more work on jazz 18, 26x78” / recent creek drawings /  by Philip Tarlow

4:46 PM: i worked kinda late today, and just completed some additions to jazz 18, which now has a new tennis player in the left quadrant of the composition. i also made some refinements to the figures on the right, which can be viewed in the detail photos.the shadows of the players are an important part of the composition, and the scraped over siena ground beneath gives this painting an other worldly feel, which is a lot more evident in person. the addition of the little girl with the hat allows your mind to stray from “oh, this is a painting about the u.s. open” and move to a space of enigma/paradox. all the figures are frozen in time, as are we all.

i can’t be in the studio tomorrow, so work on jazz will continue on friday.

1:16 PM: we took our creek walk this morning & i made a new drawing. i got 10 of them together to see how they look, and here they are. the one on the upper right is today’s, with a piece of map collaged.

jazz 18: new figures /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 18, 26x78” following the introduction of two figures this morning.

3:10 PM: i decided to devote my time today to jazz 18. it had been painted over several times; once with siena and then with white. then it was scraped, creating a surface i felt was ideal as a base for introducing figures; in this case tennis players from the u.s. open. i’ll continue working on jazz 18 tomorrow, perhaps introducing more figures in what is becoming a frieze-like composition.

DETAIL

jazz 18 whited over / work on jazz 17 & 19 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 17 after adding the figure on the right today

jazz 19, 16x40” on 2 joined canvases, as it looked at the end of my painting day

3:49 PM: once i finished whiting over jazz 18, i moved on to two other canvases. the first is one i took from mt storage roomi wasn’t crazy about it, so i had no problem painting over it, scraping, then painting into it. there seems to be a new wind blowing in my studio, and it’s in the direction of using pre-existing paintings to become the ground for new work. this one will see more changes tomorrow, when we’re not doing our creek walkl & i’ll have time in the morning.

next, i returned to jazz 17, which needed something on the right side of the composition. i sketched in a jumping/flying skateboarder, who has appeared in previous skateboarder paintings. her arms are flailing, her dress flapping in the wind. i think the composition benefits from the addition of this figure, and we’ll see tomorrow morning what, if anything, happens next.

jazz 18, 26x78” as it looked after i went over it with white oil paint, then scraped into it.

2:21 PM: although the siena layer i painted on yesterday hadn’t completely dried, i went over it with white oil paint an hour ago. it’s a provacative surface, as you can see from this detail, so we’ll see where it takes me tomorrow morning.

DETAIL of the whited over jazz 18

jazz 17 better photo / jazz 18 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:52 PM:by getting up on a ladder, i was able, as i did yesterday, to photograph jazz 18 from above, avoiding the drips from hanging it. it does have a few light reflections, but it’s a fairly good shot of what jazz 18 Iooks like at the end of my painting day today. it’s always exciting to see how the ghost images from the previous version show through and suggest new forms, new realities. so this is a rather dramatic but natural progression of the direction my work has been taking over the past 6 months or so, and it may result in changes to more recent paintings.

as you may have noticed, i’ve been going back & forth between abstraction and realism over decades. the thing is, if you study visual art all the way back to the era of cave paintings, you see that the bones are neither of the two. it’s a false distinction.

so if you compare jazz 18 with the pervious version, the main difference, even in it’s current transitional state, your eye, rather than bopping about from one figure to another, relaxes into a subtle whole, with forms and colors suggesting rather than defining. thus, you become a living, breathing part of the painting.

2:27 PM: i took a 26x78” painting from my storage room and began a rework. i found it too busy, going in too many directions, which is understandable considering where i was at back in december. seems like ancient history! so i began the process…this is the before and after, but it has already changed considerably & i’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning to hang it and photograph it, since it’s too wet right now.

a much more accurate phot of jazz 17, 26x72”, than i posted yesterday

11:10 AM: yesterday afternoon when jazz 17 was still wet, i couldn’t put it on the wall to photograph it, due to extreme dripping. today i was able to hang it on my east wall, and shoot a much more accurate photo.

jazz 17: continued work /  by Philip Tarlow

2:26 PM: after whiting over what i did yesterday, i worked into it & made a charcoal drawing of a skateboarder. then i blotted away the white in the areas of the arms & legs, revealing the flesh-like tones beneath. i went to pick it up to hang on the wall & photograph, and in the process knocked over the feta container where i have my favorite brushes sitting in turpentin substitue.

chaos ensued, and when i hung it on the wall to photograph, the very wet white oil paint immediately began dripping down the canvas. disaster!

so i immediately removed the dripping composition from the wall, lay it flat on the cement floor, got up on a step ladder & photographed it from above, which is why you see some light reflected from the skylight & windows in the photo.

now we’re off to the energy fair.

THE NEW JAZZ 17 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 17, 26x72” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

2:31 PM: it’s been raining on & off, and it’s pretty dark, since i prefer painting with natural light, i’m stopping here for the day & will pick up again after our creek walk tomorrow morning, when it’s forecast to be sunny.

as i had imagined, it was exciting to paint on this deep siena ground, especially after so many canvases where the white spaces were critical. the canvas i’m painting on is primed linen, but not my favorite portrait linen. my experience has been that this heavier weave works better on a larger scale.

when we take our creek walk in the morning, i’ll have my usual colored pencils, and the drawing i make will somehow reflect where i’ll be headed on this 26x72” painting. i’m especially familiar with the creek-scape at the location where we usually stop to rest before heading back down, so it feels kind of like painting a dear old friend.

at work moments ago on the new jazz 17, 26 x 72”

1:12 PM: it’s a chilly, cloudy, rainy day today. i began work on the new jazz 17, which i stretched & applied a tinted siena ground to yesterday. i’m working from a few photos i’ve shot over time, during our walks up cottonwood creek. as always, this is a first layer, which will change over time & likely dissapear, other than living sa a ghost image beneath whatever comes next.

starting a new 76x22" painting / drawing while on the phone /  by Philip Tarlow

painting the 72x26 stretched canvas with a tinted oil ground this morning

3:17 PM: i’ve been wanting to create a large surface with a tinted ground for some time now. so this morning, i found a stretcher bar that is 72x22”, cut a piece of primed linen & stretched it. then i chose a couple of colors close to what i had been imagining the ground would be and painted the entire surface. tomorrow, it should be dry enough to begin working, although i have no clue what i’ll be doing.

later in the afternoon, i had a talk with mikela, who wqas driving home from the school she was working at in la jara. as we talked, i took one of my reed pens and made this little drawing of some objects on one of my studio tables.

reed pendrawing i made while talking with mikela

stage of a 2015 painting in progress / 2006 painting of a priest buying fish /  by Philip Tarlow

11:34 AM: as i searched through my photo albums this morning, i came across this one, a stage in one of the studies i was making at the time. kinda wish i had left it in this state. well, at least i have a photo!

4:37 PM: today in my studio was an organizing day. most of the recent paintings that were tacked to my east wall have been taken down & rolled up, and few were stretched & are hanging on my south wall. the idea was to free up my painting wall, which will be repainted soon, and all the little tack holes smoothed over.

here you see a 2006 painting, a photo of which i came across. it’s a priest in the capital of the island of andros, chora, about to buy some freshly caught fish from a vendor.

small adjustment to the skateboarding figure on upper left of "jazz 15" / changes to "jazz 14" /  by Philip Tarlow

today was a day for tweaks and adjustments. jazz 15 was almost there following yesterdays work. but the flying skateboarder on the upper left needed a few tweaks to her body. once i made them it seemed to improve the entire composition! BELOW: the before & after.

my changes to jazz 14 were more substantial.

further work on “jazz 15” / changes to "u.s. open 2" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:54 PM: after completing the modifications to u.s. open 2, i returned to jazz 15, an older painting i returned to yesterday after painting over the lower left portion of the composition, which wasn’t working. i sketched out a bird yesterday afternoon, and today fleshed it out, adding those magical black dots. right now, looking at it from about 20 feet, the newly added bird tends to take over the composition. so i may have to return to the skateboarders and bring them up to the level of intensity of the bird. i did do some work on one of the skateboarders; the one on the upper left. the guy on the far left is a remnant of the floor mosaic, which igreyed over. so is he no longer an important part of this composition? we’ll see tomorrow morning, when i’m fresh.

u.s.open 2 BEFORE and AFTER this mornings changes

11:38 AM: after studying u.s. open 2 for 3-4 days, i decided to take out the red/yellow part on the upper left, and add the grey outline of a skateboarder on the right.