4:37 PM: we arrived yesterday at the launchpad, where my talk with marc bruell was scheduled for 5:30. i was nervous and not sure what to expect; marc and i had spoken in general terms about how we would navigate going back & forth, with him playing and sining and me talking. it was raining up until about an hour before our talk, which likely kept some people from coming, but it was a good crowd, the skies cleared and we launched into our talk, or more accurately our performance piece.
watercolor 115 / studio photos /
watercolor 115 10 x 13”
6:58 PM: it was a short day in my studio, as we’re preparing for our trip to carbondale tomorrow. i made a new watercolor: watercolor 115, and shot some images of my studio to post on my carbondale page.
marc and i spoke a few times today and got on the same page about the rhythm and content of our talk tomorrow at 5:30. i printed out several copies of the pages below so i can pass them around and share my process with the audience.
BELOW: a few studio shots i’m about to post on my carbondale page.
continuing 2020 creek oil 1 re-work /
12:32 PM: gotta leave for my dermatologist appointment in salida in 20 minutres. but i was able to take the changes i made yesterday to 2020 creek oil 1 a bit further, introducing a deep red beneath the log on the right & some pebble shapes above the log on the left. i’ll do more tomorrow after our morning trail walk.
this mornings trail walk / painting over 2020 creek oil 1 /
3:26 PM: as the first peals of thunder resound over the mountains and into the valley, i’m completing my painting for the day. when i first glanced at 2020 creek oil 1 this morning, it struck me as too busy and devoid of a center, it had compelling elements though. the only one i’ve kept, for now, is the cobalt teal bluish scrumble on the upper right portion of the composition, and the orange/black marks on the lower right. i went over the rest of the canvas with a thin-ish white mixed with a little yellow.my reference photo is the one i posted esrlier today, below, with those unbelievable crimson weeds emerging from the moss covered rocks. so we have orange on the bottom; crimson, then green, with the cobalt teal bluish above and a pale yellow background. the marks on the outlined log on the left were made with a sennelier violet oil stick. i read last night about the 19th c. discovery of violet, and how van gogh used a combination of violet and yellow so brilliantly in some of his paintings of flowers. he learned, by reading a just published book on color, how excellent is the combination of those two colors. tomorrow afternoon i have a dermatologist appointment in salida, an hour and a quarter to our north, so we’ll see if i have any time tomorrow morning to continue this revision. while it’s a relief to lose all that busyness, i do love how it peeks through the thin layer of oil paint. your eye moves over the surface, from one element, one color to another, with the underlying previous painting investing it all with richness and mystery. shit, i should be a writer!
just back from our trail walk. these are a few of the photos i shot. future paintings?
revisiting 2020 creek oil 1/ WATERCOLOR 114 /
watercolor 114, 10 x 13”
3:20 PM: i made a new watercolor after the work i did earlier today on 2020 creek oil 1. it’s simpler than most in this series, but not quite a spare as yesterdays watercolor 113. new possibilities are emerging now that i’m using a smoother paper, with less grain than the paper arches paper i had been using for all the previous ones. more sensitive, pricise strokes are now a possibility. on the other hand, i can’t lay down a full brush and have the colors spread and migrate unpredictably, as i could with the heavier paper.
1:13 PM: after yesterdays watercolor 113, which was born of 2020 creek oil 1, i felt motivated to return to the mother, as it were, and, after flipping it 180 degrees yesterday and gazing at it every so often this morning, i did some more work on it, taking out the second tree trunk, which had formed a V with the other one. plus i added an area of striking williamsburg cobalt teal bluiish on the right, which sings like a vibrating soprano.
BELOW: before todays changes
starting fresh / upsyde-downe /watercolor 113 /
watercolor 113 10 x 13”
4:29 PM: late in the day, as mikela gave me the latest on the rose garden, i made this watercolor: watercolor 113. the 112 watercolors paved the way for creek oil 1 last week, and that in turn gave birth to this latest watercolor. if you go to my 2020 watercolors page (look for it in the dropdown menu above right) you see the evolution. less and less descriptive detail, more and more nature inspired shapes and colors.
it’s almost 2pm. we took our trail walk this morning, so i arrived late in my studio. i took one look at yesterdays oil and removed it from my east wall. i’m kind of torn between starting a new watercolor and starting a new oil. give me a few minutes & i’ll decide, and post whatever i do. in the mean time, this is an oil study done some years ago for a commission at gremillion & co. fine art. i client wanted a small painting for a wooden jewelry box. i had a metropolitan museum bulletin about minoan art, and used the images to create this painting and, eventually the small painting for the wooden box.
it now hangs in our guest bedroom. mikela loves it, so it’s not going anywhere soon.
so after futzing around for a few hours, i decided to go the watercolor route. before starting to paint, i turned 8-17-20 creek oil upside down. i like it better, and it’s giving me some ideas about where i might go next with it.
8-17-20 creek oil turned 180degrees
starting 2020 creek oil 2 while casting furtive glances at #1/ listen to my radio interview at 4pm mst here: https://http://www.radiorethink.com/tuner/?stationCode=kdnk /
if you want to hear my radio interview but can’t make it at 4pm mst, just go the site: http://www.radiorethink.com/tuner/?stationCode=kdnk and you can listen any time.
ABOVE: 2020 creek oil 2 stages 1, 2 and 3
3 PM: so that’s it for today. i’m not sure this one is going to make it to the finish line….maybe….we’ll see tomorrow, which will be a late studio day beause of our every-other-day trail walk. i think taking out the second orange rock in the lower half of the composition definitely helped, and there are definitely some cool elements. in a way, i like stage 1 best. yet another example of not listening to my gut . it’s always hard to believe that my initial burst of effortless, almost automatic strokes could be enough. but if you look at all 3 stages, stage 1 is the most interesting. so maybe tomorrow i’ll ditch this one and start fresh…
12:30 PM: one thing to remember: mikela is usually (always) right. when she saw creek oil 1 for the first time yesterday, she said “looks complete to me, but why don’t you start another one and keep looking at this one to determine whether or not it needs more work?”
so this morning i did. i found a stack of 16x16” stretched canvases that had been painted on then painted over with white oil paint.
so i started 2020 creek oil 2. at first i was hesitant because i had envisioned starting something new on a fresh, unpainted surface. but after a few strokes, i was hooked. so lets see where, if anywhere, this one goes. after all, i can always toss it, right? that factor gives me a certain invaluable freedom.
lately, i seem to always notice, the day after i paint something new, how much simpler i could have made it.
answering brian's questions /
4:13 PM: brian, at carbondale arts, sent me 12 questions as part of a project he’s working on publishing online called know your artist, know your art. it’s admirable. i answered 5 this morning, and will answer more when i have time. here’s what i wrote:
Why do you make the art that you make?
i love beauty in all it’s forms. the art i make now, today, is part of an ongoing process over many decades. it’s in my blood; in my bones. painting is my language, and, to continue the metaphor, i delight in discovering new words and phrases and ways of putting them together every day.
What inspires your work the most?
great art of the past and present, things that i find a visual turn-on, one of which, recently, has been a local creek and, most recently, feedback from people who look at my paintings and “get it.” from my use of space, to my colors, to the way i handle paint, whether it be watercolor, oil, gouache or egg tempera. i’m always looking at the work of the great painters who are my role models. And, in the case of matisse, reading what they wrote about their process; looking at his drawings; noticing how his work evolved over time.
When you’re creating new work, what is your general process?
process is the key word here. i believe making art is an ongoing process. there is no end point. that said, if i’m painting in oil, sometimes, like a few days ago, i find a stretched, fine, double primed portrait linen canvas of the many in my studio. i make a preliminary drawing or sketch, using very thin, diluted grey/tan oil colors, referring to photos i shot recently at the creek. then i might use a large flat brush to apply broad areas of a color that turns me on in that moment which, a few days ago happened to be brilliant yellow pale, made by williamsburg, a paint company based in brooklyn, where i was born. then, i find a shape: a lichen-covered rock or a branch and, with paint that is slightly thicker, i begin to define that rock or branch, painting over the yellow i applied moments ago so that it picks up some of the siena i’m using to paint the branch. if the canvas is large, like the 26 x 78” one i’m currently using, i may lay it down flat on saw horses and paint. every 15-20 minutes, i’ll hang it on my studio wall and go back about 40 feet to see if what i just did works. and then i might take a break and do something totally different, like composing this document, or postng on my daily blog, https://www.philiptarlow.com/dailyblog and not look at the painting at all until, at some point, i cast a quick glance and see where i need to do more work; where a color i used doesn’t work or is too harsh, etc. i might turn the painting upside down to see what’s going on spatially and compositionally, always remembering that what’s most important are the marks; the space; the colors and the painterly qualities. My process is different depending on the day and the medium. watercolor is a whole different animal. whatever marks you make with your brush, that’s IT. no painting over it; no erasing it. either the strokes you made work, or they don’t & you toss it. and one more thing. i’m a weather nut. late summer thunderstorms excite me tremendously. so i take brief breaks to check my many weather sites, some of which show future radar, to see what we can expect over the next few hours. oh, and one more thing: my studio is 500 feet from our house, where mikela is working on our educational product, promoting experiential learning which will be introduced into schools here in our valley this fall. we find that when one of us makes a breakthrough, so does the other. so we call each other & check in every few hours. she has an excellent eye, so if i need some feedback, she’ll walk over.
How has your work evolved in recent years?
it’s simpler. there’s more “empty” space. i’m constantly inventing what matisse calls signs. in other words, ways of indicating rock without describing it. abbreviations, you might say.
Describe your studio.
east wall of my studio with sound of a flute paintings
i’ve had many many studios in my life. this is the only one that was designed from scratch to be a studio. artists love north light because you don’t get direct sunlight. my studio has large, high north windows & two skylights, giving me near perfect lighting conditions. the building is about 54 x 22 ft. with very high vaulted ceilings and a loft area for storing paintings. (although, of course, there’s never enough storage space.) the floor is the original cement slab, which happily accepts drips of paint and incorporates them into it’s beautiful texture. i have a small kitchen with a fridge & stove, a bathroom and shower. i have a desk area with my iMac and printer. you could live here, but nobody has ever slept here. and i intend for it to stay that way. it’s a painting studio. as i said, i’ve had many studios. in athens, my studio overlooked the tower of the winds and the ancient roman market, of which i made many paintings. in nyc my studio overlooked central park. but this one, in crestone, colorado, overlooking the enormous san luis valley, is IT.
continued work on 8/17/20 creek oil / new brochure for our talk, moved to august 28 /
3:31 PM: the end of my painting day. i think i did good work today, as i listened in to a very interesting zoom meeting about education, in which mikela participated.
BELOW: 4 details
this is the new brochure with the date changed from 8/21 to a week later: 8/28
8/17/20 creek oil at 1pm
1:03 PM: while listening in to a zoom meeting that mikela is an active part of, i’m continuing work on this painting, allowing the conversation to affect the process. i’m not sure the greens work, so i’m going back into it. while listening to the zoom and painting i got a message from mark about our talk. he has a friend who has agreed to videotape, said he was planning on playing a bit, and asked if i was going to paint. i said yes, but i hadn’t really decided yet. so now i’m thinking about how i’m going to do that while everyone is socially distant.
and just one more thing before i return to painting. after typing this and then casting a glance at the painting, i was rather shocked at how vibrant the colors are. i can honestly say this is a new path for me.
8/17/20 creek oil as it looked when i entered my studio
11:19 am: upon entering my studio i cast a rapid glance at this painting and saw much work is needed. so lets get going!
continuing work on 8/17/20 creek oil painting /
8/17/20 creek oil at 2:30pm
notice that grey rock in the 2pm version, below? there’s detail of it above right. this is a great example of how just one element in a painting that’s off can screw up the entire composition. see how much this painting gains after i removed it, in the 2:30pm version above? it’s also a great example of the process of painting, which is the subject of the talk mark bruell & i will do on august 28th, a week from friday. it had been scheduled for this friday the 21st, but carbondale is very smoky at the moment from the grizzly wildfire in nearby glenwood springs, which has grown to 26,000 acres and is 0% contained.
8/17/20 creek oil at 2pm
buck grazing outside my studio at noon
8/17/20 Creek Oil Painting at noon today
8/17/20 creek oil painting stage 3
11:01 AM: to avoid the mid-day heat we’ve been experiencing, i got a much earlier start today. as a matter of fact, this is the earliest i’ve arrived in my studio in many months. and that includes an 8am trip to town to go to the post office, where i was able to mail 2 packages without waiting in line at all.
so i meditated here in the studio instead of in our bedroom, had some coffee and jumped into work on 8/17/20 creek oil painting. i wanted to use yellow, especially one i love a lot, called brilliant yellow pale, by williamsburg, made in brooklyn, where i was born. referring tangentially to a creek photo shot on a recent trail walk, i riffed on a rock which has some gorgeous orange and black lichen. i’m getting back to work while it’s still a comfortable 75F in the studio. i’ll post more in a bit.