January 24, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*1/1/19, 4:21pm* following todays revisions

2:07 PM: after skipping a day in the studio due to dental appointments mikela & i had, i returned with a fresh eye. 1/1/19, 4:21pm seemed to busy in the upper 2/3, so i painted over all those candy colored clouds, allowing the eye to relax & enjoy the sunset. i studied yesterdays sunset as we returned from salida, both to the west and to the east.those final 15 minutes tell the entire story, and what i noticed more than ever before were the subtleties of the transitions. those observations along with a great conversation i had yesterday morning with harwood, one of my dear friends at gremillion & co. fine art in houston, precipitated the changes that occurred today. tomorrow, i’ll tackle 8/24/17, 7:38pm.

BELOW: the painting as it looked before todays revisions, on the left, and following revisions, right.

to the dentist today / January 23, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

the sangre de chisto mountains from co17 as we returned home today. we live in the foothills.

6:30 PM: we were at the dentist all day; about a 60 mile drive from our home in crestone/baca. the light of the setting sun on the mountains was breathtaking. the temperature was hovering around 10F/-12.2C

from rocks and water to skies and back again / January 22, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

6:56 PM: today was dentist day. i had till 12:30 pm to go to my studio & get something done. i used that time, in part, to begin selecting & organizing my motion paintings for the may show at space gallery. as i was working on my desktop, i cast glances at the 2 most recent sky paintings hanging on my east studio wall. although there are only 6 paintings in this series, my passion for painting skies is fading. first of all, and perhaps most critically, my mark making is restricted. used to my freedom to make marks on the canvas that don’t need to conform to a predetermined result, i’m starting to feel like a rebelious teen. this morning, i felt like i’m done with skies, at least for a while. so i wouldn’t be surprised if i continue the motion and meta-motion series.

BELOW:

from the upper left clockwise: painting a sky; painting a motion painting; gestural, detail of calligraphic marks in a motion painting; the full image of that painting; one of my photos taken at a local creek, which served as inspiration for several of my motion paintings; and another of my motion paintings

"1/1/19, 4:21pm" & "8/24/17, 7:8pm" : changes to both paintings today / January 21, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*1/1/19, 4:21pm* (32x36”) as it looked after extensive revisions earlier today

*1/1/19, 4:21pm* 32x36 as it looked yesterday

1:21 PM: upon enetering my studio and casting that all important first glance, i concluded that both of the 2 paintings discussed here; the most recent in my sky high series, needed tweaking. so i got busy, using the same palette for both. i have lingering doubts about this series, after interrupting my motion series of abstracted landscapes, where gestural, calligraphic marks abound. these sky paintings demand a very different approach; not only a different mindset, but a very different handset. but i had to find out: are the hundreds, perhaps thousands of sky photos i shoot destined to become paintings, or are they meant to remain as photographs?

so i made extensive changes to the new 1/1/19, 4:21pm (32x36”}, which i began work on yesterday. i found that the cloud shapes occupying the upper 2/3 of the painting, while they may have worked as abstract patterns, were not at all in harmony with the treatment of the sunset at the bottom of the painting. so i did my usual scraping and schmearing, then painting into it, repeating, until i got it resolved…i think.

*1/1/19, 4:21pm* as it looked after extensive revisions earlier today

*8/24/17, 7:38pm* as it looked yesterday

as for 8/24/17, 7:38pm, i felt that the transition from the orange/yellow sunset sky to the blue sky was too abrupt, and in effect, created the impression of 2 distinct, sort of but entirely related, paintings. as with 1/1/19, 4:21pm, i did a lot of scraping & dragging a fully loaded brush, scraping again and so on. it seems to me i definitely resolved the issue of the perceived split between upper & lower portions but, as with almost all the changes i make to paintings, i can’t get a good read until the following day.

starting a new sky painting: "1/1/19 4:21pm" / January 20, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*1/1/19, 4:21pm* 32x36”, as it looked moments ago

painting the setting sun using the wax medium

3:17 PM: this one is based upon a photo i shot just 3 weeks ago, as the sun was about to set over the san juan mountains, a view we see daily from our west facing windows. makes you think that mikela, who designed our house, was thinking of this sky series as she planned the location of our many windows.

as i look at it hanging on my east facing studio wall, the white clouds filling the upper 2/3 of the composition seem too white, so i may tone them down tomorrow. aside from that, i love it. when i painted the setting sun, i experimented with a new wax medium made by gamblin, which blick, where i purchase my materials online, included gratis in the most recent shipment. it allows you to create a thicker impasto, which somewhat resembles encaustic.

adio chem-trail.... / January 18, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*8/24/17, 7-:8pm* after disappearing the chem-trail

3:19 PM: fresh from our travel and after a good nights sleep, i entered my studio and immediately saw that ron was right…again. ron is owner of the houston gallery where i’ve been showing my work for over 20 years: gremillion & co. fine art. when i sent him the image of 8/24/17, 7-:8pm, he responded simply: “what’s the diagonal?” the very first thing that caught my eye this morning was, of course, that chem-trail. so it’s history. gone to the chem-trail grave yard. as well, i lightened the too monochrome area just above the horizon line. and as a result, i think it’s a far better painting. far better. BELOW: the before (LEFT) and after

looking back: 9/4/18 "fall" / January 15, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

11:16 AM: this is a painting/collage titled fall, which i made in september, 2018. on the left,one of the drawings on canvas for this painting, made in 9/17, and on the right, the finished piece. at that time i was engaged in creating abstracted landscapes, using as a prototype the many plain air gouache paintings i was making at n. crestone creek. references to trees, grasses and water can be discerned here, as i search for a language of marks, colors and forms that reflect my experience of the creek-scape i would immerse myself in for about 2 hours at a time.

the drawing, on the left brings to mind the explorations of archile gorky, ,whose work i was studying at the time. this work evolved into my motion series, which can be viewed here:

https://www.philiptarlow.com/motion/

remembering plein air / January 14, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

12:39 AM: in just a few months, plein air painting season will have arrived. the weather is usually good enough starting in late april/eraly march to take my paints out to the creek. here’s an example of two i did on march 25, 2017. when i’m working in gouache on paper, i usually have 2-3 surfaces with me, and they tend to get betterwith each successive one. by better, i mean that i get into the flow, and connect with what lies in front of me almost as if it were speaking to me. hard to explain.

the one below on the left was the second of the two. it has more coherence; there is less searching, more certainty in the marks. these little paintings profoundly affect the larger scale work i do in the studio the countdown has begun!

"8-24-17 7-38pm" revisions / January 13, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*8-24-17 7-38pm* 32x36” as it looked moments ago

1:44 PM: i lightened & softened those grey clouds.

at work this morning on *8-24-17 7-38pm*

12:51 PM: revisions; that’s putting it mildly, right? well, we do know that the great sky painter constable never encountered a chemtrail in all the time he painted skies. love them or hate them, they are an undeniable factor in our skies. in our high desert, vast valley, we have the opportunity to view more of the sky than most places.

as you will see if you scroll down to yesterdays post, i painted over most of the previous version )so what else is new?) except for the strip of clouds and the distant san juans on the very bottom. the three sisters at the top may be a tad too dark, but that’s the way they looked that august day at sunset.

"8/24/17 7:34PM" : next steps / January 12, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4:35 PM: i worked a bit on 8/24/17 7:34PM today. i couldn’t get an early start, so the clouds are a little heavy handed and the entire composition is too dark. i’ll resume tomorrow morning, and it will help if i can get an earlier strat.