stage 3 of "grey 6/ the love letter" /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL: grey6/the love letter  48x48" mixed media on canvas

2:50 pm: this painting represents a life long vision. as i've mentioned in a previous post, vermeer painted the love letter in 1669-70. in 1974, the late yannis tsarouchis, my friend and mentor, painted his version, titled simply the letter. tsarouchis once said to me, as we walked down a street in central athens "all great painting is abstract." i was in my late 20's, and i couldn't quite wrap my mind around that statement.

ABOVE: tsarouchis'1974 painting the letter. 51x43" the 2 figures are: his niece niki and french assistant, dominique 

i came to understand what he was getting at years later. i believe he chose this painting of vermeer's precisely for that reason. it perfectly illustrates his point, with it's exquisite balance of forms in space, vermeer's superb handling of paint and mastery of light and his capacity to convey an extraordinary depth of feeling..... it has the syncopated rhythm of a bach concerto, the precise balance of a mondrian. 

STAGE 3: grey6/the love letter 48x48"  mixed media on canvas

the model holds a lute, a symbol at the time of carnal love; luit was slang for vagina. i'm sure none of this escaped tsarouchis' attention. he was a very passionate man and an inveterate and deeply curious researcher. his grasp of ancient greek theatre, (he produced, directed and translated  aristophanes, staged in an athens parking lot) and the history of art,  allowed him to enrich his understanding of vermeer, read layers of meaning into his paintings and internalize his spirit.

i believe that, on some level, as my grey series paintings evolved, (they are abstract paintings painted over abstract collages i had made in 2014), i was slowly edging towards the love letter. 

it is not yet complete, and i'm going to have to take a one week break starting tuesday. so stay tuned and we'll see how it unfolds. i plan on doing a second version on blank white canvas once this one is resolved. 

i was conflicted about making another painting on top of this particular one. it was good, and has many beautiful passages, but the more i looked at it, over time i grew a little tired and bored. as mikela accurately observed, i'm a good painter so it's more or less a given that the work will be well painted, but does it sing? that's what i strive for. and, of course, looking at vermeer's paintings so intently every day,  i'm learning a lot. i would go so far as to say i'm beginning to learn his language. 

"all stories are the same" /  by Philip Tarlow

3pm: end of painting day; stage 2 of grey6/the love letter:

 

BELOW: 1 pm: stage 1 of the painting

11;45 AM: just started the drawing for grey6/the love letter in off white paint. below right: stretching the canvas for the second version on white primed canvas.

10:20 am: in the studio preparing for grey6/the love letter. i've decided to make 2 versions. the first will be painted over the grey series canvas you see here on my easel. the second will be on an unpainted, white primed canvas i'm about to stretch.

the drink you see next to my staple gun is hot unsweetened soy milk + water with fresh grated organic ginger & tumeric with a ilttle pepper + a drizzle of maple syrup.

from an article in this week's The Atlantic:

As the art critic Robert Hughes observed:

With scarcely an exception, every significant artist of the last hundred years, from Seurat to Matisse, from Picasso to Mondrian, from Beckmann to de Kooning, was drilled (or drilled himself ) in “academic” drawing—the long tussle with the unforgiving and the real motif which, in the end, proved to be the only basis on which the real formal achievements of modernism could be raised. Only in that way was the right radical distortion within a continuous tradition earned, and its results raised above the level of improvisory play ... The philosophical beauty of Mondrian’s squares and grids begins with the empirical beauty of his apple trees.

9:25 am: in half an hour i'll be heading over to the studio to continue prep for grey 6/the love letter

the love letter /  by Philip Tarlow

12:31 pm new years day: in 1667 vermeer painted the love letter, 17.25x15." 307 years later, in 1974, my friend and mentor, the late yannis tsarouchis, painted a variation which he titled the letter,51.25x43.5".

i am about to make my own version, which will be titled grey 6/the love letter, 50x48." The big difference from the other 4 grey series paintings is that this one, rather than being painted over another painting/collage, will be painted on a piece of fresh, stretched primed linen. in other words the surface will be white, with no collaged elements creating pattern and texture. 

i'm about to stretch the canvas....more later

more tweaks? /  by Philip Tarlow

2:26 pm: yep. the saga of grey 2/the guitar player continues. after more critical (and loving) gazing over at the house, i saw that i had overdone it with lightening and simplifying, especially on the face and locks of hair, but on her right hand as well. so i am doing the rough equivalent of brain surgery. but imagine the surgeon wanted to create the most elegantly beautiful result, as well as healing the patient. please excuse me, brain surgeons!

you can see the results thus far in the pics below.

3:16 pm: so i think that's it for today. and that's it for 2015! we're looking forward to a we're invited to tonight and another tomorrow afternoon, so HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, and thanks for reading this blog. it means a lot.

 

more tweaks to "grey 2/the guitar player" /  by Philip Tarlow

2PM: after a few more tweaks, to the guitar and the fingers mostly, here's what she looks like now:

for the first time since i started work on this painting, i can say it SINGS!

i evaluate this by casting rapid glances, no more than 1-2 seconds, at the painting. either it sings or it doesn't. if not, i examine it more carefully to see what's not working. but the true test is bringing it over to the house, hanging it and looking at it under different conditions. usually a 24 hour period is enough. and then, i can either bring it back to the studio for more work, or leave it alone.

 

1 pm: after gazing at this painting in our house last night & this morning, i found areas that needed tweaking, which is what i'm now up to.

 

first, i scrumbled & scraped the entire surface with an off white. i made a slight sacrifice of certain delicate area of the painting, but i felt it just had to be done so i could paint back into it. so far i'm happy with the results, but i'm still working.......

continuing work on grey 2/the guitar player /  by Philip Tarlow

3 PM: here's where i'm stopping for the day. below are 2 stages of this painting: on the left, 12/25- stage 1, and today's state, on the right. there have been quite a few stages in between, but this should give you a good idea of my process. whereas, in the ano kato series (click ano kato on the menu bar, above) my process was more about filling in blank areas of the composition, in this series it's more about an all-over trial and error; painting an area, scraping it or painting over it; re-painting it, and so on.

on row 2 below: an example of how the ANO KATO process differs from the grey/vermeer series process. the painting i use as an example is MOMA 5, 44x44," currently at gremillion & co. fine art, houston.

1;25 PM: this is the longest i've worked on one of these vermeer series paintings. here's the current state:

changes to "grey 2/the guitar player" /  by Philip Tarlow

1:53 pm: the framed painting behind the guitar player's head is gone, leaving, i believe, more breathing space and allowing the eye to rove without getting stuck. it was a complex proceess. when i first scumbled over the framed painting, i used a lot of water with the acrylic paints. that caused some of the collaged bits to form air bubbles. i lanced them with a mat knife and tore off whatever was not firmly bonded to the canvas. in the long run this will be a good thing, creating fewer nightmares for potential future restorers. in the short term, it left gaping white spaces where the primed canvas was revealed. it took many layers of paint artfully applied to remove these white spaces, which had the characteristic jagged edges of torn paper. i did no work on the lower portion of the painting, other than to create smooth transitions where the background   meets ther head and shoulders. it's likely that tomorrow i'll refine these transitions as well as making tweaks to other areas of the painting. overall, i'm happy with how things turned out, although it looked kind of hairy there for a while.

1:04 pm: re-working the upper portion of this painting has proven far more complex than i had thought it would be. currently it's on my cement studio floor under my big-assed ceiling fan, drying out after extensive work, some of which involved repairs. more later......

9:47 am: in a few minutes i'll put on my big down coat, my waterproof keen boots with my kahtoola spikes to prevent falling on the ice, and walk 500 ft. in the 12F temps to my studio, carrying the painting, which is currently in our house, with me. big changes are in the offing. stay tuned...

BELOW: a detail of the painting as it looks right now, and the painting in our kitchen/living area, with grey 1/the lacemaker on the left.

pre and post scrumble "grey 2/the guitar player" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:46: when i brought the painting back to the house, which i do to critique it when looking at compared with the 3 others in the series we have in our 2 living rooms. mikela took one look, and made an excellent observation.: the composition would improve tremendously if i lose the painting and it's frame behind her head. that's what's going to happen tomorrow a.m.

1:20 pm: the slight modification i spoke of below has been made. the eye is no longer drawn to the suggestion of trees in the painting above the girl's head.  the earlier version on the left; after modification on the right, BELOW:

having said that, and as i gaze at this digital reproduction on my screen and then at the actual painting, i am reminded of what my old friend, the late henry gelzdahler said: the photograph is not the painitng. not even close. the sum total of brush strokes, textures....the IS-NESS of the painting, can never be reproduced.

BELOW: yesterday's version is on the left; today's after extensive scrumbling, on the right.

scrumbling: a word i made up to describe scraping/rubbing/dragging the palette knife over the surface, then painting back into it. it still needs work, but is moving in the right direction. the eye, rather than getting stuck on the details, such as her curled locks, moves smoothly across the picture plane. there is more choice, more freedom on the part of the viewer to alight here or there. the mind/eye fills in suggested details as it fabricates it's own meanings. one has the capacity to dream more easily, while at the same time being able to notice and appreciate the painterly passages as painterliness rather than fingers; guitar or necklace.

to give you some idea of what the painter feels during this process: if you make the deail of her head, above, full screen and examine how the paint has been brushed onto to the areas of light around her curls, this is pure delight for the painter. like the most delicious desert; the hottest sex; the greatest satisfaction at having resolved a thorny problem with an elegant solution. all that and more.

that said, my eye still gets a little stuck on the suggested trees in the framed picture above her head. i'm going to address that right now, and then post the results. 

by the way, no one, for some reason, ever makes comments on these posts. i welcome your comments and look forward to reading some soon. just click on the comment link, below left.

more work this morning on grey 2/the guitar player /  by Philip Tarlow

3:13 pm: stopping work for the day. it's in an interesting place, but by no means complete. i like where it's headed, and am very curious to see what happens tomorrow. i have no idea where i'll show this series; new york or amsterdam would be ideal though.

I can't wait to re-visit some of these vermeers in person, next time we're on the east coast. there's no doubt i'll spend at least an hour with each one. i think that, for us "painterly" painters, vermeer has shown us the way. I haven't yet dared tackle my favorite, "the love letter," which my mentor, the late yannis tsarouchis riffed on. but it's in my sights. what a knockout painting!!

I'm hoping we get to amsterdam soon, to visit the renovated rijksmuseum and have time with this painting .......

 

 

 

 

 

11am: work continues on grey 2/the guitar player. it hasn't yet reached critical mass. more later; i don't want to waste precious time. 

it's barely 11F outside so, in spite of my excellent in-floor heating it was a tad on the chilly side this morning in my studio, thus the wool cap.

re-work of grey 2/The Guitar Player /  by Philip Tarlow

3:03 pm: here is stage 1 of the grey 3/the lacemaker. 48x24."

as i was painting and looking intently at vermeer's the guitar player, i found myself wondering whether or not he had a relationship with this gracefully beautiful woman. especially when i looked at her hands and fingers. it felt like he knew them intimately.

i'll continue tomorrow; right now i'm going to clean my brushes and join mikela for a bit of visioning our dreams for 2016-17.

1:02 pm: and what am i doing posting in prime painting time?

why, to express my excitement at the voracious bands of snow filled clouds moving with speed and grace across our valley. now blinding white sheets, now blue, azure blue sky, with a gale force wind sweeping clean dead roots and feeding gentle deer and elk who, impervious to the maelstrom, feed upon the succulent tips of our piñon pines which, if predictions are accurate, will be utterly gone within 50 years time.

and LO! as we speak the very drawing, the bones of this new painting have begun to emerge as if by some subtle majik. and she, with her brown ringlets and delicate fingers, strums us a tune, her gaze fixed upon.....

grey 3/the lacemaker is now complete & i'm preparing to re-work grey2, which will now become grey 2/the guitar player. here's the painting on my easel before starting to paint.