April 2, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

2:36 PM: i completed watercolor 9 and put 4 of them on my studio wall (ABOVE) for evaluation and to see how they might look in an exhibition.

9:29 AM: todays self portrait in colored pencil on paper, 8x6” this represents a continuation of the daily self portraits my grandson philip & i are making. philip’s, on the right was sent to me yesterday, and he says it’s not yet completed. i’ll post the completed version as soon as he sends it to me.

9 AM: yesterday afternoon was windy and overcast. but we did take our new afternoon walk up cottonwood trail. he are some pics of what we encountered:

revisions to "10th month" / looking back at a 2019 collage / watercolor 9 / April 1, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

2:19 PM: after completing the changes to 10th month (below) i started watercolor 9. i’m going to leave it in this state until tomorrow morning, when i’lll decide whether or not to take it further. i need to be fresh to work on these watercolors, or i end up doing too much. the detail, below, could easily stand alone as a completed work, don’t you think?

i do like the option, which is especially strong when using watercolor, to suggest forms without having to completely fill them in. of course the same can be done using other mediums, but watercolor is especially suited to it.

i may decide to use a few of the photos i shot on our walk yesterday, four of which i’ve posted below, for future watercolors.now that i’m working on this one, when i look at those photos my eye suntracts the non essential elements and i can feel my hand and arm dancing over the surface of the watercolor paper.

1 PM: yesterday afternoon we departed from our usual walk up to the stupa and instead walked up cottonwood creek trail. it was exquisite, and we’re going again this afternoon. here are some pics:

12:13 PM: this morning i made some small but important revisions to 10th month, which is part of my sound of a flute series. the greens were too light and needed some darkening, which are the only changes i made. on the right are shots of the before and after.

i also photographed this small, 22 1/2 x 8 3/4” collage, which had been sitting on one of my tables since i completed it, and this morning when i looked at it i had a new appreciation for it’s qualities. it too is part of the sound of a flute series, all of which are inspired by the great 18th century master calligrapher and landscape painter, taiga.

and now, on to my next watercolor in the new series, all based upon photos shot at the creek last summer.

i’ll post photos of the work i did today later in the day.

morning pre-studio photos / March 31, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

3:17 PM: so this morning i completed watercolor 8. it has retained it’s suggestive white spaces while gaining just enough complexity to satisfy the eye and create movement.

the dominant orange/red and grays dance.

while having breakfast, i read a review in art forum by nasser rabbat, of “ancient nubia now,” an exhibition currently on at the museum of fine arts in boston. in referring to the fact that the pieces in this exhibition were essentially stolen from nubia, he points out the need to”fully face the colonial (and racist) foundations of art history…” rabbat also brings up an interesting point, namely that “greek ancient culture had significant afro-asiatic roots”, a point made by bernal in his controversial 1987 book, black athena. in short, i learned a lot, and not just about ancient nubian art.

BELOW: a few details from watercolor 8

9:33 am: still haven’t taken my shower yet, but i did make a self portrait drawing for my daily exchange of self portraits with my grandson philip and shot a few photos here in the house:

watercolor self portrait / watercolor 8 stage 2 / March 30, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

3:19 PM: i took watercolor 8 to the next stage, working very slowly so that i could maintain the delicate balance of forms & colors, continuing to enjoy the arches paper.

this one is walking the line between abstraction of representation. i’d like to maintain the negative spaces throughout the process.

1:37 PM: my grandson philip & i have agreed to exchange self portraits daily for a week. this is #2; i’m waitingh to receive his. now on to the watercolor i started yesterday. more later in the afternoon.

3:25 PM: as i worked on watercolor 8, i cast glances at the self portrait and found a problem with the eyes being too close together and the nose looking fatter then it actually is. so i made corrections, removed the image i had posted earlier and replaced it with the one you see.

watercolor 8 / March 29, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

3:06 PM: today i embarked on a slightly different journey. i decided to see what would happen if i made watercolors on different types of watercolor paper, since i wasn’t totally satisfied with the results i was getting using the block of portofino paper. so today i tried using a sheet of arches 140 lb. cold press paper, which is heavier than the portofino and has a bit of a grain, although minimal. so far, i’m liking the result. the colors have more vibrancy and are seeming to delight in being applied to this heavier paper, which by the way is also slightly tinted and not dead white. as a result, when i leave the paper to show through, it looks less like a hole and more like an intentional part of the composition, which it is!

i removed the word macro in the title, since this one is not based upon a photo shot with a macro lens.

BELOW: stage 1, left and stage 2, right. to be continued tomorrow.

macro watercolor 7 / March 28, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

6:04 PM: it seems i haven’t yet had enough of this image. this is the third variation of this image, which is a detail of a tree trunk i photographed last summer. the photo is, of course vertical. but it works better compositionally as a horizontal., which removes it one step from the realm of the representational. as a result, it can be appreciated more easily as a harmony of biomorphic shapes that may bring to mind animal and or plant forms. as i gaze at it right now, in our tv room, the red shape evokes a dolphin and the blue outline to its right, a flying dolphin! this will continue to morph over time, and this is, increasingly, one of my metrics for a successful painting; painterly marks, inventive calligraphy, unexpected combinations of color that work together and enough white space to float the whole reverberating song. a dolphin here, a bunny there, a vagina elsewhere.

the deep red of the inner trunk, revealed by a split in the outer trunk, which may have taken decades to develop, provides us with an experience of the rich coloristic glimpse into the inner life of a living tree.

more work...perhaps too much on macro watercolor 5, and starting macro watercolor 6 / March 27, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

4:39 PM: today i renewed work on macro watercolor 5 and started marcro watercolor 6. i’m slowly getting into a flow with this new series, renewing my relationship with watercolor as a medium and drawing from my recent song of a flute series journey, as well as my motion and collage series and all that i learned from them.

#5 has quite a bit of collage; #6, thus far has none.

this particular image, this tree trunk, has somehow grabbed my attention and won’t let go. we’ll see where i take it tomorrow. #6 may well be resolved.

this watercolor series has been inspired by the series of trail phootos i shot last summer, using a macro lens on my iphone, which i was experimenting with.

i had a great viber exchange with my grandson philip in athens earlier in the day. i suggested we each make self portrait drawings over the next few days, and then compare what we each did. i’ll let you know how that goes.

a turn for the better / starting macro watercolor 5 / March 26, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

5 PM: this is the second day in a row that we haven’t been able to take our afternoon trail walk, due to extreme winds gusting to 45-50 mph. once i completed work on macro watercolor 4 (see my 1:08pm post, BELOW), i started a new one, which will become macro watercolor 5. in this one, i broke away from using watercolor exclusively and began employing crayons, colored pencils and collage. i did collage a few small bits in the previous watercolor, towards the very end.

you can see the areas that are as yet unresolved, like the tan collaged shape middle right, which needs to be broken up. it’s all music….you don’t want too much bass…

domani

1:08 PM: while looking at this watercolor this morning in the house, mikela had the brilliant idea to turn it on its side. when i came to the studio, i took it from there, added a few collaged pieces and i think it has improved dramatically. wabi sabi!

the faint vertical lines are what i mean by wabi sabi. they can be found in the small collaged magazine cutout in the upper central portion of the composition, BELOW. they literally fly in the face of logic and reason, as art should.

as i have noted many times, mikela has a great eye!

macro watercolor 4 / March 25, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

1:18 PM: today i made a new watercolor based, as are the others in this series, on photos shot with a macro attachment to my lens during our walks up the creek last summer. this one is a tree trunk. the inner area exposed by the parting outer bark, much like the human body, is more raw and fleshy in tone.

but, forgetting that it’s the trunk of a tree, one of the sources of much indigenous imagery can be seen.

continued work on macro watercolor 3 and an unexpected small watercolor / March 24, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

2:48 PM: macro watercolor 3 is complete….or is it? generally, i don’t spend this much time on a a watercolor, so i can’t help but feel that i overworked it. i’ll know better once i take it back to the house & look at it over the next 24 hours.

1:47 PM: i’m currently continuing work on macro watercolor 3, which i began working on yesterday. what you see sitting on my easel above it is a small experiment to see how the paper in this little sketchbook takes watercolor, and i was pleasantly surprised!

so i’m continuing work now…