returning to gashu /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of gashu, following todays session.

2:41 PM: the last time I worked on gashu was September 3, the day before the flood in my studio took place. that seems to me like a year ago. since that time it’s been hanging on my studio wall, next to the others in the series that haven’t been brought over to the house and are hanging there. the white squiggle with the red dot you see in that older version, BELOW left, has always bugged me. it catches my eye the first time I look at it in not a good way. it was on it’s way to having an identity, but fell short of being an integral, essential part of the composition.

so this morning I dove back in, and in a matter of moments that entire passage was history. i’m liking it way better now, and we’ll see if I feel the same way in the morning. once again, I get the feeling i’m building on what i’ve already learned in this series, and that what I did today could not have been done last week or last month. at this point, I feel ike taiga and I are in a dance. most of the time, he’s leading. but now, increasingly, I feel myself gently leading in our dance, infusing the energy of our marks with the gestalt of present day.

shirareshi, stage 5 and a rework of meiji /  by Philip Tarlow

today i worked on these two paintings, going back & forth between the two. shirareshi was close to resolution at the end of the day yesterday, but something more was needed. pink.

after gazing at meiji for 2 weeks, which is when i last worked on it, it was clear that, while the upper & lower portions worked, the middle portion of the composition was weak and confused. so i launched into it, delighting in the process of radically transforming this painting. the before (left) & after of each can be seen BELOW:

shirareshi, stage 4 /  by Philip Tarlow

at work today on shirareshi

3:26 PM: today I refined shirareshi, adding another layer of complexity to the trees, which seem to have matured and sprouted leaves, as well as making subtle changes in tone to the tree trunks that bring them alive. I didn’t want to mess too much with the overall composition & color, because I feel this one takes the lessons I learned with 1 through 12 in the previous paintings in the series and incorporates them while making new discoveries.

below: a comparative view of how this painting looked yesterday compared with today, and below that, a couple of details of the work I did today.

I may add a few more touches to the trees tomorrow, but right now i’m too tired to even think about it. if he were still around, I wouldn’t mind a studio visit from matisse. he would totally get where i’m headed.

shirareshi, stage 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of shirareshi

shirareshi at the end of my painting day today

2:28 PM: waiting for my mentee, k., to arrive, I just completed stage 3 of the new shirareshi, which, like the rest of my sound of a flute series, is 78x26”

I lightly painted over what I did over the past 2 days, leaving the underlying layers partially exposed, and worked into it with dark grey (rocks), white (water), green & blue streaks indicating the sky.

I think it’s more a more interesting painting, as well as being more in alignment with the others in the series. see those little blue circles above the rocks? I might add more tomorrow, depending on my mood and how I feel about it in the morning. there’s definitely something i’m moving towards, which all started with my fascination with ike taiga & his wife gyokuran about 10 years ago. it has to do with the naturally abstract nature of the landscape, and introducing the viewer to the notion that abstract is what we see every day.

yesterday, for example, on our trail walk, I experimented with a macro lens for the iPhone which I just got.

an image like the one you see BELOW is perhaps not immediately recognizable as a tree. but when I say it’s a close of of the bark, you get it, and it shifts from an abstract image to something you can get is an extreme close-up of the tree bark.

shirareshi, stage 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:04 PM: i’m stopping early so we can walk up the trail. I took shirareshi a step further & will continue tomorrow until 2:30 when my mentee, k., will arrive for another session.

yesterday afternoon we went to the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new mountain valley school in saguache, which is beautiful beyond description. we had a hand in the fundraising phase, so it was especially rewarding. i’ll post pics when we’re back from our walk.

one more tweak to kwazu no shosa / starting shirareshi /  by Philip Tarlow

kwazu no shosa following todays tweaks

4:19 PM: I did one more tweak to kwazu no shosa before starting a new sound of a flute series painting titled shirareshi . I kept feeling that kwazu no shosa was divided into upper & lower, so I brought some of the warmer colors found in the upper quadrant down into the lower. I think it worked, and now when I glance at it I no longer have that sense of upper/lower.

then I started work on a new one, titled shirareshi. loosely translated from one of Gyokuran & taiga’s poems, it means gracious ease.

then I started work on a new one, titled shirareshi. loosely translated from one of Gyokuran & taiga’s poems, it means gracious ease.

it’s in it’s early stages, and it’s hard to tell what direction it might take tomorrow, when i’ll have only until about 1pm before we have to head across the valley to saguache for a meeting.

small tweaks to kwazu no shosa /  by Philip Tarlow

1:55 PM: I felt that the tan in the bottom portion of the painting needed to be broken up a little, so I introduced some white & a trace of yellow. as well, I added the faint siena parallel vertical lines mimicking the threads occurring in the the silk fabric of the original taiga scrolls.

and that may be it for kwazu no shosa., which I consider one of the finest in the series thus far. I may launch into a new one tomorrow, for which the canvas is already stretched.

more work on kwazu no shosa today /  by Philip Tarlow

1:46: gotta run to an eye appointment in Salida, so i’m just posting the image of what I did today & will comment later. scroll down to yesterdays post to compare.

7:30 PM: so today i was in a bit of fear. i was unsettled by the floaters i was seeing dance across my field of vision and afraid of what they might mean. as it turned out, when i visited the eye doc in salida, these floaters turned out to not be concerning. but it was worth the trip to salida to be certain i don’t have detached retina!

so i’m proud of myself that, despite my fears, i did my best work yet on kwazu no shosa, and may have finally resolved it. i found what in greek they call “το χου” which, roughly translated, means the magic.

it’s a mystery. it’s what happens when you are on the edge of despair, and ready to literally give up. give up my plans; my solutions…and how this manifests, in my case, is by going in and scraping over marks i considered precious, even sacred.

using the palette knfe as an out-of-control brush; a tool that, much like when you’re shoveling snow or sweeping it off your sidewalk, leaves a trail of marks reflecting the movement of your body & it’s innate sense of graceful rhythm and flow.

or, when you use that tool they have at most gas stations to wipe clean your dirty windshield. you create a brief, innocent dance reflected in the marks it leaves. you’re not thinking of the process as an artistic expression. you’re focused on getting the dirt & dust off & having a clear windshield. on the canvas, this can translate into magic.and this is where your awareness and knowledge of the history of art comes in. you remember a lock of hair painted by frans hals; one of constable’s clouds; deKooning’s marks in his women series…..and you know they were fully aware of these timeless thuths.

kwazu no shosa gets a little flesh on it's bones /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of kwazu no shosa at 4pm

3:55 PM: kwazu no shosa was beautiful as it looked at the end of my painting day yesterday, but it was simply too pale.

so I continued work on it today, maintaining most of what was there and enriching it with greens, red & blues. it’s definitely improved, but still needs some magic. it has gained immeasurably from my experience painting it’s 12 predecessors. so something’s moving. some energy. some mark wisdom.

but i’m feeling crappy due to a recurrence of what feels like an infection at the site of a dental implant I got 6 months ago, in early april. that totally sucks, and we’ll see what needs to happen when I see the dentist in a few weeks.

small changes to kwazu no shosa & itsu / new small gouache for owl lover jason /  by Philip Tarlow

this will be brief, as i’m typing it in our kitchen before starting my morning :

yesterday i made some small changes to kwazu no shosa, as i haven’t yet decided whether or not i want to keep it in it’s present spare form. and i have been contemplating some small but important tweaks to the upper areas of itsu and was waiting till i was in the right mental/emotional space.

as well, i made a small gouache of an owl for our dear owl-loving friend jason, as a house warming gift. it was a revelation to paint the beautiful patterns on this magnificent creature, and made me want to do more.

BELOW: kwazu no shosa and itsu post-tweaks