preparing for aspen / a morning trail drawing /  by Philip Tarlow

4:46 PM: following our morning trail walk, which was spectacular, & my morning trail drawing, i got to work sorting through my gaze series paintings to make my selection of the ones that will be shown in aspen. here’s one of them: Gaze 12 38x38”, mixed media on canvas.

we’ve been stopping our walks further up the trail: 45 minutes rather than 30, which means we’re stopping at a spot where there’s no easy creek access. so instead of making creek drawings, i’m making rock drawings, like the one you see BELOW right. the vegetation is lush, as you can see below left, ND THE Lndscape is filled with beautiful fallen tree trunks in various stages of disintegration.

a better option for my "jestur" exhibition /  by Philip Tarlow

3:23 PM: been workin’ most of the day on this logo/invite. here’s the latest version:

11:16 AM: this morning i shot a new photo of myself with a different painting for the logo of my aspen cmc exhibition. i think it’s better in many respects: i prefer using this painting to the one i used yesterday with the drummer, i look better shaved, and i included my name in this one, moving the title down to the bottom of the image.

the new version of the exhibition logo i created yesterday

playing around with ideas for my aspen exhibition next month /  by Philip Tarlow

4:09 PM: i’ve tentatively settled on a title for my exhibition opening next month, which is jestur, obviously a play on the word gesture. one way of talking about painting and drawing is by using the phrase mark making. i like gesture because, across the ages, that’s what it’s all about. yes, it’s all marks on some kind of surface. but even more to the point, it’s about the movement of the fingers, the arm, the body in making those marks. whether precise, like dürer, or loose & sweeping, like dekooning, the marks are made up of gestures rooted in the gut.

i think i need to re-shoot myself clean shaven, but i also need to ponder this title and whether it works. what do you get when you see it?

tweaks to "dwell" 17x80" /  by Philip Tarlow

dwell 17x80” oil on linen as it looked at the end of my painting day

dwell 17x80” oil on linen, as it looked on july 25 after introducing the blue on upper left

2:25 pm: ever since i last worked on it, i’ve been gazing at dwell, 17x80.” the last time i did something to it was the day i impulsively lay it on my painting table and introduced the blue to the upper left quadrant.

today, after taking care of some adjustments to the stretcher bars on tokyo drummer, i moved aside everything on my east painting wall & hung dwell. it needed to pop more, but i hadn’t been sure where to begin. so i started with the figure on the upper right & the adjacent table & chairs. then i loved on to the figure on the lower left, who, seen from above, is slicing a loaf of bread. from there i picked up steam & made tweaks to the bowls of fruit on the long whiote table and to the daisies on the left. i’ll determine tomorrow morning whether more needs to be done. but right now, as i look at it from a distance of about 18 feet, it definitely pops more. i sure am glad i was bold enought to add that blue on the upper left; i had to be in an all or nothing mood, which i was that day.

tokyo drummer, 72x28" stretched on aluminum stretcher bars /  by Philip Tarlow

3:03 PM: i stretched tokyo drummer on the new aluminum stretcher bars today. much to my dissapointment, i discovered that they too will warp if not braced. so i did the bracing. it’s a long story, but that took most of the afternoon and was labor intensive!

desde arriba, day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:31 PM: i did a bit more on desde arriba this afternoon, as you will see if you compare this image to the one below.

desde arriba 32x42” day 3, end of my painting day 3:30 pm

2:13 PM: taking it slow, i moved ahead today with desde arriba. it’s still early so i’ll do one more round & post when i’m done for the day.

BELOW: yesterday (left) & today

desde arriba, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

desde arriba 32x42” oil on portrait linen, day2

3:58 PM: we lost power for a few hours this morning, which is always a disruptive event, but we called the company, their guys got on it immediately & it came back at about noon. whew! our water, for one because we have our own well, is affected by any loss of power, etc.

i made significant modifications to desde arriba on day 2. the figure of the girl in the green top has been painted over and just a shadow remains. the guy from my previous painting: the new couch, has shown up at the red door, but so far the woman opening the door for him (mikela) has not appeared. the overall tone of the composition is now a pale pink leaning towards yellow, and a few faint memories of the underlying i fly painting can be seen.

i should be able to get an earlier start tomorrow, since i won’t have to deal with a power outage, so let’s see where this one goes when i get back into it.

"I FLY" BECOMES "DESDE ARRIBA" /  by Philip Tarlow

desde arriba 32x42” oil on portrait linen-DAY 1

3:34 PM: today when i entered my studio and took a gaze at the new couch, it seemed resolved to me. i’m going to continue looking at it every day while i work on this revision of a painting made in march. it’s titled i fly, which has to do with the image of a skateboarder, arms spread, looking as though he is, indeed, flying.

i’m no longer in that space and didn’t feel like modifying it, so i flipped it 180°, went over it with a thin wash of light sienna/ochre and launched into a new drawing, based on photos from above i shot a few years back, of school girls in a corridor. i’m giving it a new title: desde arriba, which means from above in spanish.

much like the new couch, what is now the underpainting adds richness and mystery to the composition, providing, as always, unexpected twists & turns and visual loop-de-loops. lately, i’m zeroing in on my true visual vocabulary, which is great fun.

mikela is out at school with our car, and rumblings of thunder can be heard announcing the onset, not imminent i hope, of our afternoon monsoonal thunderstorms. so i better get cleaned up & walk back to the house if i don’t want to get soaked!

more later…

i fly, ˆ32x42” was flipped 180° and is becoming desde arriba

the new couch, day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

the new couch 38x40” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3pm: still taking it very slow, i continued work on the new couch, all of which was on the bottom half of the compostion. i adjusted the red door so that it looks more like a door, filled in some of the stairs and plants on the left, lightened the violet shadow on the lower left and made some changes to the figure holding the door open.

while maintaining the mystery of the undefined shapes above, i gave more definition and solidity to the areas below. lightening the violet shadow to the left of the guy at the door made it easier for the eye to wander about the surface, and making the red door taller allows it to be read more as a door and less as some kind of mirror or painting. suggestions of a black metal railing and stairs on the lower left make the space in the composition work better. the triangular areas of light above the male figure at the door add a nice touch of geometry, playing off the lights & shadows below.

but i’m not there yet, so let’s see what tomorrow brings.

the new couch, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

the new couch 38x40” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3:04 PM: i’m considering yesterday to be day 1 of the new couch, even though there are two previous compositions beneath, which are greatly contributing to this one especially that pinkish tone in the upper right. at this moment, it totally works as a resolved composition, so if i do more tomorrow, either i’ll screw it up or it will get even better; the latter, i’d like to think!

i’m walking that fine edge between abstraction and representation. and, as i’ve said many times, i think i’m cut out to walk this line. the suggested spaces beyond the red door can become whatever you like, wherever your imagination transports you. in my ano kato series, such as the one below, the architectural setting of the acropolis museum in athens is clearly defined, as are the relationships of the figures to that space.

whereas in the new couch, at least at this point in it’s evolution, the space in the foreground is pretty clearly laid out, while in the upper half of the composition, ghost images peak the imagination. the female figure in the lower right opens the red door for a guy delivereing the new couch…or is he looking out in awe on ill defined objects flying in space?

i guess we’ll find out more tomorrow.

ano kato 48 56x68” oil on portrait linen