simultaneous revisions to 4 motion paintings / July 23, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

working on 4 paintings made for an interesting day, topped off by a visit from my mentee, k. he expressed interest in exploring the history of art, so i had him choose a 10th century chinese landscape painting, followed by an architectural drawing by 17th c. painter jacob van ruisdale and make studies. the results blew me away. i knew he was talented, but this study went beyond what i imagined this 12 year old was capable of. i'm already thinking of future projects for him, and maybe a collaboration between the two of us.

4:19 PM: today i worked on all 4 of the paintings you see below. in the left hand column of images are, starting from the top, motion 30, 20, 29 and 27. i just now added details to the images below, which are to the right of each one.

12:31 PM: this is probably the first time i'm working on 4 paintings simultaneously: motion 20, 27, 29 & 30! it just happened. i kept seeing things i wanted to do in one of the four, which inspired me to do something on another of the four,....you get the picture. my mentee , k. is arrriving at 2:30, so that's my cutoff.

wacky day in the studio / July 22, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

3:08 PM: today was a wacky day, even in my wacky world. i had given up on motion 27 & was going to un-stretch it to scavenge the stretcher bars, but a voice in my head said i should give it another shot. voice in my head? do i need therapy? well, that's kind of the way it works when you are your own boss, right?

so i introduced that forest green and preserved some of the more compelling, suggestive passages, and now all i can see is a damsel in distress waving hello with her abbreviated paw, and an even more distressed halloween-like face, hair raised in horror. perhaps he's spooked by our pres.

and, amongst the rock markings in the lower left, sex is happening, or about to. read this while you can; it will likely be expunged at some point.

BELOW: details of the painting

BELOW: the revised, yet again, motion 29.

*DETAIL* of motion 29 after todays revisions

simultaneously, i was making more revisions to motion 29. a dear friend whose opinion i value highly, was saddened by the last minute changes i made yesterday, depriving it, she thought, of the movement of the water, which she loved. still a good painting, she observed, but it has lost that magic i felt it had.

now theres a challenge! back & forth i went, between 27, which i hadn't touched since july 5th, and 29. i'll have to wait for my friend's response to the changes i made to motion 29, but i believe the motion of the water she was mourning may be back, albeit in a different form.

BELOW: comparative views of motion 29 in the state my friend loved, yesterday when she was disappointed, and on the right, today,

revising motion 29 / July 21, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

3:33 PM: after revising motion 29, i returned to the new motion 30. taking it very slow with this one so i don't mess up the negative spaces. more tomorrow.

*motion 29* as it looked at noon, following revisions

12:39 PM: this morning upon entering my studio, i felt motion 29 needed work, so that's how i spent my morning. i feel good about the changes, which created a more consistent movement in the composition, eliminating some elements of the previous composition, especially in the lower third of the canvas, which drew your eye to the detriment of the top 2/3. as well, i felt there wasn't enoush breathing space, so the painting seemed busy & separated into distinct elements, with no unifying sweep for the eye to move over the surface.

BELOW, a comparative view.

motion 29 this morning / stretching motion 30 / July 20, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

4:37 PM: the introduction of figures is new in my motion series. what will become of them as i continue work tomorrow is up in the air. right now, 19th c. french painting springs to mind, when figures in the landscape were a thing. when i encountered all the visitors at fish creek falls neat steamboat springs a few days ago, i was struck by their relationship to the rocks and water, and shot lots of photos with my phone. the guy in the lower left with the blue shirt is playing a digereedo. none of the figures were nude, but it seemed to me they should have been. whereas at first i was shocked by how many visitors there were, i soon began to see them enriching the landscape, and knew i'd be painting them. BELOW: 3 details:

**DETAIL**: working on *motion 30* today

2:51 PM: i stretched a new 38x36" canvas and have begun work on motion 30, inspired by our recent trip to glenwood springs and my hike up to fish kill falls, which was replete with visitors, some bathing, one playing a didgeredoo, which was harmonizing with the sound of rushing water ....

11:03 AM: yesterday late afternoon i come back over to my studio with mikela. she gave her usual spot-on feedback, and as a result i made a few more changes to the painting. there was one particular in the mid-left area that she was very right about. it was a beauticul passage, & the red i added yesterday afternoon detracted from it.

BELOW: the painting before (left) and after my changes late yesterday afternoon:

back in the studio, tweaks to motion 29 / July 19, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

3:30 PM; good to be back. i wasted no time revisiting motion 29 and making some tweaks that i think livened it up. comparative views below:

while we were in basalt we got to see my friend dan's latest ceramic pieces. i think he's made giant leaps in his development, and it's now clear what a natural talent he has. i'll say more about this later. right now i'm bleary eyed from a long day, so i'll go back to the house and post form there.

kyriakos with broom / July 15, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

this is one of many drawings and paintings i made, exhibited & sold in the mid-70's. some of you will be familiar with this particular one or others in the series. it has deep meaning for me for a number of reasons. kyriakos was a street cleaner in the plaka neighborhood of athens, deemed by most people to be retarded.

i drew & painted him more than any of the construction workers who posed for me during that period. i never considered him to be retarded. we spoke little, but one day, just a few days before students barricaded themselves in the polytechnic building and were attacked with tanks & foot solldiers, and many killed, he spoke quietly to me while gazing out my studio window at he tower of the winds.

mr. philip, he asked softly, "what does it mean to see blood in your dreams. a lot of blood?"

after the polytechnic incident, i realized he had experienced the event in a dream. he was, i decided, a kind of seer.

out on a limn / July 14, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

*motion 29*, 38x38" at it looked at 3:20 pm today; the end of my painting day

2:18 PM: a welcome thunderstorm moved in, it got very dark and i'm stopping here for the day.

i worked some more on motion 29, taking, as i promised, risks & going out on a limn.

BELOW you see 3 stages of motion 29. the first is how it looked yesterday at the end of my painting day. and the two on the right are stages of the painting today, the far right being the final stage.

i will definitely return to it once we're back from steamboat springs, so look for a continuation of these posts thursday morning, unless i decide to post form the road.

BELOW: 3 details of motion 29

*motion 29*, 38x38" as it looked at about noon

12:45 PM: do i really want to mess with such a delicate balance? i asked myself, knowing that, yes, i do and, yes i would. so as usual i dove right in with little clue as to where i was going, other than having certainty that the fortuitous accidents would happen, right under my nose, while my controlling mind was on a short break. i'm not there yet, and it's a little disorienting knowing we'll be out of town till wednesday, but i'm still in the thick of it. going out on a limn i mean.

LIMN: synonyms:highlight, adorn, embellish, paint, illuminate, suffuse

more later my dearest friends, new & old!

where to go next / July 13, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

1:54 PM: so i decided to continue work on motion 29, despite the fact that i don't feel in top form today, as i said in my 11 am post. by listening to what the painting wanted, i think i was able to make good, albeit slow progress. there's such a deep divide between the the fist 16 or so paintings in this suite, that i may make changes to my motion page, and divide the series into two distinct groupings. basically, what used to serve as an under-drawing, which was then mostly painted & scraped over with a bolder image, is now the main event. as a result, the paintings now have far more subtlety and ambiguity. when i bring them over to the house for the acid test of hanging in our expansive, light, open top floor, they have more staying power; we find something new every time we look at them.

11:02 AM: i ate way too much fresh fruit last night & woke up weird. mikela said "if you're not feeling well, DON'T work on the new painting! " i'd have trouble working on it even if i was feeling well! it's so delicately beautiful. what if i can't get back into the same vibe? which obviously i can't. that would be impossible. i did bring over a couple of canvasses to un-stretch & re-stretch with fresh linen canvas. they are a few that are not on my A list, and since the new work is piling up and i'm running out of storage, it makes sense to un-stretch less successful paintings & roll them up. but that's a rather boring way to spend my day. so lets see what i end up doing.

yesterday's session with K. / starting motion 29 / July 12, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

1:45 PM: i's stopping here for the day. unfortunately, i'm going to have to un-stretch & re-stretch this canvas. i neglected to check if it was squared up after putting the stretcher bars together. as a result, it's impossible to avoid the wrinkles you see, and eventually it will be a problem when it's ready for framing as well. a big pain in the ass that will take a little over an hour. so i'm going to run some errends in town first, then come back & do it. i definitely don't want to wait till morning & waste my morning energy on this.

10:15 AM: the student i'm mentoring, k., came over to the house yesterday afternoon at 6:20 and we sat on our deck & made gouache landscape paintings. it was a short session due to approaching storms & k's inability to do his favorite thing: layering, with the gouache colors i provided. he prefers acrylics or oils, so next time we'll use oils & see how it goes. nonetheless, i think what he did is quite beautiful &, as it turns out, very kaelen-esque! i confirmed yet again that there's nothing quite like plein air painting. can't be beat!

today i plan on starting a new motion series painting, motion 29, which will be 48x48", on linen. once i begin the drawing, i'll post pics.

minor revisions to motion 28, or, mikela was right! / July 11, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

*motion 28*, 36x38" after this mornings revisions

11:26 AM: following our 6am morning walk, we stopped by the studio on the way back to the house so that mikela could give me some feedback on motion 28, which she hadn't seen since i worked on it yesterday. she loved the painting, and especially the rocks in the foreground, but some marks from the under-drawing were bothering her. can you take those out, she asked? but of course i responded. BELOW: before (left) and after the revisions. she was right again!