"the miracle" continued /  by Philip Tarlow

the miracle, 32x36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of my painting day

2:17 PM: one more scrape & whiteover, resulting in a suggestive surface awaiting definition & direction. this is my favorite of all the dancers i’ve painted and have photos of. he interacts gracefully with all that peeks through around him. and the female dancer to his right , with her checkered dress, lends balance., as do the red marks left & right.

what was once the back of a wicker chair now reads as what might be a blackboard with an algebra formula. what were green leaves yesterday now read as a vertical whale. and what was a ceiling light has transformed into a tamborine.

hey, what happened to “the miracle?” / "WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 108," tweaks /  by Philip Tarlow

the miracle, 32x36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end o fmy painitng day today

3:03 PM: it started last night. i looked at what i had done yesterday, attempting to recreate a 1979 painting, a 1979 spirit, and i knew it had to go the way of other paintings i’ve started and then painted over. that canvas was unwieldy anyway, unstretched as it was. trying to get it from my painting table to the wall was a struggle.

so i cut it in half, and now i’m working on a 32x36” canvas, with the miracle beginnnings flipped upside down and the was, as of now remainting figure standing, as it were , on his head.

i’d been eyeing an old photo collage i have of an interior, lord knows where, that i photographed in the days before digital. i had the prints made and collaged the 10 to12 4x6” photos, creating a long narrow image of the rich interior. so this is now day one, but i’m still calling it the miracle. and it will be one if a decent painting comes out of it!

12:11 PM: this morning i made sometweaks to watercolor/collage 108, which was created a few months ago. there’s a collaged map in the center of the composition which was too dominant, so i collaged over it and added some marks in colored pencil, with the desired result that one’s eye doesn’t get stuck on that map. i think it’s vastly improved, and consider it one of my stronger pieces from that period.

i tried locating the original version in my files, but couldn’t find it. so i renamed it watercolor/collage 108.

watercolor/collage 108, 2025 31x27.75 cm. watercolor & collage on arches watercolor paper

"the miracle 2025" day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:35 PM: today i added a second figure to the composition. the composition is 78” wide, and i’ve been working on it spread out on my painting table. but after adding the second figure, i wanted to get a sense of how it looks tacked to the wall. so i figured out a way to bring it over and tack it up, which was tricky, since the paint is still wet and it’s so big.

i decided that seven fisherman figures, which are in the original (see yesterday’s post) were too many, so i chose 5 of the 7 to be in this composition. they follow the history of frangos’ story of the miracle, the fifth one all the way to the right, being the moment of revelation, where he bows his head in acknowledgement perhaps of the brilliant power of divine intervention.

"The Miracle" /  by Philip Tarlow

the miracle, 2025, 38x83” this is the first fisherman figure on day one.

3:50 PM: i got started today on the miracle, 2025 38x83” the canvas is 78” wide, so this is just the first of what will probably be five or six figures, rather than the seven in the original.

the miracle, 14 1/2 x 49”, oil on canvas mounted on board, 1979

1:06 PM: this morning i took the miracle, 14 1/2 x 49” oil on canvas mounted on board, out of my storage room with the intention of creating a new , more accurate image for my files. as well, i’m planning on making a new version, incorportaing all that i’ve learned since 1979, when it was painted.

the miracle was inspired by my experience with frangos, a fisherman from the village of corthi, on andros, greece. i spotted him emerging from his fishing boat with fresh caught fish, which he was about to sell to nonas, whose little seaside restaraunt was just a few hundred feet from my andros studio in the plakoura.

when i approached him with my camera, he unexpectedly launched into his experience years ago of a miracle. it was 46 years ago, and if i took notes at the time, i have no idea where they are, so i can’t tell you what exactly what that miracle was.

once my friend marika developed the photos i shot, i worked from 7 of them in my athens studio at the time, where frangos tells his story and, in the 7th one, rests, hands by his side, his head surrounded by a celestial light, with a flower at his feet. this was my way of giving the viewer a little taste of the awe i experienced in that moment.

"dancers" was stretched this morning /  by Philip Tarlow

dancers, 32x22” oil on portrait linen, march, 2025, was stretched today

12:13 PM: a special, very thin stretcher bar with brace arrived yesterday for dancers, 32x22” which was painted back in march. i didn’t leave enough canvas because i thought i’d end the painting where you see the pencil marks. but after mikela came and looked at it, i realized i’d be cutting off some of the richness of this composition, so i had to order a custom made, very thin stretcher bar, allowing me just enough room to include the edges of the composition, which would have been a real shame to lose. so here she is, stretched.

WD Commission, canvas #2 /  by Philip Tarlow

WD Commission 2, 14 1/2” x 57 1/2”, oil on portrait xtra fine portrait inen, as she looked at 1 pm

BELOW: WD Commission 1&2 side by side on my painting wall

1:17 PM: i decided that yesterday’s version of WD Commission-1 is resolved as is, and created WD Commission-2, which is 14 1/2 x 57 1/” and designed to be installed above the new washer/dryers, at a 90 degree angle to WD Commission -1. To illustrate, i shot photos of each designated location, which you see here.

WD Commission, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

WD Commission, 48 1/2 x 51 1/4” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at noon today.

12:48 PM: i did more work on wd commission this morning, continuing to maintain a lot of white space. here she is at noon.

WD Commission /  by Philip Tarlow

BELOW: left to right: the first 4 stages of the WD Commission

2:50 PM: today i cut the canvas, pinned it to my painting wall along with inspirational creek photos i’ve taken and began work on this 41 1/2 x 58 1/4” painting, to be installed in the space above our new washer/dryers.

thus far, i’m working with a brush attached to a long pole to give my marks more freedom, and i’ll be stopping here for the day so i can get back to the house and help prepare for our dinner guests.