revision of double creek II /  by Philip Tarlow

2:30 PM: double creek II presented me with a challenge today. something wasn’t right. i tried all the tricks i had up my sleeve but it vigorously shook it’s head NO! i was preparing to leave the studio early to go keep mikela company; she’s a bit under the weather. after cleaning my materials & sealing the oil sticks off from the air, i glanced over at the paiinting on the wall. no, i said to myself, you can’’t leave it in this state. unacceptable. better to scrape out what i did, for the 3rd time, & come back fresh in the morning. my oil sticks were all covered in plastic bags to keep them from drying out. so i found a small grey oil stick & worked into the scraped out surface. an orange oil stick was still available in one of my drawers, so i grabbed it, made a few strokes, and, shazaam! this happens to me a lot. you have to give up before you can ramp up.

double creek II, consisting of 2 16x20” canvasses joined, oil & oil stick on linen

starting double creek II before heading out to an appointment /  by Philip Tarlow

7:08 PM: this morning i had only a couple of hours before we had to head out for a few appointments. i didn’t really think i’d get anything done. but as soon as i had my matcha tea and toast, i got antsy and had to do something! so i grabbed 2 16x20 canvases i had stretched last week. i had painted earlier motion series on them, which i painted over yesterday. so i did get into it, and at least got started on double creek II, which you see below. i’ll continue work on it tomorrow.

double creek II, 16x40” as it looked at the end of my short painting day.

revisions to double creek, re-work of purple rock, 36x36" /  by Philip Tarlow

purple rock, 36x36” at the end of my painting day today

k’s landscape in process as it looked at 4pm

4:30 PM: k. was here working on his beautiful landscape as i continued work on purple rock & double creek. i continued to make revisions until 4pm, when k’s dad came to pick him up. we both did good work. as always i do some of my best work when we’re painting together. purple rock, above, kept getting more and more spare. the goal is to reach that tenuous point where i use the least line & color possible to trnsmit the awareness that you’re looking at rocks & water without sacrificing the abstracted painterly quality.

the same holds true for double creek, below. the purple band of color at the very top of both paintings seemed an essential grounding element as a sign indicating the shoreline.

2:12 PM: more work on purple rock, which now looks like this. i like what happened with the violet band on top. i had mixed that color this morning for a different purpose.

today i’m going back into double creek (below, left) as well as revising purple rock, 36x36”. here’s what they looked like at 1 pm. work continues; updates as they become available.

double creek, 16x32" /  by Philip Tarlow

double creek, 16x32”, as it looked moments ago, at about 3:45pm

3:45 PM: we returned form brunch at a friends and i continued work on double creek, which now looks like what you see above & will likely transform once again tomorrow morning.

double creek, 16x32”, as it looked moments ago

11:28 AM: an interesting day so far. normally, this is abouit when i start getting into it. but we have to be somewhere at noon, so i jumped in & started double creek, which presently looks like this. once we’re back, probably around 2 or so, i’ll see if i want to do any more or just leave it till tomorrow.

triple creek, 16x60 1/4" /  by Philip Tarlow

triple creek 16x60 1/4, as it looked moments ago

1:36 PM: after making some calls regarding a possible show in carbondale, co., i went over to my work table and pondered the 3 16x20” canvasses i painted over yesterday. they were originally conceived as 3 separate works. i placed them side by side horizontally and began fooling around, first laying down a fresh coat of yellow specially blended for this session, then drawing into the fresh paint with oil sticks. very sensual it is, drawing into fresh oil paint with oil sticks. they slide about like greased bear paws, leaving trails of colors in their wake. i used 3 separate photos taken at the icy creek, one as recent as 2 days ago & all 3 printed out on 13x17” paper. riffing. playing. and when it began getting serious, getting real, i paused for fear of getting into my scheming mind.

then i flipped them over and began searching for ways to attach them from the rear, so i could hang them on the wall & observe. after an hour of sawing & screwing scraps of wood moulding onto the rear and mounting a hook dead center, i hung them. upon first glance, i was pleasantly surprised at how well they hold together and read from a distance of about 32 feet; roughly how far it is from my iMac to the east wall of my studio. so i think i’ll leave them be for the moment, and focus on posting this and cleaning up the mess i made. in a few hours we’ll take a walk up north crestone creek before heading to dinner with a dear friend.

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.