watercolor 18 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 18 at the end of my painting day

4:24 PM: this is the current state of watercolor 18.

i guess i didn’t listen to the message this one gave me at 2:01 PM! when will i ever learn? i prefer stage 2, below.

2:01 PM: it’s a very windy day, and we had a little snow this morning, so our afternoon trail walk is still up in the air. i started work on watercolor 18 this morning, and work continues as i post this. it’s at a delicate stage, is asking politely to remain simple.

BELOW are the first 2 stages of this one:

starting watercolor 17 today / /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 17

2:43 PM: this is where watercolor 17 was at the end of my work day; time for our trail walk! i’ll evuate this afternoon after i take it back to the house & look at it there.

12:37 PM: i’ve started work on watercolor 17. here’s photos of the 1st 2 stages; it’s a vertical this time; switching from horizontal format to vertical re-arranges my brain in a very productive way. specifics of what we observed on our walk yesterday jump into focus more easily, and abstracting/simplifying the landscape seems natural.

imagine using a lever to move/lift a heavy object which suddenly and without notice upends itself, twists front to back and sheds half its weight. how do you feel?

i’ve got the title for the book i keep threatening to write: hubub in the kitchen. the sub-title is still brewing.

more later…

8:23 AM: i’ll be starting a new watercolor, watercolor 17 latertoday. more pics when i get to my studio (which, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is just 500 feet from our house)

yesterday we took our trail walk. some of the photos i’ve shot on those walks over the past week have provided the material for the watercolors i’m making. it all started when i had to suspend work on larger oils due to tendonitis in my right shoulder. that has proven to be a blessing in disguise, since the series of watercolors i’m now engaged in making emerged directly from that injury, which prompted me to work on smaller pieces, much less stressful to my shoulder.

BELOW: photos from yesterdays walk:

4/10/20 self portrait sketch / watercolor 16/ stormy skies /  by Philip Tarlow

2:43 PM: this morning i made another in the series of self portrait sketches i’ve been sending to philip & manio in athens.'

watercolor 16

then i continued the series of creek inspired watercolors: number 16. i was able to restrain myself from doing too much, so this is certainly the one least focused on subject and most on pattern and space. the rocks and water, bathed in afternoon sunlight, contain a rich variety of patterns, both in the creek water and on the lichen studded rocks. the need to describe is deeply rooted; a result of a big misunderstanding as to the nature of art and painting. lately, vuillard is helping me to dispense with this illusion and simply enjoy the endless opportunities for making marks and exploring color divorced from description. in that way, i come closer and closer to the essence of my signature; my identity as a calligrapher. not unlike taiga, vuillard is revealing to me what happens when we really let go of that old, stubborn belief that painting is akin to photography, and involves a slavish need to describe.

BELOW: 4 stages of watercolor 16.

BELOW: yesterday and today, our skies of grown menacing as a system moves in that is forecast to give us possible rain, snow and high winds over the next 4-5 day, especially sunday and monday.

this mornings self portrait / yesterdays watercolor 14 in entryway /  by Philip Tarlow

5:56 PM: watercolor 15 has passed the test. when i brought it to the house a few hours ago, we both observed that it held up to our scrutiny, carries very well, and is a great addition to the series. i hadn’t had a chance to adjust most of the trail walk photos i shot yesterday, which i just did. there’s a wealth of material i can’t wait to get my brush moving on. there was such a beautiful ight yesterday afternoon.

3:28 PM: i completed watercolor 15 moments ago.i’m not yet sure if i overworked it. i had more time than usual, since we decided not to take our walk this afternoon. as usual, i’ll know better once i see it i the house later this afternoon.

that green in the middle is where i think i may have spent too much time. but i like what happened in the section on the left a lot. it reads well form a distance, but i do see a hole where that rock is, in the mid-lower left just above the log. so i may so a slight intervention there. what i like about this one when i compare it with the other 9 on the wall, is the richness; it seems like less of a sketch and more of a full on painting. BELOW are the 3 stages of development it went through today:

11:25 AM: the studio just now, as i prepare to start watercolor 15 in about 30 min. i kind of liked it when i shot the photo below of me working on it earlier in the day.

8:19 AM: this morning first thing i made a new self portrait, this one in ink, which i sent to manio & philip in athens. yesterday afternoon i brought watercolor 14 over to the house for evaluation. it passed with flying colors. here she is in our entryway. she’ll return to the studio in a few hours, where she’ll join her brothers & sisters on my east wall. the racket you see in the foreground is called the executioner, and is a very effective way of dealing with flies & mosquitoes. press the little button, swipe at one of them, and zap, it’s over!

it’s very likely that later this morning i’ll start watercolor 15, probably based on photos i shot on our trail walk yesterday afternoon.

i’ll post that process as it evolves. so you’ll witness the artistic activity of a painter born in brooklyn, transformed in greece and ripened in crestone.

who knows, maybe i’ll take the first steps in writing the book i’ve been dreaming.

watercolor 14 / a gorgeous rock /  by Philip Tarlow

7:27 PM: on our trail walk this afternoon i shot 67 photos, many of which contain possible images for future watercolors and/or oils. this phot is not a candidate, but i just had to post it this evening because it’s such an extraordinary rock. tomorrow i’ll post more. i’ve disabled my fb account for a number of reasons that i won’t go into now. the point is, i’m now able to devote my full attention to this blog, which i care a lot more about, especially since i’ve decided to start a book, using some of the material in this blog, dating back years.

watercolor 14

2:23 PM: yesterdays creek walk was especially spectacular….can you say that? i shot some photos, one of which i based todays watercolor on. allowed me to have a deeper appreciation and understanding of matisse. and i feel like this is just the beginning of something new, which was initiated by the tendonitis in my shoulder.

BELOW are the 3 stages of watercolor 14, with a shot of me painting an early stage

TODAYS WATERCOLOR SELF PORTRAIT / STARTING WATERCOLOR 13 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:54 PM: watercolor 13 was completed about half an hour ago, after going through the stages you see BELOW. left to right-stages 1-2-3

i have some ambivalence as to whether or not it was wise to fill in the tree trunk in stage 3; what do you think?

4/7/20 watercolor self portrait

starting watercolor 13

12:14 PM: i made another watercolor self portrait using the brush gifted me by lea. and i’m starting work on watercolor 13, declaring yesterday’s watercolor 12 resolved.

i’ll check in later in the afternoon, once i’ve taken watercolor 13 further.

late day watercolor self portrait 3:14 PM

a self portrait in watercolor / starting watercolor 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:32 PM: i stopped for the day. didn’t sleep well last night, so i burnt out about half hour ago. BELOW: watercolor 12 at 1 pm and 2:30pm

stage 1, watercolor 12, 11 x 12”/ 38x48 cm.

1 PM: starting watercolor 12 moments ago

theatre-libre program design, vuillard, 1890

12:20 PM: starting a bit late today. i was reading the large vuillard catalogue and found many connections with his marks. more about this later. made a quick self portrait with hat in watercolor, using my friend lea’s gift of a japanese brush, and am on to watercolor 12. pics when available, as always!

continued work on watercolor 11 / what am i reading currently? /  by Philip Tarlow

3:06 PM: just comnpleted work in my studio for the day, and about to take our now daily walk up the creek. i changed the drop-down menus on the site, and this is the new header for the 2020 watercolors page:

the completed watercolor 11

DETAIL

2:23 PM: the completed watercolor 11. some of the white bubbles in the lower portion needed to become larger, both for compositional reasons and to reflect the magic i felt when i saw those bubbles in real life a few afternoons ago. compositionally, they transition the white dots in the water surrounding the rocks to dancing musical accents akin to pregnant pauses in thelonious monk’s riffs.

12:29 PM update: at work moments ago on watercolor 11

11:02 AM: i’m about to continue work on watercolor 11, which i started yesterday. it’s one of those paintings that could stop anywhere, but i choose to take it further and we’ll see where it goes.

READING:

i’m currently reading two books. one, a biography of my friend, teacher & mentor the late yannis

tsarouchis, was published in 1993 has has been sitting in my bookshelf since then. i opened it this morning and found it compelling enough to continue, and have it be my breakfast reading for the next little while. it was written by alexis savakis, and includes a photo of myself, tsarouchis and sammuel beckett standing together on the roof of tsarouchis studio in maroussi. our mutual friend, actress christina tsingou had invited beckett to come to athens & visit tsarouchis’ studio in maroussi. i was asked to pick beckett up at the athens airport & drive him to maroussi, which i did, thus getting to spend a few hours with the great playwright. i was also asked to photograph beckett’s visit, as he did not ever want to be photographed by professional photographers or reporters.

the other book i’ve started reading is hommage to catalonia, by george orwell. it’s considered by some to be his best piece of writing, surpassing his best known book: animal farm. having only read 10 pages or so, i would agree with this assessment. these days it takes a lot to keep me staying focused on a book without skimming and skipping around. not this one. orwell is concise, precise, compassionate and often funny in his own british style of humor. i would highly recommend it. i originally bought it to send to my grandscon philip in athens, but decided it would be best to read it myself first, to make sure it’s suitable for a 14 year old.

more later in the day my dearest friends!

starting watercolor 11 / a look back at '90's paintings on ceramics /  by Philip Tarlow

3:24 PM: i started watercolor 11, which is about half way there and filled with the little white bubbles we saw yesterday on our walk. today is cloudy & windy, but we’re going anyway, in about 20 minutes. so i’ll continue this post when we’re back.

12:10 PM: as i print out images i like in preparation for watercolor 11, i opened a folder on my desktop and discovered some ceramics i had painted on in the ‘90’s, on the island of palm beach, where we lived at the time on jamaica lane.

the ceramics were made by my friend joseph, who would bring them over to our house in the back of his pickup.

in a few of them, i was already playing around with wavy water patterns that have shown up lately in my creek inspired watercolors. all exhibit a strong interest in patterns.

more a bit later in the afternoon, once i get started on watercolor 11.

i’m also contemplating starting work on a book i’ve been pondering for years. what could be a more perfect time than this, our hunkering down phase?

r's landscape / watercolor 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:26 PM: done painting for the day and it’s time for our trail walk. here’s the current state of the watercolor, to be continued tomorrow. it’s a new experience, working on a watercolor over a period of days. usually it’s a one shot deal. always when i’m painting plein air, which will start happening within a week or two.

while posting this, by the way, i’ve been going back and forth with my son dimitri about the state of modern theatre, also to be continued tomorrow.

stage 1, watercolor 10

2:41 PM: watercolor 10: here is stage 1 of the new watercolor 10, once again inspired by photos i’ve shot recently during our creek walks. i’m learning quickly as i make these new watercolors; recalling what i already had learned over decades of making watercolors, and learning new ways of using the medium, especially since re-discovering the arches paper i’m now using.

r’s landscape, 36x60”, oil on linen

8:04 AM: i’ve been mentoring a 17 year old in carbondale, colorado who was commissioned by a recovery facility to create a 36x60” landscape painting for the interior of their building. she has surpassed my expectations in the creation of this painting, which is still in process.