"sangres sunset" day 5 / by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset, 16x66” oil on linen with collage as she looked moments ago

2:11 PM: work continues on sangres sunset, 16x66” which is now hroizontal with a dark warm grey background, a collaged piece of quill drawing on paper and additional figures.

she seems rather happy with herself, so i’m going to leave her alone for now.

PAINTING AS A PROCESS: the stages of this painting, which you see in the images below, are a good example of painting as a PROCESS. the initial inspiration came from a photo i shot from our house, of the sangre de christo mountains at sunset on july 5th, and then printed out, with the intention of making it into a panoramic painting.

next, figures entered the composition, which were interesting but not what i was envisioning. the following day, i whited over the composiiton and turned the canvas vertical, introducing a matisse inspired seated female figure. yesterday when i entered my studio and took one look, i knew it had to go, so i turned it horizontal once again and introduced some figures viewed from above, inspired by photos i shot in MOMA, nyc, some years ago, along with some archiectual elements of the museum interior.

today, i used a warm dark grey to go over much of yesterdays composition, collaged a cutout piece of a quill drawing i made this morning especially for this purpose and introduced several more figures, one of which is inspired by a photo i shot last year from a bridge overlooking the river in alamosa, a one hour drive from our house.

what we see when gazing at this painting today, are a series of figures punctuated by bits of the underlying stages and providing the eye with just enough marks and color to create what i consider to be a very cool painting!

BELOW: 5 stages of sangres sunset, starting july 6th, when i stretched the canvas.