starting "to clearwater road" 26x78" /  by Philip Tarlow

to clearwater road 26x78”, at the end of my painting day today

2:45 PM: i was moved to start this rather large, for me, canvas by doing a riff on two of my 2015 collages, knowing me, it will likely morph as soon as we return form our short trip. for the moment, it’s a shift in my energy, which i needed after painting all those rocks! there is great joy in painting on a freshly stretched piece of french portrait linen, which accepts the brush like a true lover. we’ll see what happens on saturday, when i’m back in my studio.

more poetry, more taiga /  by Philip Tarlow

purple rock II as it looked at the end of my painting day today.

4PM: i got a very late start today, and was in doubt as to whether i’d be able to put brush to canvas at all. this was due to a presentation/proposal i needed to put together for a prospective client that needed to go out today.

at work an hour ago on purple rock II

so when i finally was able to send it off, it was tricky to switch gears. what i did was to gather all the strands of doubt and physical/mental exhaustion and weave them into that space i need to be in. anxious to continue the experiment i began yesterday: overlaying the existing purple rock II painting with marks inspired by taiga’s 18 th c. calligraphy, which also include the figure of a bull & some almost-comic-book figures representing the uzumasa festival.

as it turns out, this abstracted creek-scape on a neutral beige ground is an ideal setting for my take on this 18th century hanging scroll. after all, it’s a landscape painting based upon decades of studying our local creek, it’s rocks, branches and rushing water. and that’s pretty much what taiga & his buddies did, except that some of them were poets, and their poems often became a living, breathing part of those paintings. i am tempted, once this one is complete, to try this with some of the other paintings in this series, particularly the long narrow verticals that approximate the space of hanging scrolls.

enter taiga's uzumasa festival /  by Philip Tarlow

purple rock II as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3:03 PM: after many years of studying 18th c. calligrapher/landscape painter taiga, he has finally entered the picture. it was an unexpected move, which i have questions about. but all signs were pointing this direction, if you paid attention. if i paid attention!

there was a period when i made a series of studies in gouach on paper of his landscapes. and, intermittently, i have looked carefully at his landscapes & his calligraphy, with which i resonate more and more. i absolutely love the idea of combining painting with poetry, but i don’t feel that happening when i contemplate it using english characters. japanese characters are a different story. they are, for me, painterly marks. it’s an advantage that i don’t understand the japanese language.

so i began with purple rock II, which i worked on yesterday but was not satisfied with. i isolated 5 elements of the composition by painting over the rest of the canvas with a neutral beige color. then i proceeded to write over those elements and the space between them, using a fine watercolor brush and oil paint to replicate the ancient japanese marks i love, including sketches of a few comical figures that are part of the original 54” high hanging scroll, which is now in the gitter-yelen collection in new orleans. we’ll see tomorrow where this leads.

using my 2 hour window wisely /  by Philip Tarlow

desert at todays zen center luncheon

3:18 PM: just back from the annual luncheon at the zen center. the food was even more spectacular than in previous years; a true gourmet meal, reflecting everything the zen center & the zen tradition are about. we got to reconnect with old friends we haven’t seen since the last event in 2018.

we had to leave at 12:20 & needed to be back at the house at around noon to change. i also had scheduled a viber with our grandaughter in athens, which didn’t leave me much time to get somework done. i turned my attention to easter creek, which, after the work i did yesterday, was top heavy.but of course i couldn’t limit my changes to that upper portion of the composition and ended up changing everything. the upper right corner may have to change tomorrow.

BELOW you see yesterdays version on the left, and easter creek as it looked after todays intervention, on the right.

saturday in the studio: triple play /  by Philip Tarlow

ABOVE: left to right: icy creek, purple rock II and easter creek

2:57 PM:i started off my day in the ideal state of mind: not knowing. there are many different levels of not knowing, the highest being when you get kind of robotic in the positive sense & just do without thinking. of course this, in the wrong hands, could turn deadly. but in the right hands, it’s a recipe for meaningful marks.

DETAIL of icy creek

so i did more work on 3 paintings: purple rock II, icy creek and spring creek. icy creek had been hanging on my south studio wall & was a horizontal. i was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with it, until i final took it off the wall yesterday afternoon and painted over it at the very end of my work day, when the juices are flowing & i’ve found my rhythm. often, that’s when the not knowing kicks in at it’s very deepest level. it;s that WTF moment. and it doesn’t last long. so that, in my opinion, is the best of the 3. the other 2 need more work, although maybe not a lot.

and now my dear friends, up the creek we go, on one of our delightful afternoon walks. today we’ll go further up the trail than last time. tomorrow is a short work day, due to the annual luncheon at the zen center. we get to connect with crestonians we haven’t seen since the last luncheon, a year ago, hermits that we are.

changes to easter creek & purple rock II /  by Philip Tarlow

2:53 PM: easter creek needed an intervention. it gave the impression of 3 distinct areas of activity that were not fully integrated due in part to the lower portion of the painting, where the space was not functioning…..kind of like it was dead space. you can see what i’m trying to describe below, with yesterdays version on the left and todays on the right.

4:47 PM: you can forget about the one on the right. i went to fix that white bit that i introduced into the central portion & screwed it all up. there was a lot going on today. k. was here & did truly remarkable work, and i had to go back & forth to the house to supervise some repairs, so my focus was broken. i’ll get back into it tomorrow.on the right, a detail of easter creek before my unsuccessful intervention.

revisions to easter creek & windy creek /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of windy creek at about 2:15 this afternoon

2:01 PM: following yesterday mornings brief, very productive burst of energy working on motion 25, i was inspired to revisit windy creek & easter creek, both 48x20.” i last worked on them on april 30th, which seems way long ago. i was pretty happy with the results, & ready to declare them resolved. as you know if you are a regular visitor to this blog, nothing is resolved until it leaves my studio, either for an exhibition or a new home somewhere. marks beget marks; discoveries beget discoveries. changes are especially likely just after photographic the piece, or just as i’m about to walk out the door to return home. the mind, as matisse has often noted, is atricky thing. ready to impose order at the drop of a hat. opinionated as a MF. a dictator at best, a destroyer of inspiration at worst. alas, where would we all be without her?

BELOW: windy creek, left & easter creek, right

revisiting motion 25, last worked on 5/22/18 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:37 PM: we’d been looking at motion 25 critically for a few weeks, mikela & i. the decision was made a few days ago that it was a candidate for a paint-over & fresh start. that’s what happened this morning, after knocking over mikela’s fresh brewed coffee & brewing a fresh moka pot, which actually turned out better than the first.

i was prompted to leave a small area of white canvas, which does not exist in the recent series of post-motion paintings. this, in turn, prompted a lighter touch. on the right, a detail of the painting in the mirror i borrowed from our friend kat.

BELOW: motion 25 as it looked on 5/22/18 and, on the right today:

working on windy creek /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of windy creek as it looked moments ago

2:31 PM: so today i tackled windy creek, the second of the 48 x 20” canvases intended for the boulder offices i spoke about. initially i had done a version on a pinkish ground, which was interesting, but weak in many respects, BELOW: you see the original version on the left and what i did today on the right.

i feel the image on the beige ground pops more and is more coherent compositionally. i find the detail you see on the right especially delicious, with the juxtaposition of pink & blue together with the white water-ripple forms creating some magic.

one difference between these last 3 & the previous paintings in the series is that rocks now morph into birds; frogs; horse heads….whatever you see. the sign for rocks has opened up to include other beings. yes, i consider the rocks beings. the 3 of them work well together and should be dry enough to bring with us by the time we go to boulder.

continued refinement today of spring creek & easter creek /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of spring creek

4:23 PM: i came in this morning with fresh energy. with the awareness that it only lasts 2-3 hours, i jumped right into revisions, laying down a new, lighter ground over yesterdays versions. then i decided to return to my brushes, instead of relying mainly on my oil sticks. working into the still wet, light beige ground with my fan brushes was a delight; i was missing them and the calligraphic dances they allow me. they both pop, and they are both closer than ever to resolution. the signs & symbols that have been emerging in this ongoing process take on a kind of playful air with these brighter colors and forms stripped of all excess.

as soon as they dry, i’ll take them over to the house for the true test. there, they will hang in the same room as their siblings, and we’ll see how they hold up. or, how their siblings hold up! frequently earlier paintings reveal their weaknesses when compared with newer, stronger pieces. often they end up being painted over and reborn.

BELOW: left: easter creek/right: spring creek