the durango journey /  by Philip Tarlow

durango, 36x38” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

1:51 PM: the painting titled durango, (36x38”), had already undergone a radical transformation, and i can’t seem to find an image of it as it looked just before starting work today. thus far, since this morning it has gone through 4 stages, which can be seen below, with the earliest on the left.

obviously what’s happening here is a progressive simplification. i finally realized i had to ditch the log, which plays a role in almost all of the most recent motion series paintings. in observing the evolution of my own work, i am gaining a deeper understanding of the work of the great masters i admire. that holds true especially right now for matisse. i’ve been looking at matisse in morocco, published on the occasion of the 1990-91 exhibition in the usa & russia, of his paintings & drawings executed in 1912-13 during his two visits to morocco. i especially relate to the drawings in his sketchbooks from that period, since i have kept travel sketchbooks my entire life, and i know the process of having only a few moments to capture a figure in motion, and how it forces us to focus on essence.

re-work of motion 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

motion 10, 36x38” at 3:45pm today, after an extensive re-work

motion 10 on 4/12/18

2:34 PM next in line for a radical re-work is motion 10. this is one of the original motion series paintings which was too overloaded with forms. it was last worked on 4/2/19, or almost a full year ago. interesting to observe what’s gone down in a year! here’s the painting in it’s former incarnation. there are similar paintings from that same period that are more successful. i wouldn’t mess with them because they represent that particular period well. it’s interesting, in comparing the two, to observe the process of simplification & refinement that has taken place. i believe that if any artists work looks too much the same over time, it means he or she is being repetitive, either because they are selling well & they don’t want to mess with a good thing, or because they have run out of juice.

studio view this morning before starting work

re-work of icy creek 3, 36x38" /  by Philip Tarlow

icy creek 3 in its previous state

2:03 PM: we had been looking at icy creek 3 for about a month. it was prominently hung in at the head of our staircase. yesterday we both agreed it was a candidate for the kind of revisions i’ve been making in many of the older motion series paintings lately. here you see it as it looked before i began working on it this morning.

and below is how it looked at the end of my painting day today. as you can perhaps see, these earlier versions provide a perfect surface for what i’m currently up to; a lighter touch is apparent in the sea of yellow which has been a constant recently. i received a batch of sennelier color sticks yesterday afternoon, and am delighting in the new avenues they have opened for me. it may also be apparent that i’ve been looking at a few of my bonnard & matisse books over my morning matcha tea.

work on durango & aspen creek /  by Philip Tarlow

aspen creek, 17 1/2 x 68”, at the end of my painting day.

3:41 PM: i’ve had my eye on this canvas for a while now. in its previous incarnation it was a vertical aspen tree. a failure as a painting. so i turned it horizontal, went over the image with yellow-ish oil paint and launched into this new painting, which is essentially a drawing with oil sticks. it follows in the footsteps of its siblings; all riffs on my beloved creek.

earlier in the day, i did some more work on durango, which also had a previous incarnation; this one as an early stage motion series painting. it departs somewhat from the others in that it hints more strongly at the elements of the actual creek: reflections in the water, & a few white highlights on the bespeckled rock people.

work on pink rocks and iced creek /  by Philip Tarlow

today i worked on pink rocks, (above left) which i hadn’t touched since august 12 of last year, and iced creek, (above right) which i’ve been working on over the past 3-4 days. i didn’t sleep well so i was bleary eyed all day and i’m not sure whether what i did is up to par. they are both obviously in the same stream of energy. pink rocks now has an unintended blue headed, pink tailed peacock strutting on the lower the left. a new, over the past few days, light blue has entered the paintings, which continue to float in a sea of muted yellow.

starting work on "yellow creek," 18x18" for space gallery annex opening, may 9 /  by Philip Tarlow

stage 1 of yellow creek 18x18” oil on linen

the under-drawing for yellow creek

2 PM: this morning i began work on an 18x18” painting for the new space gallery annex opening, taking place may 9, reception starting 6:00 pm. at 95 south cherokee in denver. all the gallery artists were provided with a beautiful custom 18x18” stretcher bar, so that all the paintings in the show will be exactly the same size.

yellow creek is in the spirit of the more recent motion series paintings i’ve been doing over the past few months. it suggests but does not describe the elements found at one of our local creeks where, about 5-6 months out of the year, i venture out a few times each week to make plein air studies in gouache on paper.

all the motion series paintings have an initial under-drawing, like the one you see here on the right, which appears, more or less, under some of the scraped areas of paint covering it.

the new work is characterized by layers of paint thinly applied, drawn into with oil sticks, scraped down and painted over again and again until the surface and the balance of marks drawn with oil sticks; scraped off oil paint and color is where i want it. while the suggestive, fugitive marks derive from rocks, branches and water, each painting in the series ideally gains an identity and a presence that transcends description. these works are inspired not only by the beauty of the creek environment, but by the painterly tradition in art, from hals to deKooning.

more work on iced creek, 32x36" /  by Philip Tarlow

iced creek before todays changes

although i like what happened with iced creek, it wasn’t in the flow of what’s been happening with this series. since i want this new work to be like one gesture, if you know what i mean. so i painted over it this morning and made it into a next step in this emerging series. it was a bit of a struggle because, as i worked on it and began approaching what i envisioned, it got darker & darker until it began snowing and i had to stop working for a while & wait until the skies brightened. i prefer whenever possible to work under natural lighting. so i had a bite to eat and read some interesting stuff about bonnard in one of my books about him, resuming when it brightened up. i’ve evolved a way of working that allows the pieces to have a similar but distinct look, feel & energy, as well as a strong coloristic relationship.

funky rocks revision #2 /  by Philip Tarlow

funky rocks, 38x38” as it looked following todays revisions.

12:59 PM: upon entering my studio & casting the FIRST GLANCE, it wasn’t working. way better than the 2018 version, but the image itself was too large & didn’t quite work compositionally. so i went over it with a tan-yellow mix of oil paint, scraped & worked back into it, using as a reference new photos of the creek shot on our stupa walk yesterday. the addition of a turquoise blue oil stick i just got a few days ago is exciting, but may need toning down. other than that, i think it works….

revisiting funky rocks, 38x38" /  by Philip Tarlow

funky rocks, 38x38” after todays revisions

3:28 PM: i’ve been reviewing older works in the motion series of paintings, and selecting ones that now, in my present state of mind, seem too busy. they are mainly paintings that have been done on a white-ish ground, where there is really no main event; rather a series of minor events which are meant to form a coherent whole.

funky rocks on 8/18/18, the last time i worked on it.

well, in funky rocks, they just didn’t do that. while i can appreciate it’s merits, it just doesn’t work for me. doesn’t pass the first glance test, where complexity must remain subservient to the BAM factor. does it go BAM? does it hit you right off the bat? and then, of course, does it have staying power. does it haunt you after you look away?

signs & symbols /  by Philip Tarlow

in the most recent 3 paintings. the marks i’ve been exploring over the past decade or so have crystalized and become signs & symbols. they harken back to early indigenous marks on the the walls of caves, where natural phenomena were depicted using the most economical means. missing, of course, is the awe of the mark makers; their sense of ceremony; how they felt they were communicating with the natural world.