February 21, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*2/18/2022 oil/collage* at the end of my painting day today

I had a long day today. I got to the studio before 9am, because mikela had to leave the house for school at 8 and I wanted to complete my shower & stuff so we could have our usual phone conversation as she was driving. it works great; I learn what she’ll be up to at school, and the time flies so that before we know it she’s arrived and i’m able to leave the house very early.

as a result, I was able to do more work than I had anticipated on 2/18/2022 oil/collage. thus, it’s in a very different place than yesterday. i’ve posted side by side images BELOW for you to observe the changes.

BELOW: 5 progressive stage of this evenings sunset as photographed from our west living room windows

continued work on 2/18/2022 oil/collage / February 20, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

at work this morning on *2/18/2022 oil/collage*

12:14 PM: this morning I had my groove on, so I painted as long as it lasted and, as i’ve learned over time, when my logical (?) mind cut in, I stopped & started this post. my mentee will arrive in about 45 minutes, so i’d have to stop then anyway.

creek-scape and olympic dancers come together, and the mystery thickens. this one will definitely be in my april denver show, if I can pull it off. i’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning to continue.

*2/18/2022 oil/collage* as it looked at noon today

OUT, damn shadows! / a 1978 article about my portraits of contemporary greek painters / starting 2/18/2022 oil/collage / February 19, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

3:45 pm I decided to take a short break from the smaller canvasses and start a new larger one, which is 28x60.” i’m starting with a drawing based upon some of my creek photos, and we’ll see where it wants to go tomorrow.

12:57 PM: upon entering my studio and casting my all-important first glance, I determined that those purple shadows at the bottom, which were added at the last minute yesterday, were distracting from the whole composition, and unnecessary. so this morning I took them out, at first by painting over them with white, and then by rubbing them out using a gamsol-soaked rag.

if you compare the BEFORE and AFTER, ABOVE, you’ll likely see what i’m talking about.

in 1978, which was my final year of the 15 consecutive years I lived and painted in greece, my friend ralli kopsidis wrote a short article about me and the series of 5 portraits I had just completed, of contemporary greek painters & friends of mine. it was published in zygos, an art magazine. I re-discovered it while browsing through my bookshelf, and thought you’d enjoy seeing it. when I have a moment, i’ll translate it and post. might be a few days…

taking canvas 15 to the next stage / February 18, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

2:20 PM: this is close to the end of my painting day, if not the actual end, since we’re taking our stupa walk in just under an hour. I did extensive work on canvas 15, which I started yesterday. stage 1 is no longer visible in the flurry of strokes and the newly collaged elements. it’s not as spare as some of the others in the polyptych suite, but just as engaging, I believe, especially when you get up close. the tokyo olympics final celebration continues to be the thread that runs through them all, but the dancers and acrobats are not as evident. the collaged bits of ink drawings always introduce that element of chance I so love, and create a delicious ambiguity.

the figures in white moving the large colored cubes about are there, as is the checkerboard background and the checkered pant leg of one of the dancers. but if you haven’t seen the rest of the series, you might not get what’s going on here. so when I show this suite in april, the 20 or more canvases will be distributed on the wall in a decorative pattern, perhaps echoing the checkerboard patterning that permeates all the individual compositions.

will I do more tomorrow morning? don’t know yet.

some modifications to canvas 14 / starting canvas 15 / February 17, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*canvas 15* as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3:33 PM: after making the modifications to canvas 14, which I posted earlier today, I started work on canvas 15. so far, it’s pretty simple and as yet has no collaged elements. there’s a dancing tokyo olympics figure with a patterned costume, in a landscape. i’d like to keep it simple….so what else is new?

i’m using the amazon try before you buy feature to find the right sneakers to wear while standing all day on my cement studio floor. the latest ones arrived today, and are sketchers brand. not too bad looking, but it’s all about the footbed and the overall fit & feel over many hours. been wearing these since about 1pm, and so far so good.

12:47 PM: turns out, as usual, after all those predictions from future radar, we only ended up with an inch of new snow. more up on the peaks, but not nearly enough to lift us out of severe drought.

when I came back in to the studio this morning, I saw a few areas in canvas 14 that needed work, so I made the modifications, which you can see in the comparative views BELOW.

as you will observe, the dancer’s legs, which were hanging mid-air, now have sneakers, and his face now has features. the shadow of his leg has appeared in light violet, and a decorative element from the original photo of the olympics celebration event breaks up the checkerboard blue in the background. a hint of blue sleeve peeks out from the back of his blue & white garment, echoing the other blues in the composition.

starting canvas 14 / February 16, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*canvas 14* as it looked at the end of my painting day

2:38 PM: about to stop for the day so we can take our stupa walk in half an hour. I did quite a bit of work on this new one, but it’s not there yet, so i’ll pick up again in the morning.

11:42 AM: I feel good about canvas 13, so I have declared it completed & started on #14. so far, it’s a colored pencil drawing on the usual 15x17.5” portrait linen tacked to my east wall. i’m about to resume, following this brief break, and will post updates as they become available.

it’s a windy day, but not cold, and we’re scheduled to walk at 3:15 this afternoon. sporadic snow may begin around sunset and continue into the night.

at work this morning on *canvas 14* in my *olympics polyptych* series

STARTING 1-8-2022 polyptych, canvas 13 / February 15, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*1-8-2022 polyptych, canvas 13* as it looked moments ago

and at 2:44, here’s how she looks

1:56 PM: after a slow start, digesting the fact that i’m actually going from 12 to 27 canvases in this series, I started work on #13. here’s where it’s at currently.

cutting15 more polyptych canvases / I found this 2017 oil on canvas / February 14, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

10 of the 12 polyptych series on my east wall

4pm: I rearranged 10 of the polyptych series paintings on my east studio wall. the other two are over at the house.

and I decided i’m not done with this series yet, so I cut 15 more portrait linen canvases, each 15.25x17.50 inches. larger format paintings don’t really interest me right now, and it’s important to know here your interest lies at a specific moment in time.

so it’s likely i’ll launch into the first one tomorrow, but I have a 10am call with apple to figure out how to create more space on my iMac so that I can install the latest software. that might screw up my energy fo painting, but maybe the opposite will happen. lets see.

cutting 15 more 15.25x17.50 inch pieces of portrait linen

*the barber shop,* oil in linen, 22x22” 2017

10:49 AM: this morning I found this 2017 oil on canvas leaning against the wall of my studio. it’s a painting of a barber shop somewhere in india, which I photographed during that trip. I was struck by the patterns and colors, all reflected in the many mirrors. it reminds me of the interiors I used to paint during my 15 years in greece, on excursions we took with my then mother-in-law, the late great painter niki karagatsi, to little shops in piraeus.

2/9/2022 oil/collage continued / February 13, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*2/9/2022 oil collage* at the end of my painting day today

2:49 PM: I was a little out of it today, so I did more work to 2/9/2022 oil/collage and then, at the end of met painting day, I took out half of what I did. you’d better be in good form when you start your painting day, or you should find something else to do.

2/9/2022 oil/collage continued / February 12, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

1:59 PM: my process is like breathing. so today is like the out breath. I went over what I did yesterday with titanium/zinc white oil paint, applied with a large flat brush. then I pressed sheets of bubble wrap (with the small bubbles) onto the surface, creating a subtle pattern and at the same time revealing shadows of yesterdays bold marks.

what i’ve done thus far is inspired by a photo I found of workmen uncovering and cleaning an ancient floor mosaic, which is a few thousand years old. there are a lot of patterns, and a lot of faces, male and female.

on the out breath, tomorrow morning, I may continue along this path. the paint will have dried by then, so rather than painting wet into wets I am today, i’ll be brushing the wet oil paint onto a dry or almost dry surface, so that it no longer picks up the underlying color. wet into wet generally results in a more painterly outcome. dekooning knew this, which is why he lay newspaper on top of what he had painted that day, so that the next morning, after removing the newspaper, he could have that wet surface he loved painting into. eventually he discovered that, if he left the newspaper in place, it would behave as a collage and add variety to what he was doing.