more work on tokyo olympics 12 & 13 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:40 PM: today i did more work on the two most recent paintings in my tokyo olympics series of paintings.

i started with the most recent: tokyo olympics 13, which i felt needed something more in the lower portion of the composition, but not too much. so i drew in some creek rocks and branches, which i think work but may need to be bolder than the sketchy pencil lines i drew in. i think they also add a note of mystery, placed as they are beneath the skateboarder & the acrobat doing a handstand. as is true with the others in this series, it’s up to the viewer to fill in the blanks.

as for tokyo olympics 12, i had gone over the entire painting 2 days ago with a thin coat of light yellow and wsa waiting for it to dry sufficiantly for me to go back in without my brush picking up too much of that yellow.

it’s a totally different composition now, although, as i intended, the previous version, which i painted over, does peek through as a ghost image, adding richness and mystery.

so now, the composiiton has three singers, who played a key role in the post-olympic games celebration.

tokyo olympics 13, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:04 PM: i got an early start today, so when it couded over & started snowing half an hour ago, i was pretty much done for the day. as you will see below in the before & after photos, this is now a totally different composition, with only a very few elements left from yesterday.

it definitely looks more like it’s title: tokyo olympics 13! let’s see where it goes tomorrow.

BELOW: tokyo olympics 13 yesterday (left) and just now

starting "tokyo olympics 13" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:48 PM: sure doesn’t look like tokyo olympics! but this is just day one, and it will transform tomorrow. i love the colors so far. it’s inspired, at this early stage, by a, 18th c. japanese woodblock print, which i find very moving in it’s unassuming, innocent intimacy.

space g-1 has become "TOKYO OLYMPICS 12" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:51 PM: i added one more piece of collaged paper, this time a piece of a pen & ink drawing, just below the flowers on the upper left.

1:53 PM: i changed the title of space g-1 to tokyo olympics 12 after working on it today. i just felt that it’s more accurate, not to mention convenient. i’ve been having difficulty lately collaging paper onto the paintings, so i stopped for a while. but this most recent one really demans a couple of collaged elements. so i watched a short video giving some tips, which i think worked! i flipped the painting previously called space g-1 180° and collaged 2 pieces of a map, eliminating the mother with her child but keeping the male figure holding a mike, who is now in the lower right quadrant.

i think it worked! the piece of map you see in the upper right corner functions optically almost like a window, which adds the depth i felt was missing from the composition.

BELOW: tokyo olympics 12 as it looked yesterday (left) and moments ago following my changes

continued work on "space-g 1" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:27 PM: i’m a little nervouse because it’s snowing heavily and mikela is out at the school, so she’ll be driving home in poor conditions. i have a call in to her to see if she can leave earlier than planned so she doesn’t have to drive on icy roads after dark.

i’ve been working on space-g 1 all day. i took out the enigmatic figure in the upper right and fooled around with various solutions, scraping & rubbing solvent on areas that needed to go. i think it’s sort of in a good space right now.

final touches to to tokyo olympics 11 / starting "space-g 1" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:50 PM: i made a few additions to tokyo olympics 11 this morning. then i cur 4 new pieces of canvas, all the same size as the tokyo olympics series, and started work on a new series, titled space-g. the g stands for gallery, and the paintings are inspired by photos i shot from above at a space gallery opening some years back. this is the gallery where i show my work in denver, and where i receently had an exhibition.

a mother holding her child stands next to a vase of flowers and a second figure is on the upper right. it’s intentionally not clear what that figure is doing, but the forms give you hints, and the viewer will have to determine what’s going on up there. the floor at space does not have the pink and red patterning you see in the painting, so it’s kind of a mix of reality and fantasy.

not sure right now whether i’ll do more tomorrow. maybe.

major alterations to "tokyo olympics 10" today / starting tokyo olympics 11 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:02 PM: following my new changes to tokyo olympics 10, i got started on tokyo olympics 11. it’s in a very early stage, but i love all the white space, and we’ll see how much of that remains when i continue working on it tomorrow morning!

2:58 PM: i made a few more changes to tokyo olympics 10, and started work on tokyo olympics 11.

12:06 PM: we have a wonderful wind on this cloudy day today, gusting to 30mph. it’s snowing on the peaks, but thus far we haven’t seen any down here. i say down here, but of course we’re at 8,000 ft. the peaks above us rise to 14,300 ft.

the changes i just made, which are extensive, came from my reaction to my first glance when i entered my studio this morning.

the composition seemed disconnected, and the patterning below, while it was interesting by itself, had little to do with the overalll composition.

my use of blacks in this re-work stems, to a large degree, from some reading i was doing over breakfast this morning. i was going through some of john elderfield’s excellent text in my 1992-93 museum of modern art matisse retrospective catalogue. in it, he speaks of matisse’s use of black in a way that made me rethink my own use of that color.

the result is, i believe, a far more coherent and vibrant painting.

so now let’s see what i do on the next one, which has the exact same dimensions and is tacked to the wall adjacent to this one.

BELOW: THE PAINTING AS IT LOOKED YESTERDAY IS ON THE LEFT

starting "tokyo olympics 10" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:16 PM: yesterday we drove up to cmc aspen to pick up the paintings from my show there & bring them back. it was a total of 10 hours of driving, round trip, and we were exhausted when we got back. last night i slept for 9 1/2 hours and woke up late but refreshed. so i got a late start this morning on tokyo olympics 10, 37 1/4x 18 3/4”

i’ll decide tomorrow whether it’s resolved, but i think it’s looking pretty good!

starting "tokyo olympics 9" /  by Philip Tarlow

1:04 PM: i got an early start this morning, after a planned trip got unexpectedly cancelled. i started a new one: tokyo olympics 9, 37 1/4x 18 3/4” oil on portrait linen.

it follows in the footsteps of the previous ones in this rapidly developing series, with lots of negative white spaces & suggested figures in motion. yellow is the dominant color, set off by reds & blues. this one would look great hanging next to the one i did yesterday, perhaps hung on a warm grey wall.

i like the composition of this one perhaps more than any so far. i dare say i’m learning by leaps & bounds how to make a painting that sings, without shrieking, and flows, without being too predictable.

tomorrow will be a day off, and i’ll be back in the studio on saturday morning. today is a sunny, cloudless day with a temperature of 34F, likely climbing a few more degrees in the next hour or two. in a little over an hour, we’ll take our walk up to the stupa, which is the walk we’ll be taking until spring arrives, when we’ll resume our walks up cottonwood creek, which are far more interesting visually. at that time, i’ll lkely resume my creekside watercolors which, undoubtedly influenced by this current series and by our experiences in greec in march, will have a different look for sure.

tokyo olympics 9 37 1/4x 18 3/4” oil on portrait linen

BELOW: tokyo olympics 8 & 9 as they might look hanging together.

day 2 of "tokyo olympics 8" / changes to w-cup 2; bare breasted no more /  by Philip Tarlow

1:41 PM: i spent most of this cloudy, very windy day creating the next stage of tokyo olympics 8, which i just began yesterday. it may actually be resolved. as you will observe, elements of the previous three or four paintings in this tokyo olympics series have been carried over to this current version. the figures continue their celebration; the drummer continues playing; the persian red continues it’s dominant coloristic role. i like to think that, as someone once said of matisse,my current work is transcending the picturesque for the sublime.

i have made enough realist works over the course of my career to feel comfortable allowing any realist elements to function primarily as design elements in a unique arrangement of colors, patterns and forms that elecit wonder and, ideally, give the viewer a spiritual experience on top of the aesthetic one.

at some point mid-morning, i glanced to my left at w-cup 2, tacked to my east studio wall. my eyes landed on the bare breasts of the central female dancing figure with her red hat, and i couldn’t unglue them (my eyes) form her bare breasts. they seemed to take away from the music of the whole. so i painted over them, creating a checkered patterning like the one on her shorts, but in a pale grey.

and now, the music seems restored and, as i gaze at it from 25 feet away, i can enjoy the entire composition without getting stuck on her bare breasts.

BELOW: before and after painting over the breasts

tokyo olympics 8, 37 1/4x 18 3/4” oil on portrait linen