yesterdays trail walk/sunset/moonrise / new ano kato 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:15 PM: i made a new gouache today: new ano kato 2. it’s based on photos shot from the upper floor of space gallery in denver, where i was having a show.

BELOW: ano kato 1 & 2 together on the easel

8:21 AM: it was too icy on the cottonwood trail yesterday, so we walked up the stupa trail. shorter and less visually interesting, but no snow & ice. at the start of the trail, we saw the creek roaring with snowmelt, snow covered rocks…quite stunningly beautiful!

two night ago i photographed the moon rising over the sangres as the sun was setting. it only lasted for a few minutes, so i had to be quick, even though i was on my was down the stairs, food in hand. what did we do before i-phones?

starting the first new ano kato /  by Philip Tarlow

12:07 PM:about to start the first new ano kato gouache; i’ll update when i can…

ano kato II 1 10x13” gouache on paper

i started, and perhaps completed the first small ano kato II gouache, which is 10x13” not yet sure where this is headed, but i will likely make a few more of these small gouaches before moving, perhaps, to a mid-sized oil on linen. there’s a newfound freedom entering the picture. in the first ano kato series, the figures were not as loose. something new is emerging, and i just have to stay with it to learn what that is.

this is, by the way, based upon one of the photos i shot in the then brand new acropolis museum in athens in 2009. the floors, as you will see in future paintings, are transparent, allowing for some very interesting lighting effects and, on the lower floor, permitting a view of the ancient ruins upon which the museum was built.

searching through photos for ano kato possibilities /  by Philip Tarlow

1:51 PM: i’ve been searching through photos on an old drive for photos i might want to use for a new ano kato series. before i go too much further, i’ll print a few out and see what happens on a small scale using gouache on paper. there may be some collaging involved; we’ll see. BELOW are a few of the ones i’ve selected thus far. on the top row are photos shot in the athens acropolis museum in 2009

moving on /  by Philip Tarlow

detail of an ano kato painting in progress; this one based on photos i shot at the metropolitan museum in nyc

3:51 PM: today i gazed critically at the 138 watercolors and watercolor/collages i’ve made over recent months. you who are regular visitors to this site have followed this process. today something different happened. i looked at some older work, and saw that what i’m currently doing, while it may be more evolved from what i was doing a few years ago, it’s basically the same dance of creek inspired biomorphic shapes. and when i went back to 2015 while scrolling through the more than 34,000 photos in my i-cloud files, i saw in many of them the same use of collaged elements breaking up the image in a fashion not unlike what i’m currently up to.

i noticed i was becoming a little tired, even bored with this path. i felt a longing for the excitement i felt making my ano kato series of paintings: you’ll find that page under WORKS, above, or copy this link & visit the page. https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid

i have an appetite for revisiting that spirit of views from above, which i’ve always been crazy about. ano kato, by the way, means topsy turvey in modern greek. so i’m thinking i might start down that road, possibly starting out with small gouaches on paper and progressing to mid-sized oils in the 36” range. i have a feeling that what i’ve learned making all those watercolors will show up big time in this proposed new work: looser, freer more overtly painterly brush strokes and more boldness in the colors i use, departing form the mostly earth tones found in the ano kato series.

BELOW: on the top row: one of the ano kato paintings in process and, on the right, examining the completed painting on the easel in my studio, shot in 2015. the subject matter is derived from photos i took in MOMA.

on the bottom row: a detail of one of my gaze series paintings in process, and on the right, another gaze series painting in process, showing my use of collage, including pieces of maps.

cropping watercolor/collage 137, 134 & 133 creating watercolor/collage 138 / snow last night continuing into this afternoon /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 138

4:28 PM: towards the end of my day in the studio, emboldened by all the cropping i did, i made a watercolor of a beautiful log i had photographed on our last trail walk. i immediately cut it out of the piece of watercolor paper it had been painted on, leaving a very interesting negative shape in the watercolor paper. i cut the remaining positive shap into small biomorphic pieces and used some of them, in addition to a piece of map, to make this new watercolor/collage 138.

a crop a day keeps the extraneous away!

watercolor/collage 137 after cropping

3:53 pm: an interesting day, indeed! i started out by severely cropping watercolor/collage 137, which i had worked on extensively yesterday. i kept the left side and discarded the right. well, not actually discarded; it still exists, just not as a completed piece.

after cropping it, i placed it on the back side of a piece of linen canvas and placed it ina white frame. the plexi distorts it a bit, but you get the idea. everything i loved about the larger, pre-cropping piece is here: the elegant branch cut from an earlier watercolor, which continues down the composition with lines in watercolor directly on the board; the understated blues and greens; the outlines of rocks in grey watercolor and the zinger on the lower right, sealing the deal.

i had placed 133 & 134 on my easels, temporarily framed by white mats, which cropped the originals. after cropping 137, i realized i like these two way better this way. BELOW you will see how they look.

watercolors 133 and 134 cropped by mats

BELOW: watercolor 133 and 134 before placing the mats over them

9:47 AM: so far we’ve gotten 4 3/4” with more expected later this afternoon, and of course quiote a bit more up on the peaks. this should move the needle at least a little on our drought situation, and hopefully will help with the wildfires currently burning. as i write this the temperature is 15° F and not expected to go above 22° F.

it will be kind of dark in my studio, but i’m hoping to get some work done this afternoon. i’ll update once i have photos of todays process to post.

more work on watercolor/collage 137 as the snowstorm approaches /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 137 as it looked moments ago, at about 2pm

2:03 PM: as the wind picks up, the temperature drops and the clouds race by, announcing the immenant arrival of what may be a major snowstorm, i continued work on watercolor/collage 137. i’m walking that edge, asking politely that my mind be quiet while i listen to my gut and pay attention to my sense of space. i do cast glances at the ones i’ve done recently and steal from them what worked, while making it new. probably what any decent songwriter or novelist goes through.

at the same time, now that i’ve broken my own rule about not collaging over other collaged pieces, i’m conscious of not doing that too much and in so doing creating too many layers, which can end up looking messy.

pieces of older watercolors i wasn’t happy with and cut up are serving me well today, especially the ones containing branches. the one i just collaged a few miniutes ago, with the green on the upper right, really struck a chord, enabling the entire surface to vibrate and sing.

BELOW

on the left, yesterdays version. you can see that what i took out by collaging over it: the map bits ceter-right and the green and pink piece of paper palette in the upper center were essentially fragmenting the composition, whereas the bits that have replaced them add coherence, and allow the successful area on the left to breathe and sing its song.

a new IPA / changes to yesterdays watercolor/collage 136 / watercolor/collage 137 stage 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 137 19 1/4x 19 1/4” stage 1

watercolor/collage 136 after a few minor changes.

2:44 PM: i made a few small changes to 136 and started 137. in 137, for the first time in this series, i used watercolor to paint directly on the acid free mounting board

1:07 PM: after making numerous additions to this one, i was, as often happens, shocked by how much was going on. everything i added seemed to be competing for attention. BELOW you can see what i mean, on the left. and on the right, the current state.

time to have a slice of leftover pizza and contemplate my next moves.

8:43 AM: last night at dinner i tried one of the 4 new brews mikela got for me while i was at the dentist in boulder a few days ago: a double ipa called king sue by toppling goliath brewing, out of decorah, iowa. i liked it a lot; here’s one of the many reviews written oct.7 in beer advocate, which gave it a score of 100!

4.96/5  rDev +7.4%
look: 4.75 | smell: 5 | taste: 5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 5

Looks great, opaque and medium gold. Smells of orange and mango. Tastes the same with a little bit of grapefruit and a slightly bitter finish. Massively juicy with the finish to bring you back to earth. Makes my top 10, probably my top 5.

today will be our last unusually warm day before the cold & snowy weather hits tomorrow night into monday. i’ll be in my studio in a few hours and we’ll see what’s in store. i’m liking what i did yesterday more and more as i gaze at it here in the house. that curved ink mark relly works.

it should go up to about 65 this afternoon, when we’ll take another walk up cottonwood at about 3-ish.

WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 136 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:16 PM:going to walk up the trail; more about this new one when we’re back

7:34 PM: so we walked up the cottonwood trail, which used to be our favorite. it was great to be back, and with the clear, warm afternoon light, i was able to shoot some very cool photographs. of course i did fall; this time not as the result of tripping on a loose rock, but a loose lace on one of my boots.

it’s obvious, if you look at my recent watercolor/collages, where my inspiration comes from. i’m posting a few of the ones i shot, and have included a tight shot of a dead branch which, amongst other qualities, is the very definition of naples yellow. and the marks you see, made by tiny tiny critters who love dead wood, are soul food for me.

WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 135 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 135 stage 2, at the end of my painting day

watercolor/collage 135, stage 1 19 1/4x19 1/4”

5:02 PM: i tuckered myself out today! so i’ll be brief. I started watercolor/collage 135 this morning. a good beginning and then it got a bit too much. i’ll evaluate when i’m fresh, in the morning.

modifications to watercolor/collage 134 / creek painting in houston collection /  by Philip Tarlow

6:54 PM: my friend, co-director of the gallery representing me in houston, texas: gremillion & Co. fine art posted this today on facebook. it’s one of the creek paintings i made in 2001, in oil on linen. i love seeing where my work is hanging; it makes my experience in the studio more meaningful. i do make art so that it canbe seen and enrich people’s lives!

we have a sister painting in our living room. it’s part of a series i did earlier on in our creek walks, when i used to jump naked into the 40° creek.

what i did today, below, and what i’ve been doing recently making these creek watercolors is an evolution from what you see hanging on this wall.

4:45 PM: we got a late strat on our morning walk and i didn’t arrive in my studio till about 1:30. by the time i had my coffee it was 2:30.

in looking at watercolor/collage 134 yesterday at the house, i was bothered by the green watercolor at the top, which was added at the last minute yesterday afternoon. so i collaged over it with thin, semi-transparent white paper from a roll i have, and then made some marks with crayon and collaged a cutout piece from an invitation i got from la louver gallery (in venice, ca.) in 2015. i may need to make further modifications tomorrow morning when i’m fresh. BELOW you can view and compare yesterdays version on the left with what i just did.