Today

Listening to Deuter (Lovesong from the Mountains), Enya, Gwen Stefani, Kings of Leon (album – Only by the Night), Ludovico Einaudi (Oltremare)

Sheila woke up still very much clogged up and stuffy. The honey drink helps her a lot, more so than the over the counter stuff that makes her glittery and over the top dry. So not sure if she’ll still venture out to try the new SilverSneakers stability class at Gold’s Gym. One of the trainers there just got certified by SilverSneakers for the purpose of teaching us old(er) folk. He’s “pretty” close to our age range, within a decade or two now, so he’s already developing a lot of direct empathy for working w/seniors, that’s good!

Depending on what she decides, and how I feel, I’ll try and go with her if she does.

I woke up ankles and feet achy (I’ve worked my way to 7500+ steps daily for over a week now), minor stuff 😊

It’s 50 this morning, bright, clear, cool, nice! Then rising 32+ degrees to today’s high. I may have to shed some of my layers, lol!

With the sunny day, I’m also looking forward to working on my in-progress re-purposing painting 😂 Much more on that below in Yesterday’s section ❤️

Wish me luck, ya’ll!

Yesterday

Yesterday was a picture perfect weather day by Central Texas standards, and probably most anywhere else, though I do know a few folks who either really do want it either very hot, or very cold. Not me 😊

Unfortunately yesterday, except for a few important things, was largely disappointing.

I woke late, even by the new unwanted time change standards, lol! Wasn’t able to get to Central Market til after breakfast for the few things that ballooned to almost 20 by the time we finished adding more and more “small” goodies we like best from there (ie, fresh sourdough rolls, English walnuts, whole mushrooms, NY liverwurst, tiny red apples smaller than my hand, some kind of new leafy greens I couldn’t pronounce til I said it in Italian – very close to Spanish – Rapeenee, ie, Rapini, lol!). With traffic both ways, it was over two hours & I was beat, though very happy with my bags of goodies 😊

Invited the grandson to go to the Wildflower Center for an hour but he was already “booked” lol! It’s good when it has some of his friends be able to come spend the afternoon. Play dates they call them now. Used to be we just showed up at our friends houses or they ours, back in the 50s and 60s. We didn’t know not having cell phones and big vehicles to co-ordinate our get togethers really was a simpler time ❤️

Started painting early afternoon for a few minutes before lunch, returned to it after, working on changes to In the Light, which I also mentioned in a post recently. I’m giving myself some leeway experimenting. At least for another week or so, maybe Monday next week, the 11th. I’m working on the color version of the BW examples it in that post. It was nice to see, via my Most Views Images report from Fine Art America, that In the Light picked up some new views this past week, most likely because of the post! That nice, and important!

What I’m doing is working the contrasts, highlights / shadows, as delicately as I can, bringing them closer to a rendition I cooked up digitally of the painting’s original photo of itself. I write a bit more about that process, with a large 36×48 painting, Austin at Night, back in the early 2000s, in that same product post mentioned above. That experience always stuck with me, and I’m seeing if I can replicate the process, but via other means than either having to have a printer or go to a printer and have progress sheets printed out. The biggest challenge I see so far is, ending up with a cohesive piece. The work, as I’d left it as finished and visible on Fine Art America, is not all I wanted it to be, but is cohesive, has unity. It’ll need a new unity now. An interesting challenge, one that appears with the creation of each new work.

I think that’s why I decide / realize some work is finished, whether I think I’d like to or wanted to make it something different than what it is when I know I must stop — the unity of the work is too powerful to improve anymore on the image than what it is.

Probably two of the best examples of that were done in one sitting are visible on the wall of my art room here after fixing it up. Something I managed to get done before my 2nd surgery and am so glad I did! ❤️ The two paintings are the top two, best seen in the last image in the post. One (on the right) was a lay-in I just loved and couldn’t bear to change. I did a subsequent full image (same size, 6×12 inches), Earth Clock at Burlington Bike Path, I also really like, just differently 😊 The other, also a 6×12 gallery wrap, is something I “happened” on, at least in terms of technical creativity. I’m still absorbing it and it’s implications for what I can do, part of what’s compelled and is happening with me with the work I’m doing, experimenting with, In the Light.

I wrote, in my review of the recent Renoir movie Sheila and I watched – “the complex simplicity of beauty.”

How very true ☺️

Related Amazon Search & Products
https://www.amazon.com/shop/felipeadanlerma

My Art & Photography Materials, Supplies & Instructions Idea Page
on Amazon
*
You can also begin a new search from any image below 😊

I do like to point out I pick my selections to showcase from my Amazon searches. May not always be the case, or wholly always the case, but for now, I prefer picking titles and book covers and gift items that just really appeal to me. There’s lots more to choose from, but only have so much room, lol! I hope you enjoy —

My Purchase & Wish List On Amazon 😊
https://www.amazon.com/shop/felipeadanlerma

*

My Related Blog Posts

*

My Latest Blog Posts

• Update Using Spectrafix Non-Toxic Fixative Spray for Watercolors (The Earth is a Garden & Violet Blooms Cluster Varied Background) 02.22.20February 22, 2020
  “Now, is it just me (cause I just noticed this after I shot this pic, late yesterday evening at last light) that there two very friendly floral “spirits” facing / embracing each other as they come out of the earth-like sphere?”
• Adan’s Fine Art America Images # 7 – The Seine And Quay Beside Notre Dame, Autumn (Paris), Photography circa 2012February 21, 2020
  From archival prints to yoga mats and coffee mugs, see it all here – https://felipeadan-lerma.pixels.com/featured/the-seine-and-quay-beside-notre-dame-autumn-felipe-adan-lerma.html
• Adan’s Fine Art America Images # 6 – A Spray of Wild Onions, Photography circa 2001February 20, 2020
  From archival prints to yoga mats and coffee mugs, see it all here – https://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-spray-of-wild-onions-felipe-adan-lerma.html
• Adan’s Fine Art America Images # 5 – Place Saint Michel Paris, Photography circa 2012February 19, 2020
  From archival prints to yoga mats and coffee mugs, see it all here – https://felipeadan-lerma.pixels.com/featured/place-saint-michel-felipe-adan-lerma.html .
• Painting Update – My Lost Edges and Masking Fluid Ideas 02.18.20February 18, 2020
  This weekend, I reblogged two really interesting articles on the aesthetic or idea of employing lost edges, where the boundaries of given recognizable objects meld into the color space around it (side plane, background, etc). I’d already haphazardly begun working with the idea, wondering if I was off-base to even be considering it, when I … Read more
• Painting Looser III: Chasing the Lost … and Found Edge via Caroline Buchanan WatercolorsFebruary 16, 2020
  “Lost and found edges normally don’t just happen. You must plan. And you must use restraint. It is MUCH EASIER to complete an edge than to lose and find it.”
• The Power of Understatement (Lost Edges) via Dianne Mize Studio Feb 2020February 16, 2020
  “In the 1960's I attended an art show in which hung a huge mural size painting showing as its content the total of three words: "Say Everything Completely". I rebelled against that message then and I bristle at it now. The reason is that in my work, a part of my personal aesthetic is understatement.”

Thanks so much everyone! 😊

Adan

Twitter / Instagram / FB @FelipeAdanLerma
Amazon Author Page – https://amzn.to/2YpgyUf
Fine Art America (FAA) – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html