quacker modified / some 2023 creek drawings /  by Philip Tarlow

12:25 PM: this morning i made a slight modification to the central femail figure in quacker, giving her legs!

BELOW: quacker following modifications

quacker, 35x38” oil & collaged paper on linen, following modificatiions to the central female figure today

7:35 am: as soon as the mosquito season ends, in about 3 weeks, i’ll be going back up to the creek. i love sitting there by the rushing water and making drawings & paintings. the energy there is so high, i never know what i’m going to do, but it’s always fresh and lively, which i then bring back into my studio and surf on. elements of these plein air drawings/watercolors-collages can be discovered in all my recent work, if you examine it carefully.

on my story page: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio you’ll learn a bit about my relationship with rock, going all the way back to my summers at birchwoods, the camp in the massachusets berkshires i attened as a kid, where the landscape was strewn with gorgeous rocks, as is crestone/baca.

"sangres sunset" day 5 /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset, 16x66” oil on linen with collage as she looked moments ago

2:11 PM: work continues on sangres sunset, 16x66” which is now hroizontal with a dark warm grey background, a collaged piece of quill drawing on paper and additional figures.

she seems rather happy with herself, so i’m going to leave her alone for now.

PAINTING AS A PROCESS: the stages of this painting, which you see in the images below, are a good example of painting as a PROCESS. the initial inspiration came from a photo i shot from our house, of the sangre de christo mountains at sunset on july 5th, and then printed out, with the intention of making it into a panoramic painting.

next, figures entered the composition, which were interesting but not what i was envisioning. the following day, i whited over the composiiton and turned the canvas vertical, introducing a matisse inspired seated female figure. yesterday when i entered my studio and took one look, i knew it had to go, so i turned it horizontal once again and introduced some figures viewed from above, inspired by photos i shot in MOMA, nyc, some years ago, along with some archiectual elements of the museum interior.

today, i used a warm dark grey to go over much of yesterdays composition, collaged a cutout piece of a quill drawing i made this morning especially for this purpose and introduced several more figures, one of which is inspired by a photo i shot last year from a bridge overlooking the river in alamosa, a one hour drive from our house.

what we see when gazing at this painting today, are a series of figures punctuated by bits of the underlying stages and providing the eye with just enough marks and color to create what i consider to be a very cool painting!

BELOW: 5 stages of sangres sunset, starting july 6th, when i stretched the canvas.

"sangres sunset", day 4 / "quacker modification" /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset 16x66” as it looked at the end of my painting day

quacker, 35x38” after changes to the figure on the left

2:34 PM: i mostly worked on sangres sunset today, which has become a horizontal. And at the end of the day made a slight modification to quacker.

sangres sunset, day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:14 PM: i skipped a day because we drove up & back to denver to pick up our repaired car & drop off the rental, wioth a stop for a blood draw on the way. it was a 12 hour day, and i was exhausted this morning, but i had to come to the studio to fulfill what was in my vision while we were away.

a day away can be benneficial. and in this case, i think i proved the point that in order to do something worthwhile….even brilliant, you often have to do something mediocre first.

why the radical changes? i wasn’t really in a representational landscape space. so as much as i loved the patterned photo of the sangres at sunset, shot through the screen of our bathroom window, the painting itself wasn’t exciting me, and represents something i might have done a fe wyears back.

BELOW: sangres sunset on 7/7 (left) & today

sangres sunset, 66x16” oil on linen at the end of day

sangres sunset, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset as she looked at the end of my painting day today

3:44 PM: i’m stopping here for the day, but i’m not done by any means. for one thing, the color of the sangres will become more golden…

sangres sunset, 16x66” oil on portrait linen, as she looked moments ago….still working…

1:32 PM: i’m taking sangres sunset to the next level today & here’s how she looks at the moment.

sangres sunset as she looked at the end of the day yesterday

a print-out of the sangres sunsey photo i shot through the ecreen of our bathroom window a few days ago

8:17 AM: i don’t usually post on my blog this early, but i’m in the mood. sangres sunset brings up a bit of fear and dread; where will she want to go next? no preconceptions is the rule of thumb, but she started out with these shots of the sunset i took through the screen in our bathroom, which is where the dotted patterning came from. it made me want to use it in a painting. so, not having the right size stretcher bars handy, i found an older stretched canvas with a partially completed painting i didn’t really care about. thus began yesterday’s process of unstretching the older painting, squaring up the stretcher bars & stabilizing them with corner braces and cutting and stretching a piece of my beautiful primed portrait linen. i can’t imagine painting on the older, rougher linen i had before, so i’ll be ordering 84” long rolls of this rather expensive canvas in the future.

i hadn’t anticipated getting as far as i did yesterday afternoon, especially since all that physical activity triggered my strained groin muscle pain & i had to apply ice. but there you go, i jumped in and began with sky, but two figures unexpectedly jumped in from photos i recently shot in salida of visitors to the beautiful riverside spot.

on another note, this is turning out to be an intense mosquito season. just last night i got about 40 of them on the bedroom walls with my handy dandy exterminator , a tennis racket-like tool with a button the electrifies it’s web of metal strands and makes a popping sound accompanied by a flash & and acrid whiff of dead mosquito whenever i get one of them. they are especially fond of mikela.

minoan celebration / quacker / preparing to stretch new canvas for “sangres sunset” /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset 16x66”, day 1

3:49 PM: i started painting sangres sunset about an hour ago & will continue in the morning.

12:33 PM: right now i’m preparing this stretcher bar for a new canvas

minoan celebration , 38x38”, oil on linen

10:41: minoan celebratoin is now dry enough to hand and photograpg. it’s almost impossible to capture the subtlety of the pinks or the greys of the figures, nut this will have to do for now, after adjusting on photoshop for the last 20 minues.

BELOW":quacker was re-shot today, resulting in more accurate color reproduction.

quacker, 35x38” oil on linen, re-shot this morning

DETAIL of quacker

"quacker", day 2 / minoan celebration pinked /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” on my studio floor after being pinked today. it’s to wet to hang till tomorrow, to avoid major drips

1:47 PM: following the revisions i made to quacker, i revisited minoan celebration, which was way too busy. i mixed up a subtle pink and went over all the business, leaving 5 figures to figure out their new relationship. they seem to like it! this shot shows the newly transformed painting lying on my studio floor, since it’s still too fresh & wet to hang it without major drips happening. i can shoot it hanging on my wall tomorrow morning & you’ll get a better idea.

quacker, 35x38” oil on linen, as she looked at 3pm today, after painting over the duck in the pond

12:38PM: i told you yesterday that it was likely quacker would transfrom! well, she did, and here’s how she looks today. it’s kind of a beach scene….for now.

“quacker”, 35x38", day 1/ modifications to “minoan celebration” /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” following todays modifications

3:39 PM: after starting quacker this morning, my gaze shifted to minoan celebration, which i had considered resolved. so i stretched her, and when i did, she calle dout to me for something a bit bolder; something that would take all the patterning, figures and creek references and allow them to sing their song more melodically.

so i introduced the blue, green and red around the borders, which actually seems to work. i’ll have to see tomorrow morning, when my vision if fresh.

quacker 35x38” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

1:27 PM: after stretching a new 35x38” canvas this morning, i started quacker. i think she speaks for herself.

when i started painting i imagined creating this image as part of a larger composition, with varoius views form above entering the picture. but at the moment, i’m satisfied just gazing at this duck, with her reflectoin in the orange water…

my intuition right now is: don’t mess with quacker; let her be. she reminds us of how peaceful, colorful and vibrant nature is.

after gazing at her for the past few hours, i’ll definitely be messing with her though.