My Shadow-Selfie Feels Part of the World (smiles)

Note, click image or above link for full vertical rendition 🙂

Most of my self portraits show me taking pictures or playing with one of my grandkids, or at a gallery show or enjoying a vista in Vermont and elsewhere.

This image – taken on a walk through the neighborhood – caught my attention as I was crossing the street. The deep shadow, outlined yet moving atop the asphalt, alone was not what struck me as unusual and worth stopping to shoot.

The juxtaposition of my leg and foot provided not only further contrast, but created the impression in my mind that maybe the shadow was rising from the ground, or actually above me, and I – my walking self – was surreally balanced, as in another dimension, on my own shadow!

It was only later I noticed the pale soft edged power line shadows splitting the scene (smiles).

All in all this is one of my fav self portraits, a shadow-selfie, lol! 😊

More of artist self portraits can be seen at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=746647 .

Thanks so much for stopping 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 *


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Discovering Diamonds Review: “Ike and Kay” by James MacManus

My reblogs via other writers/artists are more rare these days but this sounds absolutely fascinating! Even the “about” info on the author being reviewed by Christoph Fischer is compelling. With the news of the day often filled with revelations of sexual abuse across so many levels of society, it’s comforting to see a portrait of obvious true affection and love, and the conflicts that can create. The human heart is a mysterious surprising self indeed! 🙂

writerchristophfischer

36361422“Ike and Kay” by James MacManus is the fictionalised account of the war time affair between married General Dwight Eisenhower and his assistant-turned-driver Kay Summersby; an affair which started in 1942 and came to a final end after the war.
I didn’t know this detail about Eisenhower until I read the blurb for this book and found the story particularly interesting and well-told. The background story is immaculately researched and fascinating, too: from Eisenhower’s first arrival in Britain, his rise in rank to his war involvement in North Africa and Berlin, I learned a lot of minor and major detail about the military operation and about the person Eisenhower.
Like other readers, I didn’t feel the love between the main characters, though, maybe because I didn’t feel it myself; this as a caution to those reading it for the romance aspect. That caveat aside, it is worth reading as work…

View original post 386 more words

Finding Color in the Fog – New Painting Upload, Sunrise Through the Fog

A small 8×8 inch oil completed late last year but only now been able to capture in a way I felt did it justice. The colors are laid in via glazed layers and the essence of the image changes as the light on it shifts.

The original is no longer available, but prints, posters, and a nice array of gift items are all available on Fine Art America at –
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunrise-through-the-fog-felipe-adan-lerma.html .

A nice example are the quality 24×72 inch yoga mats –

Sunrise Through the Fog ©Felipe Adan Lerma; yoga mat design, available at Fine Art America https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunrise-through-the-fog-felipe-adan-lerma.html?product=yoga-mat .
Sunrise Through the Fog Yoga Mat
©Felipe Adan Lerma

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunrise-through-the-fog-felipe-adan-lerma.html?product=yoga-mat

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 *

Seeing the Poem Emerge in My Painting – Sometimes Finding the Words Can Take Awhile – That’s OK :)

Mount Mansfield and Malletts Bay combined one brisk early 2017 fall morning in Vermont with photos and an experience that gave rise to this painting late 2018.

The painting took awhile to evolve from the photos, and the poem – written late one February night, 2019 – took even longer. That’s the way it works sometimes (smiles).

Slowly, like the sunrise itself, I realized, the poem in my tweet not only fit my feeling of standing in the early morning cold – cold for me, a Texas boy, lol! – but also fit the process I experienced deciding how to let the painting, the image – flow inside the paint across the canvas!

I experimented placing more detail both into the shadows on the water and within the silhouette of Mount Mansfield, but opted for the flow of light itself to be the greater draw, on the water and on and within the solitary boat. And this short poem, in the tweet above, I believe, turns out to reflect this – literally – back to me, my feelings in the gnarly dark dusk.

Creative work it seems, is as much what it creates in awareness within myself as what finally appears in print and paint (smiles).

Nautical Sunrise Mount Mansfield From Malletts Bay ©Felipe Adan Lerma
Nautical Sunrise Mount Mansfield From Malletts Bay
©Felipe Adan Lerma

Thank you so much for stopping by! May beautiful sunrises be plentiful in your life! 🙂

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 *

Poetry in Fiction, Samples – Slumming in Paris Part Three, Boys & Girls in Paris

In a recent post about a new painting ( https://felipeadanlerma.com/2019/01/29/deciding-when-my-painting-is-done-part-4-discoverng-and-painting-a-story-woman-in-moonlight/ ) I mentioned a creative similarity to painting with writing fiction & poetry, something I’d written about six years ago 🙂 Here’s an excerpt, and then the reblog which can direct you to the full article – thanks so much! (smiles) .

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excerpt –

It’s kinda ironic that, the strength I see most in each, is in its context.

The fiction excerpt has much more power in its context within thousands of other words to give it associated meaning.

And the poetry rendition of that excerpt, gains its power, from its opening to whatever it is the reader brings to the lines. Isolated from everything, except the reader.

I like both. 🙂

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Adan

© Felipe Adan Lerma - All Rights Reserved

Slumming in Paris Part 3 med

Poetry in Fiction, Samples – Slumming in Paris Part Three, With the Children
Boys & Girls in Paris

Third in Series, Poetry in Fiction

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Pictured Left : “Slumming in Paris, Part Three” – 24,912 Story Words.

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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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Poetry in Fiction, Samples – Slumming in Paris Part Three, With the Children

Boys & Girls in Paris : Chapter – To Notre Dame

Please note, this post was updated Jan 29, 2019 🙂

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Linked to dVersePoets OpenLinkNight # 120, hosted by Joseph Hesch

Joe discusses his own search and methods of capturing inspired creativity :

“Lately I’ve been wondering about making a verbal note into the recorder of my iPhone. It’s bad enough, though, that I look back…

View original post 655 more words

Dancing Flower – My Newest Palette Knife Painting ; Sometimes It’s Just About Making a Choice, Choosing the Emotion :)

This new painting started with a basic layin I took to a the Old Bakery & Emporium, a historical non-profit gallery gift shop here in Austin, to work on recently. Here’s my tweet from that day –

I worked in a full basic layover that afternoon that felt pretty darn close to what I wanted – colorful, fun, optimistic 🙂 This is what it looked like end of the afternoon on my mini easel I’d taken to the gallery –

Dancing Flower, step 2 ©Felipe Adan Lerma

Later at home, a day or two later, I worked in more colors and – esp in the flower – lots more texture! That was fun 🙂

Dancing Flower, step 3 ©Felipe Adan Lerma

From this point, it was so close to what I wanted I let it hang on my wall near my easel at home where I could see it different ways – in passing, pausing going by, standing in front of it, catching sight of it by surprise – giving me feedback on how it made me feel in moments I wasn’t expecting.

I liked it. A lot!

But I felt it still lacked just a little of something I was looking for, and I wasn’t sure what it was yet.

I liked the way the dark space bottom left between the leaf and the flower matched the upper right corner. The dark contrast worked well, but it also left me feeling isolated somehow. So I worked the flower with tiny gradations of yellows and even pale pinks.

Gradually I began to see I needed to choose. Did I want the flower to be almost as if in space? Bright and shiny against the background with some surrounding foliage and color? Or did I want the flower to be more immersed in its surroundings? Part of the garden?

I decided on the latter and began adding touches into some of the negative spaces.

I remember standing in front of my painting as it rested on the wall about eye level with me, and made the conscious decision to make the upper right darkish area, with its wonderful streaks of thin lines and textures, more aligned with the bottom left, with the lush growth of green leaf – keeping the upper right’s original flow of texture – and added the swatches of green and turquoise!

Dancing Flower ©Felipe Adan Lerma - 8x8 inch gallery wrap water soluble oil painting - https://fineartamerica.com/featured/dancing-flower-felipe-adan-lerma.html?newartwork=true .
Dancing Flower ©Felipe Adan Lerma

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/dancing-flower-felipe-adan-lerma.html?newartwork=true

Now it worked more fully for me!

I liked both versions, but I wanted the feel I got with the finished version – more engaged, more optimistic, more of the sense of the flower as part of a plush garden environment 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the development of my work, and will agree that – sometimes – it really just has to be a choice what we want our art work to become, even if much of the development is intuitive and includes letting portions of the painting just “be”!

Let me know what you think, and thanks so much for stopping 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

More of my floral work can be seen at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=642804 .

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

Deciding When My Painting is Done, Part 4 – Discoverng and Painting a Story, Woman in Moonlight

It started like this, a textured palette knife inlay modeled on the values and inverse colors of a macro cropping of a photo of mine I really like…

Step 1 in creating my small painting, “Woman in Moonlight” - ©Felipe Adan Lerma, 8x8 gallery wrap canvas, palette knife, water soluble oils.
Step 1 in creating my small painting, “Woman in Moonlight” – ©Felipe Adan Lerma, 8×8 gallery wrap canvas, palette knife, water soluble oils.

My reference photo, pictured below, and currently available on my Fine Art America (FAA) site, is a beautiful play of light. Eventually I’d like to try my hand at the image in the photo itself. A very impressionist version I’d think 🙂

White Blue Cluster ©Felipe Adan Lerma; original photography; hi res version avail at Fine Art America https://fineartamerica.com/featured/white-blue-cluster-felipe-adan-lerma.html .
White Blue Cluster ©Felipe Adan Lerma

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/white-blue-cluster-felipe-adan-lerma.html

But much like my painting, Yellow Blooms Coral Accents, also based on a photo on my FAA site (Theatre of Light), I found my initial inverse color/value inlay too much to my liking to paint over.

Eventually I will come back to my violet/purple photo image to paint, but this is very much part of what I’m discovering in asking myself, “where do I stop before I ruin something I’d rather not lose?” (smiles)

And like in my creative work in fiction, where scenes and characters can often find a home in another story or even inside poems [good example of my own poetry-from-fiction is in my post of late October 2013 – https://felipeadanlerma.com/2013/10/30/poetry-in-fiction-samples-slumming-in-paris-part-three-boys-girls-in-paris/ ] reference images and ideas in paintings painted over can back and be tried again in another painting.

Creativity it seems, for me, is more a flow than a stack of steps 🙂

Meanwhile, here’s the other stages to the finished painting, Woman in Moonlight. Each image was the ending point for work on this painting that day.

Step 2, adding the emerging moon. Step 3, adding the woman in the moonlight.

  • Step 2
  • Step 3

Step 4 (finished work), adding a bird in flight and a few small highlights.

Woman in Moonlight ©Felipe Adan Lerma, 8x8 gallery wrap palette knife oil painting; surreal abstract
Woman in Moonlight – Finish Oil Painting
©Felipe Adan Lerma

See full res sample at –
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/woman-in-moonlight-felipe-adan-lerma.html?newartwork=true

Thank you so much for coming by! I hope you can see, as I’m really only beginning to realize myself, sometimes a work is finished in one sitting. Other times, enroute to the initial target-image, a better/preferred or don’t-want-to-lose-it version appears. And in some, like “Woman in Moonlight” – a story-feeling needs a fuller expression within the abstract to complete itself within myself. Yes, definitely the magic of art 🙂

Next post I hope to show the finished work of another floral, first shown in-progress via a tweet from the Old Bakery and Emporium here in Austin 🙂

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 *

Do You Have a Favorite Word Among Your Image Titles? Apparently I do! (smiles) – “Light”

Lovely Lillies Dreams to Light ©Felipe Adan Lerma
Lovely Lilies Dreams to Light
©Felipe Adan Lerma

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/lovely-lilies-dreams-to-light-felipe-adan-lerma.html

My newest Fine Art America photography and art collection – “Light”

Artwork and photography with Light in the title ©Felipe Adan Lerma
My Light Titled Collection at Fine Art America
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=834821

I was recently debating the title for a new nearly finished oil painting – I pretty sure I’ve settled on “Woman in Moonlight” – when I suddenly wondered how much of my photography and art I’ve titled with “Light” in the title.

The answer was “more than I thought!” 🙂

Artwork and photography with Light in the title ©Felipe Adan Lerma
My Light Titled Collection at Fine Art America
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=834821

Luckily, Fine Art America, where I have most of my available images posted, is built where I can create custom individual collections defined and populated as I’d like to!

In this instance I wanted a buyer or licensee or fan to be able to find those works I’ve captured or painted in one easy-to-find grouping, much as I do for sunsets, images of Paris, Vermont, and so much more.

My Image-Collections page with links to each grouping can be seen at – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html .

Artwork and photography with Light in the title ©Felipe Adan Lerma
My Light Titled Collection at Fine Art America
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/felipeadan-lerma.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=834821

Granted, I do believe most of my work involves a celebration of light in our lives, both in my photography and art work, but I thought it kinda interesting to find those I actually used “Light” in the title, and see what was there (smiles).

As soon as I’m finished with “Woman in Moonlight” I’ll post pictures of the process from intuitive abstract beginning to (hopefully) story-telling finished painting 🙂

I hope you’ll agree, the title needed “Light” included in it!

Thank you so much!

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 *


Thank You Repeat Buyer in Bradford Vermont (Nancy Griswold)! – Mountain Road Cabin And Sunrise, Stowe Vermont

Mountain Road Cabin & Sunrise Stowe Vermont
©Felipe Adan Lerma

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/mountain-road-cabin-and-sunrise-stowe-vermont-painting-felipe-adan-lerma.html

Normally most artists selling their art work, prints, and gift items don’t know who’s bought something of theirs at Fine Art America, but this particular buyer, artist Nancy Griswold, contacted me and let me know.

I’d already been a fan of her work so it is particularly satisfying the sales have been to someone whose work I admire.

My very minor way of thanking her is to point you where you can see some of her beautiful and thoughtful work.

She lives in New England so that of course is a huge influence on her images.

Nancy’s Fine Art America image page for “Vermont Gardens” says this was painted all on site of the image location – amazing enough considering the combination of great choices done literally on the spot – the layered composition, from the sky and soft horizon line of trees and farmstead; through the roll of light on the slant of hill (banked by shaded trees); to the nearer foreground garden anchored by the figure loving working the land – all brushed in soft clear lines and sweeps of color!

More of Nancy’s work can be seen and purchased at these varied online locations –

FB – Nancy Griswold – Fine Artist
Fine Art America – https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/nancy-griswold.html?tab=artwork
Etsy – https://www.etsy.com/shop/NGARTSITE
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com titled ‘Artworks of Nancy Griswold’
Mural nature painting at – www.ngartsite.com

I hope you’ll give this gifted artist a look, and see why I’m so appreciative she’s chosen to repeat purchase prints of one of my own art pieces (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 3 – Adding Recognizable Objects to an Abstract and Making it Work

In the Light
©Felipe Adan Lerma

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

Probably my biggest challenge – besides knowing when the work is done and stop, and thus allowing myself to return to abstract painting after many decades – is what and how to insert something recognizable into the image: a person, or thing – animate or inanimate (sailboats, birds, a bicycle, the moon, etc).

One of the reasons it was so hard for me to learn to accept a good stopping point when working an abstract – colors, lines and forms – was I felt I had to evolve the abstract itself into something recognizable.

Yet, I was often, actually almost always, much happier with my satisfying abstract vs whatever it was I tried to evolve it into looking like (buildings, clouds, mountains, etc).

The answer, for me, even if challenging, in an almost Roschart-like puzzle-like manner, was deciding on the right object in the right location within the finished abstract.

Why?

Because this allows me, after a series of deliberations re composition & source image & color keys, a period of nearly fully-free expressiveness!

It’s hard to express how satisfying this stage of painting is for me – bounded only by a growing awareness to sense when to stop, when to let a streak or stroke of color “be”, and eventually, when to let the work set for the final stages.

Sailboat detail of “In the Light” ©Felipe Adan Lerma https://fineartamerica.com/featured/in-the-light-felipe-adan-lerma.html
Sailboat detail of “In the Light”
©Felipe Adan Lerma

That final stage, for me, is often a grueling combination of choosing the right object (person or thing) to place into the new world my semi-abstract seems to suggest, then actually executing the tighter yet still-painterly representation into that abstract.

Sometimes I succeed so well in completing the work, I find it hard to find where to sign my new painting, lol! But that’s a different still-evolving story for another time 🙂

Signature detail for In the Light ©Felipe Adan Lerma https://fineartamerica.com/featured/in-the-light-felipe-adan-lerma.html
Signature detail for In the Light
©Felipe Adan Lerma

Right now I’m working on a strange little 8×8 with lots of earth tones that follows the above sequence. I’ve been lucky enough to photo-document the changes as I’ve progressed and’ll be posting on that when the full process works out. (smiles)

Thank you 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 *

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