starting "sparse reflections" / August 3, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:31 PM:

there’s no way of accurately predicting the arrival of a storm here in crestone/baca. so as i write this, the rain has become torrential. as often happens in tropical climates, the sun could and probably will emerge before sunset. of course we are not a tropical climate. far from it! but, especially at this time of year, the monsoon brings many surprises.

i worked on sparse reflections until about an hour ago, when the thunder started, the cloud cover thickened and there was not enough natural light to paint. natural light is always my preference.

i’m continuing to paint on the white quadruple primed linen with no toned ground beneath. the priming is not dead white on this portrait linen; rather it has a yellowish cast. and as a result the marks are not as harsh as they might be on a pure white ground.

i expect that tomorrow will bring greater unity to this somewhat fragmented composition, with some large areas on tone bringing forth the calligraphic marks & bonding them into one coherent whole. maybe.

at work this morning on *sparse reflections*

12:02 PM:

so today i was able to start painting again, after about a one week interruption. i like having two canvasses to work on, so that i can switch between the two when it feels right. i have to be fresh, and today i do feel fresh & energized. we had planned on resuming our trail walks this morning at 6 but put it off until tomorrow morning. i mention this because usually we both feel especially energized when we’re taking our trail walks every other day.

i’m starting this one, as you can see on a completely white ground. i may be adding a toned ground later in the day. visit this site throughout the day for updates.

stretching linen for kyoto series 8 & 9 / August 2, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4:56 PM: today my mentee, k. came over & started a new painting. while he was at work, i stretched two 78x26” canvases for the 8th & 9th paintings in my kyoto series. i should be able to start painting tomorrow morning following a break i had to take after my cataract surgery last tuesday & our trip to basalt & aspen.

it will be my first real opportunity to find out how the removal of the second cataract will affect my work. i’m still in disbelief at how white the ehites are, but i won’t really be able to tell how my color perception will shift in my paintings until i actually start putting brush to canvas. so stay tuned & tomorrow promises to be an interesting, if not a landmark day.

on the road / looking back / July 30, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

11:12 AM: yesterday i had a couple of doctors appointmnets in denver & boulder. one of them was with my dental surgeon, and while waiting to be called in, i made this drawing. as you know if you follow this blog, i make drawings when we travel, and my favorite venues for that are doctors waiting rooms, where you have a captive audience of people who are doing exactly that: waiting. i won’t continue this metaphor right now, but…

in 2015 i was making a series of paintings titled gaze, inspired by vermeer. sitting in my friend dan’s living room waiting for mikela to return from her hair appointment so we can leave for a lunch meeting in aspen, i was perusing images on my 256gb thumb drive, which i always cary with me. i ran across this one of a painting in the early stages of development.

qing dynasty study II morphs / July 28, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

2:52 PM: while i think the study of a qing dynasty painting i’ve been working on for the past 3 days was interesting & i learned a lot, i was ready today to collage over it. but we all know what lies buried underneath.

watches, which have appeared in many of my collages in the past have resurfaced here, along with bits of a plein air gouache & maps. i like the pink & blue with the stripe of red, as well as the suggestive phallic shape on the lower red. my signature can be found in the upper quadrant, and is from the day i made the plein air gouache landscape, pieces of which have found their way into the composition.

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.