1-8-20 collage tweaked and 1-9-20 new collage / January 9, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

MY WORKSPACE TODAY

2:14 PM: a little something was needed in the upper right corner of the collage I made yesterday. as well, I made a new one, much in the spirit of this new series thus far.

todays collage employs a section of a map of amsterdam as well as old paper palettes from paintings made in 2015. I labeled the palettes I saved, knowing i’d be using them at a later date. this particular one is form an ant Kate series painting titled parade. while making these collages there are several things i’m looking at and referring to. there are 3 photos of the icy creek I printed out, which help me discover the rhythm and distribution of the rocks, snow & ice in the creek. I switch up my materials, going from colored pencils & crayon and back to the collaged elements. I had been using gouache colors in the earlier collages, but lately it’s just pencils & crayons.

for anyone who is thrown or confused when they see the term abstract, if you take the time to explore my motion series, as well as the plein air paintings in oil & gouache that inspired them, you’ll get a clearer sense of how the reality we see is actually a series of forms in space, which our minds turn into something with familiar meaning.

BELOW: left is yesterdays collage before todays intervention; right: after. it works either way, really.

1/8/20 gouache/collage, 20.25x8.5" / January 8, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*1/8/20 gouache/collage* 20.25 x 8.5” on *arches* paper

1:10 PM: I arrived at my studio early today & was able to make another in this current series of gouache/collages. each successive one benefits from discoveries I made in the previous ones. and, looking back at older gouache/collages from a year or two ago, my feel for negative space has evolved dramatically. on our walks up to the stupa every other day, I observe how the layer of snow at the creek has created elegantly curved areas of white that interact with the exposed rocks, branches & water in a similar way to what you see here in todays piece.

i’ve been cutting out rock shapes re-purposing old paper palettes used years ago for oil paintings. they provide textures & colors otherwise impossible to create. matisse, always my idol, beautifully illustrated how to keep refining, simplifying and how less can be more.

ultimately, as he often noted, you develop a language of forms that allow you to play at a very high level. so that nothing is extraneous; all is essential.

it’s been a very long road, from the byzantine palette I developed during my 15 years in greece, to this brighter, more joyful palette. I feel that, in many ways, i’m just now finding my voice.

the rocks that were so much a part of my summers at camp in the berkshire hills (read about it here: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio) now play a leading role in my imagery.

BELOW: top left: example of the negative spaces created by the snow, observed & photographed on our stupa walk yesterday. top right: example of a gouache collage from this past july. it’s an example of how, in earlier work, the composition has far less white space.

row 2: details of todays gouache/collage, where you can clearly see the rock shapes cut out of an old paper palette, which I discuss above.

1-7-20 gouache/collage / January 7, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*1/7/20 gouache/collage* 19 3/4 x 9 1/2”

1:59 PM: my shoulder injury has had a number of immediate effects upon my daily life. it’s slowly sinking in that I simply have to rest my shoulder and avoid any stress to it at all costs. onset of pain lets me know i’ve gone too far, and so, like an orchestra conductor, lets me know when to play più piano.

since that point last week, I have shifted my focus here in the studio to smaller works in gouache, colored pencil & crayon with collage on paper. todays piece is 19 3/4 x 9 1/2” like the previous two or three, it riffs on the rocks & water & motion series, and is influenced by the most recent sound of a flute series. the white of the paper is allowed to play a role in the composition equal to the drawn & collaged elements. in some cases that white space is dictated by a few printouts of photographs of the snowy creek, where the snow & ice create shapes that interact with the water & rocks.

and now for our afternoon walk up to tashi gomang stupa.

BELOW: 4 details

1/5-/20 gouache/collage / January 5, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*1/5/20 gouache/collage* 18 3/4 x 8 3/4”

2:30 PM: we have dinner guests tonight, so I made my ever improving brownies with walnuts before getting to work on a new gouache/collage. I think i’m being successful in keeping stress to my shoulder to a minimum with this new series of small (this one is 18 3/4 x 8 3/4”) gouache/collages. they are introducing a next stage aesthetic to my abstracted, painterly visions of the rock & water originally created painting plein air at the creek over more than a decade. lessons learned during my sound of a flute, taiga inspired series enter the picture as well. i’d say I am now always attuned to his unique way of observing and dividing up space into a river of lively, intelligent, musical marks.

the dark rock in the center, by the way, is a collaged cutout piece of paper palette saved from an oil painting I was doing sometime in the past 5 years.

fortunately, a few months ago when we were in the midst of cleaning up following the flood in my studio, mikela found a pile of foam core surfaces and another pile of arches paper. she suggested I cut the paper to the size of the boards & tape the sides, so that i’d have a bunch of gouache surfaces ready to go. so that’s what i’m using now, and when they run out, and if i’m still in the mood for this series, i’ll create more surfaces. it feels like a great luxury, not having each day to prepare a new surface, and to be able to simply choose one & start working. once I’m able to get back to painting in oil on canvas, I may try implementing that solution. i’d have to spend a couple of days just stretching canvases, but then i’d have a number to choose from & i’d be able to pick a size & shape & jump right in.

1/4/20/ gouache/collage / January 5, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

10:46 AM: yesterday i made another gouache/collage. this one has far more white space, and is a loose, painterly abstracted take on my motion series of paintings and the pleine air creek painitngs that inspired them.

in the collaged segments are: pieces of a map and a scrap of note paper of undetermined origin, which was in my box of papers intended for use in collages. the rock shapes at the bottom are derived from various pieces of brown paper cut into rock shapes, glued to the white paper & then drawn & painted over. colored pencil & crayons have also been employed in the making of this piece.

1/3/20 gouache/collage / January 3, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

4:51pm I’m back at the house but I forgot my laptop at the studio, so I’m experimenting with posting using the Squarespace app on my phone. let’s see if I can insert an image.
I started a new collage/gouache, using colored pencil & crayon as well. towards the end of the day, i laid a piece of tracing paper on top, using stick glue, but there are a few bubbles. i may do more tomorrow.

i find the rocks on the bottom especially beautiful.

first collage of 2020 / breaking into song / January 2, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

today was kind of crazy. i received delivery of my very long awaited new fridge. we got it at a steep end of year discount, and it’s a beauty. a samsung with double doors & a big freezer on the bottom. it’s a big, handsome fellow, which changes the look & feel of my studio dramatically.

perhaps it was my glee at getting my new fridge, i can’t say, but a few hours before it arrived and as i was working on this, the first collage of 2020, i began singing loudly. the more i sang, the more my spirits soared, and i actually like the sound of my voice. i may take a next step, which will be to learnn the words & music to one of my favorite operas, and begin singing it.

so i sang & counted the minutes until the arrival of my fridge, i started a new collage. it confirms to me, as i look at it & put it next to the one i did 3-4 days ago, that a new aesthetic is emerging, colored by the sound of a flute series paintings. while they are much larger & in oil on linen, the lessons i learned about space, composition & color have carried over.

maps have re-entered the picture. they last appeared in a series of collages i made in 2014. most of them were gifts from my friend dan, who had lots of maps from his childhood, with trails he & his parents hiked in northern ny state. others are maps of greece i collected during my 15 year stay. and others, like the one i used in this collage, are maps of the netherlands, where i’ve spent time with my friends gary & loekie.

a new collage / December 30, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:48 PM: after giving myself the luxury of a long, beautiful meditation in the house, I applied moist heat to my shoulder as directed & came over to my studio noon-ish.

I took care of some logistics, prepared an image for a 16x20” painting on canvas I may start tomorrow and, unexpectedly made a little collage, 34.3x17.5 cm./ 13 1/2 x 6.9 in.

looking back / December 28, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

3:33 PM: today i’m still scrumming about in my studio with no excuse other than I feel myself in a transitional space. i’ve been looking back at work i’ve done over the past few years, and this is one that struck me especially, in colored pencil on paper. it was shown recently at space gallery in Denver.

another one, a plain air oil made by the creek on June 9, 2014 contains some discoveries I used in larger studio paintings in my motion series of oils. i’d like to make a new series of plain air paintings this spring, taking all that i’ve learned so far to the next level.

restricted activity / December 27, 2019 by Philip Tarlow

*the senate building, athens,* watercolor, ca. 1974

3:10 pm: as the snowstorm ramps up in intensity, i sit here in our house with an ice pack on my right shoulder. i tried to get going today in my studio by stretching some 20 x 16” canvases for a new series of ano kato paintings, but i realized right away that i was doing further damage to the tendonitis in my right shoulder, so i stopped & called it a day. i think i made it worse yesterday afternoon. on our way back from our stupa walk, we saw a guy in a pickup truck trying to get out of a snowy ditch. it was a slight uphill; just enough to create one of those spinning wheel situations, and the more he tried, the deeper in he got himself.

we offered to help.because of my shoulder, i couldn’t push, so i offered to sit behind the wheel. it was a stick shift, and as soon as i realized that, i should have declined. we weren’t making much progress, so i suggested putting it in reverse for a bit, then rocking forward. that ended up working, but it was hard on my shoulder, and i’m dealing with that pain right now.

so i have no new paintings to post. instead, i looked though my files & found this ca. 1974 watercolor of the senate building, a superb example of neo-classical architecture in downtown athens, greece. i was liivng & exhibiting there at the time, and would often venture out with my watercolors to make plein air studies of athens and piraeus. repairs were being done to this building at the time, giving me the opportunity to paint these two workmen. construction workers were core to my subject matter at the time. if you’ve read my stories page, you will have learned that my interest in observing and painting construction workers dates all the way back to nursery school. my teacher at the time, in brooklyn, commented in her evaluation of me, that i was fascinated by them even then.