revisions to watercolor 157 / continuing watercolor/collage 158 /  by Philip Tarlow

6:06 PM: i did more work on watercolor/collage 157 this morning. the back and legs of the central figure walking up the stairs were bothering me. so i worked on them, staying with the overall feel of the painting. i did more work on the back of his head, and there’s also a new collaged piece just to our right the head. finally, i worked on the garment, introducing shadows that add depth and movement. for me, that bit of light blue and pink in the newly collaged bit next to his head comletes this painting. it’s one of those in the moment discoveries that can’t be planned. and it’s one of the reasons you see such an abundance of cut up bits of previous watercolors, maps, etc. on my collage work table.

you can compare the two versions BELOW

continuing watercolor/collage 157 the story of the girl at pithara / starting watercolor/collage 158 /  by Philip Tarlow

the creek at the base of the stupa trail yesterday, 3:40pm

stage 1 of watercolor/collage 158

2:26 PM: we’re about to start our stupa walk in 45 minutes. a full day, it’s been, as you see from today’s post. about an hour ago i started work on watercolor/collage 158, inspired by a photo of the creek i shot on yesterdays walk.

it’s still in an early phase. nonetheless, it gives us clear signs of where it’s headed. it’s likely that, tomorrow, collaged elements may be introduced, which will transport it from a realist painting of the creek to an event beyond realism and into dream-space.

11:36 AM: arrived early at my studio following a quick trip to town for diced tomatoes to be used in our spaghetti dinner. mikela and i are experimenting with one of the many hundreds of activities in our middle/high school product, actionlab360. this activity involves blanking out words with a marker in an article you like, to create a poem. so before jumping back in to yesterdays watercolor, i did the experiment, and here’s the result. the idea, for the kids, is to become more inventive with words and meaning.

having completed that first experiment (there will be more, and i’m going to propose it to my grandson philip in athens) i continued work on watercolor/collage 157, which i started yesterday, & is based on photos i shot last friday of the delivery guys bringing our new couches & pillows up the stairs. here’s what it looked like about an hour ago; not sure yet if i’ll do more or leave it alone for today & start something new. collaged elements have been added, the yellows have been intensified and i did some work on the legs of the guy in the middle. at first, creek water began roiling around his ankles. but that didn’t work at all (it was coming from my head, not my brush) so i collaged some white paper over it & reworked his lower legs in blue, which i like.

i’m in conversation with an author in greece, whose novel will be published in 2021. for the cover of the book, she’s using an image from a watercolor i made in 2005, of a girl on a rock at pithara, a small waterfall in the hills of the island of andros.

interestingly, she asked my to tell a little of the story behind the watercolor, and this is what i sent her. i’m positng it because i’ve been talking about putting together the story of my journey as an artist, and her request created an opportunity to dive in, albeit further towards the end of my story.

this is the cropped image of my 2005 painting the author has chosen for her book cover

“You will find the answers to some of your questions about the image on this page of my 2015 blogs:

https://www.philiptarlow.com/dailyblog/2015/1/26/10-years-agopaintings-of-andros-greece-in-gouache-on-paper-from-2005

This painting, in gouache on paper, was made in 2005. That year, over the Easter holiday, I visited my son Dimirtri in Andros, where he has a big, beautiful home on the sea, in the Plakoura neighborhood of Chora, capital of Andros. His grandmother, the great painter Niki Karagatsi, was born in this house.

Two of his friends from Athens were there, and one day we all went to Pithara together. Pithara is a beautiful, small waterfall in the hills near the village of Apoikia. I've made many plein air paintings of this beautiful spot, so I know it well. I shot lots of photos that day, and when I returned to my studio in Crestone, I used some of them to create the series of paintings you see on this page of my blog. The following year, they were shown in my 2006 solo exhibition at Skoufa Gallery in Athens. They are now in private collections in Athens. One of my favorite subjects is the human figure in the landscape. Corot, and so many other painters, made great paintings with this subject. My dear friend & mentor Tsarouchis made some of my favorite paintings of figures sitting & standing on Pnika, adjacent to the Acropolis.The attached painting is just one of many paintings I've made of figures in the landscape. This one is based on a photo I shot at a well known stone bridge on Andros, of a woman fetching something she sees in the stream. We'll never know what it was she saw. In the gouache you will be using for your cover, Dimitri's friend, lets call her Maria, is looking at the falls, with her back to us, awed by the beauty: the fragrances, the colors, the sounds of the falling water, the light....It may be that, in this fleeting moment, sitting on the rock, she had a flash of deep understanding of who she is in all of this, and how her identity is merged with, inseparable from, nature.

girl at the bridge, 2005, gouache on paper

My love affair with the figure in the landscape began when I was 6 years old. From 6 to 16 I spent 2 months every summer at Birchwoods, a camp in Huntington, Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Hills. You can learn more about Birchwoods on my Story page: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio There was a worker who, every afternoon, would stand in a relaxed pose, leaning on his shovel, and gaze at the landscape. He struck a deep chord in my soul, which guided my journey as an artist for the following seven decades. In Athens, he was personified by a street sweeper in Plaka, Athens. He worked just below my studio window, overlooking the Tower of the Winds. His name was Kyriakos, and I made countless paintings & drawings of him in my studio, leaning on his broom in much the same way as the worker in Birchwoods leaned on his shovel. Gazing out my studio window, seeming to contemplate the universe. In reality, he was watching in case his boss showed up and caught him posing for an artist when he should have been working!

BELOW: one of my many paintings of kyriakos with his broom, to which i refer in my email to the author in greece.

starting watercolor/collage 157 /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 157 22x15” stage 1 (maybe)

2:45 PM: we’re walking up to the stupa in half an hour, so i’ll be brief. i started (and completed?) watercolor/collage 157 this morning, and worked on it all day until a few minutes ago. once again, the couch delivery team provided great material; this one is form shot i took as they brought the couch pillows up the stairs. i love the vertical format. the bit of map on the upper window collages over the valley view, which was becoming too specific & detracting from the cubist-like geometry of the composition. remember, this is, first and foremost, a painting, consisting of marks in a 2 dimensional surface singing a song and dancing to the music.

my collage table is getting interestinger by the day. there’s no real way to make it “orderly;” bits of cut-up earlier watercolors vie with maps, old paper palettes, tape & glue to retain a visible spot on the table, only to be buried an hour later.

modifications to watercolor 155 / starting watercolor/collage 156 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:47 PM: i made some additions to watercolor/collage 155 this morning, and then started watercolor/collage 156. the changes to 155, aside from the removal of the mask on the figure to the left, are collaged pieces attached temporarily, so that we can look at them & evaluate tonight & tomorrow morning. so i can remove any or all that don’t work in the composition.

the initial drawing for watercolor/collage 156 has that beautiful simplicity i love; lets see how long it lasts! we’re taking our stupa walk now, so until tomorrow.

watercolor/collage 156 17x22” stage 1

tweaks to watercolor/collage 153 & 154 / starting watercolor/collage 155 /  by Philip Tarlow

i made some small but critical additions to watercolor/collage 153 & 154, then started watercolor/collage 155, also based on photos i shot of the new couches being set up 2 days ago. a lighter touch and more spare compositions characterize all three of these.

BELOW, top row: on the left is watercolor/collage 153 as it looked yesterday; on the right you can detect a few additions in the figure on the left. and on the bottom row is watercolor/collage 154, where you’ll see some changes to the figure on the left and around the plants. they are minor additions, but important to the balance of the overall composition.

once i completed the above tweaks, i strated work on watercolor/collage 155. i have mixed feelings about using a photos of figures that’s not shot from above, since that’s what really turns me on. at the last minute i added a passage from 153 & 154: the figure on the right (mikela) with the red door frame. the two guys arranging the new couches are wearing masks & gloves, and the view out the windows is of the san luis valley, looking west. a few marks have been collaged onto the figures, removing them one step from a naturalistic portrayal.

crop of watercolor/collage 152, continuing work on watercolor/collage 153 / watercolor/collage 154 / the easy chair /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 153 as it looked at 4pm

watercolor/collage 154 at 4pm

3:48 PM: so i’m calling it a day. i continued to work on both watercolor/collage 153 & 54, going back & forth between the two so as not to get stuck on one or the other or to overwork either of them. so far, so good.

154 is clearly not as far along as 153, and 153 has the edge in terms of that first burst of inventiveness that comes out the first time i’m riffing on a new photo, which in this case is one of the shots i took yesterday of the couch delivery seen from above. that bit of collages blue in 153 is hard to match, as is the freshness of the marks.

watercolor/collage 153 at 2pm

2:23 PM: i did a bit more work on watercolor/collage 153, adding a piece of paper palette with grey marks and a bit of map behind the head of the figure to the left. simultaneously working on watercolor/collage 154 is helping me take it slow with this one.

in my new easy chair, taking it easy. above my right shoulder: the revised watercolor/collage 153

watercolor/collage 153 with new collaged element in blue

12:13 PM: yesterday our new couches were delivered to the house & a close friend took the old ones for use in his studio. there was a matching chair, which haas a new home next to the main door in my studio. tried it out for the first time today, and i love it! i.m able to gaze clear across the 40 foot length of the studio & look at whatever i’ve got sitting on my 2 easels & on the east wall. or, as i’m doing in this photo, i cangaze out my south windows across the valley to sisnaajini (mt. blanca).

above my right shoulder is the newly revised watercolor/collage 153.

watercolor/collage 152 post-cropping this morning

10:58 AM: watercolor/collage 152 was getting way too crowded for me, and it was overworked. so i cropped it and it will remain watercolor/collage 153.

and so now i’m diving back in to watercolor/collage 153. i’ll update a bit later, once i’ve done some work.

changes to watercolor/collage 152 / new couches arrive / starting watercolor/collage 153 /  by Philip Tarlow

5:50 PM: after doing more work on watercolor/collage 152, i started watercolor/collage 153, based on photos i shot this morning of our new couch delivery. here you see watercolor/collage 152 as it looked at the end of my painting day.

after working, perhaps too much, on this one, i felt i needed to start something new. this morning our new couches were delivered and i shot photos from above of the delivery team bringing them in, carrying them upstairs and putting them in the living room. i drew on one of those photos for this next watercolor/collage 153. this is stage one of the new painting. it vhas that stark simplicity i always envision maintaining throughout the process. the two guys, at the top, and mikela opening the door, on the left, have been drawn in watercolor with no preliminary drawing.

watercolor/collage 152 at 1pm

1:09 PM: after looking at watercolor/collage 152 last night & this morning, i felt it needed more work. the bare breasted figure wasn’t working and the diagonal log was too prominent, taking over the whole composition. so today i got back to work on it & made numerous revisions, i think for the better.

but i still feel it needs work. i’ll update following the next round.

this morning the 2 new couches we’ve been waiting for arrived in a big semi. one of our friends came & took the old ones to use in his studio & the delivery team took the new ones up the stairs and placed them in our west facing living room. our first impression is 5 out of 5 starts for looks; 4 out of 5 for comfort. they’re a bit too firm, but we’ll get used to them i’m sure. the ones they replaced were 35 years old.

changes to watercolor/collage 151 and starting watercolor/collage 152 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:44 PM: i started my day by making some additions to watercolor/collage 151, which i started yesterday. while i liked the suggestive emptyness of yesterdays version, i wasn’t satisfied with the composition and felt it needed something more. 3 collaged pieces were added: a small bit of a map over the head of the woman on the let, who looked like the was geass growing out of her head; a piece of a previous cut-up creek-scape between the two figures and ont he right of the male figure, a few pieces of cut-up calligraphic brush marks i made last week, with the intention of using them, as i did today, in a future watercolor/collage. and beneath them i collaged a piece of paper whiter than the arches watercolor paper i used, creating an optical shift.

once i completed those modifications, i went on to start a larger composition: watercolor/collage 152, 13x20.” elements form my creek paintings: roiling blue water, a large log & some fallen leaves play against elements taken from some of my photos of figures from above. the figure on the right wears an open robe draped around her shoulders, and may have just emerged from her bath. on the left in a green top is a woman wheeling a baby carriage, the outlines of which we can just make out. i’ll have to wait till tomorrow to know if any further work is needed on this one. we’ll look at it together with mikela this afternoon & see what we each feel.

watercolor/collage 152 13x20”

new parka / new watercolor! /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor/collage 151

3:09 PM: as i did yesterday, i made a watercolor with figures seen from above. seems to be what i’m into now, and i’m not yet sure if these figures will enter larger creek-scape compositions or not, but i suspect they will. it’s the juxtaposition that excites me. taking figures who were attending a gallery opening and transporting them to a wild natural setting turns me on.

in the studio wearing my new parka just now

11:56 AM: just received the new down parka i ordered. perfect timing on this cold crestone day, when temperatures are not predicted to rise above 25F. i got it for half price on a black friday sale. warm as toast without layering, with a removable, warm hood & plenty of big pockets. it’s pretty light weight, well made & (this is important) the sleeves tighten well around the wrists, where cold air can seep in. it’s going down to 8F tonight, so i’ll take a stroll & see how it feels.

getting ready to get to work; more as the day progresses.

a snowy day / preparing to start watercolor/collage 150/ a 2016 painting in progress /  by Philip Tarlow

1:35 PM: it’s a cloudy, snowy, cold day. current temperature is 20F, dropping to 8F tonight.

i’m making the preliminary sketches for the next watercolor/collage, which will likely include figures in our entryway photographed from above. they had just come into our entryway & mikela is giving one of them a hug. it remains to be seen how these figures will be used in the final version of watercolor/collage 150.

here’s a shot of me painting plein air in 2009. i’m in heaven, unaware of the passage of time, any possible discomfort at sitting for hours on this little canvas stool, enlivened by the sights and fragrances.

let’s see if i can get back out there next spring…

painting plein air at the creek, 2009

this is a 2016 painting in progress i just came across while searching through my files. the final painting looked nothing like this, and i don’t know which one it is, although i could likely find out by going back through my records. i find the colors interesting. i love that pink with the grey & pale green on the upper right.what interests me right now however is how these forms and colors can be traced through the arc of my development.

and BELOW is another one i just came across. it’s one of my gaze series paintings in progress, also from 2016. and, like the one i speak of above, it no longer existsin this state. fayum portraits lend themselves to painterly interpretations such as this. the artists who created them were likely descendants of ancient greek painters whose work has been destroyed or losr over time. whereas these 1st c. portraits survived as a direct result of being placed in mummy cases and buried in the dry egyptian earth, where no moisture could infiltrate.