changes to "1/1/19 4:21pm" and "8/24/17 7:34pm" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:50 PM: more changes today to these two paintings. see yesterdays blog post to make comparisons & read my commentary.

7 PM: so now i have a bit more time to review todays revisions. i was holding the thought that the paintings in this sseries needed to be painted in one or two sittings in order to have the same immediacy and freshness of my plein air works. wrong! actually, every morning when i enter the studio i see where i need to focus my attention. going back in doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t have that immediacy and freshness. especially when the oil paint is still a little wet from the previous day & i can, for example, blend the greys with off whites of wispy, fluffy clouds. as a result, and this can only be appreciated in person, the painting begins to approach the level of subtlety we see when gazing at the actual sky. still, it’s a PAINTING; marks, strokes on a 2 dimensional surface. if you google sky painitngs, you will find a plethora of, truth be told BAD paintings. the sky is easy pickins for painters who have little or no foundation in draftsmanship and sparce, if any, knowledge of the history of art. how did the artists of pomeii for example, paint their skies on the walls of their magnificent structures? constable? van gogh? jacob van ruisdael?

more work on "roiling," last worked on 10/16/18 and revisions of 3 sky paintings /  by Philip Tarlow

6:39 PM:the 3 sky paintings BELOW were revised today. i rotated, going from one to the other, using the same palette. about half way through i had to put out a second palette. it was like nothing i’ve ever done; like keeping 3 plates spinning. discoveries i made in one spilled over to the other two, and as a result there is a strong relationship between these paintings. i’m learning evrey day, studying the sky as we take our walks up to the stupa; as we drive home on our travels and as i gaze, every morning and evening form our windows out over the slv and at the peaks of the sangres.

roiling, 38x36” mixed media on canvas as it looked after my revisions yesterday morning

10:45 am: yesterday’s warm up was to do more work on this abstracted landscape, which was hanging in our living room since it was completed on 10/16/18. all of my frustration at not being able to make big, gestural marks as i progress with my sky series, was temporarily relieved by doing exactly that in this revision of a painting i was never completely satisfied with.

so how do i reconcile these two seemingly disparate paths. nothing to reconcile; they are one and the same.

a day of softening skies /  by Philip Tarlow

2:23 PM: yesterday i didn’t come to the studio as i was recovering from the side effects of my pneumonia vaccination & didn’t feel up to it. i took the opportunity to observe the late afternoon sky more carefully, and what i saw was a much more subtle, softer transition form cloud to sky than i had been painting.

so today i attempted to implement what i had observed. i think it’s an improvement, but overall these two paintings strike me as being too dark in tone. maybe my eye hasn’t yet adjusted to this new way of working. as always, i’ll know better in the morning, and especially when it gets to the point where i bring them over to the house for critical evaluation & comparison with the others in the series.

BELOW

upper left: 1/1/19, 4:21pm before todays changes; right: after

lower left: 8/24/17, 7:38pm  before; right: after changes

my ano kato series /  by Philip Tarlow

11:03 AM: resting today due to side effects from pneumonia shot. here’s one of my ano kato series, of paintings from a few years ago. ano kato means topsy turvey in greek.the series consists of about 30 paintings, all oil on linen. it reflects my love of views from above. this requires foreshortening, which for some artists may seem difficult, but when you love it and its in your dna, it’s pure joy and very easy to execute. this one is based upon photos taken at the denver museum of art and includes workmen helping to mount an exhibition. the patterning on the floor, aside form the foreshortening, was another element that excited me. some of this series can be found at gremillion & co. fine art, houston. others are in my collection.

1/1/19, 4:21pm revised once again /  by Philip Tarlow

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

todays palette

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 /  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 /  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 /  by Philip Tarlow

shared today by a friend on facebook

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" /  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.... /  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