watercolor 72
2:43 PM: watercolors 72 and 73, both 10x13” are busy and spare, respectively.
watercolor 73
the first, on the right, took most of the day. the second, BELOW, took under an hour.
i’ll say more about them when we’re back from our trail walk this afternoon.
watercolor 71 as it looked moments ago
2:56 PM: so, as i anticipated just 45minutes ago (BELOW) watercolor 71 did indeed change. i added a few darker blues and a branch, which balance the movement of the orange and green sweeping marks on the upper right.
watercolor 70 10x13”
watercolor 71 13x20:
2:16 PM: watercolor 70 and watercolor 71 continue the movement away from literal rendering of the creek-scape towards a painterly, abstracted, patterned stylization.
both, but especially watercolor 71, may change later today or tomorrow morning.
2:37PM: yesterday we had our jour fixe with our german friends, which was, as always a delight. i brought some of the watercolors for them to see, and we lined them up against the wall in their beautiful courtyard.
watercolor 69 10x13”
they looked great, and quite different than in my studio or in the house. it gave us more of a sense of how they will look in my august exhibition in carbondale. images are BELOW
today i made a new one: watercolor 69. it’s the smaller of the two sizes i’ve been using: 10x13”
it’s far less busy than the two i made yesterday, and has an interesting balance of pinks, oranges greens and blues. if it were a love letter, it would be a tender one, with boiling passion just beneath the surface.
2:33 PM: we had a great walk up the trail yesterday. i shot 6 photos, some of which will inspire new watercolors. these are the first two: watercolor 67, BELOW LEFT and watercolor 68.
newly sprouted leaves are part of the composition, casting shadows on the rocks below. tomorrow i may simplify this same composition, allowing more white space to dominate .
watercolor 65 10 x 13”
2:09 PM: two new ones today: watercolor 65 and 66. here’s an appropriate quote from artist shara hughs:
watercolor 66 10 x 13”"
“texture, pattern and perspective is something i like to use to describe a space in ways that maybe don’t always make sense.”
increasingly, the landscape, or, to be exact, the creek-scape, is evolving into exactly that: texture and pattern, generally with a perspective from above looking down. the rocks, with their endless patterns of lichen and mossy growth; the creek water which, at this time of year spills down with increasing force as the remaining winter snows on the peaks melt; last fall’s remaining leaves, and the branches being tossed and dragged with the current.
with matisse and taiga as my two main guides, i increasingly allow the painterly marks to dictate where they want to travel next, and use the creek events to serve as architectural motifs. play is key in this process, along with a known and purposefully forgotten panorama of signposts in the history of art.
watercolor 64 10x13”
1:26 PM: today i started out with a smaller watercolor: 10 x 13”. there are a few others this size in the series, and i was just in the mood for something smaller today, although i do have a larger, 13 x 20” one ready to go.
in this one i explore the rock patterns more deliberately, and have found a combination of blues and greens, together with that delicios orange, that i like a lot. i have another few hours to work before we take our afternoon trail hike, so let’s see if i start work on the larger surface…
5:54 PM: so i ended up staying with watercolor 64. i was too aware of our imminent zoom call with 9 ex birchwoods campers. read about birchwoods on my story page: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio
we had a truly great call. it was more in present time than you might imagine for a group of guys & girls recalling people & events from 70 plus years ago. and that’s because our 2 month annual experience at birchwoods, in huntington, massachusetts in the berkshire hills, is a timeless experience, transcending the minutae of ordinary experiences. am i glorifying, exaggerating? ask my buddies. i think not. what we all experienced is as fresh and vibrant as if it happened yesterday. birchwoods founder/director otto rosaahn was part of the ethical culture movement, and that was a big part of it. here’s a brief look at what that was/is
:”….“Now the daring thought that we had, in the beginning of the Ethical Movement, was to unite in one group, in one bond, those who had this religious feeling and those who simply cared for the moral betterment…. In the broader sense religion means zealousness and devotion to something supreme, in the special sense it means cosmic outreaching.”
i like to imagine otto and sonya rosaahn alive and witnessing all this. i like to imagine them present on our zoom, filling in the blanks when we were foggy on the name of a particular event, a particular councelor. their spirit permaeated every aspect of our birchwoods experience, starting with otto’s talk to the freshly off -he-train/bus campers in the wooden town hall building, july 1st. i have deep gratitude for those who organized the call. it was way overdue, but perfectly timed!
the staff at birchwoods, with otto and sonya in the center, on the bottom row.
2:33 PM: watercolor 63 was completed a few minutes ago. it’s one of those that has a lot going on, although there’s still plenty of white space for it to breathe. i find the yellows and oranges towards the top the most interesting and perhaps compelling area of the watercolor, with the greens on the upper left serving as a good counterpoint to all the blues.
12:14 PM: yesterday i posted some drawings and paintings made in greece during the ‘60’s-’70’s and sent to me by my son dimitri in athens. i checked out some recent drawings, mostly made during our regular trips to edwards and carbondale, colorado. BV (before the virus) we used to go monthly for a week or so, to work with teachers & students in local schools, introducing our project based educational product. during those trips i would hang out at local coffee shops and make drawings of customers sitting & working on their laptops or engaging in conversation. BELOW LEFT is an example of one of those drawings made at bonfire coffee in carbondale, colorado and, on the RIGHT, a drawing made of a fellow artist in athens, 1978.
what do you notice? right off the bat, the 2020 drawing employs colored pencils. but more importantly, there is a looseness, a painterly stroke, a release from the need to describe in the 2020 drawing. i think they are both strong drawings, but the recent one gives you, the viewer, more space to dream, and is more in alignment with the chinese/japanese 11th-18th c. tradition of calligraphic marks i so admire. click on each one to get a better sense of what i’m talking about.
currently i’m making additions to the watercolor i started working on yesterday; watercolor 63, and will post updates a bit later in the afternoon. the wind, by the way, is currently gusting to 40mph, not unusual for spring in crestone.
watercolor 63 stage 4
2:11 PM: didn’t get a great sleep last night, so i”m a bit tired. i started watercolor 63 and uncharacteristically stopped mid-way. i’ll resume tomorrow.
i documented the stages of this one more carefully than i did previous ones, and i’ve posted the first 3 stages BELOW. this one reverts to earlier versions, where details of water and rock patterns interact. i’m hoping i’ll feel fresher in the morning and be able to complete watercolor 63.
a few hours ago i received a fedex package containing the 4th in a series of new boots i’ve ordered over the past few weeks. i had to return the first 3; my feet are flat & wide and it’s hard enough finding hiking boots when i’m in the store, let alone online. this is the first pair that feel right, but i won’t know fo another few days if they’re keepers. we hike up trails that are moderately difficult; rocky and steep. so good hiking boots are important.
8:08 am: a few days ago my son dimitri sent these images of drawings, watercolors and gouaches which are still in the appartment of my ex in athens. they’ve been there for 20 years, and she has kindly kept them safe and catalogued until i can pick them up on our next trip to athens. if you click on each one, there’s description.
and now, let’s get to work!
watercolor 62
1:55 PM: i launched into watercolor 62, but it was flawed. since this is heavy arches watercolor paper, i flipped it over and began work on the other side. that went better, and progressed to the well known by this time how little is enough?
of course this is an unanswerable question. one of the things that draws me to 11th c chinese and 18th c. japanese painting and calligraphy is the regularity with wich the answered that question unerringly, with freedom, occasional whimsy and mark making still unmatched in the history of art.
2:31 PM: feeling quite a bit better today. intestinal tsurus is gone, although i am still being very careful what i eat. i’m excited that i received an email from my birchwoods buddies, some of whom i haven’t seen or spoken to since i was a young teenager. looks like we may set up a zoom. for more about birchwoods, which forever changed my life scroll down a bit on my stories page here: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio
watercolor 60 13x20”
so i made 2 new watercolors today. the first, watercolor 60, seems to me like a one act play in. it has 3 characters, all of whom give the others space, but one of whom is undeniably central to the plot. the red & blue marks in the water were originally in the photo i shot in 2018, and were reflections of tibetan flags flying above the creek at the base of the tashi gomang stupa trail. i slightly tinted the white paper and, with those reflections, it says water.
watercolor 61 13x20”
then i started work on watercolor 61. it differs from the rest of the series compositionally, with it’s 3 provocative upward thrusting branches dominating the composition, and wriggly light green marks which indicate turbulent water but stop seriously short of spelling it out. somehow, i find it tremendously satisfying to gaze at. once again the number 3 comes up; this time as 3 sentinels guarding the landscape.
