discoveries made after unexpected studio cleanup, and winter creek re-shot under better lighting conditions. /  by Philip Tarlow

gaze 6 48 x48” acrylic & collage on canvas, 2016

2:16 PM: this morning there was a bit of a chill in my studio, so i turned on the supplemental elecric oil-filled radiator for a quick heat boost. shortly thereafter the power went out on my desk top, all the external drives & everything plugged in to that section of my studio. i imagined the main plug that feeds all the multi plug surge protectors had somehow pulled out of the wall. it’s buried behind an impossible number of large assembled stretcher bars & other stuff. so i removed all that stuff, which involved lots of heavy lifting. to make a long story short, i later discovered the problem was that my main surge protector, sitting right beneath my desk, where my desktop is located, simply needed to be re-set, as it couldn’t handle the extra power required for the radiator i had turned on. so i took the opportunity to reorganize that area, removing the largest of the assembled stretcher bars, which you see in the photo on the upper left. i plan on disassembling them & stacking the stretcher bars, which will take up far less room.

in the process, i discovered a painting from my gaze series titled gaze 6, which is 48x48”, which you see above. it may be one of the paintings we use for a new home staging next month in boulder.

winter creek 16x20” oil on linen re-shot under bettter lighting conditions

k. back in the studio & "winter creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

4:34 PM: after a break due to k. traveling to the east coast for an interview with a school he applied to, he was back in the studio today & we resumed our mentorship. whenever he’s in the studio i do good work, so i started a new one titled winter creek, 16x20”

i proposed that k. help design my new project, crating 84” by 24” paintings/scrolls for my may show, but he was more interested in painting a sky. so he chose of of my sky pics, i printed it out & he started work on his sky painting, which you see here in an early stage.

"icy creek 3", 38x36" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:37 PM: today i painted over a collaged piece from 2016 that didn’t hold up after having it on the wall in the house. the new boldness of form & line continues, with just 2-3 events ; abstracted elements that started 5-10 years ago with plein air creek gouaches & oils. as with the others in this series, the under-layers are faintly visible, although not as much as they were in the previous ones, which had predominantly white grounds. this one differs somewhat in that it has pure red marks, made with an oil stick, on the branch shape below the rock shape. the rock, encased in ice, could be floating. or falling. the yellow ochre marks it contains reflect the uneven, time worn surface of the rocks in the creek. not inlike the “liver spots” that appear on the back of our hands as we age.

icy creek tweaks & the new "little icy creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

little icy creek, 16 x 20”

2:07 PM: today started out with some work i needed to do on a proposal for a new home staging in boulder. i selected 17 paintings, large & small, and prepared to email them in a 6 page document to the owner of the home for her to review. i had started work on that last night so as not to take up studio time, but it still took a while for me to finalize the document.

at work on little icy creek this morning

i’ve been gazing every now and then at a 16 x 20” oil on canvas that was incomplete. i didn’t like how it was going, so i basically started over on a freshly applied tan gound. it was still wet, so i was able to draw into it with oil sticks, and it has become a member of the new ict creek series i’ve been creating over the past week. i had to scrape & paint over it 2-3 times to get it where it needed to be.

then i made a small tweak to icy creek, adding a small pink mark in the center of the composition which, albeit a minor change, makes a hug difference to the feel of this painting.

icy creek following my minor tweak. the new pink mark is in the center

revisions to icy creek & roiling /  by Philip Tarlow

icy creek 18x48” mixed media & collage on canvas 2018-19

roiling 38x38” mixed media on canvas 2018-19

6:15 PM: when i entered my studio this morning, 2 of the painitngs i worked on yesterday struck me as needed more work. icy creek II had a split between the upper & lower portions of the composition, and roiling seemed a little too busy; too much going on, even though it had already been greatly simplified.

BELOW: the two paintings as they looked yesterday afternoon (LEFT) and this afternoon.

3 meta-motion paintings revised /  by Philip Tarlow

1:41 PM: emboldened by yesterdays breakthroughs, i launched into revisions of 2 other meta-motion series paintings, and one i had worked on yesterday. they are definitely more reliant upon direct drawing with oil pastels than their predecessors. here, for example if roiling as it looked on october 14, 2018 (left) and today. the earlier version is diffuse, with multiple graphic events taking place throughout the painting. todays version contains one main event, with 2-3 peripheral events, all contributing to the left thrusting white element.

quantum rocks was a series of 3 loosely defined rock shapes in a sea of pink & blue/green on september 8, 2018, when i last worked on it )left) now it it is a single event, somewhat akin to what philip guston might have conceived early to mid-career.

icy creek II 38x32” mixed media on canvas

icy creek II, on the right, consists of bold biomorphic shapes on a tan ground, giving the impression of large rocks encased in ice. previously, it had a similar look and feel as the earlier versions you see above. this direction will likely continue for a while.

roiling renewed / icy creek /  by Philip Tarlow

icy creek, 18 x 48” mixed media & collage on canvas

6 pm: after working on roiling, below, i felt revved up. i had my colors on the palette & i was ready to go. this canvas has been sitting in a stack of unresolved paintings in a corner of my studio. i snatched it up and lay it on my big table. i was in that action state, where my body takes the lead and i follow. i liberally applied the off white oil colors i had already prepared, then scraped, revealing the layers of collage & acryllic & oil paint below. i grabbed a fat black oil stick & began drawing rocks, glancing now & then at large printouts i have, of my creek photos. the ones i was referring to happened to be early spring images of the rocks & water surrounded by, immersed in, ice. white ice, with bare branches interrupting the starkness of the white, which formed curves around the big rocks like the collar of a white blouse wraps around the neck. it was unexpected. and rewarding.

1:36 PM: i re-evaluated roiling, which is part of my meta-motion series, yesterday & decided it needed to change. for a change! as you will see below, the busyness & confusion of the previous state is transformed into a single, monolithic image of an abstracted rock, with marks that matter more. an under-shadow of the previous state is visible, & lens both color, predominantly blue, and suggestive forms to the overall image.

this appears to be a new phase in the series of abstracted creek-scapes i’ve been engaged in for years. i don’t really want to analyse it. what i can do is identify what is emerging. there is more reliance on the kind of gestural drawing that defines and permeates much of my path as a painter. there seems to be greater certainty in my mark making and my use of color. in this latest painting especially, i can clearly see how i could not have reached this moment without my predecessors. that’s all i’m going to say right now.

here’s the before & after:

i’m still working, so stay tuned.

about to go to the studio & see what transpires / my new favorite watch /  by Philip Tarlow

9:08 am: getting a late start today; still in pre-shower mode. i have an idea, which i plan on working on parallel with the scroll project. it’s based upon a conversation we had yesterday with an old friend. there’s the potential for commissions along the lines of my ano kato series, and i may experiement with one or two. the first could be on an already stretched & primed canvas intended for a sky series painting.

this is the newest addition to my watch collection. i’ve put my entire collection in a drawer and am only wearing this swatch. right now, i can’t think of anything that can compare with it’s cosmic design.

more later in the day….

continuation of the 2/4/19 drawing on arches paper /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL following todays additions

2:54 PM: to day was our first day back following our trip to edwards to work with the kids & teachers at the middle school on using our product to create and develop projects related to topics the teachers have introduced.

i got the second of two shingles vaccinations on wednesday and, as predicted my arm is swollen & i’m feeling achy & off. so i was only able to work on the drawing for a short time. below you see the changes from the 2/4 version, on the left to todays additions, on the right. assuming i feel better by tomorrow, i may be able to take it further & complete this drawing, and continue work on my vertical scroll project. the unprimed linen should arrive mid-week, so i can begin cutting 84” high strips & experimenting.

a new drawing on arches paper /  by Philip Tarlow

space gallery, where i’ll be showing in may with 2 other gallery artists, requested a few more of my drawings on arches paper. i started working on one today & will resume once we’re back from edwards/vail. it resemmbles the other 3 i’ve done, but is, i believe more evolved, and certainly influenced by the work i’ve done since then.