study II of qing dynasty gouache completed today / July 27, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:01 pm: today is the first day my left eye feels relatively normal, post surgery. further away than 3-4 feet , everything is sharp & clear, and the color spectrum seems remarkably vibrant. i set to work right away on the gouache i’ve been working on for the past 2 days: qing dynasty study II. after working on a 78x26” scale, it’s a strange feeling to be devoting so much time & attention to a 40 x 13.1 cm. study on paper.

it does feel resolved, and in the process i’m learning a lot. chinese painting of this period is rich in many ways; in term of color, patterning and feeling. in the panel i’m focued on, which is located in a corridor of the temple of the white clouds, in beijing, groups of figures, both men & women are interacting in a surprisingly social manner, and the landscape appears to embrace and caress them rather than simply serving as a backdrop. this taoist temple, which was founded in the eighth century, was where novices studied to become taoist priests. it’s a sharp contrast to the byzantine icons with which i’m so familiar, because of the many years i spent in greece, as well as my visit to mt. athos. whereas the byzantine icons are far removed from everyday life, this panel reveals an unexpected sense of warmth and intimacy.

to me, there is a clear and unforeseen relationship between this panel and, say vuillard or bonnard. in a similar manner to vuillard looking out his apartment window on a square in paris and painting the life he saw taking place as being one with the cityscape; the trees, shrubs, streets & buildings, this chinese artist has given us a feel for the everyday life in the environs of the temple. it’s not removed from that reality. if this image were animated and had sound, we might be witnessing the buzz of a day in the life of…

studies of qing dynasty painting continued / July 26, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:37 PM: today i continued my gouache studies of qing dynasty painting in the temple of the white clouds, beijing.this second gouache of two thus far is a riff on the panel in that temple. i’m studying how the chinese viewed & portrayed space and how that relates to taiga’s 18th century landscape paintings.

so far, my observation is that the chinese invented what we know and love as 18th c. japanese landscape painting! i need to delve deeper & explore their philosophical & spiritual beliefs, but at first glance, i see over and over the seeds of taiga & his buddies. this is no great revelation; it’s well known that the18th c. japanese masters of the brush greatly admired the 12th & 13th c. chinese painters, and drew heavily from them. their discoveries & solutions for painting the landscape became what most of us know as japanese art.

studies of qing dynasty painting / July 25, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4:49 PM: my friend wendy sent me an image of a painting in the temple of the white couds in beijing, china. it was perfect timing, because my intention for the rest of the week & the weekend, is to focus on small gouache studies, so as to avoid picking up anything heavy or doing anything that might cause strain to my freshly placed new lens in my left eye.

so i made one study and stated a second. i have already learned a lot, and can’t wait to continue tomorrow.

i can see mikela’s point when she talks about how the japanese were heavily influenced by ancient chinese masterds of the brush. this is, of course, well known. but i needed to make some studies in order to really get it in my bones.

a day off / July 24, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4:21 PM : today is the first day following my cataract surgery yesterday. my first impression, when i opened my eyes & took off the eye shield I have to wear when I’m sleeping for the next week, was just how white, even bleached, everything looked! none of my glasses worked any more. the progressive lenses i’ve been using didn’t work close in or at a distance, plus i realized they were slightly tinted. so while wearing them nothing was dead white. the reading glasses i had ordered a few prespriptions ago worked only up to about a foot. fine for reading but not useful for computer work or working on a painting.

you have to wait at least a month, more like 2 months for your eyes to settle in so you can get a prescription that will last. so what do you do for those 2 months? i think i’ll wait for our next trip in a week and try out various strengths of inexpensive reading glasses at costco. then i can get a new prescription sometime in mid to late septmember. i’m writing this with some really ancient (and expensive) alain mikli prescription reading glasses i found stashed in a drawer. but they only work up to about a foot away, so it’s that 1-3 feet where the gap is, and that’d the distance that’s so important when i’m in the studio. so i’ll just have to get by for the next few months.

**DETAIL** figures at the acropolis, oil on linen, 2006

this is an opportunity to look back, which i do on this blog periodically. here are a few images. the one on the right is from a painting included in my 2010 solo show at skoufa gallery in kolonaki square, athens. it’s based on years of living and painting in athens. we were visiting the kids and went to pnika, one of my favorite places in athens, just opposite the acropolis and moments from where my studio was located during that period.

BELOW: (upper left, upper right, etc)

collage on canvas, about 2014, from my ano kato series, creek paintings in gouache on rice paper, plein air inoil on linen, 2011, one of my gaze series painting, now in my son dimitri’s theatre in athens, egg photographing hockney’s pool, egg tempera on board, 1980 (in hockney’s collection) me with construction workers in my athens studio, 1975, private coll., athens, phoning home, egg tempera on board, 1978.

adjustments to "Landscape with Pink Trees" / July 22, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:03 PM: the upper quadrant of this painting was bothering me; it seemed disconnected from the rest of the composition. on the other hand, this was such a spark of in-the-moment inspiration, especially because it was the first time in this series i was painting on the white ground, with none of that tan color that is present in all the other paintings in the series, that i was very hesitant to touch it.

the images above are adjusted diffently, so it may seem that the pink in todays version on the right is redder. it’s not. the only area i messed with is the upper quadrant, which kept drawing my eye whenever i looked at the painting.

as you will see, if you look at the whole composition, above, or the comparative views of the area i worked on today, it no longer draws your eye, mostly because i toned down the greens somewhat, & introduced the pink color found in the lower 2/3 of the composition. as i look at the painting now, from a distance of about 20 feet, it no longer seems, at least to me, that there are two distinct compositional elements, and reads as one unified painting. i’ll be able to confirm this better on wednesday, when we’re back from my cataract surgery. as well, i’m very curious, once healing has progressed, maybe next weekend, to observe the predicted shift in how my eyes register the colors. right now, if i close my right i & look only with my left eye, which has the clouded lens typical of cataracts, everything seems 15-20% redder.

day 2: "there are the mountains!" / July 21, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4:4 PM: today i had a little visitor with his dad. lets call him a. he’s 7 1/2; half the age of k., who i’m mentoring once a week. i gave him the same suggestion i had given to k. yesterday. so he scanned one of my taiga books and settled on a painting he liked. then he proceeded to make his drawing and began applying gouache colors, which he’d never used before. just look what he did!

before he arrived, i had a chance to do some more work on the painting i started yesterday: there are the mountains!

i applied a tan-ish ground, which is featured in 5 of the 6 previous paintings in this series. some creek rocks have entered the picture, on the lower third. it’s ripe for more work tomorrow.

the work i did yesterday peeks through the tan ground , which has been scraped. it’s up in the air where it will want to go from here. tomorrow is our dayto walk up the trail, so i’ll get to work a bit later than usual.

there are the mountains! / July 20, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:36 PM: i’m leaving landscape with pink trees as is, at least for now. it’s just too fresh to mess with.

i started work today on there are the mountains! on the canvas i stretched yesterday. thus far, it’s a drawing and has no oil paint. as a kid i had a darkroom, and this is what it felt like when the image began appearing in the tray of developer liquid.

since i do believe, & i’m not alone in this, that paintings & drawings are living, breathing entities, i feel increasingly that we need to give them space; as you would a child learning to speak or walk. so in starting a new painting in this way, what it bils down to is taking it slow. giving it space.

my mentee k. just arrived, so i interrupted my writing to suggest a path he could take today. he liked the idea, so instead of painting in oils today, he’s using gouache & watercolor to make a study of a taiga watercolor titled wonderous scenery of matsu.

since we’ll be gone all day tuesday, when i’ll be having cataract surgery in denver, i was feeling a bit rushed. like oh, i’ve got to complete this before we leave. when we get back tuesday night, it will be at least 3-4 days or more before i’m able to get back to work. can’t really say when my vision will be good enough to paint, but probably by the end of the week or the weekend.

of course there’s no rush, and yhere’s no reason i need to complete this new painting before we leave. in any event, it will let me know. perhaps as i lay sleeping tonight!

the title: there are the mountains! comes from a japanese poem incorporated into one of the taiga scrolls i’ve been studying. we feel that way every day in our home, with its views of the sangre de christo mountains.

starting landscape with pink trees / July 18, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

2:25 PM: today was a short day. we walked up the trail this morning so i arrived at the studio a bit later than usual. and at 4:30 we have to be at an event here in crestone. i was excited to begin work on this new flute over water series, as i’m now calling it. landscape with pink trees is the first in the series to be painted on a white ground, rather than the tan-ish ground i’ve been making. painting on this extra fine, quadruple primed portrait linen is thrilling. the shapes create themselves, and every mark counts. i felt taiga’s spirit more than ever; his ikkaku, or intrammeled personality, his gashu, or elegant resonance.

i employed few colors, one of which is my favorite oil paint made by williamsburg, originally developed in brooklyn, where i was born: canton rose.

it may be a one sitting painting; it will be very difficult to recapture the feeling i had this morning, colored strongly by our walk up the creek at 6am.

i loved using the primed white of this linen to paint on, and i may do more in this series.

now i’m going to go back to the house & lie down for an hour before we have to leave for our event, which is a pot luck.

sound of a flute over the river / July 17, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

2:17 PM: first thing i did this morning was to stretch another 78x26” canvas, which will become the sixth in this series. i started the drawing, while casting critical glances at sound of a flute over the river, which i’ve been working on and revising over the past few days. at a certain point, as often happens, what i needed to do clicked in.

essentially, what i did breaks up the activity in the central portion of the composition with curvilinear forms, as taiga often did and as i have done throughout my career.

so now, rather than examining and identifying the numerous leaf & branch marks in the central portion of the composition, the viewers eye immediately discerns snake-like patterns. this allows you to breathe into these new rivers of tan, stopping along the way to admire the figure in red, for example, or the mountain peak at the very top of the composition. i think i did good work today.

BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left; click on it, then toggle back & forth to see what i’m talking about.

more work on "the sound of a flute over the water" with the addition of a figure / July 16, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL showing the man in red on horseback.

5:27 PM: today was one of our every-other-day trail walking days. so i arrived in my studio late….like about 11;45am. i knew i wasn’t done with the sound of a flute over the water , but i felt it had so many beautiful passages that i was hesitant to do too much. i felt strongly that it needed one or two arears of stronger color.

but first i need to find a pathway into my groove. not so simple. i started by making some white vertical marks, borrowing from other paintings in this series. of course that didn’t work & i ahd to take those marks out. but that was my doorway in. i was engaged. then i found elements in taiga’s paintings that struck a chord, at the same time they were solving the problem of introducing primary color.`

i introduced a man on horseback; an image which can be found in many of taiga’s paintings. the first iteration was almost too small to be recognized. then i added a larger version, while leaving the smaller on as a kind of echo.

BELOW: the painting as ait looked yesterday, on the left, and today.