4:38 PM: we lived with it for a month and it just wasn’t doing it. too much going on. beautiful bits, but it didn’t read as one whole image. so here you see me sanding some paper I collaged on, which developed wrinkles. i’ll get into it tomorrow morning.
BELOW: at work on the painting/collage on june 13 and on the right, sanding the panting this afternoon
12:23 PM: my all important first impression this morning was that 7/18/2021 creek oil was completed. so I hung it on my east wall and re-shot it in a better light than yesterday, as well as getting a few important details.
as often happens, the most important changes I made yesterday happened at the very end of the day: the blue and yellow vertical bands of color, broken by the figure viewed from above and a few of the collaged, cut up ink drawings. one of these is the drawing of a container of brass tacks used to temporarily stretch the linen canvas over the also temporary masonite backing, which facilitates collaging. they can be seen just to the left on the head of the figure & above his left shoulder.
the origin of this walking figure was a group of passers by during a military parade on skoufa street, near Kolonaki square in athens, in 2009. I witnessed the parade from the 2nd floor balcony above skoufa gallery, which represented my greek work during that period. my Ano Kato series of paintings emerged from many of the photos I shot that fateful afternoon. copy & paste the link below to visit that page of the site.
https://www.philiptarlow.com/best-left-unsaid
a few minutes ago, I ordered stretcher bars committing me to a series of at least 3 new paintings in this series, all of which will be, like this one, 60x26.”
7/18/2021 creek oil 60x26” re-shot this morning
5:04 PM: as predicted, today’s clear morning skies gave way to dark clouds and wind gusts, with thunderstorms likely towards sunset. as you know if you follow my posts, i love the skies here in crestone/baca, at all times of year.
looking west from our driveway at 3pm
3:44 PM: ABOVE: and here’s the next stage, with the addition of a vertical stripe of yellow next to the blue. some scraping has also taken place, breaking up the blue somewhat, as well as the black sweater over his shoulders. it’s almost 4pm & i’m burnt out. plus, we’re expecting the septic truck any minute, to come empty our 2 tanks, one here & one at the house. so i’ll pick up where I left off tomorrow morning.
3pm: here’s the next stage of the painting/collage, with a rather bold addition of blue on the left. comparative view BELOW:
11:44 AM: so, after returning from the P.O., I utilized my morning energy to start fresh. what I mean by that is that I dove into this painting/collage without attempting to “save” any of what I did over the past 2 days. I lay the canvas down on my 2 saw horses and began to play.now, you can’t play forever….or maybe…anyway, before even meditating, which is normally what I do first, before breakfast, before anything, I began working/playing. in this case playing is a more appropriate term.
more pieces of an ink drawing I made 2 days ago were collaged in and ,perhaps more importantly, a walking figure seen from above has appeared. he’s also in 7/4/2021 creek oil.
https://www.philiptarlow.com/2021-creek-oils
so, you might ask, where’s the creek? well, those bits of blue are, or could be, creek water, and the two just visible horizontal forms above the figure are, or started out as, tree trunks.
i’d best leave it be now. once I start analyzing, my mind cuts in and whatever else I do is messed up, like what I did yesterday.
but, and this is key, it’s all valuable, all part of a process that’s as unpredictable as it is inevitable. when you short circuit the unpredictability, you get a mess. and if you press into that mess, well….you get what you see here.
maybe this is a good time to meditate. see ya later.
7:33 AM: so why is 7/18/2021 creek oil so messed up?
1) trying too hard to make it good
2) trying too hard to make it work
3) trying to repeat a past success
4) trying
i’ve got to make a quick run to the P.O. before going to the studio, but i should be able to get to work/play by 10-ish. so let’s see what i do today!
BELOW: 4 stages of the painting over 2 days
7/18/2021 creek oil as it looked after my last modification of the day
4:09 PM: as I was about to walk out the door, you’ll never guess what I saw & what I did! that blue bit on the bottom was annoying me, so a took it out, and now I feel much better about the painting, although I do think it needs one more round tomorrow.
7/18/2021 creek oil as it looked moments ago
3:34 PM: this is the latest state of the painting/collage. i’ll resume in the morning; right now, i’m cooked. but I do think we’ll walk up the trail tomorrow around 7am, and I should be in the studio by 10.
7/18/2021 creek oil as it looked at 1:30pm today
1:30 PM: here’s the painting as it looked moments ago. i’m continuing work/play & will post when I have updates. i’ve been working on the easel but now feel like laying it flat, using the saw horses gifted to me by our dear friend lea.
11:50 AM: working/playing on 7/18/2021 creek oil moments ago
10:38 AM: we had a great time with our dinner guests last night, and got to bed much later than usual. so i’m a ltttle out of it this morning, but i’ll start painting as soon as i finish my breakfast…..
10:44 AM: which is right now. i’ll post once i get something done…
at work yesterday on 7/18/2021 creek oil
7/18/2021 creek oil. 26x60 in. at 3:30pm today
3:56 PM: I started work/play on the new 7/18/2021 creek oil, which measures 26x60” thus far, i’m using oil paint, oil pastels, pencil, crayons & collage. I launched in rather late in the day, and have to stop a bit early because we’re having dinner guests.
i’m learning from the previous paintings in this series, and my mark making is increasingly informed by what’s coming next and what is of value to the total space of the composition, and not just a good or clever idea.
tentatively arranging the cut up pieces of yesterday’s ink drawing on the blank canvas
2:34 PM: today I cut the masonite (with my new electric saw) for the temporary backing and stretched the primed linen canvas over it. you can see the drawings I made yesterday and cut into pieces arranges on the blank canvas. they won’t stay that way, but at some point will work their way into the as yet unknown composition. an adventure, you might say.
11:06 AM: before getting to work/play, i revisited a painting made over the course of 3 years: 2007-2010. it measures 8.5x5.25",47x13cm and is painted in oil on stretched linen.
niki karagatsi, tailor shop, chania, crete 1971 tempera 41x30cm.
over breakfast, I was looking at a book of paintings by my former mother-in-law, the greek painter niki karagatsi. it made me somewhat nostalgic for those days when niki and I would go out together to paint. she didn’t drive, so it was convenient to have me along as her driver. we frequently painted the same subjects; perhaps a tailor in his shop, or a view of the landscape in chania, crete, where we spent a few summers. when in andros, we would often swim at piso yialia beach, a short walk over a little hill, from the main beach of yialia. during my final years living and painting in greece, I shot a photo of two male bathers at that beach. back in colorado, that photo haunted me and was iconic of andros and of that period of my life. so I made this little painting in 2007, and periodically went back and worked on it until 2010, when I felt it was complete.
so let’s see what I do today, and if it’s influenced by this flashback.
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!
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
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.
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
