3:49 PM: while experiencing more interruptions than you can imagine, i did get gaze 27 to this point. it's VERY odd, after all these decades, to be doing a self portrait. my mind keeps saying "you're not making a self portrait; you're just fooling around....this will be painted over with some other image," i don't think so. it's just that time; time for philip tarlow to do a self portrait. that's all. so far, i find it visually interesting, and it seems to define where i'm at with this whole series pretty neatly. the collaged elements are there. i'm standing in front of gaze 16, as she peers from behind my right ear; a collaged map appears in the lower left. when i cast my glance, it takes me by surprise. let's see where it goes tomorrow. we plan on doing our trail walk at 5am, then i'll do an hour of editing, so i'll likely get to work late.
1:52 PM: FILIPPAKI starts a self portrait while listening to markos sing hasiklidika. it's all he can do not to throw down his brushes and start dancing. even though wendy said "don't paint over that portrait of your friend with the red hair." why did you do that filippaki? "because i FELT like it!"
1:13 PM: stage 1 of gaze 27's journey:
noon: un-stretching the canvas so i can re-stretch on board backed stretcher bar.
DETAIL of an early june 21 phase of gaze 26
7:45 AM: if you scroll down to yesterday's post, then scroll to the very bottom of that post, you will find a grid showing 21 of the stages gaze 26 went through before reaching it's final state yesterday afternoon. the process began on june 20th, and illustrates my way of working in layers, switching images along the way and using collage to introduce unpredictable shapes and colors into the composition. some of these peek through the final version, creating a final surface that looks a bit like an ancient frayed fresco or in some cases like a billboard with it's many successive layers revealed when it is finally scraped down to provide a fresh surface.
if you've ever seen one of these billboards in the process of being peeled, scraped and prepared for fresh layers of ads, you may have noticed what a beautiful surface it can be, with bits and pieces of faces, legs, motorcycles, wine bottles....
we once saw one while waiting for the train in the paris metro, and i couldn't stop looking at it. that moment is a core piece of the puzzle that is my recent work in the gaze series of paintings.
today, i'm going to begin that process by painting & collaging over a painting i began a few weeks back based on a photo i shot of our friend tamar cooking at a friend's dinner party.