breaking up the image / regrets /  by Philip Tarlow

5:08 PM: post-scrobble. much better, but needs work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4:51 PM: i just did a last minute scrumble; will publish pics in an hour or so.

4:25 PM: that said, (see immediately below, 4:22 post) here's where the painting is currently at. another version of the girl with the red hat, this one is perhaps the most advanced yet. it definitely needs more work, but it's a strong painting as is. you can always tell when something in the composition is essential for the integrity of the whole. so for example, imagine removing that bit of blue in the section of map on the lower right. the entire composition would fall apart. none of these elements are calculated, and rely entirely on my unconscious, or gut. and that's something i love about the work i do every day.

 

 

 

 

4:22 PM: looking back at the 2 pm state of grey 21, i'm sorry i didn't leave it alone & wait till we're back to work into it. i think this phase of the painting is compelling. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12:26 PM: breaking the image up is as much fun as creating it. it sends a message, both to my consciousness and to the eyes and awareness of the viewer that the image is not fixed; anything can happen, within the realm of the painterly.  the painting now has an air of the ridiculous; would you agree?

more changes are in store. she may dissapear altogether.

and now, back to work!

a look back at "ano kato" /  by Philip Tarlow

1 PM: grey 21 on my easel. i've been working all day. there have been intermittent rain & thunder showers, so the light has been great to poor, but i'm used to working with it, going with it.  the collaged elements have not yet integrated with the image, based upon a fayum portrait painted about 113-138 in egypt by an artist who was almost certainly only a few generations removed from ancient greek prototypes. while these portraits were, many of them, placed on egyptian mummies, they are a continuation of the ancient greek tradition of portrait painting on panels. indeed, they are the only surviving examples we have of that tradition. none of the greek classical period portraits have survived, whereas these, placed as they were in egyptian mummy cases for burial, survived, buried in the dry, hot sands of egypt. they are some of the finest portraits in the entire history of art, and we can only imagine the magnificence of the greek prototypes. 

 

 

6:59 AM: today is my birthday, which i will spend in my studio painting. this afternoon, we might go to the crestone creamery for a delicious home made ice cream!

this is a look back at my nov. 2015 exhibition, ano kato at gremillion & co fine art in houston, texas. this painting is titled acroplolis museum 1, 56x68" oil on linen. it is based upon photos i shot at the then brand new museum in athens, just across from the acropolis.

 

a few slight tweaks to grey 12 today / yesterday's sunset /  by Philip Tarlow

7:07 PM: i did a little work on grey 21 this afternoon. it's based on another fayum painting, but this is still very early stage. i should be able to take it much further tomorrow. right now, she looks a little peculiar, even scary. that will all change tomorrow, which is MY BIRTHDAY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

11:42 AM: the tweaks to the earrings and necklace are done, and i'm satisfied this painting is now resolved. so i'll re-stretch it onto as stretcher bar without the wood backing, and begin work on a new painting. it was very tempting to make more modifications, but you have to know when to stop. 

ever hear the story of bonnard entering a paris museum; i think it was the louvre, with a heavy overcoat, under which he was hiding his palette & brushes? he waited for the guards to look the other way and made a few tweaks he thought were necessary. i've never tried to research and verify this story, but it's a great story!

the difference is hard to discern in a photo, but yesterday's version is on the left; if you click on one of the images below then on the right or left arrow on your screen, the full screen image makes it much easier to see.

7:57 AM: today i'm going to make a few very slight tweaks to grey 12, and then re-stretch it. it's just about where it needs to be, but the earrings & necklace need to pop just a tad more. just a little bit....i'll post pics & you'll see.

yesterday's sunset from our east facing deck:

yesterday's walk / resolving grey 12 / shaving /  by Philip Tarlow

2:20 PM:  as soon as i entered the studio this morning and gave grey 12 my first glance, i knew: it was history! so i collaged more bits onto it, did a little scrumble, then began creating a new image, inspired by a fayum portrait painted in about 130-160 in antinoopolis. i found the image, very beautifully reproduced and discussed in the award winning, beautiful book of fayum portraits by my dear old friend and fellow artist from greece, euphrosyne doxiadi. by the way, although i have the greek language version, the english edition is about to be published.

BELOW: left: grey 12 as it looked yesterday afternoon; middle: as it looked at about 11 am today and, right: as it looked at about noon.

 

 

 

 

9:02 AM: recently i switched from shaving with my philips/norelco electric shaver to a gillette mach 3  mult-blade shaver. 

PROS: much closer shave, allowing me to shave every other day (the photo on the right is taken on day 2, & it looks like i just shaved); a wonderful feeling of tingling freshness afterwards, perhaps enhanced by my use of this neutrogena shave cream; you get to experiment with various techniques for getting all the tricky spots while avoiding nicks & cuts; you don't have to go over the same area 3-4 times to get the pesky hard to reach areas; much smaller & lighter to travel with+no charging to worry about.

CONS: you do inevitably get the occasional nick or cut...just a tiny piece of tissue fixes that; cost wise, it might be a tad more, depending on how often you replace the expensive head on the philips/norelco and how many shaves you can get with each new mach 3 head...jury still out, but i think i can get 4-5 shaves; you can't just do a quickie dry shave touch up before an event or meeting, maybe even in the car, like you can with an electric.

CONCLUSION: very glad I switched!

8:10 AM: On our trail walk yesterday, we witnessed many plants & trees springing to life. At many points, the drop down to the creek is very abrupt & strewn with large boulders, so you definitely don't want to trip.

This article gives some great information on the value to the brain of hiking in nature:

 http://www.wimp.com/what-hiking-does-to-the-brain-is-pretty-amazing/ 

i'll walk over to the studio in about an hour and see what needs to be done next on grey 12.

an athens magazine article i read / more work on grey 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:45 PM: i can already see more work needs to be done on the hands tomorrow.

1:30 PM: more work has been done on grey 12, especially the red ribbon & the fingers of her left hand. it's looking pretty ersolved right now. as always, my first glace tomorrow will tell the story. if you are wondering about the bit of blue on her nose, remember, this is first and foremost a painting, and it's a lot about how the eye moves over the surface and, in this specific case the concept of wabi sabi. richard powell said: wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."

 

 

12:17 PM: here are my changes to grey 12 thus far. yesterday's version, left below, today's at noon, right. major changes have taken place in the hands, the string of pearls and her hairline. the white shape on her cheek originally served a compositional purpose, but increasingly read like a hole in her cheek. the pearl necklace was re-positioned as well. a scrumble is tempting, but i do like the clarity of this painting, and feel no need to cloud it. often a scrumble is for the purpose of masking the relative harshness, compared with oil, of acrylic paint. but i use it (scrumble is a word i made up to describe going over the image with a light wash, then going back in while it's still wet & scraping the surface.) only when the painting seems to in-your-face bright and sharp.

it's interesting to think about how our experience of looking at a painting has evolved. in terms of this painting, think about how you might look at it if, for example, picasso and graffiti had never happened.

8:23 AM: as i lie here doing my wrap, (castor oil on a special pad overlayed with a heating pad), a natural healing solution for a gall bladder attack, i've just read an article, written in greek in the athens magazine. it was written by a young greek immigrant, who left the country 3 years ago, when he was hopeless about ever finding work in greece. he went to england, where he was able to find work, at first doing a menial job changing the diapers of elderly patients and graduating to more interesting, albeit low paying work in his field of psychology, while continuing to work on his novels, which is his passion. I wrote a comment, acknowledging him for his beautifully written article. but it made me sad. very sad. i completely understand his reasons for not returning to greece.

now that i'm almost done with my wrap, i'll be preparing for my day in the studio, where i plan on doing more more work on grey 12, which i may complete today, and starting a new painting. grey 12 is somewhat of a departure from the paintings in the rest of the series, and i can't wait to see how that direction develops.

i'll continue to blog and post photos of my process once i get to the studio. it's a gorgeous clear day, and we may take another trail walk this afternoon. below, 3 pics from yesterday's trail walk. it was totally blissful.

an unusual day.... /  by Philip Tarlow

the area of grey 12 i most worked on today, albeit briefly

12:59 PM: it's been an unusual day. when i arrived at my studio around 10:15 this morning, i could see storm clouds gathering. generally, with this system that's been hanging around south central colorado for longer than usual, the storms don't kick in till sometime after 2 pm. since we both have been missing our afternoon walks up n. crestone creek trail, i suggested to mikela that we leave right away to beat out the rain, then get to work when we got back, around 12:30. a tad late, but i figured i could get some work done & would likely be rejuvenated by the walk.

but it was not meant to be, and light rain commenced just as we approached the spot where we usually park.

so i got to work about 11:30, in a very poor light. i was able to make some changes to the right mid-section of grey 12 which i think are an improvement, but i wasn't in my usual morning flow state, and mind mind was involved more than i would have liked.

however, as i gaze at the painting hanging on my east wall, i feel that, miraculously, my intervention worked and there is more coherence. below are yesterday's and today's (on the right) versions side by side. what's your take? what happens for me in yesterday's version, is that breast-like shape interrupting her shoulder line keeps grabbing my attention, and the penis-like shape directly underneath reads too much like...well, a penis! not that i have a problem with that; it's just that it stops the eye as it glides about the surface. where that collaged piece came from, by the way, is a 1986 hockney poster he gave me back then. i'm sure he'd agree, better to include it in a painting than have it sitting in a drawer! 

if you click on one of the images below to make it full screen, then click the right or left arrow to switch back & forth, you'll get a much better sense of the changes.

detail of a 1982 commissioned portrait in egg tempera

8:23 AM: we just finished watching a john stewart interview. as mikela noted, had he stayed on the show, he could have single handedly shifted the direction of our current political landscape. but he didn't. instead, he's helping abused animals on his 12 acre farm. i said to her, "he's de-toxing." but she didn't buy it. she pointed out that, with his unique talent and energy, he has a responsibility to make a bigger difference. much bigger. we need him. it's like pablo casals deciding to teach marching band.

i'll be heading over to my studio shortly and continue the conversation from there.

a simple twist of fate /  by Philip Tarlow

grey 12   38x38"  mixed media on canvas, at the end of my painting day today

DETAIL: grey 12  38x38"  mixed media on canvas

2:44 PM: some more work has been done on grey 12, re-introducing the face of the woman with the necklace without becoming too subject specific, and maintaining a good balance between the specificity of the face, and collaged and graffiti-like elements. in person it has a warm, rich tone. it's abstract enough to allow the viewer space to dream.

the penis-like appendage on the lower right will likely disappear tomorrow. but right now i feel about ready for our afternoon walk.

 

grey 12, 38x38"  at 11 am

11:40 AM:  grey 12, a victim of my attachment to a particular image, has transformed once again, due to a simple twist of fate. our friend tamar was at the house yesterday afternoon. when i showed her what i had done that day in my studio, she made no comment. but what i got was far beyond any comment she could have made. it was, you could say, a download of her visual encyclopedia of images, plus permission to introduce a new element.

drawing on my own visual encyclopedia and ways of working, i proceeded to alter grey 12, relying completely on instinct. gut. and asking, once again, what the painting wants.

the goal is to create a deliciously complex, layered surface in the deKooning sense, loaded with traces of gestural strokes and drawing revealing my world in present time.

grey 12 re-born....again! /  by Philip Tarlow

9:42 PM: her left hand is pathetic! will fix tomorrow.

3:50 PM: we had 3 dinner guests, all dear friends. one of them used to do restoration in italy on major italian renaissance paintings. in other words, she has a very refined eye for painting. she sees. she had seen the grey series online, but was not prepared for what she encountered last night: a house full of 15 grey series paintings. it was extremely gratifying that when she saw them in person, she and our other two guests couldn't stop looking at them and commenting on them. so this was, in a very real sense, their first exposure to the world outside of just mikela and myself. we don't really see them any longer with that all important fresh eye.

i did see, at the end of the night, that neither grey 12, nor grey 21 are resolved. so back to the studio they went. today all day i've been working on grey 12, originally inspired by vermeer's girl with the red hat. she's gone, and in her place, a second version of his girl with a necklace. there's already one version of her, which was one of the earliest in the series. if you go to my grey page in the drop down menu, scroll down & you'll see the painting on the very bottom row.

as usual, i lost track of time, and before i knew it, 6 hours had elapsed. even a twenty-something would have sore feet after 6 hours of standing on a cement floor. i don't want to reveal my age (i gave a fake birth date on facebook) but my feet are, as they say killing me!

i feel no loss at the previous 3 images having bitten the dust.  and i'll see, with my first glance tomorrow, what needs to happen with this new iteration. in the mean time, i did a little prep work on grey 21, and will dive back into that one once grey 12 is resolved.

by the way, i'm beginning to get that, when i attempt to make paintings in the grey series inspired by any painter other than vermeer, i fail miserably. i feel like, when i'm looking at vermeer, i'm seeing myself. i'm not yet sure what this means. one thought is that he is a painter's painter; or, as my mentor tsarouchis, who made his own variations on vermeer might have said "ο vermeer, παιδι μου, εναι, οπος ολοι οι ΜΕΓΑΛΟΙ ζοραφοι, αφηρημος!" (vermeer, as is true of all the great artists, is essentially an ABSTRACT painter!)

grey 21: leave it as is? grey 12: work into it? /  by Philip Tarlow

10:32 PM: great dinner. one of our guests, who has a very cultured eye, gave me excellent feedback on my grey series. at the end of the evening, i felt more committed than ever to showing the grey series in germany; ideally in hanover. 

i realized as well that neither grey 12 nor grey 21, which i've been working on the past few days, are resolved. so i'll continue tomorrow. 

3:31 PM: stopping for the day. we have 3 dinner guests & i'm going back to the house to help with prep. the current state is a familiar one; where i come in the next morning & execute a big scrumble. it's an opportunity though to test it out on our guests, particularly one who has a very cultured eye. 

goya's womenn are far more overtly sensual than vermeer's. you can almost feel their breath.  

11:54 AM: i'm in full on work mode, painting a goya inspired face on top of yesterday's collaged abstraction. this is, as i predicted, providing an ideal surface for introducing the ambiguity i desire. watch ads; a map of canada; a page from an art forum book supplement all provide a counterpoint for the image of goya sensually beautiful female visage.

detail of grey 21, which wil remain as is for now...

10:42 AM: after my first glance, i'm going to begin work on grey 12 and leave grey 21 as is....for now.

 

 

 

 

 

8:47 AM: i'm thinking of leaving the new grey 21 as is for a few days to see how i feel about this sparser, but no less complex and interesting picture surface. is there the same emotional punch the rest of the series packs?

 

 

 

 

 

as for the many layered, revised grey 12, which was formerly based on vermeer's girl with the red hat, my inclination, before heading to the studio to see what my all important first glance reveals, is to work back into it, basing it this time on a detail from a goya painting i have in mind. the collaged surface would prove to be a fertile ground for a large face i have in mind.

 

 

 

BELOW: some of the stages of grey 12, from the earliest, upper left, to today's version, on the bottom.

instability in the atmosphere & the studio / looking back /  by Philip Tarlow

1:04 PM: ABOVE: stages 1, 2 and 3 of grey 21, inspired by goya.

11:42 AM: BELOW: and here's a post-scrumble tweak and the next stage, all but obliterating the image

grey 12 at 11:08 am, post scrumble

11:05 AM: yesterdays version of grey 12 seemed too abrupt when i first encountered it this morning in the studio, so it underwent a scrumble. in the mean time i'll get to work on the new one and see if i do anything more to this one later today.

i might, for example, feel moved to jump in with a few critical accents here and there. maybe.

1/2/16 grey 6, the love letter, 38x38"  in an early state

 

 

 

 

8:53 AM: LOOKING BACK: 1/2/16, an early stage of grey 6: the love letter.

looking east at crestone peak yesterday around 7 pm, the atmospheric instability was evident

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7:29 AM: after a not so great sleep, with the wind howling all night, we awoke to a sunny day with high winds and threatening clouds scudding up from the southwest. the instability will last through monday night, keeping temperatures relatively low for this time of year and providing us with ideal walking weather, providing we don't get caught in a sudden downpour. 

detail of a goya portrait that interests me right now

the first goya inspired painting has been completed, or almost completed. i'm excited about the prospect of the grey series continuing in this vein. today i may start a second goya inspired painting, which will be 32x32." as always, i'll post pics of the entire process. this invaluable material will be incorporated into a book, and selections will be incorporated into future talks.