starting 4/11/21 watercolor / 2017 oil-mikela in chelsea /  by Philip Tarlow

the top section of 4/11/21 watercolor/collage

2:46 PM: so i’m wrapping up early today. stage 1 of 4/11/21 watercolor/collage is on the wall for me to evaluate tomorrow morning. this is likely a precursor to the next oil, which will be on two same sized canvases put together. i’m not sure yet but i think it will be a vertical.

stage 1, 4/11/21 watercolor/collage

1:24 PM: we’re taking advantage of the ideal weather & walking up the creek again this aftyernoon, so i’ll be ending my painting day a bit early, at 3pm. this is the 2nd crop i just made of my 207 oil mikela in chelsea. really worked when i cropped it. it’s 20x6 1/4”, oil on linen.

just started the drawing for my next watercolor, this on in 2 vertical sections. i’ll post when it gets a bit further along.

at work this morning on the drawing for 4/11/21 watercolor

2010-eating watermelon with a monastiraki painting in progress / continued work on 4/9/21 watercolor /  by Philip Tarlow

3:37 PM: here’s where the watercolor collage is at as i leave for our creek walk:

4/9/21 watercolor collage at the end of my painting day today

11:30 AM: in 2010 i was completing a series of paintings to be shown at an athens gallery. this is one of them behind me, as i ate a piece of watermelon.

now i’m about to continue work on my latest watercolor/collage. i’ll post updated pics soon…

1993 drawing / starting a new watercolor /  by Philip Tarlow

6/10/93 woman asleep on the ferry to andros

3:21 PM: i continued work on the new 4/9/21 watercolor. i’m working with it lying on the table; because of it’s size, that’s easiest for me. i’ve already added 2 small collaged bits,, which officially makes it 4/9/21 watercolor/collage.

i included a bit of my studio wall because if i posted just the painting, like i did earlier, it gets much too long on the page. but if you click on it & make it full screen, you’ll be able to see the composition pretty well.

when you do, you’ll notice elements i’ve been using in the oils i’ve been making over the past month or so, like the figures towards the bottom, who are visitors to the acropolis museum in athens. in the center is a creek-scape and on the top i’m using a photo i shot a few months back from out entryway looking out. what you se eis a reflection, which is why, above the railing, you see blue sky.

nothing pops yet, but that should happen tomorrow or sunday. good shabbos, by the way, to all you jews out there. i always think of my dad lighting the sabbath candles on friday night. so, until tomorrow.

1:42 PM: i started work on a new watercolor, consisting of 3 stacked pieces of watercolor paper. total dimensions: 44 1/2 x 5” or 113 x 12.7 cm.

at work on the new watercolor this morning

9:19 AM: got to the studio early today. before having breakfast, i thumbed through an old drawing book and found this 1993 drawing of a woman sleeping.

i just discovered that this drawing is included in the selection of drawings on this page of my site:

https://www.philiptarlow.com/drawings

i’ll start my new watercolor after breakfast and post as i progress.

yesterdays trail walk / at work on 2021 creek oil 10 / looking back to 2014 /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of 10/7/14 plein air oil

5:52 PM: the time is fast approaching when the warmer weather will allow me to go out and paint plein air at our creeks. will i do it? i’m a bit less inclined just because i have more difficulty than i used to carrying all my stuff out to the site i choose: stool, portable easel, bag with brushes & colors and of course the canvas or paper i’m going to use. mikela could and will help, and once i’m settled she could take her walk & help again once she’s back.

here’s an example of a 16x16” plein air oil i made in 2014. it’s on the finest portrait linen, which allows for the watercolor-like, painterly strokes you see. only this particular linen double primed canvas allows the oil paint to be applied with this level of immediacy.

10/7/14 plein air oil 16x16”

1:14 PM: while continuing to stretch the smaller, 16x20” canvases, which will be joined to form a larger composition, i gave a glancing blow to yesterday’s 2021 creek oil 10. glancing blow meaning that, as i squeezed by it on my way to my canvas stretching table, i went over what i did yesterday with a light wash, which i then started working into. here’s the current state.

2021 creek oil 10 as it looked moments ago.

8:39 AM:on our walk up cottonwood trail yesterday we witnessed a striking richness of colors. we stopped a few times sothat i could take some shots with my phone, and one longer stop so that i could make a drawing, which i completed this morning, moments ago.

4/7 and 4/8/21 trail drawing

two works from 1963 starting 2021 creek oil 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:16 PM: here’s where i’m stopping for the day so we can walk up the trail. more tomorrow.

2021 creek oil 10 stage 3 32x32”

2021 creek oil 10 stage 2 32x32”

1:43 PM: while continuing to stretch new canvases, i did a bit more on the new, 32x32” 2021 creek oil10.

at work on 2021 creek oil 10

12;35 PM: as i was stretching a new canvas, i contemplated unstretching the 32"x32” one i had stretched last week, because i realized i can’t do the level of sensitive strokes i want using that lower quality cotton canvas. the i thought, what the hell; i’ve already stretched it; lets start something new & see where it goes. here are the first marks, inspired by creek photos i shot on our walk last week.

2021 creek oil 10, 32x32” stage 1

11:16 AM: these are two pieces i made in 1963, in my studio at the time on elizabeth street, little italy, nyc. they reflect the spirit of the times, at a point when abstract experssionism had peaked, but was still the dominant mode. deKooning had made his woman series just 10 years earlier. although decidedly figurative, they contain core elements of the action painting style pioneered by pollock. i may have these two pieces somewhere in my loft space, but i won’t know till we organize it at some point.

just a few months after making these, i was to leave with my friend joe to hitchhike through europe, starting in scotland and working our way across france and spain, with the goal of ending our journey in greece. that was 1963. i remained in greece, where i got married and had my son dimitri, until 1979, which was the first time i set foot again on american soil.

you can peruse the work i did during that 15 year period by clicking on the greece tab in the drop down menu at the top of this page.

some older paintings & a ceramic platter / stretching more 16x16" canvases a few tweaks to 2021 creek oil 9 / 2017 mikela in chelsea-crop 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

mikela in chelsea crop 1

3:40 PM: there’s an oil painting i made in 2017 that i’ve always had a problem with. today i was going to un-stretch and roll it for storage when i noticed some area i actually liked a lot. so i cut one out and mounted it on a piece of board.

it measures 11 x 11 1/4” & so far i like it a lot. part of the problem with this painting is that it was made on inferior canvas, and the brush strokes simply don’t have the sensitivity of a finer french portrait linen.

the other factor is size. increasingly, i think i’m designed to make smaller scale paintings.

and the third factor is, let’s call it the luck of the crop.

there’s quite a bit of the painting left, and i may make a second crop tomorrow!

1:07 PM: when mikela came over yesterday afternoon, she spotted a few areas of the painting that might need work. the tweaks i made, based on her observations, are to the blue dress of the girl on the right, and the green cactus leaves below her. here’s the painting after my tweaks, and below that, before. and in this cropped image, you can see the changes more clearly.

8:29 AM: as i brought mikela her morning freshly roasted & ground coffee, i noticed some of my older paintings just across the room from where she works every morning on her laptop. the one in the center is a watercolor painted in 1972 in my athens studio, in the plaka neighborhood of athens, just below the acropolis. seated in his chair, o kyrios yannis (mr. yannis) sits with his pet cat, waiting for his next customer. he would park their car in an available space until they came back. above that one is the corner of a larger, 1987 painting in gouache on paper. it’s inspired by photos i had taken at david hockney’s home in the hollywood hills, and was painted in my south florida studio, where we lived at the time. and to the right is a painting in gouache on paper of aspen bark, made at the beginning of my creek inspired series of paintings, in 2000.

and this is a ceramic platter with collaged elements, made ca. 2015. it’s currently placed on a glass table in our living room.

i’ll be in my studio in a few hours, where i think i may begin the process of stretching new 16x16” canvases, which i’ll join together as i did with 2021 creek oil 9, so that i can continue this new series of work.

more once i get to the studio. we’re forecast to have high winds with blowing dust today, with cooler temperatures than the record breaking highs we’ve been having over the past week.

ceramic platter ca. 2015

at work on 2021 creek oil 9 /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 9 16 x 64” at the end of my painting day today. the zinger in a new painting is always unexpected. in this one, i feel that it’s the warm orange-ish pink shape at the center of the composition. it’s actually a wooden floor at MOMA, behind the figure leaning against the railing and contemplating the view below, of sculpture and monet’s very large waterlilies painting in the museum’s permanent collection. the stuccato transitions from the green cactus to the scattered figures seen from above give us a rhythm, a beat. it engages us, leading our eye on a trip across the space of the composition and leaving us wondering, as john russell said in his ny times review of my 1982 nyc show, “….what his people get up to when they aren’t in the picture.”

3:32 PM: i’m stopping here for the day. and i may not do any more on this one. i think i’ve taken it to the brim, and anything more would ruin the integrity of the space, the marks, the colors.

1:10 PM: i did one round this morning, and am about to start a second round. here’s how 2021 creek oil 9 looked 10 minutes ago.

everything i did this morning was on this right portion of the painting, and includes some figures from my MOMA photos from above.

11:11 AM: inspired by vermeer, i took some shots of myself working on 2021 creek oil 9 this morning before getting to work painting. i’m about to get to work & will post pics as they become available.

self portrait at work on 2021 creek oil 9

next stage of 2021 creek oil 9 /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 9 as it looked moments ago, at the end of my painting day

3:18 PM: branches have entered the picture, and i did a bit more work on the girl with the pink top, on the right. i like where it’s headed; to be continued tomorrow.

2021 creek oil 9 as it looked moments ago

1:48 PM: i’m moving ahead with 2021 creek oil 9, introducing new figures on the right canvas. i’m going to continue working, and will post new pics as they become available.

2021 creek oil 9, this is the area i worked on this morning

continuing 2021 creek oil 9 / studio wall detail / vermeer's the art of painting /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 9 as it looked at the end of my painting day.

3:57 PM: 2021 creek oil 9, stage 3 and 4/3/21 2021 creek oil 9 modifications.

this is a good example of why i love working on more than 1 painting at a time. as i was continuing work on the new 2021 creek oil 9, i saw some changes i needed to make on 2021 creek oil 4, which has been hanging on my studio wall for a couple of weeks. discoveries i made on #9 allowed me to update #4, and as a result, i think it had improved significantly.

scroll down to the bottom of this page to view the latest modification to 2021 creek oil 4.

2021 creek oil 9, stage 2 16x64” oil on 4 linen canvases

12:45 PM: i’m continuing work on 2021 creek oil 9. this is stage 2, with a detail of the first 16x16” canvas.

i’m continuing work on this one, and will post updates.

11:30 AM: i took a photo of one of the walls in my studio this morning. here’s what you’re looking at, starting at the top left & going clockwise: a sketch for a painting of my grandson philip, when he was about 4 years old; a 1980 photo i shot of david hockney on his deck with his pup; my dad at his bar mitzvoh; a sign in houston announcing a talk we gave on mikela’s book, navigating the future; a little watercolor of mikela with her coffee mug; a page of a byzantine manuscript given to me in the ‘70’s by a friend in athens; a strip from one of my oil palettes, ca. 2014.

BELOW: a comparative view of 2021 creek oil 4 before (left) and after todays modifications.

starting the drawing for 2021 creek oil 9 /  by Philip Tarlow

2021 creek oil 9 16x64” (4 canvases) stage 1

2:55 PM: i spent time finding wood strips & screwing them to the back of the 4 canvasses, while checking the progress of the latest photoshop update. it got stuck at 54%, and when i googled that issue, it was something others had a problem with. so i simply stopped loading it & started fresh, which is what others suggested. it worked, & now i have the latest greatest photoshop & bridge apps.

the figure on the left, which is so far the only one to have been painted in oil, is from one of the original series of photos i shot for the first ano kato paintings. (click painting series in the drop down menu above, then go to ano kato) he’s one of the figures on the sidewalk of skoufa street in athens, where there was a parade i photographed and painted. and that was the first in the ano kato series.

i made the drawing using photos shot from above, and included a shot i took recently of the cacti in our bedroom. after attaching them from behind with the sood strips, i discovered that, when i turned them over to put the screws in, i put the one that should go on the right on the left, and visa versa; a “mistake” which, naturally, i’ll make good use of. i’m excited to continue tomorrow, when i should be able to get to work as soon as i have finished my breakfast.

the first ano kato painting, 2010, private collection, athens

1:09 PM: i had wanted to print out some images to use in the new 2021 creek oil 9, ˆ16x64, consisting of 4 16” square canvases side by side. but photoshop wouldn’t behave, and i realized i needed to update to the latest version, which takes hours. so i started the drawing, using other images instead. the update is stuck at 54% and if it doesnt progress soon, i may have to start all over.