day 2, woman in landscape /  by Philip Tarlow

woman in landscape,  38x36" as it looked at 2pm today

2:09 PM: today i started painting woman in landscape, 38x36" in oil on portrait linen. it was indescribably electric to begin painting in oil again, after a very long hiatus. oil on portrait linen is a very special experience, as the linen takes the colors in a unique way., responding with extreme sensitivity to your every stroke, taking even the most diluted wash of color in a way that inspires and promotes the painterly.

DETAIL of woman in landscape

right now i've got to clean my brushes so we can go for a creek walk on this balmy (52F) first day of december. i'll resume work tomorrow.

woman in landscape / a matisse we saw at the barnes collection /  by Philip Tarlow

Henri Matisse. Three Sisters with an African Sculpture (Les Trois sœurs à la sculpture africaine), between May and mid-July 1917. Oil on canvas, Overall: 77 1/8 x 38 1/4 in. (195.9 x 97.2 cm). BF363. In Copyright. ©2017 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

4:55 PM: this is one of the magnificent matisse paintings we saw recently at the barnes collection in philadelphia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2:46 PM: i began the drawing for a new 36x38" painting titled woman in landscape. this will be a much longer process than the collages i've been working on the past few weeks. i have always been enamored of the figure in the landscape and have looked again and again, over the decades, at how the great masters approached it. from courbet to manet, corot and matisse. a small figure in a large landscape can create mystery.

here you see a drawing of the figure i'll be including. it originates in a 2005 painitng i made in gouache on paper on thecycladic  island of andros, where i've spent much time.

she is dwarfed by the large rocks, which are actually from a photo i shot at north crestone creek recently.

3 new plein air gouaches this afternoon /  by Philip Tarlow

6:37 PM: today was the last of our recird breaking warm days. the temperature reached 62F and there was little wind. based upon past experiences on this late date, i overdressed and had to peel off layers when i sat down at the site to paint.

the site is magical, as you can see form the photos below. fortunately, i was not interrupted by unwanted visitors, as happened the last time i went out, 2 days ago.

BELOW: the 3 gouaches and some shots of the site.

more work on 11-25-17 collage /  by Philip Tarlow

11-26-17 collage mixed media on paper, 15x20"

1:32 PM: upon entering my studio, a quick glance at 11/25/17 collage made it clear that changes had to be made. i had intended to go out again this afternoon to paint plein air, but tomorrow, which will be our last unseasonably warm day, is when i'll go out, possibly for the last time this season, until spring arrives. in the past, i've ventured out as early as march, which is only 3 months away!

the composition was too jammed, so i introduced more while space, allowing the composition to breathe. 2 1/2 printed letters were added, taken form a page in art forum advertising a show at the whitney, which is where the EY came from. i added a bit with black crayon, turning it into hey. only one eye remains from the collaged drawing of a team member that marked the starting point. a festive, circus atmosphere reigns, whith pinks & blues and what appears to be a prancing horse. a few green splashes in the lower right pay hommage to the creek. and the wavy cutout blue streamers i've been employing help define the space.

 

 

BELOW: stage 1 (left)  yesterdays version (middle) & todays (right)

continuing 11/24/17 collage and 2 new plein air gouaches /  by Philip Tarlow

6 pm: this morning i continued work on 11/24/17 collage by first making a quick sketh in gouache based on a photo i shot of one of the programmers on our team. then i proceeded to cut up the gouache and collage it onto yesterdays collage, as you can see BELOW. i may do more tomorrow.

then i continued working on the collage. three stages can be seen below:

a couple of unconscious people showed up at the site, popped me out of my reverie & interrupted my work, so the 2 gouaches are not great.

 BELOW: todays 2 gouaches and 4 photos of the site:

2 new plein air gouaches and the early stages of 11-24-17 collage /  by Philip Tarlow

4:49 PM: this morning i started 11-24-17 collage by making a quick sketch in gouache of a photo i shot several weeks ago of one of our team members. i then cut it up and ,along with a quick gouache study of a chinese landscape and began mounting them on a 15x20" piece of 300lb cold press paper. it has an appealing simplicity right now. as always, my challenge tomorrow will be to retain that elegant simplicity while adding elements that, ideally, enrich the composition and therefore the experience of the viewer.

Mikela & I went up to the creek this afternoon so I could paint plein air. It was 63F, breaking the previous record for this date of 58F. I dressed warmly, knowing that, even at 63 degrees, it can get chilly sitting in one spot for over an hour. As we approached, the wind suddenly picked up. Mikela took a trail walk and, as I started painting, the wind began gusting to 40mph! I stuck it out, barely.

the two gouache paintings that emerged have clearly been influenced by the series of collages i've been making over the past few weeks. the focus is less on representing or reproducing the elements of the creek-scape realistically, and more on riffing on what i observe before me. i've done that in previous gouache plein air paintings, in this case, riff trumps allegiance to subject matter.

 

 

11/23/17 collage /  by Philip Tarlow

2:11 PM: i started a new collage today, after making a few tweaks to yesterdays collage.

gotta run so we can take our trail walk before it gets too late; more later....

STARTING A NEW COLLAGE /  by Philip Tarlow

7:39 PM: i worked on the collage until 4 pm. towards the end i had the feeling i was overdoing it. when i got it back to the house, i decided it made more sense compositionally as a vertical.

i feel it still needs work, but not a great deal.a few of the slender dark blue collaged bit could be pushed back or eliminated. and the slender red/pink-ish collaged element at the top left is too obvious  and not needed. and something else, which i won't know until i resume work tomorrow morning. "you're working on thanksgiving?" you might ask. neither mikela or myself pay attention to holidays, weekends, birthdays, etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2:17 PM: here's what the new collage looks like right now. i might give it a rest until tomorrow. the creek scape or the squash forms are no longer primary sources for the forms here. i'm simply taking my aesthetic to the next level.

 

 

 

1:01 PM: got a late start today and am just starting work on a new collage: 11/22/17 collage. i made some preparatory marks as a way of kicking it off with some fresh material.

more pics as my day progresses.

tweaks to yesterdays 11/20/17 collage /  by Philip Tarlow

1:34 PM: i had brought 11/20/17 collage back to the house so that we could both review it. we independently concluded that this area, and in particular this brown shape needed work. it was drawing our attention to the detriment of the whole composition. 

 

 

so i brought it back and did some experiments, cutting out that exact shape from another piece of white paper, laying it over the brown, etc. at one point i found this solution, but upon reflection that wasn't doing it.

 

 

finally,  this solution evolved. i was multi-tasking, beginning some long overdue editing of important footage we shot lest year at a middle school near vail. so i wasn't fully in the groove. on the other hand, it gave me an opportunity to leave the collage altogether and return with fresh eyes. how i know this is the right solution is that i am no longer drawn to that area of the collage to the exclusion of the whole composition.

 

 

BELOW are the before, on the left, and after images of the collage:

a new 15x20 collage /  by Philip Tarlow

3:10 PM: this morning i was in the mood to start a new collage. although i enjoyed working on the small gouache study of the snow capped peaks yesterday, that's not where my energy is at right now. unlike the previous 3 collages, i wasn't using the squash shapes and colors as a basis for the composition. i did however use a few bits from the kids paintings i mentioned. mostly, those are the green shapes.

at work on 11/20/17 collage

it started out as a vertical and shifted towards the end of my work day to a horizontal composition.

right now, i'm loving the freedom afforded me by this way of working. there's a lot to be said for the randomness of collage, which, interestingly, allows me to hone in more precisely on the development of my aesthetic. i derive enormous pleasure from the solutions that present themselves moment to moment. and it's easy to self correct when i choose an obvious or repetitive one.

ps: what you see hanging around my neck is my jerry rigged solution for having both hands free when mikela calls from the house.