a snowy day with another spectacular sunset / continuing to build my story /  by Philip Tarlow

3:21 PM: today was a cloudy, snowy day. we got about 2.5 inches. a lot more up on the peaks. i didn’t have the juice to paint. so i continued gathering material to achieve my goal of telling my story as a painter.

my vision is to review my work, starting with my 15 years in greece, transitioning to my time in nyc & my shows at fischbach gallery and on to my history here in colorado, which includes my long history as a member of gremillion & co. fine art in houston, texas.

BELOW: a sampling of work spanning these periods

changes to watercolor/collage 143 / tracing development of my creek oil paintings/sunset /  by Philip Tarlow

4:44 PM from our west wndows

4:44 PM from our west wndows

watercolor/collage 143 following the work i did this morning

BELOW: LEFT-YESTERDAYS VERSION, RIGHT-TODAYS

4:22 PM: just bck from salida. before leaving at 12:30 PM, i made some changes to watercolor/collage 143, which i had worked on yesterday. i didn’t like the figure i put in, so i took it out and instead put in one of the figures, viewed from above, from the photos i shot at my space gallery exhibition in denver last year. i made some other changes as well. the bit of red on the lower left is new, as well as the yellow crayon on top of the tree trunk and the turquoise beneath the newly inserted figure, and the purple shadow beneath his feet. it’s song is more vibrant. the flat plane of the surface is more like a tight drum, with the colors and forms vibrating to the beat. right now i may be influenced somewhat by the pain in the two spots on my face my dermatologist cut into. so i’ll leave it alone for now and see how i feel about this revision tomorrow morning.

8:22 AM: i’ve been contempleting a short book tracking my development as a painter over the past 50 years. with that in mind, this morning i shot details of four creek inspired oil paintings from 2001 to the present. this is the beginning of a project that will take time, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? i’ll post my comments on the 4 details BELOW a bit later in the day.

i’ll have a short day in the studio in order to get to a doctors appointment this afternoon in salida.

top row: left-2020, right-2001 bottom row: left-2014 plein air right-2020

adding figures to watercolor/collage 141 & 143 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:18 PM: i liked what happened yesterday when i added a figure to watercolor/collage 142. so today i added ano/kato figures (figures viewed from above) to watercolor 141 & 143. BELOW you see the before & after, with 141 in the top row and todays version, with the the added figures on the right.

in watercolor/collage 141, i used the figure you’ve seen in a few previous watercolors: a high school girl seated on the floor of the school hallway, wearing a turquoise top. in watercolor/collage 143 in the bottom row, the figure is less obvious, and is a red headed school girl sitting in a chair at her desk, typing on her laptop. in case you’re wondering how i got access to these students, their schools were participating in the tests we were doing a few years back of our educational product, actionlab360, which will be introduced to schools here in our valley once they open back up this coming year.

so this is literally giving a whole new dimension to these watercolors. i don’t yet know where i’ll take it from here.

watercolor 148 / addition to watercolor/collage 142 / new kenyan bean /  by Philip Tarlow

3:40 PM: at the end of my work day, i took one of the cut out pieces of the unsuccessful watercolor i made this morning and added it to watercolor/collage 142. i think it works. BELOW: the before & after

2:12 PM: i was about to update this post when my computer crashed & restarted, so i lost the entire post. here’s the gist of it:

watercolor 148

i made a new watercolor on larger, smoother paper. i wasn’t happy with it, so i cut it into pieces and started fresh. for this new one: watercolor 148, i went back to the heavier arches watercolor paper i’ve been using, cut down to 10x13”. it’s a variation on the theme of ano kato views from above integrated with creek-scapes. one good result of making a crappy one then moving on to something else is that i was able to create a more minimal image. i had already gotten out that urge to do more, and was satisfied with this spare result.

7:53 am: from my FB post this morning:

breakfast with vuillard / making the drawing for watercolor 147 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 147 at 3pm

3:14 PM: i began adding color to the drawing i made this morning. ABOVE is the current state of watercolor 147. the geometric elements from the MOMA photo interact with the biomorphic icy creek shapes and the 3 figures, creating a dance of positive & negative spaces. let’s see what happens tomorrow…

drawing for watercolor 147

10:52 AM: i’ll be taking a break at 11:30 & going back to the house for a zoom with our friends in germany, who will be returning to their crestone home here in the baca in a couple of months. so i got to the studio a tad earlier than usual and, after a delicious breakfast of smoked salmon & boursin on a toasted bagel, i began the drawing for watercolor 147, about which i’ve been thinking since last night. we both agreed that watercolor 146 was successfully resolved yesterday afternoon.

breakfast with vuillard

this drawing is based upon a photo by noah kalina: a view from above of figures in MOMA; my photo of figures viewed from above at my space gallery exhibition in denver and one of my recent photos of icy creek on the trail head leading up to tashi gomang stupa.

my vision has been evolving; it now involves layering views of figures from above and views of the creek.

tweaks to watercolor/collage 146 / something new? / our boulder trip yesterday /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 146 at the end of my painting day

DETAIL: watercolor/collage 146 following todays tweaks

3:06 PM: so i did, as i said earlier, make some changes to watercolor 146, but they were a bit more extensive than i had thought, and include a small area of collage, making this watercolor/collage 146. i can’t yet tell whether it’s now too crowded or whether what i did is an improvement. BELOW are the before & after; what do you think?

6:33am skies over the sangre de christo mountains, as we drove the 200 miles to boulder

last nights dinner

breakfast this morning in my studio

11:53 AM: yesterday we left for boulder at 6 am and returned at 4:30PM. a long day, which included a root canal & some costco food shopping. the skies were magnificent as we left crestone, and even more so upon our return. mikela got smoked salmon, bagels & boursin, amongst many other goodies. so this morning, my studio breakfast was delicious. last night, following our return, we had some of mikela’s famous veggie & lentil soup with a side of smoked salmon & boursin on crackers, accompanied by one of my favorite ipa’s.

i’m about to make a few tweaks to yesterdays watercolor. stay tuned and i’ll post when i’m done. then i may start a new one.

continuing watercolor 146 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 146 at 3:30pm

2:24 PM: aware of the importance of all the white space in this watercolor, i proceeded to work on it, doing a very little bit at a time. now i’ve stopped for the day, and will re-evaluate once we’re back from boulder, where i’ll have my root canal tomorrow.

BELOW: the before & after

i’m trying various maneuvers to heal my foot until i see the doc in denver in a month. the one i saw in salida may have given an accurate diagnosis, but his suggestions on how to deal with it were amateurish at best. the guy i made an appointment with in denver is rated as the best in his field. so until i can get in to see him, i’m trying ice, massage, taping big toe & one next to it together to allow the ligaments to relax & everything to align…..all stuff we found online in our search for solutions to capsulitis. i should have the new pair of boots recommended for this condition in about a week…

this morning i was reading my big vuillard book, and found this painting, BELOW, for which he used photos he shot from the first floor looking down. i learned that he used photography a lot for his work, and simply rearranged the composition and positioning to his liking, much as i’ve been doing.

STARTING WORK ON WATERCOLOR 146 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:34 PM: we’re walking to the stupa this afternoon, so i’m stopping a bit early. but i just ran out of steam anyway! i was able to schedule my root canal for wednesday, and my hope is that my energy will be a lot better following that procedure. i had thought i could avoid it, and last time i visited the periodontist he kind of left it up to me. it was better for a while, but now i’m taking tylenol every 4 hours & the pain is extreme.

enough about my teeth! i started watercolor 146 a while ago. it’s still at an early stage, and i’m riffing on the discoveries i made yesterday with watercolor 145. this one is based on a photo i shot in the then brand new acropolis museum in athens, as well as the photo i used yesterday of the high school girls sitting on the floor in the hallway, working on their laptops. a bit of creek water has entered the picture, and we’ll see how it evolves tomorrow.

watercolor 146, stage 1

gingerly continuing work on watercolor 145 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 145 as it looked at the end of my painting day

2:37 PM: this morning i confronted one of those familiar situations: do more work on a very spare and elegantly simple composition, or just leave it alone?

my initial intention yesterday was to integrate creek views with this view from above of students sitting in a school hallway and working on their laptops. today however, i felt differently. i wanted to integrate a different view from above, of visitors to my exhibition at space gallery in denver. once i painted the larger figure wearing flip flops, i surrounded him with creek water, creating a surreal image of a guy seemingly walking on water. the second, smaller figure is holding a gallery info sheet, which he looks at as he walks across the gallery floor. thus, an unlikely meeting of 2 female junior high school students and 2 guys attending a gallery opening was created, juggling space/time in the process.

BELOW: the watercolor as i left it yesterday, and as it looks currently

yesterdays walk to the stupa / evaluating watercolor/collage 144 / starting watercolor 145 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:42 PM: but how could i leave my studio without a little collaging, right? so i made some changes to watercolor/collage 141. it needs more, but i’m leaving it like this for now. BELOW are the before & after images. the tree trunk was way too heavy & dark and in general the image needed breaking up. but it ain’t there yet. i’m not attached to a result on this one.

3:12 PM: i’m stopping for the day. taking it slow and easy. this is stage 2. as yet, aside from a few light grey ripples in the water, you can’t yet tell that there’s creek-scape happening simultaneously with the school hallway image. there 2 girls don’t suspect that they’re on the rocks! the blues, greens and pinks dance well together though and less said is always preferable. lets see where this goes tomorrow. i may start another one tomorrow, and move back and forth between the two.

stage 1, watercolor 145 13x10”

2:15 PM: i started work on watercolor 145 this morning. it’s very early stage right now, and looks like this.

i’m combining 2 images: students sitting in a hallway working on their computers, as seen from above, and photos of the creek i shot yesterday on our walk up to the stupa. it will become clearer as i progress; i’m not yet sure where it’s going!

11/13/20 creek photographed on the way up to the stupa, about 4pm

a rare shot of me wearing a tie at a santa fe wedding

7:42 AM: yesterday afternoon around 3:45 we took our walk up to the tashi gomang stupa. it was warm for this time of year. the recent single digit nightime temperatures helped create ice sculptures, bathed in the runoff from the warmer day yesterday. the resulting distribution of whites and darks will find their way into new paintings i’ll be working on, possibly even later this morning.

in reviewing watercolor/collage 144 here at the house last night & this morning, i’m feeling good about it. the solutions i found, collaging those curved pieces of vellum, works as a novel way of indicating rushing, cascading creek water.

BELOW is a detail