12/14/2021 watercolor/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

I wasn’t certain about whether 12/13/2021 creek oil/collage was resolved or needed more work. so I started a new watercolor/collage & will wait a day or two to see how it feels.

12/14/2021 watercolor/collage has elements of yesterdays oil. it definitely needs more work, but I crashed about half hour ago, so i’m stopping early for the day. plus, we have to drive to an event where mikela is speaking at 5, so I think i’ll have a small, early dinner & lie down before ewe leave. we’re expecting some snow much later tonight into early Wednesday, but the 45 minute drive shouldn’t be a problem.

I like the spirit of the one I did yesterday & this one I started today. included in the composition is my photo portrait of the great spatharis, about whom I wrote in yesterdays blog post. we’ll see where it goes tomorrow morning.

spatharis at work in plaka , 1974 / 12/13/2021 creek oil/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

12/13/2021 creek oil/collage at the end of my painting day today.

3:17 PM: I began work on the new 12/13/2021 creek oil/collage, which is 27x63” on extra fine French portrait linen tacked to the wall. so far, you won’t find any figures from the tokyo olympics. what you will find, if you examine the composition closely, are figures inspired by ancient roman mosaics & patterns inspired by contemporary iranian art. and all this is, for the moment, brought together by my favorite yellow: brilliant yellow deep.like it’s two predecessors, it tells a story. but it’s not a preconceived story. it’s one that takes form in the process of mark making. thus, it’s not bound by any particular direction; just an overall sense of playfulness, with an underlying mystery.

BELOW you will find 3 stages of development, each about an hour apart.

11:39 AM: in the ‘70’s, while living and painting in greece, I developed a relationship with the famed karoghiozopaiktis sotiris spatharis. his studio was in the peaks neighborhood, not far from my studio at the time. I shot photos of him making his karaghiozis figures, and this is one of them.

spatharis was known throughout greece as a master karaghiozis player, and as one might expect, he was as humble as can be. he delighted in showing me his latest figures and sets, and once came to our appartment in athens to perform for my son dimitris & his friends. dimitri was very excited, and began creating karaghiozis performances in our andros home for his friends. the sets were created by his grandma, my mother-in-law, niki karagatsi.

while the banana bread I made is baking, i’m about to start work on 12/13/2021 creek oil/collage & will update later this afternoon.

ano kato series/ continuing 12/10/2021 watercolor/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

12/10/2021 watercolor/collage as it looked at 2:45pm

2:45PM: I just made some last minute changes, collaging over the second cactus blossom on the left with some blue lettering cut from a note I wrote to the ups driver. if you look at the image above, that’s the latest. I left the previous version in the comparative views BELOW, so you could see what I just did…much better, don’t you think?

2:18 PM: continuing 12/10/2021 watercolor/collage, I moved veery slowly & carefully, as this one has a very delicate balance. fragile, i’m tempted to say.

BELOW are comparative views of yesterdays & todays versions. another cactus blossom has appeared on the lower left, as well as a tree branch from the creek on the right. the reds on the basketball player on the right have been accented, and a few red collaged pieces have added variety to the cactus blossoms; both the existing one and the one I added today. I would characterize these additions in musical terms, as syncopation. dum-de-dummm-de-de-dumdedeeee. I may not need to do a helluva lot more. as a backup solution, to keep me from doing too much, I tacked a new piece of primed linen to the wall, and i’ll likely make the first marks tomorrow morning. always an exciting moment!

7:13 AM: ANO KATO means topsy-turvy in greek. the series began with the painting you see on the right, titled parade. visit this page for more & to view the entire series. https://www.philiptarlow.com/anokato

starting the day with a drawing / continuing 12/10/2021 watercolor/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

12/10/2021 watercolor/collage as it looked at the end of my painting day today

1:46 PM: I continued work on 12/10/2021 watercolor/collage today, adding a few collaged bits, more watercolor painting & some dots of oil pastel on a few of the blacker areas. there’s an area on the right that’s a creek image, which, when I get to it tomorrow, will shift the entire feel of this piece., thus far, it’s the cactus blossom & the tokyo olympics figures that dominate. but, once again, it ain’t a painting of cactus blossoms & dancers. it’s simply a painting! i’d like to keep it simple, and most important perhaps, i’d like to keep it breathing., with spaces & places for the eye to rest before moving on to the next burst of marks & colors.

morning view out one of my north facing studio windows

11:00 AM: before continuing work on the new 12/10/21 watercolor/collage, I felt like starting my day with a reed pen & ink drawing. so I went into my freezing cold storage space ( it went below 0° F last night & currently the outside temperature is 14°F, so it’s not too much above that in the unheated storage space) & grabbed a roll of drawing paper. think of it as a warm-up exercise. I added a bit of color on my gold wedding ring with it’s cabochon emerald stone, made for our wedding by a dear friend. (thanks bea).

so now, on to the new watercolor/collage!

completing yesterday's watercolor / starting a new one / 1975 painting of piraeus /  by Philip Tarlow

3:34 PM: in 1975 I was living and painting in greece, where I was married to marina karagatsi, daughter of the novelist m. karagatsis. my mother-in-law, niki karagatsi, was a very fine painter, and she and I would frequently go out together to paint plein air. sometimes i’d drive her to piraeus, which at the time was a rich source of subjects for paintings of everyday life, which we, and other members of the informal group called the athens school, were fond of painting. this one was painted near the port of piraeus. it’s characteristic of the work I was doing and exhibiting at that time. my gallery was called ORA, created by an extraordinary man of armenian descent: assadour bacharian. way ahead of his time, he created what he called an “artistic and cultural center,” where there were poetry readings, musical events, etc. he also had a large collection of art books available to read on site or take out. he was not just my gallery director; he was a dear friend, and would occasionally make really tasty Armenian dishes for us when we invited him over.

2:49 PM: so after adding the collaged pieces, BELOW, I completed cacti in bloom watercolor/collage and immediately launched into a new one. these are very good prep for the next series of oil/collages i’ll be starting soon. they are allowing me to play around with new ideas on a small scale. this new one is larger than the one I just completed: 11 1/4 x 30”. you can just make out the pencil drawing of the same cactus bloom I painted in the previous one, next to which is one of the acrobats from the tokyo olympics celebration and, inside down, two of the female basketball players.right next to them is a detail of a branch & a rock from the creek. they will all be dancing together, once I take this new one to the next stage tomorrow.

a cold front is moving in, and right now, at 3 pm, the temperature has dropped to 22F, with the wind gusting to 30mph, making it feel more like 16°F, and when we wake up tomorrow morning, it’s forecast to be 1°F.

the sky as it looked at 8am this morning

12/10/2021 watercolor/collage. stage 1

11:57 am: cacti in bloom watercolor on arches watercolor paper, 6x16” has now become a watercolor/collage. while I liked the empty spaces on either side of the blossoms, they were asking for something. so I gave it to them, collaging a few pieces of paper, including one of my cut-up reed pen studio drawings. I also added a few more strokes of watercolor. I think it worked. glancing at it from a distance of about 20 feet, it reads well.

BELOW: the before & after

tweaks to 11/30/2021 creek oil/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage following some tweaks to his pink shirt.

1:11 PM: I made a few more tweaks to the figure of the skateboarder’s pink shirt & then started a watercolor inspired by photos I shot this past june of our cacti in bloom.

cacti in bloom watercolor on arches watercolor paper, 6x16”

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage following my morning tweaks to the area beneath the skateboarders face

10:14 AM: that area just below the head of the skateboarder was bugging us both. so I made some tweaks, which toned down the collaged map and introduced a bit of the blue that’s in the neighborhood, and made some improvements to his face, hand & cap.

BELOW are details of that area. yesterdays version os on the left.

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage adjustments /  by Philip Tarlow

3:30 PM: I did further work on the skateboarder, but it started snowing & it’s pretty dark, so i’m stopping for the day. mikela should be back around 5, and we’ll have dinner.

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage as it looked following my modifications this morning

12:57 PM: at the end of the day yesterday, I felt that the blue area and the printed index on the left of cut up map I collaged onto the upper left were too dominant in the composition. so this morning I worked into it, adding another piece of blue map over the index and extending the legs of the figure doing a handstand up into the blue up on top. it’s easier to understand if you look at the comparative views BELOW, where i’ve posted yesterdays version on the left, next to an image of the painting as it looked following this mornings modifications.

continuing 11/30/2021 creek oil/collage on 12/7/21 11 am /  by Philip Tarlow

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage as it looked at the end of my painting day today

1:01 PM: I worked pretty much all day on 11/30/2021 creek oil/collage. I think it’s in a better place than its was yesterday. at first I painted in a bunch of red, but that was coming from my head, and it’s mostly gone now. i’m trying my best to allow it to lead me where it wants to go, but of course the word trying makes that meaningless.

that said, (i’ve always waste to use that phrase) it seems to be developing an identity. and there are moments when I glance at it from about 20 feet, which is the distance from my iMac to the east wall, where it’s tacked, when I swoon. it ain’t easy to get me to swoon over a painting. i’d like visitors to the home or gallery or museum where it’s hanging to gaze at it for long periods, wander on, then return, they know not why.

they will discover rocks, tree trunks, acrobats & a skateboarder. and they will walk away, one hopes, with at least some of that sense of awe and wonder I experience every night lately, when I read a few pages of Wallace Stevens’ the man with the blue guitar:

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are 
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

12/6/2021 creek oil/collage continued /  by Philip Tarlow

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage as it looked following the changes I made this afternoon

2:56 PM: the tokyo olympics skateboarder has reappeared! this guy just doesn’t want to go away! in the very first stage of this painting the dominant image was this very same skateboarder. unfortunately, i didn’t shoot a photo, but trust me, he was there, larger than life.

my intention all along has been to somehow integrate the tokyo olympics celebration figures with my creek-scapes. if you look carefully, you’ll see that this painting has elements of 3 of those figures, and this skateboarder is the most complete. to his left is the leg of a woman doing a handstand, and to his right, another acrobatic figure with blue trousers doing a handstand. by the way, what looks to be a celebratory banner at the top in red, is actually a cut out piece of a sign I made for the fedex driver containing my signature, to leave the package with my repaired ball watch just outside the studio if I didn’t answer.

i’m pooped, so i’m stopping for the day and will go back to the house as soon as I clean my brushes. mikela will get back from school around 5 & we’ll have our dinner. more tomorrow morning.

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage as it looked following the changes I made this morning

11:43 AM: I knew end of day yesterday that this painting was way way overloaded. so first thing I did was to take it off the wall and lay it on a table. I began going over areas I felt were too busy, then scraped into that, then drew into that with oil sticks, referring to some of my creek photos. now it’s back on the wall. it’s much easier to gaze at, but it’s not there yet.

not certain whether i’m going to do any more to it today; I may just let it breathe for 24 hours, and start something new.

BELOW: yesterday’s version is on the left

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage- continued work /  by Philip Tarlow

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage as it looked moments ago following extensive modifications

2:22 PM: I did quite a bit more & it may have become too busy. i’ll wait till tomorrow morning to determine that.

11/30/2021 creek oil/collage after a spurt of work this morning

11:19 AM: I have the luxury of an uninterrupted day in my studio. i’ll stop working at 2:45 so we can take our stupa walk. i’ll also take a break in an hour to have a conversation with my grandson philip, who is at my son dimitri’s house in paiania, about 45 minutes from central athens, at the foot of mt. hymettus.

I dove in as a soon as I finished my breakfast, mostly using collage and oil stick, I have some nice thick ones and I love moving over already painted & collaged surfaces with a thick white one, leaving trails of tarlow marks. I also collaged a cut out piece of a sign I made for the ups driver, which is in bright red and reads like a banner over the composition. I especially love what happened with the white oil pastel trail over the newly collaged light purple map fragment on the left side of the composition.