12:05 PM: this 2016-17 portrait of mikela is part of my gaze series, which you can view here: https://www.philiptarlow.com/gaze
it hangs in our bedroom, and on some afternoons is lit by the setting sun, as you see here. she wears her characteristic straw hat, with a t-shirt we got on one of our trips to austrailia, which has an aboriginal design, visible on the bottom.
11/6/2021 creek oil painting/collage at the end of my painting day today
3:04 PM: here’s 11/6/2021 creek oil painting/collage at the end of my painting day. there’s al ot more going on now, most noticeably perhaps the second log in the foreground, which pushes everything else back in space, giving the eye a point of reference. additional branches have appeared in the upper left portion of the composition as well as in the center. there’s still enough white canvas to allow the painting to breathe and to give the viewer space to imagine. as a whole, when you glance at it from afar, as i’m now doing, it transports you to the creek, and the immediacy of it’s aliveness and movement.
DETAIL
11/6/2021 creek oil painting/collage as it looked moments ago, as I continue painting
12:39 pm: daylight savings is working for us! we go to sleep at 8 or 8:30, get up around 4 and end up having a much more productive day!
i’ve been working on 11/6/2021 creek oil painting/collage since early this morning, while mikela is working with schools in monte vista, which is a little over an hour away. collage has entered the composition, albeit on a minor scale. lots has happened since yesterday, and above is the current state. on the right: a detail showing one of the collaged pieces, in this case, of a map.
DETAIL
7:05 AM: yesterday was our first daylight savings walk up the trail. an hour later, it was better than ever; temps were perfect and the light more magical. this is what we call kissing rock, where we stop & kiss on our way down.
2:24 PM: moving slowly & taking frequent breaks to evaluate, I worked further on 11/6/2021 creek oil painting. it’s starting to remind me of one I painted in 2019, now in a private collection, which is 42x66”'
this is it, on the right. we’ll see tomorrow how this one evolves, but already i’m detecting more certainty in my marks., and a greater coherence in the composition, although my palette is similar.
11/6/2021 creek oil 32x48”. as it looked moments ago
1:27 PM: I continued work on 11/6/2021 creek oil today, feeling the freedom of a longer day due to the time change. it’s only 1:30, but it sure feels like 2:30! and I have another hour and a half before going back to the house to drive up to the creek for our walk.
7:38 AM: the light was superb on our walk up the trail yesterday. i shot a few photos that might affect the new 11/6/2021 creek oil, which i’ll resume painting once we’re done with our bi-weekly zoom with our dear friends in germany, who should be back in their crestone house within a few months.
2:46 PM: we’re going up the trail in 45 minutes, but I wanted to post this update first.
I took all the painting form my previous series, about 8 of them, from my painting wall, where they had been stacked, and stored them temporarily in my new storage room. when work continues, on Wednesday, i’ll remove them, then put them back at the end of next week, when the storage space should be completed.
so that allowed me to tack a new 32x48” canvas to my east painting wall and begin work on a new series.
it’s a creek-scape, based on photos I shot on our creek walk yesterday. I like using newly shot photos of the creek, even though I have tons of them, because they always reflect my vision as it is today. here’s what it looks like on day 1.
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.
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.
9/22/2021 painting/collage at 3pm
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.
stage 1 of my revisions today
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….
at work on the drawing for the revision
the painting as it looked before the revision
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.
DETAIL
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
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!
oil painting, 16x20”, started yesterday
10/31/21 oil painting, at 1pm
10/31/21 oil painting at 2:30
stage 1 of 10/31/2021 oil painting
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
