drawings by middle school kids /  by Philip Tarlow

2:46PM: end of the school day. the kids have done some prep work, creating 4 imaginary projects and finding photos to go with them, so that when they load the site, they'll have material to post, allowing them to get a feel for how actionlab works. they're chomping at the bit, but will likely have to wait till friday, since our IT guy ran into a bug today that needed to be fixed. our whole team is getting more and more excited as the reality hits that we're finally going live. 

we drove to edwards this morning to spend 3 days introducing middle school kids to actionlab.

actionlab is our startup company. it's a web based learning environment designed to increase student engagement, support project based experiences and prepare students for a self directed workplace.

here's a selection of drawings related to the "what if we lost?" (the war of independence) project. the players change, the cycle of oppression and revolution remains constant. 

 

 

don't miss this extraordinary video!!!/ detail of a 1987 painting/preparing to leave /  by Philip Tarlow

don't miss thsi extraordinary video of Flamenco in the Granada of 1962. the teen age dancer you will see is the embodiment of the spanish spirit of flamenco.

 

Detail of a 1987 painting I made of my friend David Hockney on his Hollywood Hills deck with his dog Stanley & friends, in gouache on 4 large pieces of paper. At the time we were living in Florida, where I had my studio, a large loft which doubled as a seminar space. It's one of a series I made from photos and drawings I made about 7 years earlier, before meeting Mikela, when I lived in Santa Monica, where my studio was located. I visited David often at the time, and house sat for him while he was traveling. 

tomorrow we leave for edwards, then denver, then edwards again. we'll finally be introducing actionlab to the middle school kids at schools in the vail valley. we're very excited; after about 7 years of conceiving and developing actionlab, students will load it on their laptops and begin using it to develop their projects, in all subject areas. they will give us invaluable feedback about what they liked and din't like, where the bugs are, etc.

re-visiting a failed "grey" series painting /  by Philip Tarlow

today i started a re-work of one of the grey series paintings i considered a failure. it was titled grey2/the guitar player; it's the lower photo. the composition just didn't work. i played around with it for quite a few days, i thought maybe i had resolved it & brought it to the house, but it didn't hold up compared with the rest of the series. i might have pulled it out, but the figure just didn't excite me.

so i went over with it with a wash of warm grey, and then launched in without knowing which vermeer i would draw from. it was the lacemaker, of which there are already 2 versions. i fooled around, made a preliminary drawing with a diluted grey acrylic color. didn't like it & flipped the canvas on it's head & started over. the second time, the drawing worked. i liked what was happening. i took it as far as i could today. it has a presence, so we'll see where it goes. we're traveling to edwards wednesday, so tomorrow might be a short day in the studio. i love coming home to a painting in progress, but there are times when you lose the thread & can't get back into the energy.

stretching a new canvas /  by Philip Tarlow

 

 

 

today I'm stretching a 38x38" canvas. i'll start a collage tomorrow, which will become the under-painting for what may be the last in the Grey/Vermeer series. If you'd like to see the 6 paintings in the grey series, click on the link below:

It will be a short day in the studio so I can get back to the house in time to watch the BRONCOS game over popcorn, with Mikela. Not a big football fan, especially since the terrible stats on concussions came out, but hey, it's the Denver Broncos! Wind is picking up, sky is clouding over, possible snow this afternoon & tonight, coming in from the west.

an editing day /  by Philip Tarlow

today was devoted to editing some of the footage i shot during our last visit to the edwards, colorado middle school where we're piloting actionlab, our educational product. two weeks ago, we drove up to edwards, about a 3 hour drive from crestone, in good weather. in snowy weather, there's no predicting. once we had to turn back when we were only 15 miles form our destination.

on our upcoming trip next week, for the first time the kids will be able to load the beta version of actionlab on their laptops and begin using it to create their projects in all subject areas. so the footage i was editing today was shot after mikela walked them through the product. their responses were enthusiastic. when we conduct focus groups next week, after they've actually had a chance to experience actionlab, we get a much more in depth picture.

more work on "the girl with the red hat" /  by Philip Tarlow

12:40 PM: another scrumble. here's the current state. this painting is now closer in it's aesthetic to the rest of my grey series. click on grey on the menu bar to view all 6 paintings. 

10:22 AM: nope, just not satisfied. when i compare this painting to the rest of the series, it falls short. and the reason, i believe, is that i've become too focused on the face. it's so seductive to be drawn into whether or not the eyes are the right distance from one another. who cares? that's just not the point! so, once i complete my meditation, i'll take it back to the studio for another round. stay tuned...

below: an example of what i mean; in the lacemaker, on the left, the eye roves freely over the picture plane. although there are details, such as her locks or her hands, none of them overshadow the whole.

more work on "the girl with the red hat" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:35 PM: the end of my painting day & time for a walk. has it sung yet? maybe. maybe a few notes....maybe an aria...

we'll see once i bring it to the house in a few minutes. today was a dance of sorts; maintaining my focus on the whole space of the painting, while putting my attention on the features of the face. 

it's a surprise, this direction my painting is taking. it's illuminating the path i've taken in my work over the past 4 decades or so. a path that has taken me from the american explosion of abstract expressionism; through the exquisite icons and wall paintings of the byzantine tradition and it's 20th c. threads in athens and back again, to an anarchic artistic reality that forces me to look towards indigenous roots and centuries old european masters for support and inspiration. speaking of which, sure wish we could get to san francisco for the bonnard show, but it's doubtful. 

12:50 PM: getting closer, but it hasn't sung yet...

12:10 PM: current state of the painting. lots of work done; more to do...

10:10 am: the girl with the red hat is back on the easel i'll continue work on this one as soon as i squeeze my colors onto the palette. updates as they become available...

tweaking earlier grey series paintings /  by Philip Tarlow

5:59 PM: didn't take long to figure out it needs more work, especially the face. back on the easel tomorrow.

2 PM: i'm doing more work than i expected on this painting, and i'm glad i decided to. it was dramatic, but it simply wasn't resolved. at first i took the easy, obvious route & just scrumbled it. but i knew i needed to risk more if i was going to pull it out. sound familiar?

another thing: i used to have many judgements of acrylics; i was strictly an oil paint guy. didn't think painterly was possible. but i no longer feel that way.

1 PM: current state of the painting. more defined. maybe too defined. lets not forget, this is a painting, not a description. the marks, the marks, the marks is what it's all about.

11:20 AM: after living with these grey series paintings for over a month, i concluded that two of them needed re-working. the first one, grey7/girl with the red hat needed toning down of the blues and reds. i worked on it just now; below are the before and after pics:

will there be a *scrumble today? /  by Philip Tarlow

2:10 PM: this is the end of my painting day. i'll clean up and mikela and i will go for our walk up north crestone creek trail. i may bring the painting over to the house to gaze at it this afternoon &tomorrow morning, and see if it needs more work. this is a first. i've never set out to make a collage on canvas with the intention of using it as an underpainting for something else. it seems to meld the mystery of the accisental and unexpected aspects of these abstract collages with representational elements. at the moment, i think they both gain. we'll see.

1:40 pm: the painting is at that point when i become frightened i'll screw it up if i work any more on it, but you simply can't go there! be BOLD, philip!

12:45 pm: indeed,a scrumble has occurred! and there may be more. BE BOLD PHILIP!

8:45 am: stay tuned! I'll be heading to the studio around 10 and have a gander at the new painting...

*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.

continuing grey8/vermeer, 36x36" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:55 PM: stopping here for the day

2:22 pm: so now i've settled on young girl with a flute. the painting the original was painted, we think, by vermeer somewhere between 1665-70 and measures 7 7/8x7" it's painted on oak panel, & hangs in the national gallery of art in wash. d.c. it's attribution is in question, which is a topic for another time. sufice it to say, it stands apart in many ways from the rest of his oeuvre and has been in dispute by art historians,

right now, what i've done brings to mind perhaps a member of the royal familt attending the races at ascot, but it won't stay that way. this painting has a long way to go. also for another time: why am i obsessed with vermeer at this point in my career? i'll say more later today, or in a future post. i'd like to do a bit more before cleaning up & going walking with mikela. so off i go. by the way, i'm reading squash for the midlife slump, by tad friend, in the new yorker. it's the first time in a long time that i LOL while reading. check it out; damn good writer, tad is.

12:55 pm: i dove back into this collage, wondering along the way whether it would really transform into another variation on a vermeer painting or remain a collage or end up in the trash. i seem to be ok whatever happens. increasingly, as we introduce the actionlab beta into the classroom (the first group of kids will get it on their laptops in just 10 days, when we drive back up to edwards) i realize i'm one of those kids who needs to DO stuff. doing is my moby dick; my bach string quartet; my ice cream with chocolate bits. now this is making me hungry. think i'll take a little lunchbreak, then pick up again and, around 3-ish, go for an hour walk with mikela, up towards n. crestone creek trail.