a look at 2016 paintings in process /  by Philip Tarlow

4:51 PM: in 2016 i was working on my gaze series of paintings: https://www.philiptarlow.com/gaze

i’m organizing some of the photos i shot then. fortunately, i kept good photographic records of works in progress, as i do now. this makes it possible to look at paintings thjat no longer exist, or, more accurately, are buried under layers of paint. then, as now, i would paint over works in progress until i was satisfied with the result. i must admit, it’s sometimes painful to look at what i painted over! much of it is beautiful!

discovering 2012-14 paintings in the loft /  by Philip Tarlow

3:05 PM: you have to have a very good reason to venture up to the loft in my studio. it’s chaotic. but I did have a very good reason: the director of my denver gallery has a client for one of my 2013 paintings, and he asked if I still had it. I’m almost positive I do, but where?

so I ventured up and grabbed a big roll of paintings that I thought might be candidates because of their dimensions, which seemed to approximate the 78 x 48 in. size of the painting he requested.

it wasn’t there, but there were painting/collages I hadn’t remembered, from 2012 through 2014. because they contain collaged areas and are not stretched, I had to tack each one to the wall & smooth out the wrinkles as best I could in order to photograph them.

I found them beautiful and impressive, in terms of color, composition and feeling. see what you think.

Big Pour. 50x76 in. 2013

2 drawings for our Actionlab project / 2015 gaze painting /  by Philip Tarlow

4:41 PM: the studio flood damage repair was completed this afternoon, and cleanup will happen tomorrow morning. that should give me more freedom to create new pieces unintrerrupted.

this is a photo shot during the period when i was creating my gaze series, in 2015. copy & paste the link below to view this series.

https://www.philiptarlow.com/gaze

some of them were inspired by vermeer’s faces. this one was inspired by one of the 1st c. fayum portraits. some maintain that these portraits were painted in egypt by descendants of ancient greek painters, whose work we have no visual record of. they survived because they were attached to egyptian mummies and buried in the warm, dry sand.mthey are part of the greco-roman, rather than the egyptian tradition, and transitioned into early byzantine art.

my mentor, yannis tsarouchis, introduced me to them during my 15 year stay in greece in the ‘60’s & ‘70’s.

with one of my just completed gaze series paintings in 2015

2:34 PM: mikela requested a series of about 8 drawings of people “doing stuff,” to include in our Actionlab educational product. here are sketches for the first two, in colored pencil and crayon on paper.

continuing 7/10/2021 creek oil and watering the flowers / looking back /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL

2:44 PM: I did more today to both 7/10/2021 creek oil and 7/9/2021 watering the flowers. I had thought latter was resolved, but every time I entered my studio & glanced at it, there was too much going on. especially in the area of the red flowers and green leaves. they were too strong, shouting loudly and dominating the composition. remind you of anyone you know? the diagonal on the lower right also bothered me & needed breaking up. and the addition of the blue adjacent to the figure adds a lot, I believe.

BELOW are before and after shots.

2:52 PM: I also made progress on 7/10/2021 creek oil. an additional figure viewed from above has appeared, looking at us with an ill defined expectation, as if perhaps he was asking that we complete the lower portion of his body. that dark area to the left of the little girl has gone, giving the composition more freedom. and permitting a continuation of the diagonal log. and a bit of blue has appeared beneath the little girl, a counterpoint to the blue fluffy toy she holds.

at work today on 7/10/2021 creek oil

10:09 AM: while revisiting my ex wife’s book with ‘70’s photos of the island of andros, greece, I remembered this 1979 painting I made in egg tempera on board. the subject is skouloudis’ grocery store, with mr. skouloudis himself in a characteristic pose. without fail, if he saw me walking by, he offered me a cup of delicious greek coffee. an unforgettable presence in an unforgettable setting: chora, capitol of andros, with it’s street closed to motor vehicles and paved in marble.

getting back to present time, i’m continuing work/play on the new 7/10/2021 creek oil today. updates when they become available.

skouloudis’ grocery. 1979, egg tempera on board

a day in denver /  by Philip Tarlow

8:34 PM: we both had doctors appointments today in denver, it’s 3 hours, 45 minutes each way. we got up at 4 & just got back 2 hours ago. we always do food shopping when we’re in denver, so we came home with some delicious chesses, fruits & veggies. and some delicoius bread.

i din’t get a chance to make waiting room drawing, as i usually do. all i had time for, while i was waiting for mikela to come pick me up, was a quick drawing of the view from the netrance to my dentist’s building.

7/10/2021 creek oil, stage 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

7/10/2021 creek oil at the end of my work/play day

1:55 PM: I took 7/10/2021 creek oil to the next stage and have stopped for the day. I won’t be in my studio tomorrow, so i’ll resume on tuesday morning.

integration of the figure with the creek-scape has become clearer now and will become even clearer in the next stage, on tuesday morning.

despite the 90° temperatures that day, the little girl wears her pink wool cap, which right now is the focal point of the composition, along with the blue fluffy toy she’s holding.

instead of trying to find stretcher bars in my studio that fit these various pieces of linen canvas I have leftover from larger paintings, i’m just taping them to masonite & working that way.

12:09 PM: I made the first marks on the new 7/10/2021 creek oil and will continue working/playing as long as my energy is good.

my direction involves integrating figures seen from above, which you can see in my Ano Kato series, https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid with views of the creek. you can see the figure of a little girl viewed from my studio loft in the lower left, and the sketched out branches & sky of the creek views above.

7/10/2021 creek oil at 12:09 pm today

11:31 AM: after an enlivening conversation with my old friend David Hockney, who is now living in normandy, I continued work on there drawing for the new 7/10/2021 creek oil. right now, i’m about to add some areas of oil color, so stay tuned and i’ll post once this new stage of development has progressed.

some refinements to yesterday's "watering the flowers" & some updates to 4 recent paintings /  by Philip Tarlow

4:23 PM: this one has taken a long meandering path, and the latest stage is ABOVE right, with the earlier state on the left. it may well be that I should have left it alone this morning, as yesterday’s state was, possibly better. but I have to trust my gut, and my gut said that those leaves in the foreground were too dominant and not allowing the composition to breathe. it’s also become clearer that there’s a figure (mikela) watering the flowers. maybe i’ll allow myself to move ahead with the new one I started this morning, and give this one a break!

2:21 PM: ABOVE: I made a few more modifications to 7/9/2021 watering the flowers, introducing some collaged bits. on the right=after the modifications. and I started the drawing for 7/10/2021 creek oil, which includes the photos from above I shot yesterday of our repair guy and his beautiful daughter.

ABOVE: 7/9/2021 watering the flowers. oil on linen. 21x25 in. (this morning’s modifications on the right)

10:51 am: so what’s new with you?

this morning, I continued work/play on watering the flowers. the changes and additions I made have lightened the composition and allowed this new painting to sing it’s song. I think that will be all for now.

yesterday, while working in the new watering the flowers oil, I made some modifications to 4 recent small works, which you can see BELOW.

i’m reading the biography of thelonious monk, which is as compelling as his playing. I was fortunate to have seen & heard him at the legendary five spot cafe in nyc, in 1958.

he’s a perfect example of my increasing passion for the unplanned and accidental in art.

watering the flowers , 21x25 in. /  by Philip Tarlow

7/9/2021 watering the flowers. 21x25 in.

4:17 PM: after re-stretching 7/4/2021 creek oil, I launched into the new watering the flowers oil on linen, 21x25in. it’s inspired by some photos I shot from our upper floor looking down on our entryway, of mikela watering a pot of flowers, which no longer exist. as you can see, I scraped over it, creating some unexpected marks that liven up the composition. i’ll continue working on it tomorrow morning, when I may start a second one to work on in tandem.

recent work overview /  by Philip Tarlow

this is a look at some recent work & how it’s evolving. the figures from above will enter more and more into the composition, and he creeks-scape will be integrated into the compositions.

7/4/2021 creek oil. 26x78”

continuing 7/4/2021 creek oil /  by Philip Tarlow

7/4/2021 creek oil 26x78 in. oil & oil pastel on linen. at 2pm today

2:06 PM: took a little snack break and did another round. at this stage, I prefer it as a horizontal, although it can work either way. what started out to be an integration of creek inspired imagery and views of figures from above has become strictly the latter. the indications of tree trunks and branches that were sketched in during the first stage have disappeared . in their place are two figures. one, the female figure, is inspired by a photo I shot about 5 years ago at an opening in the gallery representing my work in denver: space. the male figure was photographed in 2009 from the balcony of the gallery in athens, greece, which hosted my solo exhibition in 2010: skoufa gallery, located a block from kolonaki square. he was one of a crowd viewing the military parade celebrating a greek holiday, which was winding it’s way up skoufa street. the photos I shot that day looking down from the second floor balcony form the core of the images I used to create my ano kato suite of paintings in 2009-10. you can view them if you copy & paste this link: https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid

if you check out that suite of works, you will see that they are more literal, more photographic than what i’m doing now. i’ve had the desire to return to those figures viewed from above with my current sensibility to see what happens. figures viewed from above continue to turn me on, but i’m in a different space now than I was in 2010. I see the painting surface differently. there’s an element of ambiguity and an implicit statement that the painterly trumps any attachment to realism.

12:09 PM: got to the studio unusually early today. it’s a long story; bottom line: gave me more time to work/play. I added a walking figure from some photos I shot years ago in athens. it works as a horizontal or a vertical right now, as work/play continues.