looking back to may,2019: watercolor 11 stage 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

at work moments ago on watercolor 130

DETAIL of watercolor 130

2:44 PM: in a few minutes we’re going to try & take an afternoon walk up the trail. i say try because we usually go in the cool of the morning. right now we’re in a transitional phase, and the current temperature of 65°F is right on the edge of what’s a comfortable walking temperature. we’ll see. this allows us to have our morning work time without interruption.

i started a new watercolor, working very slowly and leaving lots of white space. thus far, there’s no collaging; we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

watercolor 130, 10 x 13” as it looked moments ago

2020 watercolor 11 stage 1, 5/17/19 13x20”

8:17 AM: i was just browsing through photos in my 2020 watercolors folders and came upon this image. it was shot on may 17, 2019 when i was working on one of the earlier watercolors in the series: watercolor 11.

i was struck by it’s sparse elegant beauty, making me long for times past. and this was only 17 months ago! another, very personal indication of how our experience of time has shifted since the start of the covid pandemic.

this stage of the painting reveals an innocence and sense of discovery. i had just launched into this series, as a direct result of the tendonitis in my right shoulder, precipitated by the repeated stress of movements associated with the creation of large oil paintings. and i was still re-discovering the possibilities of painting in watercolor. i had made hundreds of mostly landscape watercolors during my 15 years in greece, and this re-engagement was allowing me to experiment with new ways of using the medium.

watercolor-collage 129 tweaked this morning / horses appear outside house /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 129 after re-sizing & tweaking

12:52 PM: last night i couldn’t look at watercolor/collage 129 too long before deciding to divide it into two pieces. after tweaking this one, i’m very glad i made that move.

while there are very beautiful passages, there was way too much going on in the larger horizontal version and it was becoming a struggle trying to make it work as a composition. too many layers of collage, too many directions for the confused eye to make sense of. the addition of the small but significant red half moon shape with the white dots on the upper right sealed the deal for me, creating a nice counterpoint for the eye on the upper right.

8:10 AM: about 6am this morning it was just starting to get light when i looked out the bedroom window and saw an animal i couldn’t recognize at first. we’ve never seen horses on our property, much less right outsied the bedroom window, so it took a moment for me to realize that i was looking at not one, but two fine looking horses grazing outside our house!

they remained for about 1/2 hour and then they were gone, as if they had never existed. fortunately, i captured them with my phone. we’ll ask around and try to find out if anyone is missing two horses in our neighborhood. there are stables a few miles away…..

watercolor-collage 129 transformed / creek oils then and now /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 129 at 4pm after a change to the lower left, breaking up that brown shape

watercolor/collage 129 at 2pm

watercolor/collage 129 at 2pm

1:58 PM: an interesting day. while going back and forth to my i-mac and with the sound on full, i totally re-worked 2020 watercolor/collage 129. i was watching a 2+ hour long live performance of my son dimitri’s theatrical production of his grandfather karagatsi’s novel, yungerman. he decided, since all theaters are closed at least until the end of the year, to create this live performance, which was watched in real time online by over 1,800 people around the world.'

so back and forth, back and forth, evaluating the play whilst evaluating the progress of the painting. only one small corner remains of yeasterdays version, as you can see in the photos BELOW: left: yesterdays version; only the leaves on the lower right and the passage on the upper right remain pretty much as they were. remain

these two paintings hang on the north wall of hour living room. the one on the left was painted in 2001; the one on the right, a few weeks ago. in 2001 we were taking walks up the creek just as we do now. i would come back to my studio with photos i had shot and drawings and gouache paintings i had made, and translate them into these larger oils on linen. many of those larger oils were painted on a tinted ground, as was this one. that simply means that i went over the white canvas with a tan-ish color, which i left thoroughly dry before starting to paint. this is a technique i learned during my 15 years in greece, and it derives from the byzantine icon painting techniques. the painting on the right was done just a few weeks ago, and benefits from many of the lessons i learned while making all those watercolors.

starting a new watercolor to be collaged over / /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 129 13x20” at the end of my painting day today

2:23 PM: we’re having guests for a deck dinner in a few hours, so i’m wrapping up for the day to go back & help set the table, etc. as i predicted, i took watercolor/collage 129 to a very different place than where it was in stage 1, BELOW. pieces of maps have appeared, pieces of earlier unsuccessful watercolors. the green bit at the top right is a remnant of some paintings 2 kids made here in my studio a few years ago. just below that are the last remnants of the cube drawings i mentioned yesterday, that mikela had asked me to make for the actionlab 360 educational produce we’ve been developing.

it seems, when i break up an image, it gives permission for my individualized marks to appear more readily and with greater purity. and, as i’ve often said, the distillation of rockness and creekness sings a very different song than a more photographic image. and the further i travel down this path, the more i deeply know myself. just as your features change and ripen over the years, your mark making does as well.

watercolor/collage 129 stage 1

12:48 PM: i started this new watercolor/collage 129, which for the moment is just a watercolor. collaging will commence shortly.

it has some beautiful elements, but in my current state of mind and spirit, it’s asking to become something beyond a branch, water and some rocks.

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.