a few thoughts /  by Philip Tarlow

2020 creek oil 4 with the temporary collaged paper

7:15 PM: this morning we took our trail walk, starting out at 39°F and rising to about 48°F at the end of our walk. so i didn’t get to my studio till a little after noon. i was understandably tired anad not really in the mood to do any painitng. as i looked at 2020 creek oil 4 however, i did have a moment of inspiration, when i placed a temporary collaged piece of white paper on the lower quadrant, compositionally joining the two canvasses.

i’ve been on a path towards abstraction for a while. looking at one of my many creek photos, you can see the source. all of the elements you see in my recent watercolor/collages are here. the colors, the patterns, the juxtaposition of forms…..the emerging visual language i find coming forth will likely continue for the forseeable future.

continued work on watercolor/collage 127 and 128 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 127 at the very end of my painting day

5 PM: as has been happening regularly in the recent past, i made some dramatic changes to one of the two watercolor/collages i worked on today. as i gazed at watercolor/collage 127 before heading back to the house, it seemed too crowded & busy; another common observation about something i’ve been working on all day.

when i make these modifications, i’m in a very focused state, bypassing the calculating part of my brain and, usually, taking out rather than adding elements. i’m going for a more elegantly simple place. so about an hour ago, i engaged in that process and what emerged or rather who emerged, was archille gorky. always somewhere in my consciousness, gorky’s mark making, spatial discoveries and solutions often come to the surface when i’m in the process of simplifying. i think nothing of collaging over a passage i’m in love with, attached to.

you don’t get to this point by planning, plotting. rather, you get there by listening, letting go of attachment. i do use my many printouts of the best of the creek photos i’ve shot at different times of the year, with morning or late afternoon light. i constantly refer to them, gaining tidbits of visual information: flowing water; wet rocks; fallen branches; grasses & leaves.

DETAIL: watercolor/collage 127

2:01 PM: today my focus is on these two watercolor/collages: 127 and 128. i seem to be moving further from any signs that relate directly to the creek, other than some references to flowing, bubbly water. i’m more excited about creting compositions, which always have biomorphic shapes, that allow the viewer to make up his/her own story. is what a whale? those remind me of leaves; etc. i still have plenty of maps, which were gifted to me by my dear friend dan, and they are playing a significant role in this series of watercolor/collages.

BELOW: left: watercolor/collage 128 13x20” right: watercolor/collage 127 10x13”

turning yesterdays upside down and starting watercolor-collage 127 and 128 / wallace stevens and the unexpected /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 128 13x20”

2:52 PM: although i’m not done with the new watercolor-collage 127, i started another new one, this time from scratch: watercolor-collage 128. although i’m calling it watercolor-collage 128, for the moment it’s just a watercolor with no collaging. knowing that there’s a good change i’ll add collage down the line gives me a certain freedom. nothing, in other words, is fixed, as it normally is with watercolor. at this point, i’m simply not satisfied unless i work into these new watercolors with collage. it’s the thrill of the unknown and unexpected. somehow, the great american poet wallace stevens was able to attain this using only words. if you take a look, you will see the unknown and unexpected at every turn. here’s a short example from “the emperor of ice cream:”

Screen Shot 2020-10-07 at 3.03.21 PM.png

the new 10x13” watercolor 127 as it looked moments ago

1:12 PM: i took one of the 2020 watercolors series i wasn’t completely satisfied with and began collaging over it, changing it’s name to 2020 watercolor 127. so far, i’m liking wha’s happening. i’m going back and forth with a new one i started, using the larger 13x20” format as well. i’ll post that when it gets further along.

watercolor/collage after todays changes

10:44 AM: after bringing watercolor/collage 126 over to the house & checking it out last night and this morning, i reached the conclusion that it was better turned upside down. i made a few tweaks this morning, which you can see in the image on the RIGHT. an orange mark has broken up the previously too dense mass of that dark shape on the right-middle. so if you compare it with the previous state, BELOW RIGHT, you’ll see how this small adjustment has lightened the entire composition and made it easier for the eye to travel about the surface.

BELOW LEFT: before flipping it 180°, and RIGHT: after; see what i mean?

watercolor-collage 126 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 126 at 1:46 pm

1:11 PM: i entered the studio this morning with the intention of doing more work on yesterdays 2020 creek oil 4, but i wasn’t in the right space to work in oil, so i took a creek watrecolor from last month and began working on it using collage. before long, it was unrecognizable and contained only fragments of its original self. i’m posting 3 stages of watercolor-collage 126 to give you some idea of my process of modifying this one. included in the collage materials are: maps, old oil palettes. a handwritten note from someone i don’t recognize and pieces of cut-up watercolors.

2020 creek oil 4 /  by Philip Tarlow

7:28 PM: watching fauci on cuomo. had a sweet dinner on the deck. saw an elegant doe with her 2 kids strolling across our property, watched another beautiful sunset, made richer by the lingering smoke from colorado wildfires. looking straight down, a shot a photo of our crstone conglomerate rocks.

3:19 PM: yesterday after working on 2020 creek oil 3, i did a bit of work on a new one: 2020 creek oil 4, which has the same dimensions as 3, two 16x20” canvases=16x40”

i didn’t get much sleep last night due to a toothache, and we took our trail walk this morning, which meant i didn’t arrive in my studio till a little after noon. so my work time today was short. nonetheless, i feel good about what i did, which incorporates some lessons i learned from what i did yesterday.

i’m waiting for a new air compressor to arrive this week, so that i can stretch more canvases. the old one died, and using a manual staple gun is too hard on my arm & shoulder, so i’ll just wait till it gets here. it’s always good to have a number of stretched canvases, so i can grab one, or in this case two when i feel stuck one something i’m working on and want fresh energy.

2020 creek oil 4 16x40” at the end of my work day

on the trail this morning

our trail walk was good; it had been over a week since we last walked due to mikela’s fall, which left her bruised and in pain. on the way down today, it was my turn to fall. those loose rocks can be treacherous! fortunately, i just got some bruises on my palms, but nothing serious.

a bit more on 2020 creek oil 3, and a temporary frame /  by Philip Tarlow

3:29 PM: we have to leave shortly for our jour fixé outdoor dinner with our german friends. they’re making the main course, which is going to be delicious, and we’re bringing desert.

i did a bit more work on 2020 creek oil 3 today, and, in order to keep the 2 canvases together when i look at them on the wall, added a very makeshift frame using some leftover construction wood. make shift though it is, it makes a huge difference when looking at it. now that i’m looking at it in it’s frame, i can see that, although i like the shift from the spare white on the left and the fully filled in one on the right, i could see doing a bit more to the left, spare side. right now it seems too much like two separate paintings, although there are obvious compositional connections between the two. it may be that the blue green on the top of the canvas on the right needs to extend somewhat to the left….we’ll see tomorrow how it shakes out.

2020 creek oil 3 at the end of my painting day today

this morning before starting to paint, i looked through a folder with iphone photos shot in may of 2016. i’ve posted a few BELOW. some made me want to make a series of paintings based just upon the photos in this folder.

continued work on 2020 creek oil 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:51 PM: this is the final stage today….i was briefly considering abandoning the blank canvas on the left and usimg it for something else. but it was so cool to have a fully loaded composition on the right and something so spare on the left, and the challenge with that was to integrate the two somehow. more and more this is reminding me of the recent watercolor/collages i’ve been making. BELOW is an example of what i’m getting at. on the left is watercolor-collage 125 and on the right is the painting i’m currently working on: 2020 creek oil 3. i think this is a clear example of how the watercolor-collage series has impacted the creek oils i’m doing now.

2020 creek oil 3 at the end of my painting day today

3 PM: a new blank canvas has entered the picture, we’ll see if it sticks around…

2020 creek oil 3 -3pm

1:36 PM: this is how the painting looks right now, as i continue work. you can see that some naples yellow reddish has entered the picture, while greenish blue dominates the upper quadrant.thus the yellow on the rock at the right gains more resonance. the marks scraped into the wet paint may or may not continue to exist in my next round, coming up.

a clear progression is taking place. the 125 watercolors i made, starting back in march, led to a series of watercolor/collages, which paved the way for this latest 2020 creek oil series. how i am going about abstracting the always creek-based images is changing. i am freed more and more from the constraints, as i now see them, of local, naturalistic color, where rocks are grey, branches are siena and water is blue.

and now, back to work.

12:56 PM: i left 2020 creek oil 2 and for now am considering it resolved. so i picked up where i left off yesterday with 2020 creek oil 3. these smaller stretcher bars leave a lot to be desired; they are often warped, so i may have to rethink using them in pairs as i’m doing here, since they don’t fit together perfectly. here’s where i’m at after an initial session, but i’m about to make changes, so stay tuned.

2020 creek oil 3 16x40” on two 16x20” stretcher bars this is how it looks at the moment of posting

salida trip / todays in the studio-continued work on 2020 creek oil 2 / starting 2020 creek oil 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:23 PM: i had stretched some 16x20” canvases last month & they’ve been sitting on the floor of my east studio wall since then. after working on 2020 creek oil 2 this morning, i was in the mood & had plenty of fresh squeezed oils on my palette, so i grabbed two & got to work. here’s the result so far:

2020 creek oil 3 16x40” oil on 2 16x20” canvases

 

BELOW 2020 creek oil 2

2020 creek oil 2 26x78” oil on linen

1:19 PM: i resumed work on 2020 creek oil 2 a few hours ago. while having my coffee & before starting to paint i had the impusle to google diebenkorn; can you tell?

sometimes (all the time) you have to let go of your pictures of what something could be and just let it emerge as it will. this of course is old news; it just keeps renewing, making it new news. new news includes everything going on for you in the moment. somehow, it took a diebenkorn to remind me of that today.

the shipwreck sandwich

8:59 AM: yesterday afternoon we drove 60 miles north over poncha pass to salida, where we met with our dear old friend julie, i had a dental appointment, we did some food shopping and we picked up a couple of loaves of my favorite fresh baked honeywheat bread from sweeties. mikela also got me a great hot melted tuna & avocado sandwich they make, called shipwreck. we wore masks most of the time, although corona cases in salida are pretty low. even a short break from being in my studio usually results in a fresh perspective on my new work, so lets see what happends in an hour or so.

BELOW: two shots of sweeties sandwich shop in salida, colorado.

how many artists do you know who could /  by Philip Tarlow

11:39 AM: how many artists do you know who could make a pot of coffee, make a pot of oatmeal with fruit, nuts & seeds, work on an oil painting & get ready for an imminent trip to salida in the space of a little over an hour? here’s what i did during that narrow window, and we’re on our way!! more later…thanks for visiting my site on a regular basis; it means A LOT!

2020 watercolor-collage 125 / 2020 creek oil 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

2020 creek oil 2 26 x 78” as it looked moments ago.

todays palette, with my beloved persian rose in the lower right

2:55 PM: for some reason, which i’m going to attribute to debate exhaution and disgust, my energy is very low and i ache everywhere. mikela is feeling similarly but she has a good reason: the hard face-forward fall she took on our way back down the trail 2 days ago. her eye is totally black & blue, her knee got banged up and her entire body aches.

in any case, although i couldn’t imagine getting any work done today, i made brownies with walnuts and did some work on 2020 creek oil 2. it’s in an interesting place now. basically, i added the two logs you see, the swirls of blue, and those red strands we see growing in the creek, usually emerging from under a log or an embankment.

she loves her long-narrowness, which is very encouraging to my brushes skimming the surface and my palette knife scraping suggestive shapes into the wet oil paint.

she is breathing ok, but not yet singing in full throated bursts of sound, as do the HU. (they do mongolian throat singing with contemporary lyrics….do a youtube search; you will either love or hate them.)

creek oil 2 26x78” as it looks right now, a few days after whiting over it

watercolor-collage 125 10x13”

11:18 am: just arrived in my studio. this is the current state of creek oil 2 and the final version of 2020 watercolor-collage 125. i’ll be getting to work after i meditate & have some coffee.