2021 watercolor 12 & a preliminary drawing for the poreia watercolor /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 watercolor 12 11 1/4 x 15 “

2:14 PM: this morning i started, and perhaps completed 2021 watercolor/collage 12. mikela and a school kid who were at a friend’s house join a creek-scape, and it all seems perfectly natural.

a few days ago my son dimitri sent me 3 photos of characters in an upcoming play he’ll be directing at the national theatre of greece. they are all dressed in a kind of humorous take on ancient dress, influenced in part by the fabulous greek shadow theatre character: karaghiozis. as soon as i saw the photos, i thought of making a watercolor, combining all 3 in one painting.

reworking a 2017 watercolor/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

1:09 PM: as i was preparing this morning to start a new watercolor/collage, my eye caught a collage i had made in 2017 sitting with other collages from that period in a cardboard box. i pulled it out and looked at it, and with todays vision, it seemed way too overloaded so that my eye bounced around the composition like a ping pong ball.

this is a detail of the hand holding a cup

so i felt absolutely no compunction cutting it up into pieces, until i found the right one and began working into it. it’s much smaller than the original: 7 x 13 3/4”. thanks to some brownish mottled paper i discovered in a closet, it now seems to work as a horizontal composition.

the hand you see in the center is from a previous watercolor/collage that i cut up, which included students gathered at a friend’s house. one of them was holding a cup containing juice, and that’s his hand. although there are references to branches in the center and on the left, this is not a creek scape per se. much like the one i made yesterday, but perhaps more so, it’s creek inspired. if you know my history, which you can get a sense of by clicking through the dropdown menus on this site, you will understand that, while technically one could classify this as an abstraction, it’s clearly an abstraction by someone who has spent years as a realist painter.

2021 watercolor/collage 11 7 x 13 3/4”

starting my day with matcha and 2 drawings / CONTINUED WORK ON 2021 WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:43 PM: i collaged over some of that green mark left over from yesterday, and flipped it 90 degrees so that it’s now a horizontal composition again.

1:16 PM: i resumed work on 2021 watercolor/collage 10, imagining i’d just make some minor additions. i ended up creating a very different animal. there’s very little left that indicates anything creek related. now a vertical composition, i cut up and collaged some of the marks i made this morning before doing the two drawings i posted at 12:12 pm. once i felt the piece was resolved, i flipped it in all 4 directions until i found the vertical you see here.

the hand in the center of the composition belongs to painter tom wudl and is cut from an invitation to his l.a. exhibition. a piece of his work can be found to the left of his hand.

the green watercolor marks on the left and the pink marks beneath it are just about the only thing remaining from yesterday’s version. also included in the collage are: a london street map, and pieces of a paper palette i used while making a 2015 oil painting.

12:12 PM: i was late getting to the studio today. normally, i start my day drinking my matcha tea with toast and reading; either about my 11th century chinese calligrapher buddies, art forum, or maybe a bit about matisse. today i was trying out a new pen sent to me after i had cancelled my order because of the terrible reviews i read. weeks after the order was cancelled and my money refunded, i received the pen. don’t know why they sent it, but i figured i’d try it out to see if it was bad as the reviews claimed. it was worse!!

but in testing it out and attempting to make the ink flow and the ridiculously scratch point work without catching on the paper and tearing it, i brought out my 2 favorite fountain pens and decided to make a couple of drawings using all 3 in rotation.

i added some colored pencil, and this is the result. so now i’m going to make some additions to yesterday’s watercolor/collage 10 and start 11.

i’ll post what i’ve done when i’ve got something to show. we walking up the stupa trail at 3, so i have about 2 1/2 hours.

2021 watercolor/collage 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 watercolor/collage 10 11 1/4 x 15”

today, intent upon making a new watercolor and not working in oil, i turned 2021 creek oil 1 to the wall so it could have a little rest, and started 2021 watercolor/collage 10.

it was an interesting start, and at a certain point i felt it needed some collage elements. so i went to my collaging surface and found a cut up paper oil palette i kept, from a 2015 painting in my parade series. at that time i used to label and keep all my paper palettes knowing that i might want to use them in the future. which is NOW!

the elegant shapes created by the snow and ice covered creek seen from above, point in the direction of a miro and make me more conscious of where his inspiration came from. maybe.

more work today on 2021 creek oil 1, 26x78" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:40 PM: got a late start today as a result of unexpected lostical stuff i had to take care of. i was intending to start a new watercolor, but simply could not resist the urge to do more work on 2021 creek oil 1. as i’m ending my painting day, this one is in a kind of raw state. it has harsher colors than i’m used to using, harsher transitions and a questionable composition. gone are those neutral tans & greys. missing is that diagonal thrust you’d normally see in a long narrow piece like this one.

nonetheless, i feel somehow attached to it. and i’m intensely curious how it will evolve. maybe our political situation is rubbing off on me. but i’m fine if it just doesn’t work out, and ends up in the trash. many of the solutions i’m discovering and combinations of colors i’m employing will undoubtedly show up in future oils.

so here it is, in all it’s ragged glory. and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

continuing work on 2021 creek oil 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 1 26x78” at 2 pm today

1:58 PM: a few small additions just now. you’ll notice some white bubble marks in the blue water that weren’t there before, as well as a few more darker blue marks center-left. small as these additions are, if you scan the image wtih your eyes before & after these small additions, you may notice a subtle but significant change in how you perceive the space.

2021 creek oil 1 26x78” at 12:30 pm today

DETAIL

DETAIL

12:44 PM: that orange was too much, so i introduced a warm grey, as well as some darker blues and whites, beneath some of the rock shapes, giving the viewer more of a sense of water. the dots are from plastic bubble wrap pressed onto the wet painting surface so that they pick up some paint, and then pressed in another spot, where they deposit some of that wet oil paint. i’ve used this technique in earlier paintings, for example in my gaze series (you can view the series if you click on the dropdown menu on the upper right of this page.)

one might say that 18th century japanese painter ike taiga, about whom i often speak, gave me permission to dive deep into pattern. the nabis vuillard and bonnard were great at exploring their endless possibilities. vuillard, surrounded as he was growing up with fabrics used by his mother & sisters in making dresses, was steeped in patterns from childhood.

2021 creek oil 1 at noon today

11:41 AM:feels like i’ve been working on this painting for a very long time. each time i’ve make changes, it has remained in the tan-ish range, with accents of white. this is the first time stronger colors have appeared. i may continue working on this one; not yet sure.

mt commission studies 1 & 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

3 PM: mikela asked if i could make a site specific painting for a very skinny wall in our living room facing west. of course i jumped at it, since there’s nothing i love more than commissions. the painting will be in oil, dimensions 78 x 16” so today i started making studies, which will likely continue until we’re both satisfied with the result. so here are the two i made today. each is just 20 x 4” in oil on primed linen with a tinted tan ground.

more work on 2021 creek oil 1 / remembering Panachrandos Monastery in Andros /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 1 26 x 78” at 2:30pm today

2:34 PM: 2021 creek oil 1 had been turned to the wall, in a corner like a bad boy. i was futzing around trying to decide what to do today (trying is the key word) when i saw some blue oil paint on one of my paper palettes and got a hit. but that was after using the blue oil paint on a crestone conglomerate rock i’ve been painting & varnishing over the past few days, right? so i take one of the badly mangled brushes in my brush container filled with gamsol (a healthier turpentine substitute) and i start making circular shapes on the painting, which i had put on a couple of saw horses with wooden planks for support. where is this going, i wondered.

then i remembered some feedback i got recently from a painter friend about this particular painting. too much brown. too dark and, she didn’t say this, but boring! so i squeezed to titanium/zinc white on my palette, began brushing it over most of the surface except for the bit on the far right, which i think kind of works.

the rest happened in a flow state, which lasted maybe 20-30 minutes. bear in mind, this is after making brownies this morning, which i wandered over to taste every so often. and then it was gone. floated away like a passing cloud. so here’s where it’s at currently. can you tell i was reading a big article in art forum this morning over matcha tea, about philip guston’s canceled and re-scheduled major museum exhibitions? he did creep in a little, wouldn’t you say? but there’s also an influence from a bit of a breakthrough i made a few days ago on 2021 watercolor 8.

8:18 AM:yesterday i came across this photo of myself with Father Evdokimos at Panachrandos Monastery, high up in the mountains of andros, greece. rich with history and once permanatly inhabited by 30-40 monks, it’s now down to a core group of about 5.

more a bit later when i get to my studio.

creating a 10 page presentation /  by Philip Tarlow

3:22 PM: today i spent the entire day finalizing a keynote document i’ve been working on for the past few days. it will be digitally sent to gremillion in houston tomorrow, and i’ll likely be using it to approach other galleries and organizations. it’s focused exclusively on my new watercolor series.

since i can’t figure out how to insert a pdf, i made screenshots of the pages:

continuing work on 2021 watercolor 8 today /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 watercolor 8 13x20” at the end of my painting day

2021 watercolor 8 13x20” at the end of my painting day

2:52 PM: i continued working on this one on and off throughout the day. it hasn’t jelled yet; maybe tomorrow. the light blue surrounding the rocks on the bottom is a new look, and i’d like to keep that feeling as i work on the upper portion. in the next phase, tomorrow, it will be critical that i feel good in my body, as i have today, and that it be a bright, ideally sunny day and not uncharacteristically grey, as it was for a few days this past week. and now, we’re off to the stupa trail. waking, especially on a rocky uphill trail at 8,000+ feet, has numerous benefits: physical, emotional, and yes, spiritual.

12:39 PM: following a delicious breakfast, i launched into the drawing for 2021 watercolor 9.

always on the alert for new ways of perceiving the creekscape and distributing the watercolors with my brushes, i’m slowly progressing on this one.