"10/28/25 oil on portrait linen", day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

10/28/25 oil, 28x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at 11am

11:15 AM: i got a fairly early start this morning and continued work on 10/28/25 oil on portrait linen. this one has no figures thus far; the central image is a fish bowl, which is surrounded by leaves & flowers. although i’ve borrowed a bit from matisse, the composition and marks are signature tarlow. as i gaze at it now on my east wall, i think it’s the strongest of the four 28x28” oils i’ve made in the past couple of weeks. interestingly, one of the reasons for that is that the central figure with the watering can is absent, which allowed me to be freer with the composition as a whole.

it’s still early; just noon. it was a cold morning….22F when we left the house for the studio, so it’s better to wait a bit till it warms up before taking our walk. currently, at 12:03pm, it’s 44.4F. so if we wait a half hour, it will likely climb a few more degrees and be more comfotable for walking the trail. although it’s sunny, fall weather here at 8,000 ft. is typically chilly, and early morning temps will be below freezing & start dipping into the teens from now through spring.

10/28/25 OIL on portrait linen, day 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

10/28/25 oil on portrait linen, 28x28” on day 1

2:39 PM: after making some final tweaks to watering the fish, i started a new painting on one of the 6 28x28” pieces of portrait linen that i cut from the roll last week. so far, this one, which has a remporary title of 10/28/25 oil on portrait linen, is very spare. the shadows are all light purple, the figure is white, except for the flesh colored hands, neck & feet, the flowers are red and the leaves green. a ceramic pot viewed from above has a burnt siena color and the painted ceramic plate has a blue & green pattern. more tomorrow.

further tweaks to "watering the fish"/ HOPE /  by Philip Tarlow

watering the fish, 28x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked following this morning’s tweaks

11:28 AM: this morning i made further tweaks to watering the fish. this is the most i’ve worked on a painting in this current series, and, although i think i said this yesterday, i think it’s resolved now. a brief back and forth with my dear friend wendy in nyc was instrumental in making the tweaks this morning, and i’m very grateful to her!

HOPE:

A landmark longitudinal study of 25,000 Australians over 14 years has found that hope may be one of the most powerful predictors of human flourishing — more so than income, education or intelligence. It’s the first ever large-scale study of its kind, tracking how varying levels of hope correlate with people’s health, earnings, education, social connection and resilience over time.

The results were striking: individuals who scored higher on measures of hope were consistently more likely to be employed, healthier, less lonely and better able to recover from major life shocks such as job loss, illness or divorce. Hope also appeared to strengthen people’s “internal locus of control” — their belief that they can shape their own future — and this persistence helped drive positive outcomes year after year.

The researchers found that, unlike cognitive skills, which stabilise by early adulthood, hope remains malleable throughout life. In other words, it’s something that can be learned. That makes it a rare lever for long-term wellbeing, one that families, educators and regulators can cultivate through mentoring, purposeful schooling, community rituals and clinical practice.

watering the fish /5:57 sunset /  by Philip Tarlow

watering the fish, 28x28” oil on portrait linen as she looked 10 minutes ago, at 2pm.

BELOW: before (left) and after the changes i just made, primarily to the figure. the breasts were far too prominant and her head looked kinda like a black ball, since her head was tilted forward and you couldn’t see her face.

2:04 PM: so, as you can see if you compare the above images, i made a radical change to the figure. for one thing, from a distance it didn’t read as a figure. i also gave her a blue striped blouse, made it clearer that she’s sitting in a black chair and reduced the size of the white geometric form to the left of the figure. right now, as i look at it hanging on my east wall, it feels resolved. mikela agrees.

11:28 AM: i worked on watering the fish this morning and will continue this afternoon. here’s the current state.

watering the fish, 28x28” oil on portrait linen

The Guitar Player /  by Philip Tarlow

10:10 AM: The Guitar Player, 64x13 3/4” was painted by me in 1998. This guy was a friend at the time, who had been base player for Melissa Etheridge. We discovered it yesterday while going through painitngs from my storage room, which are now being organized in the newly contructed shelving, which was completed yesterday.

The Guitar Player, 1998, 64x13 3/4” oil on linen.

"Tactical Frivolity", day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

Tactical Frivolity, 28x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end o fmy painting day today

4:32 PM: i flipped tactical frivolity 360 and painted into it, again using the figure watering plants (mikela) as the core image, with the goldfish taking center stage.

Tactical Frivolity, day 2 & a tweak to Fish Wish /  by Philip Tarlow

Tactical Frivolity, 28x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at 2pm today

2:30 PM: this afternoon i took tactical frivolity, which i started yesterday as 10/22/25 oil, to the next stage. i’m still working, so i’ll post today’s version later this afternoon.

Fish Wish, 28x28” as she looked following this morning’s tweaks, with the two shadows on the lower left toned down

"Fish Wish," 27x28" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:13 PM: i took out one of the four goldfish & a bit of the black surrounding the watering can, so that your eye goes to the green watering can rather than the black that was beneath it.

fish wish, 28×28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked moments ago, after the introduction of the figure watering

2:32 PM: a few moments ago, a figure entered the picture: mikela watering our plants in the entryway. she gives the composition new energy. she has appeared many times in previous compositions.

fish wish, 27x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at 9am this morning

9:01 PM: i started a painting in oil on portrait linen yesterday. it was a busy day; mikela and i moved paintings out of my storage space in preparation for the new shelving that was to be installed today. as it turns out, our installer texted that he wasn’t feeling well this morning….in any event, amidst all the trumoil yesterday, i was able to start this painting, but was unable to take it any further than a rough sketch.

so this morning, i got an early start, up at 4 and in the studio doing my morning meditation when it was still dark, at abour 6am. i had some matcha tea and got right to work, moving rapidly, taking advantage of my early morning energy, which i knew wouldn’t last more than a few hours. i was in a good place, and i just painted without too much planning or thinking about next steps.

i tried out my new tube of galkyd lite gel, which is meant to replace my neo megilp medium, which is no longer being made. it worked like a charm, and fish wish was born.