the blue that changes everything / a little work on 12/19/20 creek oil /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 1 26x78” at 11:30am today following the addition of strong blues

11:48 AM: it was a relief to get to my studio this morning and leave the d.c. drama behind for a few hours.

when i cast my all important first glance, what i saw seemed blah. no focus for the eye. so navigation signs. and a homogeneous overall tone that would be more appropriate for a rug than a painting.

i squeezed two blues onto a fresh palette and got busy, referring to a different creek photo than the one i’ve been using so far. the titanium/zinc white i applied with my palette knife yesterday prooved to be a great jumping off point. and the pinks that entered the picture on january 4th, when it was a horizontal composition and were then softened on january 6, when it became vertical, were perfect foils for the strong blues i painted in today. allowing spaces for the leaves in the background provided an opportunity for patterning. patterns that have meaning are so much more powerful than patterns made purely for the sake of patterns. and the grey mottled rock i had worked on january 7th proved to be one more valuable contribution to the assortment of patterns i introduced today, along with the grouping of loosely painted rocks, some faint, others more clearly apparent in the center of the composition.

12/19/20 creek oil after working into it with oil pastels

2:39 PM: as i prepared to stretch a new 26x66” linen canvas, my eye caught 12/19/20 creek oil. it seemed dull and monotone and didn’t carry well at a distance, so i made a few additions using oil pastels, and now i’m continuing the process of stretching the new canvas.

unexpected covid vaccination / stupa walk /  by Philip Tarlow

6:16 PM: we took our walk up the stupa trail at 3:30. BELOW are a few pics.

3:02 PM: i received a call this morning that we’ve been scheduled for our Covis vaccine shots in center, a 50 minute drive from crestone. we drove to center and have now received our first vaccinations.

so i wasn’t able to go to my studio, which is very rare, and i’ll resume work on 2021 creek oil 1 tomorrow morning. until then, i leave you with this image. can i translate mengfu’s energy into my new painitng successfully? the challenge is in the word translate. BELOW is the painting in it’s current state. it’s new horizontal composition is still being established.

2021 creek oil 1 as it looked at the end of my painting day yesterday. (26x78”)

2021 creek oil 1 as it looked at the end of my painting day yesterday. (26x78”)

continued work on 2021 creek oil 1, now once again horizontal composition /  by Philip Tarlow

2:46 PM: i accidentally erased what i just wrote, so i’m starting over. it’s now easier to see this as a horizontal composition, based upon my numerous creek photos. rocks, branches and pools of water have appeared, painted over the 2 underlying compositions, one of them vertical. so for example the blue cuvy marks on the left were originally mountain peaks in the previous vertical composition. in this version, they could easily indicate water. this layering, as you know if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, is something i love using to allow the eye to give layers of meaning to what it perceives and remove the composition one or two steps away from the photo-like image we can so easily understand. we skipped our walk yesterday due to the events in d.c., so we’re about to leave on our stupa trail walk. partly sunny skies, with a comfortable temperature of 34° farenheit at the moment.

1:16 PM: continuing work today on the constantly morphing 2021 creek oil 1, which has once again become a horizontal 26x78” composition. you can’t tell yet, but in a few hours you should see the bones of a creek inspired composition.

2021 creek oil 1 26x78” as it looked moments ago as a horizontal composition

continued work on 2021 creek oil 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:49 PM: just before leaving the studio, i did a paint & scrape-over. it looked to me that the painintg had become too busy. we’ll see where i take it in the morning.

1:28 PM: i’m stopping for the day. BELOW are comparative views of yesterday’s version, left and today’s.

2021 creek oil 1 on easel with watercolor/gouache adjacent

11:09 AM: i have just under 3 hours to do more work on 2021 creek oil 1 befoe heading back to the house to participate in a zoom with tsudents participating in the test rollout of our actionlab360 learning platform.

to the left of the painting on my easel, you see a watercolor/collage turned on it’s side, sitting on an adjacent easel. it caught my eye just now because it has some very cool elements, and i thought “why not incorporate some of those solutions into this painting? but i have to watch out it’s not just coming from my head.

ok, i’m going to get started & i’ll update you in a few hours.

looks like a paint-over is in store today /  by Philip Tarlow

SUNSET this afternoon

SUNSET this afternoon

2:04 PM: 2021 creek oil 1 is a verical once again. i painted and scraped over it, and here’s how it looked when i left my studio early today.

as it was originally, it’s inspired by by japanese 18th c. master of the brush, taiga.

the lightly overpainted work i did over the past few days peeks through and gives new meaning to the more prominant marks i made this morning.

so what’s new? the mountain peaks outlined in blue; the beginnings of a grouping of trees in the center of the composition and, finally, the seated figures at the bottom. they are poets, painters and musicians who collaborated artistcially and drank lots of wine together.

10:31 AM: when i entered my studio 15 minutes ago, and looked at 2021 creek oil 1, it made no sense whatsoever. it was all up in my head. so, once i’m done with breakfast, i’m going to paint & scrape over it & see where it goes from there. maybe getting to work will take my mind off georgia for a while.

if you look at an earlier, 2020 creek oil, BELOW left, and compare, you’ll see what i mean.the earlier one has a compositional coherence lacking in 2021 creek oil 1.

so i’m going to get to work and will post once i’ve made changes.

continuing 2021 creek oil 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:27 PM: i’m stopping here for the day & will continue in the morning. two females figures have entered the composition, as well as the arm of a boy holding a bottle and some green marks on the top right. this composition will integrate more tomorrow, when i have more uninterrupted time. however, i’d say there’s already a mystery to it that i like, and was intending. combining disparate elements to create a new reality is where my head is at right now. that new reality is emerging, but not yet fully formed.

at work this morning on 2021 creek oil 1

12:40 PM: we have 2 friends coming over at 3, so i’m going to stop for the dayin about 1 1/2 hours. i’ve been working more on 2021 creek oil 1 this morning, taking a break to chat with my grandson in athens and unsuccessfully trying to get an appointment for a covid vaccination.

2021 creek oil 1 as it looked moments ago

2021 creek oil 1 , 26x78”, yesterday afternoon

8:47 AM: i should be back in my studio at about 10 am this morning, when i’ll continue work on 2021 creek oil 1. as always, i’m excited by the feeling of not knowing where it’s going to go, which direction it will take, which is largely a function of allowing the painting to determine it’s course.

BELOW are a couple of photos shot on our way back from yesterday’s stupa trail walk.

2021 creek oil 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:29 PM: this one has been brewing, fermenting in my body for weeks, if not months. last month i strtetched a 26x78” linen canvas. these are the dimensions of the paintings in my sound of a flute series. here’s the link to copy & paste in your browser, or you can just click on the dropdown menu, above.

detail of 2021 creek oil 1, stage 1, 26x78”

https://www.philiptarlow.com/sound-of-a-flute

in making the 170 watercolor/collages, which i started about a year ago, along the way i discovered compositional, color and patterning solutions that kept nudging me that they wanted to become larger. but i wasn’t ready until today to take that step. i say step and not leap because this is a slowly unfolding process of re-discovering the revelations of matisse and the nabis of decorative painting. that’s a long conversation for another time, perhaps the book i keep threatening to write.

in any event, what you see here is stage 1. it’s being painted over a preliminary drawing i was making for a vertical composition, inspired by the work of the great 18th c. japanese master of the brush, taiga.

it took a lot of energy for me to start this one today, and since we’re planning to walk up to the stupa in about an hour, i’m going to leave it here.

watercolor 170 / a comparative glance at 3 paintings from 1969 to the present /  by Philip Tarlow

watercolor 170 11x14.5” on arches watercolor paper

3PM: i made a new watercolor: 170. it has a few interesting passages & i’m pooped, so i’ll leave it for now, take it to the house & see what we think. the bit on the middle right has an unexpected figurative element, and now that i’m glancing at it on the easel, from about 20 feet, i keep seeing a cartoon-like head. and at first look, the negative snaky white space in the center is key to the entire composition, as is the octopus-like pink form above it.

1:1:21 watercolor 169.jpg

11:30 AM: i was tempted, as usual, to do more work on yesterday’s watercolor 169. I might, for example, have added some water inspired patterning into the upper & lower solid areas of blue. I think not, however. we were reviewing it this morning over at the house, and that was mikela’s suggestion as well. but i’m not going to make any modifications to this one, other than adding a date & signature. it’s going to remain as it was when it emerged. let’s see if this direction, with large uninterrupted areas of color, continues today.

more a bit later, once i start 170. in the mean time, take a look BELOW at these paintings from (left to right) 1969, 2017 and yesterday. what do you observe? use the comments tab below to let me know what you see, questions you might have, etc.

by the way, that 1969 gouache painting on the left was made on the very last day of operation of the magical outdoor market just across the street from the port of piraeus, greece. the next day it was gone, to be replaced by….you guessed it: a monstrosity!

the east studio wall this afternoon, with the 4 most recent watercolors

watercolor 169 emerges today /  by Philip Tarlow

2:09 PM: this is the first watercolor of 2021. it takes the direction i’ve been pursuing a step further towards abstraction. the dominant element is color. while the shapes are dictated by the forms of the rocks and how they border and determine the parameters of the creek water, the whole is more of a symphony of patterns, a harmony of the dominant blues, greens and greys, with accents of yellow and orange. are we gazing out the window of a plane at the landscape below, or are we close in to the creek, just a few feet away? the instruments in this orchestra all contribute to the sounds we hear.

watercolor 169 11x14.5” on arches watercolor paper

watercolor 168: my last painting of 2020 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:40 PM: we’ll be walking up to the stupa in about an hour, so i’m stopping for the day, having made watercolor 168, my last painting of 2020.

it’s along the lines of 167, which i made yesterday, and has clear influences from this book, which is my reading material every morning over coffee. bonnard, vuillard, denis & roussel were french painters who explored the concept of painting as decoration.

this concept translates well into my creek-scapes, and has given my approach to them a new boldness.

watercolor 168 11x14.5” on arches watercolor paper