continued work on "gained vision lll" & a look back at "Pink Flash," 2022, 78x12"/198.12x30.5cm. / by Philip Tarlow

3:20 PM: today i unexpectedly divided my time between gained vision III and jazz 16.

gained vision III: i flipped it 180° again, so that the figure in red is now once again right side up and in the top half of the composition. i whited over the pompeiian fish mosaic-inspired stuff i did yesterday band placed my favorite walking figure from above, with his blue plaid shirt, in the lower quadrant.

as i worked on it, i happened to be standing right in front of jazz 16, which is tacked to my east facing painting wall. the black top and the fuzzy face on the jumping female skateboarder had been bugging me ever since the last time i worked on this painting. so, between strokes i was making on gained vision III, i painted over her black top, replacing it with her bare breasts. as well, i reworked her head, hair, arms & legs. i’m going to post the before and after, and i think you’ll agree that it works much better compositionally, but it also stirs the imagination to view a bare breasted skateboarder.

gained vision III now reads, from a distance , as an incomplete but compelling image, the figure of the japanese woman in red, while still pale from having been whited over, gives the painting an air of mystery. i’ll have a choice tomorrow, just how much to accent certain passages and which ones to leave alone. it’s a huge relief to have gotten rid of the fish, which i realy wasn’t that into.

7:12 AM: before my morning meditation, i wanted to post this 2022 oil, which now hangs in our living room. if you look carefully, you’ll discern that this painting, while seeming abstract, is actually figurative abstraction. see how many human or animal forms or parts you can find.

BELOW: 2 details of the painting