2:41 PM: have i ever made this many tweaks to a painting? i just can’t stop! but i do feel it gets better with every tweak i make. today i made changes to the tablecloth, the fireplace, the hair of the woman in the center-left, the plates & glasses and more.
BELOW: before (left) and after.
DETAIL of changes to the tablecloth today
Ithe dinner party, 38x40” oil on portrait linen
3:23 PM: i made some tweaks to the dinner party, which i had thought was resolved. yesterday before leaving the studio, i took out the sculptures on the right side of the composition and replaced them with a mirror, which is reflecting the backs of the 3 women guests. today i broke up the solid blues of the sweaters of the two men at either end of the table, gave the woman on the upper right her right arm & filled her plate with food….lots of small but significant stuff that has resulted in a more coherent composiiton. as well, the woman in the red dress no longer looks as if her nipple is popping out. and i love that the light blue shape on the very lower left is so crucial to the entire composition.
i’ve never had this experiencce before, but every so often the question entered my consciousness: “what would bonnard do here?”
time to wrap up & go back to the house & lie down. see y’all tomorrow.
BELOW: before (left) & after
12:02 PM: mother & child at space became mosaic yesterday, and this morning i painted over it with brilliant yellow oils and will wait a day or two till the paint dries to make my next move.
in the mean time, i think i’ll make some tweaks to the dinner party, following some observations by mikela yesterday when she came over to have a look.
i already implemented one of her suggestions. the sculptures on the wall on the right side of the composition, which were bothering me too before she even said anything, have become a mirror, reflecting the backs of the 3 women sitting and having dinner. of course i had to make that up, since of course the photos i shot back in 2016 didn’t include any rear views.
mosaic, 38x44” as it looked at the end of my painting day today
3:20 PM: i spent most of today taking the newly titled, for obvious reasons, mosaic, to the next stage in it’s development. the mythological figures have been further developed, new ones added and a piece of an article on minoan pottery collaged on the right. the black swirls in this reproduction of a minoan ceramic piece offset the flesh tones of the figures. and the two dolphins below lighten the mood, introducing a playfulness. what remains of yesterday’s image of the mother and child provides a richness of color: the reds of the baby’s shirt and a certain, what for me is an exciting visual fluidity/ambiguity.
mosaic 38x44” oil & collage on portrait linen, as it looked earlier today
1:17 PM: i scraped & collaged over the first stage of mother & chils at space, which i started yesterday, and today took a different path. so the painting is now titled mosaic, inspired by one of the pompeiian mosaics from about 79 AD. too early to tell where it’s headed, which is unpredictable for the moment. stay tuned!
mother and child at space as it looked at the end of my painting day today
3:35 PM: i began painting mother and child at space today, working mostly on the figures of the mother holding her baby. tomorrow i’ll expand to the rest of the painting.
7/11/22 creek drawing
7:52 AM: yesterday morning we took our trail walk. i was especially peppy, and made it up to our landmark rock in a record 24.25 minutes. since i arrived 8 minutes ahead of mikela, i had time to make this small drawing in colored pencil. mikela walked up a bit further, giving me enough time to complete the drawing. making these little drawings on a regular basis is invaluable to my process, and, for now, a good substitute for the drawings i used to make during the period when we were traveling for our work, when i would sit in coffee shops and restaurants and make drawings of the people sitting at tables eating or talking.
an early stage of my drawing for mother and child at space, which will eventually become a 38x44” oil painting on linen
4:55 PM: it’s admittedly hard to make out what’s going on in this early stage drawing. what we’re looking at is a mother holding her child and browsing material on a table at a space gallery opening in 2015, as seen from the upper floor. while i as combing through my photos from above folder, i came across a grouping shot at one of the earliest space gallery openings. the gallery, of which i am a member artist, is located on santa fe drive in denver, colorado.
when people, like this mother, don’t know they’re being photographed, they tend to strike more relaxed, natural poses. seen from above, the figures integrate with the items on the gallery table and are rendered more dramatic, as you will soon see, by the light and shadow falling on and around them.
3:49 PM: it’s a hot one! the temperature reached 90F this afternoon, which is pretty high for crestone/baca, which is at 8,000 ft. but it’s clouding over now, and there are some thunderstorms in the area, which should cool it down.
having completed the dinner party yesterday, i began planning for a series of paintings which will be roughly the same dimensions, maybe a few inches bigger. they will all be on my favorite surface for painting in oil: sennelier quadruple primed portrait linen, which is almost as smooth as a piece of paper and takes the oil paint very beautifully. if you dilute the paint, it’s almost like making a watercolor.
like the dinner party, the new series will be an updated version of my ano kato series (https://www.philiptarlow.com/anokato) which started with this watercolor, made looking down from my athens studio window in about 1972.
this is the guy who was the self appointed car parker for this region of the plaka neighborhood, overlooking the roman era tower of the winds, or the horologion of andronikos kyrrhestes, considered the world’s first meteorolical station, featuring a combination of sun dials, a water clock and a wind vane! some sources say it was constructed in the second century B.C.
i’ve shot many hundreds of photos looking down on people doing things: eating, watering plants, sitting on the school hallway floor & working on their computers, museum visitors looking at art…..
this one, for example, was painted following our visit to the then newly opened acropolis museum, directly opposite the acropolis in athens. the transparent floor gives us a view of the ancient ruins below, adding an amazing dimension to the experience.
so how, if at all, will this new series be different? stay tuned, and we’ll find out! i’ve got to order some new stretcher bars in order to start the oils. so while i’m waiting for them to arrive, i’ll start tomorrow with some gouache/watercolor on paper studies.
o kyrios yannis, ca. 1972, watercolor on paper
one the many paintings i made of the tower of the winds
acropolis museum visitors
the dinner party, 38x40” after lightening the exhaust pipe over the wood stove.
3:30 PM: as i was posting half hour ago, i realized that the chimney above the stove was way too black. since the paint was still wet, it just took a few minutes to rub into it with a paper towel and lighten it. i think it’s much better now.
the dinner party, 38x40” as it looked at the end of my painting day today
2:43 PM: today i pretty much painted on the dinner party all day, till half an hour ago. we didn’t do our trail walk (we do it every other day) so i had a good chunk of time & covered lots of ground. you’ll see in the comparative views BELOW just how much has changed. there’s now a fire burning in the wood burning stove, for example. whaqt used to be 3/4 of a dog lying down, over on the left, is gone. the floor tiles have been reworked. stripes have appeared on the clothing of the seated figure middle left. wine glasses have appeared on the table….and a lot more. if you make the images full page & scroll back & forth, you’ll be bale to spot the changes.
3:20 PM: after returning from our morning trail walk, where i made this little drawing, i arrived relatively late at my studio & didn’t get to work till about noon. so what? noon, schmoon! it’s all good.
i made quite a few additions and modifications to the dinner party, including a fair amount of improvements to the female figures on the right. i also slightly toned down the stark white of the table, tok the couch & pillows to the next level and gave some definition to the sculptural piece on the wall to the right.
i go back & forth between feeling maybe there’s too much going on; too many details, and enjoying the richness of the composition. i know all the participants, of course, but it’s hard to get that this dinner party took place only 6 years ago. seems like ancient history.
i’m also constantly amazed at how i can make a painting like handstand (BELOW left) and this july 1st collage (RIGHT) less than a month ago and then a painting like the dinner party. fortunately, i don’t have a gallerey director breathing down my neck trying to encourage a consistancy in my work. if you review my entire body of work over decades, you’ll discover that, indeed, there is a consistancy. it’s called PAINTERLY!
so i’ll continue work on the dinner party tomorrow. we’re not walking the trail tomorrow, so i should be able to arrive earlier at the studio.
7/8/22 trail drawing. 4x6” colored pencil
cobleskill, 7/1/22, after i flipped it upside down last night
7/6/22 poem
terrnanium geranium
cranium
uttered she
flax bound
fracus sounds
either oui or non
plus one
or thereover
from the underlings
sweping moons
asunder
he wondered
the dinner party 38x40” oil on portrait linen, as it looked at the end of my painting day today
3:19 PM: i continued painting the dinner party today, working on practically all areas of the composition. i worked a lot on all the seated dinner guests, as well as the tile floor, the patterned rug, etc. it’s slow going, but i’m having a great time mixing the subtle shades of greys, pinks & blue/violets. the table, with it’s red patterning, is still too starkly white, as is the area of wall on the upper right, and i’ll address that tomorrow.
BELOW: yesterday’s version is on the LEFT
the dinner party, 38x40” as it looked at the end of my painting day today
3:25 PM: i was literally licking my lips in anticipation of this morning’s session, when i began adding color to the drawing i made over the past few days for the dinner party, “ 38x40”
i began with the light siena tiled floor and proceeded to the seated figures.
i love that there are so many patterns. and, of course, in keeping with my ano kato series and many of the paintings i’ve made earlier in my career, views from above gte me very turned on!
i’ll continue work on this one tomorrow, after our morning trail walk.
DETAIL: the dinner party, 38x40” oil on portrait linen
at work on the dinner party earlier today
palette for the dinner party as it looked today
