continuing skateboarder 1, starting skateboarder 2 / August 26, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:46 PM: i continued work on skateboarder 1, which may be complete, and started skateboarder 2, a guy with a red shirt & cap & a red striped skateboard. i like them both…i’ll know better in the morning.ing

it’s interesting going from painting in oil to gouache. especially since, in my evolving style of working in oil, i routinely scrape just painted passages or white over them and then paint into the ghost image.

all of a sudden, i have to stay with the brush marks i make. going over something you’ve painted in gouache is not advisable and, as with watercolor, the marks you make are permanant.

on the other hand, it’s always good to switch it up, whatever you’re doing: cooking, reading, making love or just walking up the trail. i’m using different parts of my brain when i switch mediums as i did today, and that too is beneficial.

plus, i’m noticing things about skateboarders i never knew or paid attention to. one could say this is about as close as we can get to flying. i love how their arms create balance, and how every part of the body is engaged. it could be perceived as a form of dance.

skateboarder series / August 25, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:28 PM: i’m interrupting my recent series of 38x20” oils to make a few paintings of skateboarders this weekend, for a prospective client who expressed interest. i’m about 70% through the first one, titled simply: skateboarder 1. they will all be 16x6” gouache on arches paper.

*skateboarder 1* 16x6” at the end of my painting day

continued work on "the last supper" / August 24, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

11:56 AM: i whited over the upper half of the last supper this morning: dressed the bare breasted dinner guest, yellow and blue stripes surrounding the composition and added a patterned area of squares beneath the figure in green.

i see a significant improvement in the overall composition, and my eye is no longer confused by the pink hue of the upper half, as well as the architectural elements , which are now just ghost images. the richness and vibrancy of what’s going on in the lower half now bursts forth in a way that, frankly, overshadows it’s neighbors tacked to my east studio wall.

*the last supper* 38X20”/96.5X51 cm as it looked moments ago

the last supper at noon today & at 2pm / August 23, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

2pm: i did quite a bit more to the last supper this afternoon, and i’m just about cooked.

it’s getting there, but still needs more work. another figure will join the dinner party, & the upper 1/3 of the composition needs clarification. i like the plaid pattern on the bottom, as well as the bare breasted diner bottom right. the fireplace & chimney add an interesting dimension, and i love the figure in red, from the previous, underlying composition, who has somehow survived thus far.

11:58 AM: i’ve been working on the last supper this morning, and here’s where it’s at right now, still workin’

*the last supper,* 38x20” as it looked moments ago

jātaka is now "the last supper" / August 22, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:10 PM: taking into consideration the new direction this painting has taken, i’ve renamed it. it will now be titled the last supper. the reason for this is an old photo i found in the stack of photos i’ve printed out on large sheets of heavy photo paper. it was shot from the upper floor of a friend’s house here in crestone, during a period when our little community was still intact. a dozen of us had sat down to dinner at two separate tables and, aware that there was a prime spot on the upper floor to view it, i left our table briefly to go up and capture the scene. i was unaware at the time that this would be one of the last times such a gathering would take place. in the ensuing months and years, the attendees at this dinner would begin leaving crestone, which began growing at an alarming rate, introducing a new wave of crestonites we didn’t know. at this dinner were people most of whom had been here from the beginning, when crestone/baca was still a tiny town where the residents knew one another intimately.

and so, in a very real sense, this was the last supper.

bear in mind, this is only day 2 of my work on this new painting.

*the last supper* 38x20” at the end of my painting day

starting "jātaka" / August 21, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:40 PM: this morning i cut some new pieces of extra fine portrait linen into pieces matching my previous 4 paintings: 38x20”/96.5x51 cm.and started work on a new one, titled jātaka.a chinese term referring to the former lives of the buddha, and dating back to the northern wei dynasty (386-535).

experiment 1 whited over....again! / hu 1 continued / August 19, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

1:58 PM: i had thought hu 1 was resolved, but not so fast tarlow! i started finding all that grey a bit boring. so first i went over the entire paiting with bubble wrap tinted with white oil paint. then i scraped into that, removing most but not all of it. then i introduced a triangle of yellow ochre next to an adjacent area of blue, which is where it’s at now. certainly more visually interesting than that grey.

i’m leaving it like this till i come back fresh in the morning.

here’s the freshly whited over experiment 1

experiment 1 / museé d'art moderne, paris, 2012 drawing / / August 18, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:53: i started working into experiment 1. going back to the house & i’ll post more when i get there.

*experiment 1* at th eend of my painting day today

11:18 AM: in 2012 mikela and i were in paris. when we visited the musee d’art moderne, i made a series of drawings of sculptures that were being shown. this is one of them, made in pen in a small drawing book i always carry when traveling.

not yet sure what i’ll be doing today in the studio, but stay tuned and i’ll update.

important tweaks to “jazz 9” & "hu 1" / “experiment 1” / August 17, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:45 PM: i’ve been looking at the jazz series since it was created, tacked to my studio wall. this one, jazz 9, was completed may 26 of this year. i kept feeling like it needed something more, and today was the day. i added one more plaid shirted figure seen from above, who was photographed in conjunction with the good doctor tv series, where he plays the lead role. in addition, i added the horizontal orange stripe in the upper right corner.

i think this is a great example of how a good composition can become better; the newly added figure seems to fill a void, adding a further tough of mystery to an already mysterious pictorial event.

BELOW are BEFORE & AFTER images.

12:24 PM: i had started painting over an 80x20” canvas with a new painting of piso yialia, the beach on the island of andros, in greece. it was so boring i couldn’t stand it, so yesterday i made some marks using oil pastel. then, this morning, following the work i did on hu 1, i looked through the tubes of paint that had been lying around unused, for months, maybe years. i came across one, made by lefranc, called sahara yellow. it was so old that the cap wouldn’t screw off, even with pliars. so i cut off the bottom of the tube & squeezed a bunch out into an old miso container, along with a squeeze of another old tube of cadmium red purple. with the stretched canvas lying flat on my painting table, i made sweeping marks, then later on painted into one area with those characteristic white creek bubbles i love so much, in a blue ground.

for now, i’ve designated this my experimental canvas, and we’ll see where it goes. interesting to see it hanging nevt to the current series.

10:40 AM: this morning, after that all important overnight break from observing hu 1, i observed thatt the grey that i surrounded the figures with yesterday was a tad mindless and predictable.

so a little while ago, i interrupted my breakfast to make a few changes while the painting was still tacked to the wall. ultimately though, i needed to take it down and work on it lying flat on my painting table. i also adjusted the left arm of the dancing figure, which looked as though she had bulging biceps. when you compare the BEFORE and AFTER images posted here, you’ll see what i did, and, with only those few changes, the entire painting jumps to life. am i exaggerating?

grey-over of HU 1 / August 16, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:12 PM: i felt this morning that hu 1 sorely needed simplification, so that the key elements of the composition could shine, as occured with almost half of the paintings in my jazz series, which you can view here: https://www.philiptarlow.com/current

the human figures, as well as the floating duck, now sing their songs uninterrupted by compositional fury. the blue rectangle of color on the upper left is tasked with holding the note; holding the space, which i think works unexpectedly well!