small gouache study of the snow capped peaks /  by Philip Tarlow

2:21 PM: this cold has settled in my chest and i'm actually feeling worse than i did yesterday, so i'm going to lie down as soon as i post this. i was however able to start this small gouache study of the freshly snow capped peaks based upon a photo i shot yesterday morning from our bathroom window. i'm considering making a larger version in acrylic on canvas, but haven't yet decided. part of me is still in collage mode, and i've been having a lot of fun with them over the past few days. i simply didn't have the energy to make one today. our dinner party last night was really wonderful, but we didn't get to sleep until late, so that plus the chest cold have left me feeling kind of whacked out.

early stage of snow capped peaks gouache, 4x16"

what will i do today?? /  by Philip Tarlow

2:41 PM: 11/18/17 collage at the end of my short work day. printed letters have not thus far appeared in this series of collages. playful, isn't it? we'll see how i feel about it tomorrow. although tomorrow is a short day as well; there'a a thanksgiving event at the charter school tomorrow afternoon which we'll likely attend.

11/18/17 collage at 1 pm

 

 

 

 

 

1:27 PM: i started a new collage this morning, and this is the current state: i might do an hour more before stopping to go help mikela with preparations for our dinner party this evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11:16 AM: we're hosting a dinner party tonight, so it will be a short day. just got some very good news concerning our educational product, so i'm trying to calm down & stay focused on my work.

i'll post pics as usual once i get going on a new piece. in the mean time, here's a watercolor by my 10 year old grand daughter manio, which i think is a masterpiece, and a view of the fresh snow on the peaks.

new collage /  by Philip Tarlow

3:00 PM: i made a new collage today, the same size as the one i made yesterday. it's not as simple and i'm not yet sure how i feel about it. but i'm framing it temporarily and i'll bring it over to the house and see how it looks in the morning.

since i'm using elements from the same 2 large paintings on paper i spoke about yesterday, done by 2 kids of a friend, some of the colors are the same, such as the pinks & greens they used.

you could say this one is more ambitious compared with yesterday's. it didn't pop right out, and involved a full day of work. the colorful squash we got at the outdoor market last month, which are sitting opposite me on my work table, continue to dominate the drawn forms.

a bigger collage /  by Philip Tarlow

11/16/17 collage  21x16"/53x41 cm.

12:58 PM: today i'm making another collage, larger than yesterday's. it includes some elements drawn directly on the paper with graphite & crayon, inspired by the colorful squash we found at the outdoor market last month, as well as collaged elements, including bits from the large paintings on paper by our friend charise's 2 kids and a drawing made on 7/23/12 in houston.

in comparing this with older collages, such as the 2 made in 2014 you see below, i observe a greater certainty in composition, color and line. the result is a more coherent image, with fewer unnecessary elements. while there is no "progress" as such in art, one evolves. i can track the evolution of my sensibility and draftsmanship over a period of years. it's rewarding to see that, in spite of my glaucoma surgery on january 28 of this year, my vision seems to have actually improved, if it has changed at all.

i do feel that my museum visits on our recent trip to phialdelphia, where mikela was a speaker at AMLE: the National Middle School Conference, have had an effect. especially the day we spent at the barnes collection, as well as my solo experience at the philadelphia museum of art. which is why i always recommend to young artists that they spend as much time as possible looking at great art. it not only inspires us; it allows us to identify, by deduction, exactly who we are as artists and as humans.

 

finally getting back to work /  by Philip Tarlow

2:20 PM: i finally was able to get some work done today, in the form of an 8.75x8.75" collage on paper. this was the first time i used some extraordinarily beautiful large paintings in paper, painted by 2 kids of a friend and personally delivered to me from santa fe by our dear friend lea, with the knowledge that i'd be cutting them into pieces and using them to make collages.

this one also includes bits of a drawing i made in 2003, on an excursion to dimitsana, greece with our 2 grandkids & my son dimitri. 

i mentioned to a FB friend today that i'd briefly tell the story of the 2012 collage i framed & hung yesterday. 

briefly, when we were in houston during the summer of 2012, staying in a friend's garage apartment, i began experimenting using a  sketchbook full of studies for a commission based upon minoan art. so what you see is the original sketch, with shapes of vases, etc. partially hidden by the collages elements. these experiements were continued on a larger scale once we returned home that fall.

more site updates today /  by Philip Tarlow

6:08 PM: still unable to paint due to this annoying cold, i continued my updates to the site today. i added 3 collages, all of which were made during our 2 month stay in houston for medical treatment in 2012, and 9 plein air. the plein air had all been photographed the day of with my iphone, but needed to be properly lit and photographed with my nikon. it wsa a fun day, in spite of the fact that my awareness was continually traveling to the plein air i could have been painting in the unusual 60 degree temperatures. on the other hand, i can never find the time to do what i did today. so good on me!

still resting /  by Philip Tarlow

8:33 am: my cold symptoms are slightly better, but i still don't have the energy to go to my studio and start working. these are especially gorgeous days, and i hate missing the opportunity to venture out to the creek to paint the last plein air of the season, but i don't think it would be wise.

yesterdays site re-org was interesting. i still have a ways to go, so i  may continue working on it today. while scrolling through thousands of iphone photos, i found this blurry early stage image of one of my gaze paintings. it sort of made me sad, because i can see now that my urge to leave some of those paintings in this becoming state was right on. 

it reminds me of this rembrandt etching i saw in the philadelphia museum of art last week.

i sent this image to my dear friend and renowned rembrandt scholar gary schwartz in the netherlands, and he referred me to one of his numerous books on rembrandt, which you see below.

in short, he calls rembrandt a master of selective finish. giving it a name, and especially with gary's credentials, allows us to more fully appreciate rembrandt as the timeless artist he is, unexpectedly bringing him into the circle of the contemporary. makes me wonder whether picasso knew of rembrandt's selective finish works.

getting back to the unfinished gaze series image i came across yesterday, it stirs a longing in my to return to this series and experiment with selective finish, for which i have always had a passion. later today, if i can find it, i'll post a painting i made for my 2006 solo show in athens. the urge to leave it "unfinished" was so strong, that i listened. on opening night, it was the very first painting to sell!

bad cold......no studio today, so i'm reorganizing my site /  by Philip Tarlow

                       6/3/15 drawing

4:26 PM: i came down with a bad cold, which hasn't happened for years, since we strated taking green earth farms immune formula. it was definitely precipitated by our contact with the passengers on our return flight, many of who were coughing a lot.

so i'm just not feeling up to painting in my studio. instead, i focused on something i've been putting off for months; a reorganization of my site. i made a dent, but there's still a lot to do.

perhaps the most visible: when i went to my drawings page, under the diverse, dropdown menu. when i went to that page, i was surprised to see that the drawings i thought were populating that page were nowhere to be found! so i scrolled through my iphone, containing thousands of photos, and chose about 150 photos of drawings, created a new album, made my selection and loaded them onto the page, which you'll find if you click on the box below.

then i focused in on my home page, refreshing some of the paintings on that page which are meant to be representative of my work over decades. it aint easy, but i made some good progress, and i'll probably continue tomorrow.

one of the changes i made was to add one gaze series painting. previously, the series was represented by only one painting. not enough. so i added this one, which belongs to my son dimitri and will soon be hanging in his athens theatre: poreia.

preparing for plein air, remembering the barnes /  by Philip Tarlow

woman typing on a plane, gouache on paper 10x7.5"

2:08 PM: here's what woman typing on plane looked like as i stopped work for the day so that mikela and i could go for a walk up the trail.

 

 

 

 

1:29 PM: i've been working on woman typing on plane for the last few hours. it's coming along, but it's not quite there yet. lets see how far i can take it before we leave for our walk up the trail in about an hour.

 

 

 

i'm going to complete work on the gouache i began yesterday and prepare a surface for a possible plein air excursion this afternoon. here's one of the many paintings we were especially moved by last week at the barnes collection in philadelphia:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'll post pics of my progress on this gouache as they become available.

starting a new gouache upon returning from philadelphia /  by Philip Tarlow

3:18 PM: it's always challenging to return to painting following a week long trip. so i simply launched into a new gouache based upon a photo i shot on our return flight of a woman at work on her laptop. it's not where i'm headed in the coming days and weeks, but it allowed me to pick up my brushes and get something done. i'll complete it tomorrow.

we're having a spell of unusually warm weather for this time of year, so over the next week or so i intend to go back out to the creek and make a few more gouaches. this time, the size and shape will be designed to be divided into 3 or 4 vertical panels, to be hung side by side. this is based on an idea i got while visiting the philadelphia museum of art a few days ago.