early morning adjustments/going back & forth between 3 paintings /  by Philip Tarlow

7/4/2021 creek oil, 26 x 78 in. as it looked at the end of my painting day, after being scraped moments ago.

4:00 pm: ABOVE: the image you see didn’t meet my aesthetic, so I scraped it while it’s still wet, and will continue work/play tomorrow.

7/4/2021 creek oil, 26 x 78 in. as it looked at 3:22 PM

3:22 PM: this is a shot of the left 1/4 of the painting, which i’ve been working/playing on for the past few hours. ABOVE is a shot of the left 1/4 of the entire composition, which is still in process. these two figures are taken form a photo I shot of an opening last year at the gallery representing my work in denver: space gallery. more figures viewed from above will enter the composition and integrate with aspects of the creek-scape. I know not how, as yet.

the idea is to somehow integrate my ano kato series with my creek oils.

here’s the link to the ano kato series :

https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid

at work on 7/4/2021 creek oil at 2pm today

2:43 PM: I took a break from the two watercolor/collages to do some more work on the new 7/4/2021 creek oil, 26 x 78 in., on stretched quadruple primed french linen

afternoon thunderstorms forming at 1pm

12:38 PM: we’re expecting another round of thunderstorms in about 2 hours. this is great fro 2 reasons: it usually cools down the temperature by as much as 20°F in under an hour and secondly, we can use as much precip as we can get.

i’m working on 3 different paintings in rotation today; something you all know I love doing! I made more modifications to 6/30/2021 watercolor/collage and 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage. and i’m continuing work on the new, 26x x78 “ 7/4/2021 creek oil.

BELOW are the 2 watercolor/collages I made changes to. the previous version is always on the left.

at work this morning on 7/4/2021 creek oil

7:38 AM: it’s unusual, not to mention unheard of, fro me to make adjustments to paintings at 7am. but when i brought back these two watercolor/collages from the studio yesterday, they looked way too pale. what had seemed cool and interesting in my studio yesterday afternoon, looked like two washed out images when i got them back to the house. this is yet another gift in having my big, light, beautiful studio 500 ft. away from our house. as i sit here on our couch, looking out the south living room windows, i can make out the yellow north facing studio door through the pinon pines, and above it, the blue grey shpe of sisnaajini, or mt. blanca, one of the native american sacred peaks.

so getting back to the two watercolor/collages: 6/30/2021 watercolor/collage and 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage, i did more work on them last night and again this morning, using the colored pencils i have here in the house.

BELOW are comparative views of the two, before & after the changes i made using only colored pencils. yesterday afternoon versions are on the left.

transformation of 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage and 6/30/2021 watercolor /  by Philip Tarlow

6/30/2021 watercolor after this morning’s intervention.

1:48 PM: after transforming 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage earlier today, i made similar changes to 6/30/2021 watercolor, with a similar result. i’m finding this one equally compelling to look at, in comparison with the earlier stage. you can view them side by side, BELOW. I love the mystery, as well as the unpredictable poetry of the under-painting peeking through the over-painting. from the prosaic to the sublime?

now what? I have about 2 hours before returning to the house, and still feel pretty pumped. so let’s see what I do next!

7/4/2021 watercolor/collage following this morning’s intervention.

1:04 PM: we took our trail walk this morning & decided we have to start our earlier, like maybe 6 or 6:15 because it’s getting hotter earlier & earlier. plus, there are fewer mosquitoes.

after gazing at 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage last night & this morning, I decided it needed a radical solution. so I covered the entire composition with semi-transparent white paper, which allows a ghost image of the underlying painting to show through, then I painted on to of that with a diluted wash of watercolor, using my fan brush.

I find it very appealing how the underlying watercolor/collage appears then disappears, leaving you with the very spare, minimal over-painting.

BELOW are yesterday’s version next to what I just did, on the right.

7/4/2021 creek oil, stage 1/ 7/4/2021 & starting watercolor collage / fresh caught alaskan halibut/ 1989 palm beach daily news article /  by Philip Tarlow

7/4/2021 watercolor/collage as it looked at the end of my work/play day

5:00 PM: ABOVE: here’s the latest stage of 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage. work/play will resume tomorrow morning.

7/4/2021 watercolor/collage as it looked moments ago, after a few hours of work/play

3:05 PM: i’ve been working, or playing as you wish with 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage since my last post 2 hours ago. more and more, I experience these new watercolor/collages as music. and as I write this, a sudden thunderstorm has added to the mix, providing rumbles at the right moment, the sound of wind gusting through the trees, along with an indescribable fragrance. I still have some juice, so i’m going back to work/play & will post at the end of my day here in the studio.

1:00 PM: as i’ve said in previous posts, I like working on two things at the same time, switching back & forth as the mood strikes me. fortunately, there’s no one to tap me on the shoulder & say “hey! you can’t do that!”

so, after making the first fresh marks on the canvas you see BELOW, I started 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage.

it already has a few collaged bits, and will likely acquire more as the day goes on. i’ll post when I get to the next stage of this one, which measure 10 1/2 x 22 in.

at work moments ago on the new 7/4/2021 watercolor/collage, 10.5x22”

making the first marks on the new 7/4/2021 creek oil. 26x78 in.

11:33 AM: my intension was to start a new watercolor/collage this morning, but I found that blank 26x78 in. canvas sitting on the saw horses irresistible. so I launched in, and now that i’ve made the initial brush marks, I feel better about starting the new watercolor/collage.

BELOW: quote from matisse’s journal

quote from matisse’s journals

last night we had fresh caught alaskan halibut smothered in onions & tomatoes, thanks to a friend who just returned from a fishing expedition to homer, alaska.

it was, as you might imagine, delicious. and there’s one more serving left for tonight!

fresh caught alaskan halibut smothered in onions & tomatoes

this article appeared in the palm beach daily news during the period when mikela & I lived there. I just found it, & had forgotten that I showed my work at trump plaza. kind of embarrassing.

continued work on 7/2/2021 watercolor/collage / stretching a new 26 x 78 in. canvas /  by Philip Tarlow

4:38 PM: after completing work on 7/2/2021 watercolor/collage this afternoon, i decided to stretch a new 26x78 in. canvas over a piece of masonite, to provide a hard surface for collaging. it’s likely that i’ll start working on it tomorrow. if so, it will be another in the series of creek oils and will be titled 7/4/2021 creek oil. i can’t recall ever starting a new painting on july 4th, and definitely never titled a painting using that date. i have no plan for it. depends on how i wake up.

there’s definitely a new direction taking shape in my recent watrecolor/collages, which have thus far been reflected in my most recent creek oils, like the one you see BELOW.

7/2/2021 watercolor/collage. at 1pm today,

1:18 pm: I did some additional collaging just now.

7/2/2021 watercolor/collage. at 11 am today, following this morning’s work

11:12 AM: as studio repair work continued this morning, I did some more work on 7/2/2021 watercolor/collage. it’s almost there but now that I look at it on my east studio wall at a distance of about 30 feet, I can see a few areas that need modification.

the shadow under the horizontal log is now a deeper mauve; the greens & blues in the upper portion are new, as are the collaged strips of brownish oil palette, which read as tree trunks.

DETAIL

starting a new watercolor today /  by Philip Tarlow

7/2/2021 water/collage. 11x14 in. on arches watercolor paper

drawing of k. 7/2/2021

3:14 PM: my mentee & buddy, 13 year old k. came over at 1. we exchanged stories, made drawings of each other & talked about digital art. next Friday he’ll bring his tablet, we’ll connect it to this my i mac & he’ll show me the ropes. i’m excited, as i’ve been wanting to learn how to use a tablet to make art for a while now.

I did more work on 7/2/2021 watercolor/collage, which I started earlier this morning. I discovered, as I said earlier, that I actually do better work when there’s someone in the studio doing their thing as I do mine. I incorporated a piece of one of the ink drawings I made this morning, as well as a piece of map & a magazine clipping.

but now i’m wiped, after a long day which started at 5am. we skipped our walk today so that I could get to the studio by 9 for the repair work. so we’ll walk tomorrow morning. our plan is to go a bit further up the trail each time we walk to increase our endurance

10:53 AM: I’m in the process of starting a new watercolor/collage this morning. I made some b&w brush drawings to use as collaging material if I want to use them for that purpose.

I discovered I actually do more & better work when reed is here working on studio repairs! he’ll be here again tomorrow morning.

my mentee, k., whom I haven’t seen since covid started, will be arriving at 1, and we’ll resume our mentor-mentee relationship, which has proven to be very fruitful for us both.

at work this morning on 7/2/2021 watercolor/collage

continuing work on 6/30/2021 watercolor /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL

1:13 PM: I continued work on the new watercolor this morning. i’m going very slowly; as it evolves, each successive stage stands alone as a completed work. so it’s up to me how far I take it. I do like how suggestive the white spaces are.

i’m going to leave it alone for now & maybe start a second one tomorrow, which will allow me to do my favorite thing: going back & forth between two works in progress.

the detail on the left reveals the relationship between the tree trunk & branches and the caryatids, whose draped bodies echo the peeling bark of the dead tree.

starting a new watercolor / caryatids and a formerly living tree / jonas mekas (1922-2019) gives his thoughts on critics & criticism /  by Philip Tarlow

4:43 PM: i got the drawing to the point where tomorrow morning i can start applying watercolors. i made a small start with the green leaves you see in the image ABOVE.

1:52 PM: so as it turns out, this watercolor will be based on two very different photos ABOVE. both represent a journey through time; the one on the right was shot in 1991, in the newly opened acropolis museum in athens. the one of the left 2 days ago on the trail.

in the acropolis museum photo, we see visitors commingling with the ancient caryatids.”…caryatids represented the women of Caryae, who were doomed to hard labour because the town sided with the Persians in 480 bc during their second invasion of Greece.”

the tree in the second image has died. it’s bark is falling from the trunk, creating a special kind of beauty. these caryatids may be relieved to finally find themselves in the company of another formerly vibrant, living being, whom observers can be enriched by, and whose history is shrouded in mystery.

12:43 PM: i’m about to start a new watercolor inspired by one of the over 70 photos I shot on our Monday trail walk. i’ll post as it develops.

making the drawing for 6/30/2021 watercolor

JONAS MEKAS (1922-2019) a great film maker, had this to say about critics & criticism:

continued work on 6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage / a radical crop at 2pm /  by Philip Tarlow

3:38 PM: I did a bit more work on the 20x20 in. version, and created a second smaller version of 6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage, which is 20 x 16” BELOW, you can see them side by side; it’s what is known as a two-fer.I

2 PM: I cropped the painting, so that it’s now 20 in. square. i’m still somewhat in shock, and won’t know how I feel about this radical solution until tomorrow.

cropped 6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage after cropping to 20 x 20 in.

6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage on 6/29 11am

11:27 AM: I continued work on this new piece this morning and about midway into the process, I flipped it 90°. compositionally this makes a lot more sense. new blue marks intended to indicate sky are now found on the left. and a pink-red 4 inch square grid in colored pencil has appeared, covering the entire image.

as I gaze at it from 20+feet, I feel it need simplification, so i’ll get busy with that now.

starting 6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage at 3pm today

DETAIL

3:38 PM: I did quite a bit more work on this new one, which is singing sporadically, but not yet projecting a full throated melody. close.

pieces of pen & ink drawings I made today have been collaged in, as well as 2 sections of maps, a piece of a worhol reproduction of a nude figure and a piece of a drawing a friend’s kids made when they visited my studio a few years back. while the canvas i’m using for this one is quadruple primed artful, from paris, it’s not the very smooth textureless linen I used for the previous one. so it takes the colored pencil and oil pastels differently.

the photos i’m using for inspiration were actually shot during our morning trail walk today, when I shot over 70 photos. the colors were more vibrant than usual because of the heavy rains we had yesterday, so I went kinda nuts with my iphone.

although, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, i’ve been down this road before, in terms of the marks i’m making and the colors i’m using, I feel that a new language is emerging, and I find that exciting.

12:04 PM: I decided, instead of spending time searching for stretcher bars to match the various pieces of primed linen canvas I have, to take each one, tack it to the wall & work on it there, worrying about stretcher bars later. thus, I was able to immediately get to work on the new 6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage. I have quite a few stray pieces of varying sizes, which should take me through the summer. I also had an idea, while taking our trail walk this morning, to tack some of the pieces side by side on my painting wall and make a composition using all of them.

continuing work & will post updates as they become available.

BELOW: 6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage in an early stage this morning

shot at 7:30am this morning on our trail walk

6/28/2021 creek drawing/collage as it looked moments ago.

stretching 6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage & installing at in it's frame the house /  by Philip Tarlow

the completed and framed 6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage

the completed and stretched 6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage

1:10 PM: I just finished stretching 6/24/2021 creek drawing/collage. it looks so much better without the wrinkles! we can’t wait to see how it looks over at the house, once we place it in it’s frame. we can’t however hang it until it’s secured in the frame. and then we may need help because that frame is so heavy we’ll have to locate a wood beam behind the wall and use heavier screws than what we currently have.

I just brought it over to the house, where mikela & I placed it in it’s frame. looks really good. didn’t bring my phone with me, so i’ll shoot & post it later this afternoon.

so now, on to something new. I have a long narrow strip of canvas left over which may become the next one.