watercolor 30 / the myth of narcissus /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 30 stage 1

2:39 PM: i started watercolor 30. it’s more complex than many of the others and will take at least another day to complete.

this one is inspired by a photo i shot on one of our trail walks back in november, 2019, when covid-19 had not yet manifested. the trees and sky were strikingly reflected in an area of the creek where, protected by a group of rocks, the water had pooled, creating in effect a perfect mirror.

this one requires lots of patience and can’t be rushed. it’s as if watercolor 29 brought me to the brink of chaos, and i needed to return to a more realist interpretation of this theme. it turns the landscape topsy turvey, harkening back to my ano kato ( topsy-turvey in greek) series, which you will find by clicking on the dropdown menu “works” and then on ano kato. or, just use this link: https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid

it also evokes the ancient greek myth of narcissus. in this case, it’s the trees rather than the face of narcissus reflected in the pool. will they, like the ancient character who gave his name to the disease our president suffers from, fall so in love with their image that they draw closer and closer, fall into the pool and drown?

a disrupted day to start watercolor 29 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:40 PM: TODAY WAS A CRAZY DAY.gotta get going on our walk, so i’ll write about what happened later. this watercolor is obviously not complete & be a throwaway.

7:08 PM: so, upon reflection, what happened today was instructive. looking at it right now on the screen, it ain’t so bad, just different. where are those elegant negative spaces? looks like the war of the octopii!

or an interstellar storm.

actually, if you look closely at certain areas of the creek, they kinda look like this!

until tomorrow my friends.

a correction to my 4/22/post / watercolor 29 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 28 in our entryway this morning

this reveals how much watercolor 28 pops out when viewed with some of the previous ones

7:44 am: a couple of days ago i made remarks regarding zen buddhism. i mispoke when i said “enlightenment could be seen as the ultimate knowing.” a good friend, who is a practitioner of zen buddhism corrected me. she said “enlightenment is the ultimate letting go of all knowing.” i did have the feeling, when i wrote that post, that i was venturing into territory far beyond my knowledge and experience.

i’m still integrating watercolor 28, going back and forth as to whether it’s a big step in the right direction or a mis-step. stragely, as it appears on the screen here, i find it appealing, even exciting. in person, it’s somewhat shocking, as it is when viewed on my east studio wall, in the context of the previous watercolors.

as mikela pointed out when she first saw it, the branch on the left, going up to the circular form (also a branch) is key to the success of the composition. for me, it’s that pinkish salmon color in the mid-left. she also thought it could have used one or two more areas of detail which, as with the rock on the lower left, allow the viewer to get that this image is inspired by an actual creek with actual rocks, water and branches.

watercolor 28 / rocks: yesterdays creek walk /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 28 13x20”

1:39 PM: watercolor 28 just happened, in the midst of having viber calls with my ex, my grandson and my grand daughter in athens, greece. last night i discovered a group of photos shot on april 14, on one of our trail walks. the more i looked, the more i remembered the unusually sharp and crisp lighting conditions that day; even moreso than the normal light here in crestone/baca, which is superb due to our altitude and almost complete absence of air pollutants. as i looked more carefully, i isolated a few that stood out.

these 3 or 4 photos have a variety of patterns and colors i haven’t seen in any of the previous photos i’ve taken during our walks, and there are very many of them. i think perhaps i didn’t make this discovery until last night because i wasn’t far enough along in my process to know what to do with them! i placed this latest watercolor 28 on the east wall along with the rest, and it stands out. not only because of the intensity of the blues i used; but because of the boldness of the pink and oranges against the blues, and the certainty of my strokes. i knew as i was working that i was making a leap today, and even the viber calls didn’t get in the way. i actually placed my iphone on a tripod and let philip watch as i worked. and then…. then that moment arrived when my body knew to stop, and i listened. a memorable day in my experience of this covid isolation, and a memorable moment in my life as an artist.

8:28 AM: yesterdays walk was cut short by a hail storm with thunder, which was kind of exciting. along the way, i was struck by the patterns on these 3 rocks, which you see BELOW. i’ll post updates on new paintings once i get to my studio in a few hours.

although i’ve been observing the rocks here in crestone/baca for many years, what i discover on the trails always seems new and exciting to me, and gives me ideas for my work. as you are probably aware, the rocks known as crestone conglomerates are unique to this area. they can also be found in some parts of tibet. they were created millions of years ago as a result of intense volcanic activity, which resulted in different kinds of rocks literally melting into one another. rock sex.

these rocks are always perfect. never seen a bad one. and the endless variations in patterning and color fuel my innate need to translate all this into marks on a flat surface.

chan /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 27 13 x 20”

buddha shakyamuni descending from the mountains, hatakeyama memorial museum of fine art, tokyo

2:03 PM: chan (zen) buddhism originated in china in the seventh century. when it spread to japan, the japanese understood and pronounced chan as zen. i bring it up today, as it occurred to me that what i am doing, or to be precise, not doing as these watercolors progress, is a kind of moving meditation. as my mind says “oh, philip, you need to define this rock just a little bit more,” increasingly i say “thank you for sharing,” or simply,”fuck off!”

as in the zen meditation practice, i move through stages towards enlightenment. will i ever attain it? not really the point. this morning during my daily meditation at the house, before coming to the studio, i received the answer to my 48 hour old question: where did i put the s/s coffee grinder basket? i had been searching everywhere for it with no success. as soon as i closed my eyes, not only did i recall where i had put it, i saw it. this is just a small example of how knowing can emerge, given the opportunity.

enlightenment could be seen as the ultimate knowing.

on the LEFT, a hanging scroll in ink on paper by zhongfeng mingben. it is one of the very few surviving 14th century zen paintings preserved in japan.

“the sketchy and scratchy zen paintings exude the chan spirit: less use of language, more subtle suggestion, leading to higher understanding.”

james c.y. watt in his introduction to: the world of khubilai khan, chinese art in the yuan dynasty, published in conjunction with the exhibition at the metropolitan museum of art, nyc, in 2011.

starting watercolor 26 / from the acropolis to the creek /  by Philip Tarlow

7:34 PM looking through past paintings, i found this interesting comparison; rocks on the acropolis, which i painted about 15 years ago, and the rocks at cottonwood creek here in crestone/baca, which i painted this morning.

watercolor 26 completed

3:05 PM: today i completed watercolor 26. my grand daughter in athens, greece had sent me a beautiful drawing this morning, which i posted BELOW, and i suggested to her that she google matisse and check out his drawings. somehow, although i’ve been studying him a lot lately, just mentioning him to her translated to the kinds of marks i made, especially in stage 1, which you see BELOW. i think the watercolors i’ve done over the past week have been leading up to this moment; lets see where it leads tomorrow.

my grand daughter’s drawing

12:01 PM: getting kind of a late start; i was going back and forth with my grand daughter in athens. she sent a photo of a beautiful drawing she just made.

here’s me with most of the watercolors in the series i’ve been working on.

and BELOW, the drawing my grand daughter justy sent me

slight modification to watercolor 24 / starting & completing watercolor 25 /  by Philip Tarlow

6:53 PM: we just returned from our first live visit with friends here in the baca grande. it was kind of a shock for us all to be actually sitting (at the recomended distance) outdooors on their deck having a real live conversation! and it was wonderful.

this was the first opportunity i’ve had since social distancing came into play, to make a drawing of a real person, excluding myself, who, of course is not a real person. it was so refreshing; moreso than we had expected. we’re planning a repeat in a week or so.

3:09 PM: here’s watercolor 25 on the left, and motion 39, 36x36” in oil on linen painted in 2016-17, which i was glancing at as i worked; interesting development, no? am i going backwards or forwards, or do those terms not apply at all?

12:47 PM: the final blue wavy marks i added at the end of the day yesterday were way too dark, and were overpowering the rest of the composition. so today i modified them, and as a result i think the composition as a whole now works. so i’m launching into watercolor 25.

BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left

STAY TUNED for updates on watercolor 25!

preparing to start work on watercolor 24 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 24 at the end of my painting day today

2:44 PM: so i ended up not using the photo i posted earlier, but i’ll likely use it in the future.

my intention today was to keep it light and not get as deep into the weeds as i did yesterday with watercolor 23. i think i did accomplish that, but as usual i was a bit torn after the first round of painting, when the watercolor was simpler than this final version. that version is BELOW left.

what i like about the final version is it’s boldness. bravura i might even say. stage 1 was somewhat safe and tentative, whereas this one has something going on with the marks, especially the rocks in the background, that is more reminiscent of my looser more abstracted work, especially my motion series oils.

shot on our 4/17/20 trail walk

10:55 AM: the days have settled into a pattern of cloudy mornings with the sun emerging around 10:30. i switched up my process today, sitting at my desktop and selecting candidates from pour trail walk 2 days ago, instead of having my coffee & toast at a different table, where i generally read & study artists i’m interested in.

as a result, i have 4 images i just printed out, one more stunning than the next. artists generally are not in the habit of being this transparent; one gallery sales person actually tried to dissuade me form sharing photos like the one i’m posting here, arguing that it ruins the mystique us artists have with some of the public. and to that i respond: BS! the more people can learn about the artistic process, the better.

so lets see, as the day progresses, how watercolor 24, as yet just a dream in my head, takes form.

looking back / faucet trauma / watercolor 23 /  by Philip Tarlow

7:02 PM: looking back over my work, recent and not so recent, i can see a consistancy of feeling, composition, color and marks. here are a few:

3:47 PM: this morning, after struggling with it last night and then having a nightmare about it, i successfully installed this faucet water purifier in our master bath. although our well water has been evaluated as excellent, we need to filter out the minerals for use with the sinupulse, a device that i’ve been using for over a decade and which promotes sinus health. having had 2 sinus surgeries, this solution was recommended to me by my surgeon, and has been instrumental in maintaining healthy sinuses.

it was supposed to be very easy to install, but of course was not. it was a bitch, which had to do with determining which were the correct washers for our faucet and then correctly placing them. so i’m very proud of myself that i solved it this morning!

after that, painting watercolors was a very welcome relief. watercolor 23 is inspired by one of about 60 photos i shot yesterday on our trail walk. it’s rather dense, but i think it works. what caught my attention during our walk was this orange-red rock with the dark lichen.

going a little stir crazy & starting watercolor 22 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:31 PM: taking it slow on this one, i’m at stage 2. mikela will walk over from the house in about half an hour so we can go to town & pick up some food orders before heading up to the trail, so i may stop now, or at least soon, and resume tomorrow morning.

you can see the changes i just made by comparing with the image BELOW, which i posted about an hour ago.

watercolor 22 stage 1

12:44 PM: hi there. today is the first day i’m (we’re) feeling the effects of isolating. even though we have each other, we’re starting to miss social interaction. so we’re going to try & set up outdoor dinners with friends once or twice a week, and maybe take little drives to places like the great sand dunes national monument, to break up the sameness.

i’m declaring watercolor 21 complete, and started watercolor 22 about an hour ago. it still feels fresh and fun, so i guess i’ll continue the series until my shoulder feels healed. i have seemingly endless sources of inspiration and imagery, and we’ll be resuming our creek walks this afternoon, so i’ll probably gather more material.