starting work on 8/29/16, 7:45 am /  by Philip Tarlow

8-29-16 7-45AM as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3:28 PM: so here’s where it’s at now. one could say i am enamoured with the clouds. that would be accurate. our skies here in crestone/baca are especially rich, and our air is so clear that the clouds gain a dimensionality and presence. but i still have a lot to learn about painting them. more tomorrow…good night my friends!

2:33 PM: this morning i started work on the canvas i stretched yesterday, which is 32x40.” it’s inspired by a photo i took on that time & date from our west facing upper story windows, overlooking the vast expanse of the san luis valley. but it’s more of a cloud-scape, which was my intention for the series, titles sky high.

as i work on this 3rd painting in the series, i learn more about the subtleties of painting skies, which the great british master constable spent his entire life studying.like all painting, it’s really about mark making and distributing and balancing forms in space. back to work in this last hour of my energy resources for the day…i’ll post photos once i stop work.

working on the lower portion of "5/24/18, 8:06 PM" /  by Philip Tarlow

5/24/18, 8:06 PM as it looked at 1pm

here’s the painting as it looked just now. i’m going to take it to the house for evaluation and then it might need the green bit to be grayed a bit.

at work on the lower portion of 5/24/18, 8:06 PM

12:26 PM: mikela’s critique of the lower portion was, as usual, spot on. i spent the past few hours making significant changes to that tree covered mountain side. green has never been easy for me, and i din’t want it to detract from the success of the upper 2/3 of the painting. so here’s where it’s at. scroll down to yesterdays post to see the difference.

it’s always tricky to go back, the following day, into a painting that emerged in one burst of energy, as did this one. but if it’s going to happen, morning hours, when i’m fresh are prime time.

starting "5/29/18, 8:06 PM" /  by Philip Tarlow

the painting as it looked at 4pm

4:01 PM: this is how 5/24/18, 8:06 PM looked at the end of my painting day. i knocked myself out, so i’m going home to take a bath!

12:34 PM: started working on 5/24/18, 8:06 PM, which is 32x40” oil on linen. it’s a delicate process & right now i’ve got to get back to work; more later

a bit more on "12-10-18 sky 4-42pm" /  by Philip Tarlow

12:46 PM: it was with some trepidation that i decided to do a bit more work on this painting. my intention was to leave it “unfinished,” but i did feel it needed a bit more.

BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left. now that i see them together, i feel i did the right thing. so i’m going to stretch another canvas for the next painting in this new series, called Sky High.

starting to paint "12/10/18 4:42 pm" 32x32" /  by Philip Tarlow

12/10/18 4:42 PM at the end of my painting day today

2:37 PM: i’m stopping here for the day. i can’t wait to get back to it tomorrow morning. this style of painting is very familiar to me from my 15 years of painting in greece. my friend/mentor yannis tsarouchis and my former mother-in-law, the late niki karagatsi, introduced me to the technique of applying a tinted ground and painting over it, giving the entire image a unity & coherence otherwise impossible to attain. this was, of course, based upon byzantine prototypes. so, after their introduction, i also studies byzantine icons carefully, both in museums, private homes and on mt. athos, where i stayed for about a week.

i have hundreds if not thousands of photos i’ve taken of the evening sky, mostly as viewed form our house in the baca grande. many of them will be candidates for future paintings, which one day will hang together in an exhibition of sky paintings. it would be cool to have this exhibition in a large gallery or museum, with one room devoted to sky paintings, another to motion paintings and a third devoted to the on site plein air paintings in gouache on paper, which serve as inspiration for the entire motion and post-motion series. that would tell the story of this segment of my life and work. hopefully i’ll be alive and kicking so that i could give a few talks about the whole process, and acknowledge my mentors for their inspiration and support!

at work this morning on 12/10/18 4:42 PM

1:35 PM: this morning i started work on a 32x32” painting on primed linen. this is the first in a new series of paintings based upon the numerous photos i’ve taken of crestone/baca skies, mostly around sunset. this particular one, which was shot at the same date & time as the title, was rather unusual in the layering of dark clouds, light clouds & blue sky. it’s being painted over a thin acrylic siena ground, which i applied yesterday, it’s kind of a nice relief from the intensity of the abstracted creek paintings i’ve been making as part of my post-motion series. work will continue for another hour or so, before we take our afternoon walk up to tashi gomang stupa.

preparing a 32x32" canvas for "12/10/18 sky, 4:42pm" /  by Philip Tarlow

just back from our trip to edwards, where we had some excellent moments with the middle school students, who are preparing their projects. my first step should really be to clean up my studio, which is a mess. but i couldn’t resist the temptation to begin a project many months, even years in the making. as those of you who follow me on FB know, i’ve taken & posted thousands of photos of the crestone/baca sky. i’ve has a growing urge to make paintings of some of them.

so i stretched a 32x32” canvas and prepared it with a tinted ground; something i used to do regularly but haven’t done in a long time. the ground in in a thinned out acrylic, so it will be totally dry by tomorrow, when i may launch into the painting, unless i make studio clean-up more of a priority.

falling trees, 16x20" and a last minue update to tree resting /  by Philip Tarlow

tree resting following my end of day adjustment’

5:12 PM: just before leaving the studio, i had the urge to make some changes to tree resting, which i’d been evuating all day as i worked on the new one.

starting the drawing for falling trees II

DETAIL

12:58 PM: i have 4 canvasses, 16x20”, which i’ll be working on over the next week or so. this is the first: falling trees.

once they’re complete, i may see how they work together in a grid pattern that can be changed by the collector, allowing for a constantly transforming image.

k. & i paint together /  by Philip Tarlow

tree resting 32x36”

k’s cello

7:25 PM: my mentee k. came to the studio today for 3 hours. he completed work on his very beautiful cello painting, and i did more work on tree resting. k. is getting really good; bear in mind this is only his second oil painting and just look at how elegantly sophisticated it is! he added the bow and the stand beneath the cello today, which has made all the difference.

as for tree resting, what can i say? maybe later today i’ll post the numerous revisions this painting has undergone.

more work on tree resting /  by Philip Tarlow

tree resting at 3 pm

3 PM: i added a bare branch over the ice on the right, allowing the eye to register the ice as being below the branch, thus providing a greater sense of space & depth.as well, i added some darker areas of shadow where the ice eds and rocks begin, on the lower portion. i done for the day, so i’ll clean up, go back to the house & find out the latest political bombshells.

tree resting at 2 pm

DETAIL

2:11 PM: this morning was foggy, with poor natural light, nonetheless, i continued work on tree resting until the sun finally broke through around noon. i did quite a bit on tree resting, introducing an area of ice in the center, which both gave the composition some breathing room and has made it a far more compelling painting, i think. all the paintings need to be seen in person, this one especially. there are some subtle oranges and reds on the right that lose their sexiness on the computer screen.