acropolis museum 7 re-work /  by Philip Tarlow

acropolis museum VII 35x37” oil & collage on linen as it looked today at 1pm

1:41 PM: i began reworking acropolis museum 7 yesterday, but i didn’t like where the female skateboarder was going, so today i flipped it 180 and strated woking into it again, painting and collaging over the female skateboarder completely.

lately, these reworks are giving me the opportunity to play. as you know if you follow my blog, at heart i’m not an abstract painter, and rercently i love playing with some of the photos i’ve shot of figures viewed from above that i have in my files, creating figure based, painterly abstractions. in this crop you see here, the unplanned and “accidental” painterly passages and colors interact with the figures in a fashion deKooning would have appreciated when he said:

the stars i think about, if i could fly, i could reach in a few old fashioned days. but physicists stars i use as buttons, buttoning up curtains of emptyness. if i stretch my arms next to myself and wonder where my fingers are-that is all the space i need as a painter.

BELOW: the earlier verson of acropolis VII

DETAIL of acropolis museum VII

recent work / cold wind chill today /  by Philip Tarlow

one of my recent paintings, incorporating imagery drawn from the olympic celebrations. this is one of a series of works in oil on linen. selections from this series, as well as other recent work will be shown at my solo exhibition at gremillion on sunset, in houston, texas, opening april 1st.

7:50 AM: currently the wind here at 8,000 ft. in the Sangre de Christo foothills is gusting to 42 MPH, the tempreature is 20F, so the wind chill is -1F.

matisse study re-visited /  by Philip Tarlow

matisse study, 16x20” as it looked following this morning’s changes

3:10 PM: matisse study is so titled because that’s what is was originally. this past august 3 i whited over it and left the lone figure on the whited over ground. since then, it’s been hanging in the bedroom. i felt yesterday that it needed something more, so i brought it over to the studio and did some work on it this morning.

“the last supper” continued /  by Philip Tarlow

the last supper, 38x20” as it looked following this afternoon’s modifications

3:05 PM: it’s 21F and the wind just picked up, making the wind chill 13F, so we cancelled our afternoon trail walk. i’ve been stretching small canvases today, but i had an end of day inspiration to go back into the last supper, 38x20”… i’ll pick up where i left off tomorrow morning…here’s the current state of the painting.

BELOW: the last supper before & after today’s modifications

"the bar" 16x20" day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

the bar, 16x20” following today’s modifications

2:29 PM: i continued work on the bar, 16x20”

i lightened the graphite grey i used yesterday, permanantly attached the cut out paper figure of the woman, then painted into it, making a pattern on her dress. i also introduced some suggestions of curved green lighting supports overhead

"the bar" 16x20" day 2 / drawings from greece /  by Philip Tarlow

the bar, 18x20” at 3:15pm today

1:30 PM: lotsa changes this morning to the bar….for the better i think.williamsburg graphite grey is a new favorite color, which i’ve employed to reduce the background confusion and allow the figures to pop. i’m using some new oil colors i recently got, including W-N copper, which is more interesting than i expected. if you want to learn what it looks like, that’s what i used for the bottles just above the bartender’s arm.

the central female figure is now clothed, and the figure of the bartender is a bit more defined. as a composition, there’s enough white space remaining to balance the graphite greys, and the forms are definitely relecting all that i’ve been reading and absorbing every evening in the matisse bio.

3:15: i cut out a piece of white paper and stuck it over the femaile figure, which was bugging me.

but now i’m liking that white piece of paper! it works compositionally and adds mystery to the whole.

it’s being held in place by the wet oil paint underneath. but tomorrow, i may peel it off and attach it permanantly with some adhesive i have, designed for something like this.

DETAIL: the bartender with the W&N copper bottles

this is the link to view my drawings from greece: https://www.philiptarlow.com/drawings-from-greece

"the bar" 16x20" day 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

the bar, 16x20”, following the changes i made at 3pm

3:20 PM: i made a few last minute changes before walking out the door to meet mikela for our afternoon walk up the trail.

2:53 PM: i started a new one today: the bar, 16x20” it’s inspired by a b&w photo i shot last week. this is of course a very early stage & will continue in the morning, after my zoom with my ukrainian buddy.

the bar 16x20” oil on portrait linen, day 1

the last supper loses specificity, gains painterly /  by Philip Tarlow

PAINTERLY: (of a painting or its style) characterized by qualities of color, stroke, and texture rather than of line."Botticelli is a linear painter, whilst Rembrandt's work would be considered painterly"

the last supper, 38x20” after scraping into the graphite grey

2 PM: i scraped into the graphite grey a little; i felt after gazing at her for an hour, that it read too much as an unbroken black, and thus needed some very light texture, created by scraping. i think it worked, which is making it easier to appreciate her without getting stuck.

if you compare with the image i posted an hour ago, you’ll notice the subtle but significant difference.

1 PM: i’ve been bugged all along that this painting was a prisoner of it’s title: the last supper. and i’ve had a growing desire to treat it as i would any other painting; as a play of forms and color in space. so, earlier this morning, i removed it from my east painting wall, laid it on my painting table, and felt a strong desire to use black. well, not really…it’s called graphite grey by williamsburg, the manufacturers of this oil paint. i’m biased towards them because they’re located in williamsburg, brooklyn, where i was born.

so now, as i look at it on my wall, it reads as a painterly painting, and not a group of people having dinner. as with my other recent paitings with figures viewed from above, my eye is taken on a journey, i’m left to create my own story about what’s going on, but more importantly, i revel in the interplay of reds, greens, blues and BLACK!

it took long enough, but it was worth the wait!

contnued revisions to “the last supper / today's breakfast drawing/collage /  by Philip Tarlow

2:01 PM: after working on today’s breakfast drawing/colllage, i shifted my attention back to the last supper, which i began revising yesterday. the yellows were too strong and it needed some patterning in the upper left. there’s an obvious improvement when i gaze at it deom my computer desk, about 16 feet away.

the last supper following today’s revisions

BELOW: the last supper on 8/24, yesterday and today (right)

1/6/24 breakfast drawing 10x8” mixed media & collage on paper

11:20 AM: while having breakfast, i continued my new tradition of making or at least starting a 8x10”drawing/collage.

1:02 PM:i worked and re-worked this one until just moments ago. i think this one will definitely be included in my april exhibition in houston.

this is a self portrait drawing i made 10 years ago, in 2014

self portrait drawing in ink on paper, 2014

1-5-24 breakfast drawing/collage/revision of “The Last Supper” /  by Philip Tarlow

the last supper before (left) and after the revisions

2:01 PM: the last time i worked on the last supper was 5 months ago: august 23. since then i’ve been casting critical glances at it. i knew it needed work, but i wasn’t ready to jump in till a few hours ago. don’t ask why, but it definitely has to do with the direction my work has been taking since then, and what i’ve learned in the interim. i may do more tomorrow morning when i’m fresh. do you see the pup that entered the composition, and the fire in the fireplace? the title, by the way, derives from the fact that this dinner was, in fact, the last time that some of those present would find themselves together before most of them have eft crestone.

1/5/24 breakfast drawing/collage, 9x6”

12:05 PM: i started this one during breakfast and my zoom with my ukrainian buddy, and continued working on it till a few minutes ago.

it includes watercolor, colored pencil, oil stick (the green stripe on the bottom & the pink vertical mark just above & to the left of it) and collaged pieces of maps, an old paper oil palette & a cutout from a magazine. i flipped it all 4 ways and settled on this as the one i think works best.