Aging Through Covid-19, May 16, 2020 – New Paris Watercolor Art

Little Steps Poster ©Felipe Adan Lerma
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A Walk in Paris With a View of the Eiffel Tower, watercolor on absorbent ground
Very loosely based on a photo I took in Paris back in late 2012. My wife Sheila & I had left Vermont after living their a year and a half, so I could “experience” Vermont ❤️ my wife’s home state, and were enroute back to Texas where the youngest girl was soon to have our youngest grandchild, Max 😊

To say it was a wonderful 5 1/2 weeks would be an understatement!

We walked, we ate, we bought French wine for 1/5th the cost here in the US 🍷 and bought baguettes fresh on a daily basis.

Probably my best feedback I could ask for of this painting, Sheila said right off, “It feels like it felt to us in Paris” 💕 Loose, free, and carefree (related but a step beyond!)

I had to search my hundreds of photos of Paris from that time to find the image my imagination had remembered kinda like seen above, lol!

We ate pizza along the street at a tiny tiny shop there, with the owner in a corner at an even tinier table watching how the girls served the customers. He nodded his approval of us once, and let us mind ourselves to ourselves, obvious tourists, but older than most, closer to his age.

It’s not a great photo, or even of my favorites from Paris, but it is rich in memories 😊

And it’s almost always interesting how my painting versions then take on a separate if connected life of their own from the source image.

My previous post, I mentioned how it sometimes happens that a painting will remind me another artist’s work, usually someone well know, or I probably wouldn’t have recognized the style, lol! I’ve many very talented artist friends, but they have their own style and slant of how the paint plants itself within us.

This particular painting I mentioned, immediately brought to mind, Utrillo’s work, the use of negative white space, the lines & buildings, the European setting.

I think if I had to name one important goal I accomplished with this small Paris work, it’s that I stopped much shorter than usual in re to feeling I overdid the image. Some may say I “way” stopped short of overdoing 😂 but I truly like the white & lighter negative spaces. Not for always, not for anything in particular, but when it truly feels right, meaning the work is reflecting what I felt – and still feel – for this tiny moment of piercing histories distances – my wife and standing, walking there in that spot, cars of many years of vintage all around us, buildings from differing eras, topped by an icon of time and history like a pin holder – the Eiffel Tower 💕

One thing I did carry over from the previous painting, The Path Forward, is the vintage-like blurring/white border around the entire work. I think that still needs just a bit more touch-up and layin, which will be easier now that’s it’s more dry. Ahhh well, technical limitations do dictate process at times 😊

Take care everyone! Stay well, stay safe!
Experiment in your chosen field of expression, recognize what is classic, what is new, and that all of it is you…. ❤️

Adan

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Suggested link :
A fellow artist, from the US and now living in Valencia, Spain, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, has begun an interesting more-in-depth look at those artists that pique his interst, and he’s begun with the one and only Picasso 👩‍🎨 – https://eretxa.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/about-picasso-the-buffoon-chapter-1 . Francisco includes quotes and bits of anecdotal history. Here’s a short sample : “…one constantly changes […] One can’t truly follow the creative act other than via a series of all its variations.” He also has plans to focus on other artists. I hope you’ll take a look 😊

Series link – Aging Through Covid-19

Do you have good, positive, useful or encouraging info to share? Please post in the moderated comments below 😊

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Thanks again, everyone! 😊

Adan

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