November 5, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

7 PM: our trail walk this afternoon was superb. we hadn’t been up the trail for weeks, for various reason. but we’re making up for it by going up every day for the next 3-4 days

8:48 AM: an article was published feb. 1, 2014 in the melbourne, australia newspaper neos cosmos, written by helen velissaris.https://neoskosmos.com/en/2014/02/04/features/philip-tarlow-tsarouchis-american-protege/

8:13 AM: yesterday afternoon when the crew stopped working, i took some shots documenting the progress they had made in the contruction and finishing of my newly built studio storage room, measuring 10x20 ft.

i was unable to load them into a gallery on squarespace due to a glitch in their app. so let’s give it another try this morning.

seems like it’s working! in the shot on the upper left, i’m standing in front of the spot where the door was to be cut, after clearning that space in preparation. and on the upper right, the new door installed and open into the space.

continued work on 9/22/2021 painting/collage, 42x54" / November 4, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

*9/22/2021 painting/collage* on 11/4/21 3-30pm

3:14 PM: i’m stopping for the day. the guys just left, & I was kind of feeding off their work energy. so we both got a lot done! the skiff is more well defined and starting to be surrounded by blue bubbly water. the blue works. it picks up the other blues on the left, and allows those few reds on the upper left to gain in importance. I collaged over that bit of newspaper on the right, which, as I said earlier, was detracting from the overall composition. so it breathes now.

*9/22/2021 painting/collage,* 42x54" as it looked moments ago

1:35pm: i’ve been working most of the morning on 9/22/2021 painting/collage, 42x54," with minor interruptions from the crew, who are bringing very large panels into the storage space through the studio. they are being mounted over the insulation, which they finished installing this morning.

as you can see when you compare the current version to yesterday’s, all of the work I did today thus far has been on the paddler on the right. the shape of his craft has now appeared, along with his shadow beneath his feet. but now, that bit of collaged newspaper to his right seems irrelevant to the composition, so i’m going to address that issue after posting this.

the crew, which today consists of 3 workers, just installed the ceiling boards and will begin the walls soon.

returning to 9/22/2021 painting/collage, 42x54" / November 3, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

3pm: I did extensive work on the red headed paddler on the right & am still working.

1:24 PM: first stage of my revision of 11/3/21 of 9/22/2021 painting/collage.

the figure of the falling skater in red is gone, except for a segment of her arm & leg. the drawing for a second paddler has been partially made, in charcoal. the composition is already more coherent, if you compare with the previous state, BELOW.

stay tuned for further revisions, which will begin in a moment.

11:51 AM: it’s a clear cool day, although we may get some clouds and possible precipitation this afternoon. I can see the clouds gathering over the sangres.

I may introduce the second paddler in place of the falling tennis champ int he red shirt on the right, who seems out of place in the composition.

i’ll post updates as they occur….

the painting as it looked before the revision

the new door to my storage space / continuing 10/31/2021 oil/collage / opening the space up / November 2, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

7:06 PM: towards the end of the day, i realized that i don’t have to wait until the storage space is completed to open the space in my studio to the point where i can get back to work. my big tables had been moved away from my south wall so the crew could cut the door in that wall. now that the door is installed, there was no reason not to move the big tables on wheels back against the wall, and the 2 carts with my oil colors & palette right next to them.

that has returned the space to what it was before work began on construction of the storage room. so tomorrow i should be able to return to work & begin stretching new 26x62” canvases on the newly ordered stretcher bars, which arrived at our P.O.yesterday. bear in mind, the space will look far more open once i’m able to get all the stacked canvases, stretcher bars & rolls of canvas into storage.

2:15 PM: as the crew worked on my storage room, I continued work on 10/31/2021 oil/collage painting. the studio is still very cramped until I can start moving stuff into the new space, hopefully on friday. I say hopefully, because, although they had said it would be completed by thursday, things have shown up, as always happens with a construction project, that are going to have to wait till next week to complete. they won’t be available friday through sunday, so they’ll try to finish up monday, possibly into tuesday.

so here’s where 10/31/2021 oil/collage painting is at now. it’s a very different painting than it was yesterday. vermeer has once again entered the picture, and references to the creek-scape have all but disappeared. much of the 16x20” surface is collaged, using cut up recent drawings, a vermeer brochure and newspapers. pinks, blues and yellows are the dominant colors, with a few accents of red.

the door to my new storage room, which is 10x20 ft.

11:08 AM: it’s a cloudy day and will likely stay that way. i’m thrilled that the door to my storage addition has been installed. it just needs some framing work. they are planning on completing the project by end of day thursday! so I should be able to start moving stuff in on friday and get back to a regular painting routine by the weekend.

i’m in the midst of collaging onto 10/31/2021 oil/collage painting

yesterdays sunset / continuing 10/31/21 oil / cutting the door into my studio from the new storage space / November 1, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

the new storage room as it looked t 12:30 PM

the new storage room wrapped to protect from moisture until the metal sheeting can be installed over it.

8:43 AM: yesterday, as predicted, was cloudy, with temperatures much cooler than the above normal temps we’d been having. at the very end of the day, as often happens here in the valley, the sun broke through and created a few minutes of spectacular colors.

i should be back in my studio around 11am and may continue work on the 16x20” oil i started yesterday, as the crew picks up where they left off last friday on my new storage room. they should be ready to cut the door into the studio by mid week, and complete work by the end of the week.

1:07 PM update: they’re cutting the door through to the studio interior right now, so that will be done by the end of the work day today.

and, in the midst of all this banging & chaos, i’m doing more work on 10/31/21 oil painting!

a studio day today / starting something new / our favorite yemeni coffee bean / October 31, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

4:28 PM: I couldn’t leave the studio without starting something new & fresh. so I made a few marks on a 16x20” portrait linen canvas, while stepping over and around all the scrunched up stuff waiting to be moved into storage. more tomorrow.

7:48 AM: as was predicted, it’s a partly cloudy, cooler day today, and our near record high temps are now history. that’s how history works!

so this photo, documenting my adventure at the creek yesterday, is now part of my history.

so what’s up for today? as i await the completion of my new studio storage space, it’s an opportunity for me to get a bunch of logistical stuff out of the way. but i don’t like having an entire day go by without making a drawing or painting, so that will happen. we just don’t know yet what it will be.

on other fronts, in my ongoing search for the finest tasting coffee bean, i think i’ve found it. or at least i’ve found one. and i’ll share it with you right now.

it’s the Al Mokha Haraaz Coop Farm Blend, from the Al Mokha site, which you can Google. i got the unroasted beans, in part because i way prefer to roast them myself with my trusty freshroast r540 hot air roaster. and of course the raw, unroasted beans are more affordable.

as you may be aware, yemen is the birthplace of coffee. currently and for some time now, the country is torn by strife. one of the Arab world's poorest countries, it has been devastated by a civil war. and yet, al mokha has been able to get the beans out of the country and make them available, giving the local farmers and producers some kind of income.

more later, once i take my shower & meditate, before heading to the studio.

painting a small oil at the creek yesterday

plein air oil at the creek this afternoon / October 30, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

*10/30/2021 plein air oil* 6x17” oil & colored pencil on portrait linen

3:25 PM: with this continued great weather, I went back out to the creek this afternoon. it’s only about 17 minutes but it’s up a very rocky road, and when I arrived I discovered I had taken the wrong bag! so I had to come back and go back up again.

this is, of course, very different in look and feel from the watercolor I made yesterday, although it’s the same composition more or less.

plein air this afternoon at the creek / late afternoon light / October 29, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

4:05 PM: it was a warm day, with a high of 58F. so i went out to one of our nearby creeks with my materials and made a colored pencil drawing followed by a watercolor. as always, i documented everything. as i was returning to my little collapsable stool after setting up my phone to shoot myself as i painted, i didn’t see a sharp, cut off branch at head hight & slammed into it. i fell to the ground & blacked out for a moment.

but i’m so glad i went out, and if it’s this nice tomorrow i may go back. first i made a colored pencil drawing in one of my sketchbooks, then i got out my paints & brushes and made a watercolor.

about an hour before sunset i photographed this light falling on a recent painting hanging on our stairs.

3 denver drawings / October 28, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

7:00 pm: we were in denver/boulder the past 2 days for medical appointments and an important meeting at space gallery, where we settled on a tentative date of april 14 for the exhibition and sale of my paintings as a benefit for anschutz eye center. i have tremendous gratitude for the superb care mikela and i have received and want to give back.

on april 14, my paintings will fill the walls of space gallery. and, once we confirm that april 14 dat e, invitations will go out to denver art lovers. anschutz eye surgeons and specialists will be amongst the attendees, as wellas many friends. an area of the gallery space will be devoted to kids paintings & drawings, and i’ll be giving a talk about my work and how the anschutz team has affected it.

as always, while sitting in the anschutz eye center waiting room this morning, i made a few drawings. i never know how long my subjects will be sitting and unwittingly posing for me before they are ushered in for their appointments. as a result, some are unfinished; a look i actually love!

the evolution of 9/4/2021 painting/collage / October 26, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

11:25 AM: from september 4-10, I created 9/4/2021 painting/collage. as always, I documented my process. if you were to go back and look at my blog posts during that period, you would see the stages of development.

but today, on this cloudy, rainy, windy day in october, I decided to post images of stages in the entire process of development.

it all began with the leaves you see in the first photo. they were observed & photographed on one of our august/september trail walks up the creek. the dancing figure with the checkered shorts is from a photo I shot from our tv screen of the lively celebrations at the end of the tokyo olympics, as are the dancing male figure with the blue top and, on the far right, the woman with the pony tail.

locating them in the midst of the foliage sets them apart from the specifics of the olympic games and catapults them into a fantasy world of lush leaves. I attach no meaning to this, other than the joy and enthusiasm reflected in their movements. all this simply served as vehicles for my delight in moving my brush over the canvas and playing with space.