atsuita /  by Philip Tarlow

ATSUITA 38x20” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3:50 PM: atsuita is the name of a japanese robe from the middle edo period, which i’m borrowing as the title of this painting. this 38x20” piece of portrait linen was originally intended to be half of a new painting in two pieces hung side by side. initially, i lay them next to one another on my painting table and made some sweeping marks in bright colors, which were inspired by japanese robes from that period i had been loooking at.

so this morning, i decided to let hu 1 have a little rest, and began work on atsuita. the by now familiar walking figure in the blue plaid shirt has shown up, as well as a tip of the hat to diebenkorn in the form of a green triangle of color in the lower left. on the upper left is the half scraped over figure of a bather sitting on the rocks above piso yialia, a beach we used to frequent on the greek island of andros.

continued work on “HU 1” /  by Philip Tarlow

HU 1 following today’s work

2:40 PM: so i brushed aside my morning comments and continued work on hu 1, following a one hour break to deal with the technician who came to set up our new tv. for the most part my attention was on the bottom musician on the lower portion of the composition and the shadows cast by his body & instrument.

i’m out of juice, so let’s see what happens in the morning.

11:40 AM: this morning i saw what i needed to do and did it, before the spirit left or weakened. i was also aware of the time, because we were expecting the technician from directv to come and help us connect our new tv set to the dish.

when a painting is this far along, there’s a moment when you feel what needs to happen, but it can only happen when you grab the brush or oil pastel stick do what it tells you. the greatest amount of time was actually spent on the shadow of the lower musician’s arm, on the right side of the composition. it was too dark, then too light until i realized that it was the space between the shadow and his actual arm that was a big part of the problem. some vertical and horizontal lines helped make it sing.

i won’t do anything more and allow it to breathe until tomorrow morning. , when i cast that all important first glance. so now it’s still early enough to do some work on the second piece of 38x20” linen, originally meant to be a companion piece to hu 1.

july heat reverts to hu 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:38 PM: i just stopped for the day, after bringing hu 1 to an interesting place. the two musicians dominate the composition, without defining it. what i mean by that is that this is, first and foremost, a painting. marks on a surface dividing up the space that makes your brain tumble about and momentarily forget which way is up!. geometric shapes play a small but significant role in conveying this.

11:12 AM: you might think i’m a wacko, which of course is true, but i’m radically revising what i said in my post yesterday. july heat has gone back to hu 1. and i must say it has, thus far , benefitted from yesterday’s red madness! i worked hard this morning on removing most of the still somewhat wet red areas, replacing them with a pale yellow ochre-ish color & leaving a bit between the legs of the musician on the bottom, where i think it actually works well. and now i think i’ll go back into the figures of the two musicians & see where that takes me.

BELOW: hu 1 on 7/19 (left) and today at 11 am

hu 1 38x20”/96.5x51 cm. as it looked at 11 am

savoir faire / july heat /  by Philip Tarlow

1:28 PM: so i got over my obsession with the HU and moved on. i worked over what i had done yesterday on this 38x20” piece of primed linen, guided only by this matisse quote: “don’t wait for inspiration. it comes while working.”

that pretty much says it all, and, today at least, freed me from any visions or goals i may have had, either related to the HU or anything else! i trust my marks and my perception of color enought to just paint! nothing my mind can come up with will ever equal the actual process of drawing or painting. if you take a look at most of the work of de kooning or matisse, you’ll see what i’m getting at.

that doesn’t mean i can make marks willy nilly and a great painting will emerge. on this one, for example, i started with a fixed, focused idea stemming from the beauty of the video accompanying the HU’s Yuve, Yuve U video, the link to which i included in yesterday’s post. but when i woke up this morning and prepared to come over to my studio, that seemed like old news, not relevant to what i’m feeling today.

matisse’s wise words were like someone opened a door & said “go for it!” you have to remain vigilant though, because the mind will always find a way of elbowing it’s way in!

so july heat, as i’ve titled it, started off with two HU musicians, one of whom is still visible with his instrument on the upper right, as is part of the instrument of the second musician, in the lower center. and then………

the inspiration began flowing as soon as i let go of my plans for representing the HU.

july heat 38x20”/96.5 x 51 cm. oil on linen

right now, looking at it on my east painting wall, it literally JUMPS off the wall. you might say “well, that’s in part due to the bright reds, which can’t really be found in the other of the seven!” ok, that’s part of it, but the biggest factor, in my opinion, is the unplanned, spontaneous immediacy of the strokes, reflecting all that i’ve said here.

my east painting wall, with the new july heat in the center surrounded by 7 recent paintings

2:41 PM: as i worked on july heat, i went back & forth, working on savoir faire, a painting i started a few years ago and has been sitting in my storage room ever since. as i was rearranging things the other day, i came across it and found it interesting enough to take it out and work more on it. it was basically gray, with a drawing in black & white, and other paintings underneath. so all the color you see happened today. it works, as you can see here, either as a vertical or a horizontal composition.

savoir faire, 15.5x29” oil on linen

hu 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:49 PM: as i mentioned in yesterdays post, everything changed for me after watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE

in it, we see the hu playing and singing in total rapture. their movements, dress, instruments and the landscape they’re playing in inspired me to create a new series of paintings simply titled HU.

Founded in 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, THE HU, Gala, Jaya, Temka, and Enkush, are a modern rock group rooted in the tradition of their homeland, and using the amazing technique of throat singing.

although this first in the series is at a very early stage, you can discern two musicians playing and singing. more tomorrow.

STAGE 1, hu I, 38x20” oil on linen

starting THE HU SERIES /  by Philip Tarlow

the first in the new hu series is 38x20” linen

2:01 PM: this morning i felt like the second 80x20” piece of portrait linen i cut (the first was used for gained vision IV”) was too big, and i had the desire to cut it in half, resulting in two 38x20” canvases.

i initially intended to make them 2 interconnected paintings, but changed my mind afer watching this video of the hu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE

in this photo you see me from my loft, where i took my nikon & tripod & set it to a 20 second delay, giving me just enough time to scurry back down & grab my brush. and as i was ding all this, we had a 5 minute burst of heavy rain & wind, creating wonderful aromas we haven’t experienced in quite a while.

remembering and somehow returning to a state of play, as we all experienced when we were little kids, is something that requires a deep, unstructured letting go. i feel i’m getting closer to that space, but the mind is such a trap!

i’ll pick up where i left off tomorrow morning earlier than today.

gained vision IV continued /  by Philip Tarlow

1:56 PM: the lower portion of gained vision IV looked way to heavy when i entered the studio this morning. i whited over it, intentionally leaving some of the underpainting visible. then i proceeded to work into it, using a few of my creek phostos as inspiration, and adding a triangle of green/yellow in the lower right corner., which may or may not remain.

i think it’s definitely an improvement over yesterday’s version, but i’m not yet sure whether it hangs together. i did want a much less cluttered surface with one focal point; in this case the figure up top. i owe a lot to matisse & diebenkorn (as diebenkorn owes a lot to matisse!)

looking at it now from 20+ feet, i’m seeing that the whited over portion below enlivens the entire composition in a way that couldn’t have been predicted, thereby becoming an element in my constant striving for the unpredictable!

gained vision IV as it looked at the end of my painting day today

3 creek oils from 2011/ gained vision 4, day 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

at work today on the new gained vision IV

3:19 PM: this afternoon i started work on a new painting in the gained vision series: gained vision IV. i made the initial drawing with the unstretched canvas laying on the floor and then moved to my painting table. there’s an underlying creek theme here, with a large tree trunk surrounded by bubbly blue creek water dominating the lower 2/3 of the composition i knocked over a glass jar of india ink, which i stepped in before cleaning it up. i thought the bottom of my sandle made interesting marks on my cement floor, so i lat the canvas back on the floor & stepped on it, creating the pattern you see half way up the composition on the right.

the naked bather on top comes from some photos i shot on the greek island of andros about a decade ago, and remoinds me of an indigenous figure. as of now, the top half on the composition remains white, with the exception of the figure.

11:25 AM: this morning i took a look into my studio storage room. which, like the rest of the studio, needs cleanup. i found 3 plein air creek paintings painted in august, 2011, each 16x16”. i have a new appreciation for this work, which i think deserves to be shown along with other plein air paintings from that period, which you can view below.

looking at them for the first time, after 12 years has gone by, i’m impressed that i was able to create this level of abstraction while sitting and observing the flowing creek. the watercolor and gouache paintings on paper i made during that period are far more realist and descriptive. these oils correspond more to where i’m currently at. i’m taking realist elements and simplifying and abstracting them, so that they’re more about patterns, colors, forms.

cottonwood I, 2011, 16x16"

my studio storage space as it looked this morning.

cottonwood kokh, 2011, 16x16"

creek study II, 2011 16x16"

stretching “gained vision LLL” / starting my day with a self portrait drawing /  by Philip Tarlow

3:48 PM: today i stretched gained vision III and took it back to the house, where i hung it at the head of our stairs.

10:55 AM: i started my day today going back & forth with a FB friend, then making 2 colored pencil self portraits, (the one on the left, from the previous page, which appears faintly, is the first, more abstracted version) in this corner of my studio,, above the colored pencil portrait, is my study of an arcile gorky painitng.

i was going back & forth between drawing & stretching 2 16x20” canvases to fool around on when i’m taking a break from larger works. yesterday i cut 2 more 80x20” pieces of extra fine quadruple primed portrait linen, which i plan on strarting work on as soon as i post this. more later!

gained vision III tweaked / Mikela's cappucino /  by Philip Tarlow

gained vision III tweaked this morning

12:11 PM: i got an early start this morning, and was able to tweak the figure in the plaid shirt, who needed to pop more.

i accented his plaid shirt, added the shadow above his foot and gave his hand more flesh tones, as well as adding his gold wedding ring.

so i think i can declare this one RESOLVED! gazing at it next to gained vision II, this one is softer and more subtle in color. i love them equally and i’d like to see them hung about 4-5 feet apart in the right setting.

they also integrate well with the entire jazz series, consisting of 16 paintings.

DETAIL of the figure i tweaked this morning

6:50 AM: this is the cappucino i made for mikela this morning: home roasted yemeni beans, finely ground and placed in my moka pot, with organic soy milk frothed in my new breville frother, and served to her in her 1st floor office!

about to mediate; more when i get to the studio!