my very recent (last few weeks) experimental use with an old painter’s additive, marble dust!

Later this month I hope to write more about both 1) why I’m being drawn to creating abstracts that people and other living things can fit into, and 2) how using marble dust is changing how and what I paint (smiles)

More of my painting work, from the 80s thru today, all styles, is in my Painting Collection at Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=702859 .

Thanks so much!

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.htmlx

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *

Mount Mansfield September Sunrise Six & Seven – Daybreak!

Hope everyone is having a good start to 2019! These are my 6th and 7th images from my Mount Mansfield September Sunrise photo shoot one morning, September, 2018 – the final two pics in the series! 🙂

Please click links to see full res samples on my site at Fine Art America.
Please click image for WordPress Gallery view.

Visit my newest art & photography image Collection, Mount Mansfield, at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=831206 .

My Sunrise / Sunset image collection (currently over 200 photos and art) is at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=645599 .

I hope you’ve enjoyed or will browse my blog post links to see the full series of images and commentary. I do hope to do a full series gallery-view post of the seven images in the near future.

Thanks so much!

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.htmlx

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *
* This sunrise photo shoot series covers seven images *

Mount Mansfield September Sunrise Five

Happy New Year Everyone! This is the 5th image in my Mount Mansfield September Sunrise photo shoot one morning, September, 2018.

It is the first of the series with the sun actually showing. The prior images were twilights, from astronomical twilight to nautical to civil, each a progressive category of light appearing with the sun actually below the horizon.

I thought it apropos for New Years to post the first of my photos from that morning with the sun breaking the horizon line 🙂

Below is an excerpt from my description for this shot on its product page on my Fine Art America site.

At this point, with the appearance of the sun itself, I remember distinctly experiencing a sense of inevitability.

A sense of a sense of inevitability really.

Though nothing is guaranteed in life (including death and taxes in certain ways of thinking) daybreak has long meant the time to do things only doable with light when day had begun (even if no longer strictly true) – hunts for food, battles between armies, feeding the children and elderly, going to work, going to school, having light to paint, seeing love returned from a loved one’s face…

…and seeing another new day.

Because, for as long as people have lived on Earth, when the sun rose, it was inevitable – there was no turning back the new day –

A ball of fire and light rose in the sky – the air began finishing its changes from red to yellow, yellow to white, white to blue – light carved the wide mountain silhouette into hills and valleys then layers of distances –

Flat fields of crops appeared and slanted up the foreground to the horizon line, flattening the mountains and trees against the sky.

I had been in my photo shoot spot nearly an hour. I could go now, I had seen the sun rise.

Or I could stay, finish seeing the new day arrive.

I stayed.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/mount-mansfield-september-sunrise-five-felipe-adan-lerma.html

And I feel very much the same here tonight at home with my wife, I have seen the New Year arrive around the globe, yet here I stay, to see the New Year, our New Year, arrive here at home….

Happy New Year everyone! 🙂

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – http://author.to/Adans_Amazon_Author_Page
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html

* Please note, full res images are available on my FAA site *
* This sunrise photo shoot series covers seven images *

Mount Mansfield September Sunrise Four

This is the moment before the sun shows itself.

More light reflects orange on the fog.

Foreground fields appear.

Astronomical twilight is a recorded memory. Nautical twilight’s eyes are wide open. And Civil Twilight will soon evaporate into pure light.

By this time, with the light rising so quickly, my own sense of time has slowed to moments. But blink too slowly and I may miss the changes. Breathe too quickly and I might disrupt the beatings of my heart.

The sun is about to rise….

Adan

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Paris : PhotoPoem # 4 : “Music at Shakespeare & Company”

“Music Inside the Books”

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