"baca#3" 38x36" by Philip Tarlow

baca#3, DETAIL, 38x36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of my painting day today

2:47 PM: i worked on the drawing i made yesterday for baca#3, completing the drawing and starting to add oil color. more tomorrow.

1/30 baca#2 by Philip Tarlow

baca#2, 38x36” oil on portrait linen

2:02 PM: today i worked on baca#2, for which i had made the drawing yesterday. it’s a bit too busy, so i’ll sit with it and see how i feel about it in the morning.

1/6/2026 oil, latest tweak by Philip Tarlow

1/6/26 oil, 24x24” following my latest changes, including some maps collaged

2:30 PM: more work on 1/6/26 oil

1/6/26 oil, 24x24” following this morning’s changes

12:40 PM: this morning i made asome additional changes to 1/6/26 oil, mostly on the right side of the composition..

"1/6/26 oil" tweaked by Philip Tarlow

4:53 PM: towards the end of the day, my eye caught this 24x24” oil/collage painted on 1/6/26. i felt moved to make some changes, which i did. here’s the before and after: now that i’m looking at it, i think it needs more work.

baca#1, day 4 by Philip Tarlow

baca#1 38x36” oil on portrait linen as she looked today at the end of my painting day

3:10 PM i added a collaged piece, painted a warm grey over the dark blues at the top and gave the figure on the right legs.

"baca #1," day 3 by Philip Tarlow

baca #1, 38×36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked this afternoon at 2pm

2 PM: this morning i introduced a few collaged pieces into the composition, as well as a blue border top, bottom and left. i’, currently gazing at it tacked to the wall and contemplating where i may go next.

baca #1, day two by Philip Tarlow

baca #1, 38x36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of my painting day, at 1pm

BELOW: THE 3 STAGES OF BACA#1 thus far

12:54 PM: i did a bit more on baca #1, before cleaning my brushes and preparing to go with mkela to watch the movie over at the college.

baca #1, 38x36” oil on portrait linen, as she looked moments ago, at 11:30am

11:27 AM: this morning i took baca#1 further. i tacked the unstretched as yet canvas to my east studio wall and i’ll leave it there for a bit and evaluate before resuming painting.

baca #1, day one by Philip Tarlow

baca #1, 38x36” terracotta pencil & oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of day one.

1:31 PM: so on this very cloudy day, with snow predicted tonight and tomorrow, i started work on the new baca #1, which is 38x36” on portrait linen. i’m taking it very slow, working into the drawing in terracotta pencil, which i started yesterday and completed this morning. the figures should all be familiar if you’ve followed my work over the past year or two, and are mostly viewed from above.

"THE MUSICIAN" and “musician & runner” both tweaked again by Philip Tarlow

2:03 PM: i simplified the area above the head of the musician in musician & runner, which had been distracting from the composition as a whole.

BELOW: before (left) and after the changes i made today

12:57 PM: as i looked at the musician over the past few days, i felt the female figure to the left of the musician needed some work, so i made some changes this morning which i think did improve that figure and the entire composition.

BELOW: the musician before (left) and after today’s tweaks

DETAIL