sparse reflections revisions continue /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of sparse reflections at the end of my painting day

3:57 PM: following our Denver trip, I was able to get back to work on sparse reflections, which I last worked on this past tuesday. my work was interrupted by logistics that needed to be taken care of. sometimes these interruptions work in my favor, resulting in quick darts in & out. I get a hit, pick up an oil pastel crayon, for example, get deep into it, then have to stop to take a call or deal with the guy from the new propane company we’re using who came to switch out the tanks. at some point Mikela came over & gave me her always useful & spot on feedback. usually I take what she observes & turn it into a very loose roadmap of where I need to go next with a painting. what works, what needs an intervention.

BELOW left: the painting on october 29 and right: today at the end of my painting day

sparse reflections changes continue today /  by Philip Tarlow

sparse reflections as it looked at the end of my painting day today

DETAIL of sparse reflections with red figure

3:01 PM: I. had to put our crack of dawn departure for Denver tomorrow out of mind in order to get my groove. i’m obsessed with weather, & I know that driving conditions tomorrow morning will be challenging, with icy, snow packed roads for most of the drive, & blowing snow for at least the first few hours.

it was pretty easy to forget all that, however, once I got to work. sparse reflectoins got way too crowded yesterday, so I did a light paint-over & worked into that. waterfalls (bakufu) have been showing up in the most recent work, and today they became multiple waterfalls cascading down the composition. he rocks below were inspired by photos i’ve taken over time of our creeks, especially the ones I shot in late fall, where the rocks are encased in ice. there’s a hint of a seated figure dressed in red as a counterpoint to the red japanese letters in the upper left portion.

on the left is what the painting looked like yesterday; on the right, todays version.

returning to "sparse reflections" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:01 PM: the last time I worked on sparse reflections was august 11th. a lot has happened since then in the evolution of my sound of a flute series. I feel ok about many of the paintings I made at the start of the series. others, not so much. one of them is sparse reflections. here’s how it looked before I resumed work on it this morning (left and mid-way through my painting day today (middle).

my revisions will continue, but I believe that, already, a new aesthetic is visible.

4:28 PM: and below right is how the painting looks at the close of my painting day today. a different painting, really. I may need to simplify somewhat tomorrow.

changes to minoo and gashu /  by Philip Tarlow

4:54 PM: at the very end of the day, as the winds pick up & the snow & cold move towards us from the north, I made a few slight but significant changes to gashu. compare this image with the one below on the right, and you’ll see some white marks on the rocks at the bottom that weren’t there, as well as a few blue ones, and a bit more definition in the white of the waterfall.

1:10 pm: yesterday, after studying minoo for a few days following my last intervention on October 2, I felt that the central portion of the composition needed wore work. so I made the changes you see ABOVE in the comparative before (left) & after photos. I think the addition of the waterfall on the upper left helps focus the eye, as do the trees.

what’s your opinion?

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.