May 6, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

2:33 PM: i went ahead and painted watercolor 45. it’s essentially the same composition, drawn from the same photo i shot on our april 29 trail walk up cottonwood creek. it includes a bit more information than the smaller one i made earlier, while maintaining the same spirit of spareness . they both differ from the previous 44 watercolors in that spareness and consequent absence of detail. from a distance; right now i’m gazing at them from about 18 feet, or 6 meters, they carry more than the previous, more detailed ones, with the exception of a few more recent ones. and those exceptions are due to the fact that i was slowly finding my way, rediscovering what i once knew from years of painting in watercolor, mostly plein air, where you can’t afford the time to get caught up in details.

1:36 PM: i’m at work on watercolor 45. while taking a toast with feta break i made this little study of a matisse drawing in colored pencil on tan paper, BELOW LEFT

12:35 PM: so i deactivated my fb account because i got tired of the likes, etc. but now every morning i go to my squarespace analytics page to check how many visitors i had the previous day. same thing really, except for the fact that i’m far more interested in how many people visit my site and read this blog. i’m sure there’s a way to increase viewership, but i can’t spend the time figuring that out. being seen is a big deal for most of us, especially in times like these. but i’m honestly very interested in having people, especially people who know and love the arts, see what i’m up to, and whenvever possible, let me know their thoughts. after all, how many artists do you know who are this transparent and open about their process of creating art, as well as sometimes showing you what they made for breakfast? so if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, let a few friends know. direct them to my site. who knows, it could catch on! and by the way, thanks for taking the time to have a look every day. i deeply appreciate it.

that said, after handling a few logistics this morning, i launched into the drawing for watercolor 44. under that 13 x 20” piece of watercolor paper i had placed a smaller one, 10 x 13”

study of a *matisse* drawing i made during a snack break

i like to trick myself into doing something that circumvents my scheming mind, so once i was finished with the drawing, i shifted to the smaller paper and launched straight into making a watercolor without doing a drawing in pencil. this is the result, which is more in alignment with what you might call pure watercolor. no picky details. no while gouache color to highlight the bubbles & waves in the water. just pure spontaneous watercolor. refreshing, no?

now i’ll move on to the larger format & see what happens. i’ll post as soon as it’s available.

watercolor 43 / May 5, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*watercolor 43* completed at the very end of the day

6:24 PM: but before i go…thid often happens; just as i’m ready to leave the studio & i have everything packed up, i look over at whatever i’ve been working on and my gut says no, you’re not done…you’ve got to do more on the foreground and more on the flowing water. so i did, and that really brought it home. here’s how it looked following those final marks. if you compare the foreground with the image i posted at 2:33, BELOW, you’ll see what i’m talking about.

*watercolor 43* end of my painting day today

2:33 PM: following a bad allergy night and morning, thanks to a spoonful of manuka 20+ honey, flonase and lillian’s allergy re-leaf formula, i was able to get to work on watercolor 43. over the past few days, i’ve been working on a smaller 10x11” format, but today i switched back to the dimensions of most of the watercolors in this series: 13 x 20”

having learned from experience, i didn’t rush it. started out with very light, watery marks and progressed to some darker ones. grey and blue

dominate, with some accents of orange and green. 43 is based upon a photo i shot on our april 29 trail walk. it was a brilliant, clear day with that sharp, clear light we get here in the valley.

we’re going out again in an hour, on a windy afternoon with cooler temperatures than the abnormally hot days we’ve been having. hot, by the way means high 70’s, or about 12-15 degrees farenheit above normanl for this time of year.

making 2 new watercolors / May 4, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

6:15 PM: just back from our weekly jour fixe date on our friend’s deck. windy as hell, but we love their company! we told stories, got to know and love each other more deeply and had some of the tastiest oragnge cake you could imagine,

when i brought the 2 watercolors back to the house, mikela actually liked watercolor 42, the one i had considered a failure, so i’m posting it for you to see and evaluate. it’s certainly unlike any of the previous ones in this series, as it has a figure, which is me. it’s starting to grow on me, so i’ll see how i feel about it in the morning.

2:52 PM: i made 2 experiments today, one of which didn’t work. this one, watercolor 41, is kind of OK, but not what i was after. so i’m going to continue along this avenue of breaking up a single image of teh creek and incorporating other views, creating one unified composition. i think yesterdays watercolor 40, BELOW, was more successful in this new direction i’m attempting. if you take a look at my 2020 watercolors page (hit the dropdown menu to get there) you will notice a progression, albeit spasmotic, from a more to less literal interpretation of the creek photos i’m referring to when i make the watercolors. generally, the more recent ones are further towards the top of the page.

“ details harm the purity of the lines and harm the emotional intensity; we reject them.”

matisse

making the drawings for todays watercolors, one of which was tossed

12:21 PM: today will be a rather short one, as we have our jour fixe rendezvous, for snacks, a bit of wine & good conversation on our friends deck. i’m making 2 drawings for watercolors that will be painted in tandem. more as work progresses, a bit later…..

new placement of watercolors / starting watercolor 40 / May 3, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

4:06 PM: i tuckered myself out moving all those watercolors around and then starting a new one so late in the day. once i got it back to the house, we both agreed that watercolor 40 is complete.

it’s a blessing that i painted it at the end of the day, at a point where i didn’t have time to get into the weeds and start overworking it.

so what you see here on the right is it. one thing that’s different is something i learned from matisse: in a painting of his i was studying as i drank my coffee, i noticed he had used different images in 2 quadrants of his painting, which he divided off in two box like areas, upper right & lower left. yet he had manged to make the entire composition read as one unified painting. it dawned on me that, to facilitate my process of departing from a literal interpretation of one of my trail photos, what if i used two or three or more creek photos, picked elements that i find exciting and insert them around the picture plane, making the overall composition my priority rather than trying to stay somewhat true to the photo. so just with the 10 or so photos from recent trail walks, there are a multitude of compositional and coloristic possibilities. it’s really like a new world opening up, and it was right in front of me the whole time!

watercolors on my east wall as it now looks

2:40 PM: today was unusual. i removed all the watercolors on my east studio wall, took them off the foam core backing and tacked them directly to the wall. at first, they were too crowded, so i took some and placed them on the previously empty south wall, which is a bit harder to get to, as it’s blocked by a hard to move table. the next step will be to paint that east wall with a fresh coat of white, which will hide all the paint stains & make it far easier to look at the watercolors.

the immediate result is that each of them is far easier to see and appreciate, and it’s easier for me to evaluate what i’ve done thus far. there’s been a steady progression, with some bumps in the road and some that just don’t make it. that’s to be expected. what excites me is that i feel i’ve reached a point where it’s possible to build on the important discoveries while defining where it is i tend to take a wrong turn.

as a direct result, watercolor 40, which i started rather late in the day, has a distinctly different feel.

whatever happened to preliminary sketches? / watercolor 39 / May 2, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

6:21 pm: it’s been unusually warm for this time of year; like 10-12 F higher than normal. today our high was 78. the normal is 62 and the record high was 75F. So I think as a result of the heat combined with the fact that, in order to avoid stress to my tendonitis afflicted right shoulder, I’ve been making these watercolors, my feet & ankles, are swollen. i have to make the watercolors standing up, so i’m standing in the same spot for hours. so i’ve got to find a solution, which i’ll work on tomorrow.

i started watercolor 39 , but the bottom portion was too blue- heavy, so cropped it & continued working on it as a long-narrow, 6.75” 20”.

11:52 AM: as i had my breakfast and leafed through my big matisse book, i became possessed by the impulse to not launch directly into the next watercolor. what’s the rush, tarlow? and i recalled some sage words of advice from mikela, something to the effect of:

why not make a few studies before you start a new one?

i’m no stranger to that; i used to do it regularly before starting a new painting; especiially with my ‘70’s paintings of greek construction workers.

so i grabbed the nearest pad of white drawing paper and started out by making these 3 studies. from left to right chronologically, : #1, 2 and 3.

lets see where i go next.

watercolor 38 / May 1, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*watercolor 38* following the additional work i did late this afternoon.

6:07 PM: although i was tired; too tired to paint, i made a few changes to watercolor 38 that really fucked it up. the entire foreground, as you can see in the photo on the right, which was spare and empty; a critical part of the composition.

this is what it looks like following my end-of-day work. so i’m not going to destroy it, but it won’t have a place in the series as presented on my 2020 watercolors page. stuff happens.

3:12 PM:the completed watercolor 38: on the surface it bears much resemblence to the previous works in this series (except for yesterdays experiments.) upon closer inspection and in gazing at it on the wall with the others, it does have something different. it may be more mature; building on whast i’ve learned thus far, it gives the feel of the creek-scape without specifically defining any of the elements. less detail, more flow. as the saying goes (which i made up this morning) what spills over flows over.

1 PM: stage 1 of watercolor 38, following 2 false starts, which i tossed. i’m continuing work on this one & will post updates in an hour or two. thus far, i’d say there appears to be a new, looser energy, likely as a result of yesterdays 3 experiments (scroll down to 4/30/20 post) as the old saying goes: what spills over flows over. that’s not an old saying; i just made it up, along with everything else! you’ve heard of MSU? = Make Stuff Up University.

11:57 AM: following a delicious breakfast of vermont creamery goat cheese with hot pepper jelly and mikela’s famous hummus on toasted bagel, while perusing my matisse book, i began watercolor 38. i’ll post pics a bit later in the day.

whats next?…watercolors 35, 36 and 37 / April 30, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

3:43 PM: this is my final experiment for today: watercolor 37. over decades, i’ve gradually evolved these compositions, both studio and plein air paintings, moving them step by step from being descriptive to being patterns in space, while retaining the familiar forms of rocks, branches & water. this allows us, ideally, us create our own story. for me, as matisse has pointed out, abstraction is a meaningless game unless it derives from natural forms.

this development has been completely organic, in the sense that i never planned for it, and it’s as much of a surprise to me as it will be for you all. after studying matisse for, basically, my whole adult life, i’ve finally begun to comprehend what he was up to, and thus begin iincorporating his lessons in the context of my development as an artist. this also sheds a sharper light on the lessons i received from my mentor, teacher & friend the late yannis tsarouchis in greece during the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. while he never acted the role of teacher, he embodied it, and all you had to do was pay attention. pay attention during those precious visits to his studio; during our drives and walks together, and during his vists to the studio of my then mother-in-law, niki karagatsi, a great artist in her own right.

2:05 PM: here’s the next one: watercolor 36, 10 x 15”

12:50 PM: i’m now working on the 10 x 15” sheets of arches watercolor paper leftover from the larger sheets i used for watercolors 1 through 34. this one popped out after the time i spent with matisse over coffee. if you glance at the matisse quote on the right of the 1st row of photos in the gallery below, you’ll get a sense of where i’m at. i’m also getting some cool ideas for the book i’ve been threatening to write by flipping through the images from his notebooks. text and drawing are combined on some of those pages in a way i can strongly relate to.

11:53 AM: i’ve been organizing my iMac desktop, basically shoving everything into a folder labeled “DESKTOPS.” familiar?

i also transferred photos i shot yesterday on our trail walk, some of which are candidates for watercolors and/or when my shoulder heals, larger oils.

while having breakfast i looked through matisse; rhythm and line, a BIG heavy book someone was selling years ago on the streets of the 16th arr. in paris. i’m posting a few details from that book, along with diverse other photos, including some from our trail walk yesterday. the first pic on the first row is something that’s been sitting on my desk; it’s what happened when i needed to test the nib on one of my two favorite fountain pens.

if and when i make another watercolor today, i’ll post pics later.

watercolor 30 framed / watercolor 33 / & 34 / April 29, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

*watercolor 34* emerged by itself moments ago

2:30 PM: re-invigorated & inspired by who knows what, i made another one: watercolor 34. i have some pieces of 11 x 15” arches watercolor paper left over from the larger ones in the series, and i had the juice, knowing that most often something good comes out of a spontaneous second round. my spirit somehow gets freed up and, for a precious few moments, flies. working on paper of new dimensions helps, switching up my compositional habits. as well, the flonase, which i started yesterday, is kicking in and i no longer have itchy eyes, runny nose, etc. but hey, is there any real way of explaining it when you’re in the flow? just be grateful, right?

1:57 PM: watercolor 33 completed moments ago.

12:58 PM: at work moments ago on watercolor 33

brownies with walnuts, just out of the oven

11:59 AM: as i’m getting into watercolor 33, i baked brownies. they look burnt, but they’re not. so far i’ve made 2 false starts of watercolor 33, which i ripped up.

8:21 AM: as you may have noticed, yesterday was one of those rare days when i didn’t paint or post. the previous night i was awake the whole time with seasonal allergies and the next morning i was totally out of it. i spent my time in the studio catching up on paperwork and reviewing creek photos for the next watercolor, which i’ll start today. by the way, working on a small scale is definitely helping the tendonitis in my right shoulder, and i’m hoping that in a month or two, i’ll be able once again to work on larger pieces in oil.

i placed watercolor 30 in a simple frame and hung it in our master bedroom. looks quite handsome, wouldn’t you say? it’s hanging catty corner to a painting i made of mikela some years ago. i’ll resume posting todays studio process in a few hours, when i complete my morning stuff here in the house & walk over to the studio. i started flonase and antihistamines yesterday, so i got an almost full nights sleep & am in much better shape this morning.

watercolors 31 and 32 / April 27, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

3:20 PM: today i located a photo of the ice-bound creek i had shot a while back. i liked it so much that i ended up making 2 new watercolors based on that photo. in watercolor 31, white gouache color was used a fair amount, so the medium should really be described as watercolor and gouache. 31 was the first version i made, and it’s considerable more detailed. i was moved to make the second one for exactly that reason. 31 gave me a good feel for the composition, and in 32 i was able to riff on that understanding & do something with a lot less information and a lot more space. i’m certain that when i show them in an exhibition, opinions will be split as to which is the better piece. there’s no right answer of course, but my aesthetic makes me lean more towards the more spare 32.

watercolor 30 completed / April 26, 2020 by Philip Tarlow

1:30 PM: avoiding the ever present temptation to do more and more, i allowed watercolor 30 the breathing space it asked for. the forms on the right, which could have evolved into solid rocks, are a counterpoint to the denser, more developed areas of trees, sky and rocks on the left side of the composition. the reflected trees transition into flying rocks and loose bits of fragmented sky…..