3:49 PM: it’s a hot one! the temperature reached 90F this afternoon, which is pretty high for crestone/baca, which is at 8,000 ft. but it’s clouding over now, and there are some thunderstorms in the area, which should cool it down.

having completed the dinner party yesterday, i began planning for a series of paintings which will be roughly the same dimensions, maybe a few inches bigger. they will all be on my favorite surface for painting in oil: sennelier quadruple primed portrait linen, which is almost as smooth as a piece of paper and takes the oil paint very beautifully. if you dilute the paint, it’s almost like making a watercolor.

like the dinner party, the new series will be an updated version of my ano kato series (https://www.philiptarlow.com/anokato) which started with this watercolor, made looking down from my athens studio window in about 1972.

this is the guy who was the self appointed car parker for this region of the plaka neighborhood, overlooking the roman era tower of the winds, or the horologion of andronikos kyrrhestes, considered the world’s first meteorolical station, featuring a combination of sun dials, a water clock and a wind vane! some sources say it was constructed in the second century B.C.

i’ve shot many hundreds of photos looking down on people doing things: eating, watering plants, sitting on the school hallway floor & working on their computers, museum visitors looking at art…..

this one, for example, was painted following our visit to the then newly opened acropolis museum, directly opposite the acropolis in athens. the transparent floor gives us a view of the ancient ruins below, adding an amazing dimension to the experience.

so how, if at all, will this new series be different? stay tuned, and we’ll find out! i’ve got to order some new stretcher bars in order to start the oils. so while i’m waiting for them to arrive, i’ll start tomorrow with some gouache/watercolor on paper studies.

so what's next, philip? /July 10, 2022 by Philip Tarlow