hoogeloon / December 10, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*hoogeloon*, 14 x 17 1/2” collage & crayon on paper

2:56 PM: hoogeloon is a town in the netherlands, southwest of eindhoven. it can be seen if you click on the above image of the collage I made today.

i’m experiencing a lot of shoulder & neck pain as a result of the tendonitis recently diagnosed in my right shoulder, so I decided to work on smaller pieces, with the thought that it would put less strain on my shoulder.

I may continue working small like this until i’m feeling better.

k. comes to the studio / December 8, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

4 PM: my mentee, k., came to the studio this morning to continue work on his landscape. the first thing we did was a kind of test. since he plays cello, i played 2 versions of bach’s cello suite #1 ; one played by pablo casals, the other played by yo yo ma. within seconds of playing the casals version, he identfied the cellist, and then did the same with the yo yo ma version.

he brought a small, exquisite watercolor he had made of his cat. this is not just a good watercolor bya 13 year old; this is a masterful, moving work of art, regardless of the age of the artist.

he then proceeded to get back to work on the sky-scape he’s been working on over the last 3-4 visits. i was in the mood to start a small gouache painting on paper of k. painting. i’m considering making a slightly larger oil on linen based upon this study in gouache. there was a time, when i lived and painted in greece, that the human figure played a major role in my work. somehow, during our 25 years in crestone, i haven’t made any figure paintings at all. so this study in gouache is an important event. will it lead to more? quite possibly. it’s something i do well, and i’m in the mood. the trick would be to get the right subjects to make time to come and sit for 2-3 sessions. i have a few candidates in mind, so we’ll see.

il torrente: what a difference a little white makes/ 1st in a series of new gouache on paper paintings / December 7, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

5:51 PM: today, after making a few white marks on il torrente, i started the first of a new series of small painitngs in gouache on paper, which will continue for at least 2-3 weeks, or as long as it takes for the tendonitis in my right shoulder to begin healing. these small gouaches allow me to paint with minimal stress to my right shoulder.

DETAIL-*il torrente* after adding the whites

1:01 PM: after being away for 3 days, the first thing I noticed when I glanced at Iil torrent was that it needed some white marks the curves of the mountain shapes. although, following my shoulder MRI, I can’t really paint in a way that requires moving my arm & shoulder energetically, I was able to add the whites using oil stick & a bare minimum of right arm movement. so I think it will remain in this state for a few weeks while my tendonitis heals, and i’ll focus instead on small gouaches.

BELOW: il torrente as it looked before adding the whites; and on the right, afterwards

a bit more on il torrente / December 2, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

todudioay i had a lot to do in the studio that was logisitcal. calls, printing, stretching a friend’s paintings, which he got in morocco, and more.

i was able, nonetheless, to get in a few strokes, which included the first appearance of white in the composition.

BELOW: yesterdays version (left) & todays

Il torrente, continued / December 1, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

2:16 PM: i’ll flesh out this post when mikela & I return from our afternoon walk up to the stupa. briefly, I did more work on il torrente, which is unbelievably exciting to me. i’ll explain why when we’re back from our walk.

BELOW: yesterday:left, today: right

more work on shinkei and il torrente / November 30, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:52 PM: I started out the day making some important changes to shinkei. as you can see from the images BELOW, todays version, on the right, now has white highlights on the rocks below, some small but significant white marks in the center of the composition suggesting figures, more pink in the mountains above and a red seal in the lower right. as a result, there is more movement in the composition, as well as more mystery.

il torrente has gone through many phases, the most recent of which, masked by a tan over-painting, adds immeasurably to this latest over-painting. the imagery, in this current incarnation, derives from an anonymous 7th century cave painting in china. while going deeper with my research on the great 11th century Chinese painter li gonglin, I came across a treasure trove of images such as the ones below, from manuscripts in a cave in china created between the 5th-11th centuries.

i’ll continue work on il torrente tomorrow morning.

continued work on shinkei / November 28, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

2:20 PM: today I continued my rework of shinkei. there’s more integration between the upper & lower areas of the composition, and the suggestion of a waterfall joining the two. the variety of colors in the marks on the bottom half make more sense to the eye because of a subtle application of pinks & blues in the mountains above.

a snowstorm is moving in tonight, and it will be pretty dark tomorrow. I don’t like working in artificial light, so we’ll see how that goes.

re-work of shinkei / November 27, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of *shinkei* at the close of my painting day today

2:45 PM: i’ve been looking at shinkei for over a week, and have been unsatisfied with what I see. kale & mikela agree. these days, they are my most trusted sets of eyes.a new element has entered the picture, coming directly from the numerous drawings I make when we travel. almost all, if not all, are made using a variety of shades of colored pencils.

what I did thus far today parallels that, using instead oil pastels in crayon form.

right now i’m trying to get out the door so we can take an afternoon walk before the snow starts tonight through friday.

i’ll try to continue this post when we’re back later this afternoon.

at work on stage 1 of *shinkei,* november 2nd

6:33 PM: so we’re back & have had dinner. here’s what i’d add to what i posted earlier. as you know if you’ve followed this (almost) daily blog, i’ve been working on, or putzing with, this painting since november 2nd.

it has resisted all attempts at resolution; it has tugged at my sleeve, asking that i please try a new direction, rather than repeating solutions from earlier iterations; and dared me to sacrifice the successful passage on the lower third of the composition.

i had to move on to the start of a new series in order to resume work on it. and today, the first day of a new storm system moving into our state, was the day it called to me. and as you well know if you follow this blog, it could very well dissapear tomorrow.

il torrente: day 8 / November 26, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

1:37 PM: today, a cold, snowy day, il torrente entered a new phase. the under painting which, as often happens, I had intended to keep simple & delicate, has jumped into the fray. in the process, it has taken on some of the qualities of my earlier, creek inspired motion series, as well as things I discovered in my sound of a flute taiga inspired series, as well as images reflecting the photomicrography experiments I did during our october trail walks.

at the moment, the space seems crowded, with all the above qualities vying for attention, and none winning out. in part, this is due to the fact that i’m trying out a new quality of primed linen. it’s described by the manufacturer as an “all purpose” surface, and is very different than the very finely textured artfix portrait linen i’m used to using.

two *sound of a flute* paintings accidentally juxtaposed

2:41: after writing the above post, I rubbed out the painting I did this morning with mineral spirits (gamsol) and painted over the entire canvas with a tannish oil color. it’s thinly enough painted so that some of the original painting peeks through. as I photographed il torrente lying on two wooden supports, my eye caught the very tops of these two sound of a flute series paintings. they are overlapping each other & look like one composition, which is giving me some ideas for the future.however much I think i’m inventing new compositions & juxtapositions of shapes, there’s nothing quite like this: the unintended juxtaposition of two different paintings, to jog me into new possibilities.

BELOW: il torrente as it looked about 1:30pm and, on the right, after rubbing it out & painting over it. we’ll see where it goes tomorrow.

il torrente; how dinner guests affected it / November 25, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

1:19 PM: as soon as I complete this post, mikela & I will walk up the trail & see what the conditions are like after the recent snowfall.

last night we had a wonderful time with our dinner guests.as I was giving them a quick overview of what i’m up to in my paintings, I pointed over at il torrente & explained that it’s actually a work in progress, and that my idea is to use what they were looking at as the first layer in a creek inspired painting, which would get a bit more specific in the second layer. actually, I wasn’t yet sure that’s what i’d be doing, but in talking about it, I got re-inspired to take the painting back over to my studio this morning & resume work, beginning to add a new, more rocks & water specific layer. we’ll see where it goes tomorrow, but i’m definitely into it now, in part due to a dinner conversation.

when my mentee, k. was here yesterday, he was struggling to find the right orange for his sky. and today I unexpectedly had a similar experience, searching for the right orange, which you see happening here on todays palette.