starting grey8/vermeer /  by Philip Tarlow

9:41pm: just wanted to post this photo; yet another gorgeous sunset from our east living room window

4:12 pm: as mikela accurately observed, thus far, this is a very different looking collage than the last series. go to recent collages under the diverse works drop down menu to see what i mean. i think the awareness that these will become under-paintings for the vermeer series is giving me a greater sense of freedom.

2 pm: the re-sized collage didn't work. too thick in spots & wouldn't lie flat. so i moved on to my original plan (yesterday's post) to create a new collage and then paint over it with the vermeer inspired painting. i haven't yet gotten to the point where i decide on which vermeer i'm going to use. what you see here is stage 1 of the collage, which i'll continue working on till i feel it's complete, then start on the painting. a detail is below.i knocked myself out, so i'll clean up, then take a walk with mikela. then maybe watch our broncos, even though we're swore never to watch football again because of the concussions & ensuing brain damage.

noon: the process has begun for grey8/vermeer. here i'm re-sizing a 2014 collage in preparation for stretching the canvas & strating the new painting. on the right, the piece i cut off to accommodate the 40x24" stretcher bars. don't yet know which vermeer image it will be based on; you can follow today's work here....

wassup today? /  by Philip Tarlow

5:50 pm: today in my studio i prepared for the next group of paintings. as i said the other day, i plan on painting abstract collages, then painting over them with vermeer inspired scrobled paintings. sound like a lot of work? feels more like an adventure to me; something i've never done before. a big adventure.

here's how the painting i completed yesterday looks hanging on our east wall. we love looking at it. today over lunch, i read a bit about the original vermeer, painted in the 1660's and, as with all of vermeer's work, heavily influenced by his use of the camera obscura. when looking at the subject through that device, which was an ancestor of the modern camera, everything broke apart into abstracted forms, exactly how vermeer painted them. vermeer, as well as many of his contemporaries, used available optic devices to enhance his work.

the big scumble /  by Philip Tarlow

1:20 pm: today i boldly scumbled the girl with the red hat. what is scumbling? from my post on 12/27:

scrumbling: a word i made up to describe scraping/rubbing/dragging the palette knife over the surface, then painting back into it. the eye, rather than getting stuck on the details, such as her lips or hat, 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.

lets start with this one.........GO BOLDLY! /  by Philip Tarlow

2:50 pm: here's stage 2 of grey 7/ the girl with the red hat

12:15 pm: here's the very fist early stage photo. you can make out the outines of her face and begin to comprehend just how severely i'm cropping the image.

10:55 am: ok so lets start with this 48x18" collage on canvas i discovered yesterday in the studio. it's a decent one, but not a winner. i can capitalize on it's beautiful passages, marks and contours of cut paper. it will be another vermeer inspired painting, but as of this moment, i'm just not sure which vermeer. i'll give you a heads up when i settle on one. or maybe two?

11:25 am: OK, so i now know which vermeer. it's the girl with the red hat, which hangs in the national gallery in washington, d.c. it will be a severly cropped version. you'll see; i'm getting started asap. 

as leadbelly sings whoa back buck, i organize my materials to go boldly forth. go boldly, philip.

re-grouping, deciding next steps /  by Philip Tarlow

1:30 pm: returning from a trip, whether it's a short or long one, always creates a gap in my work flow here in my studio. today is no exception; i went to the p.o., sorted the mail, picked up some stuff for our dinner guests tonight, and so on. 

it also allows me to get some distance from new pieces i'm working on. in this case, it's grey 6/the love letter, a detail of which you see on the right.

i'm bringing it over to the house this afternoon, which is usually the acid test of whether a painting is resolved or not, and if not where the areas that still need work are located.

 

so now, i've run out of the abstract collages i've been painting over in this grey/vermeer series. i'm leaning towards actually creating more abstract collages specifically for the purpose of painting over them and adding more paintings to this series. right now, that seems a little odd to me. imagine cooking a dish, a great dish and then, once it's ready, throwing in a bunch of very different ingredients so that it transforms into an entirely different dish. not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

sleeping in our own bed again /  by Philip Tarlow

9:11 am: just finished our first meeting of the day and are sitting down for breakfast in our hotel. one more meeting at 9:30, then we're off to the bernie sanders denver office, whole foods & costco to do our food shopping. we love supporting elephant cloud, our local grocer in crestone, and there are certain things we just can't find there.

it's been an extremely productive trip in ways that surpass the vision we created as we left crestone a week ago. and now my spirit begins turning towards painting, and my next 2 week stint in the studio.

denver meetings /  by Philip Tarlow

12:19 pm: just ordered a bunch of painting supplies, including my current favorite brush type; the FAN:

really looking forward to getting back to work in my studio on wednesday!

 

7:38 am: we have actionlab meetings today & tomorrow. 

on the road /  by Philip Tarlow

9:34 am: we always set a vision as we drive out from crestone. we go back & forth, mirroring and supplementing each other's vision. This time around, the reality has far surpassed our expectations. from the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response of the kids in our fofcus groups to our Actionlab platform TEDx vail, held at the beautiful vilar center in beaver creek; to unexpected, potentially great opportunities emerging from chance encounters at some of the breaks during the event; to our experience staying at the home of new friends in edwards.....

we have a series of important actionlab meetings over the next few days in the denver before driving home. i'm curious to see how my recent work on the grey/vermeer series strikes me after not having seen it for a week.

below are some images from our trip thus far. comments on these photos will be posted as time allows.

thoughts on larry rivers /  by Philip Tarlow

today in an exchange with my friend ron, owner of gremillion & co. fine art, which has represented my work for over 20 years, he commented on how the grey/vermeer series brought to mind the work of larry rivers. 

i hadn't looked at his work for years. when i did, i saw what he meant. below, a 1963 rivers painting next to one of my grey/vermeer series works.


stage 4 "grey6/the love letter" /  by Philip Tarlow

4 PM: on the right, here's how the painting looked on my easel as i left the studio. i'lll resume work in a week. on the left, 2 days ago.

1:46 pm: 

12:53 pm: current state of the painting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

upon entering the studio, before starting to paint