this morning's trail/creek drawing /  by Philip Tarlow

9/14/22 trail/creek drawing

2:53 PM: we took our trail walk this morning in cloudy, chilly weather. as we did last time we walked, we stopped earlier than usual, at the spot we used to go to before we bagan extending our walks to about an hour each way, this spot is just half an hour, but has a full view of the creek and, in terms of drawing subjects, is preferable. i can’t count the number of colored pencil drawings i’ve made at this location, but there are a lot!

so it’s really kind of an exercise in finding essence. what’s the core/essence of this creek-scape? today i looked in the opposite direction from last tim we went, and the main feature was this log, from a tree that had fallen across the creek. it divided my view of the creek in two. so without planning or thinking consciously i used different colors for the rocks above the tree trunk. works pretty well, i’d say!. what i may do at some point is to look at a series of these drawings over time next to each other & see what i observe.

after the dust settles /  by Philip Tarlow

6:25 PM: in a week, we’ll be transporting the paintings to aspen in a rented uhaul van, driving back a week from today. then there will be a little over a week till we go to the opening on the 29th , when we’ll stay over at a friend’s home in carbondale. then back home on the 30th.

then what? i’ll finally be able to get back to work. but of course it’s not like going back to the office! no idea of course what i’ll do. none. which is as it should be. but my hope is that i’ll raise the bar a bit. that i will use this break to further integrate all that i’ve done ove rthe past decade or so and allow new buds to spring up & sprout.

BELOW are some of the paths i’ve taken.

sending out invitations /  by Philip Tarlow

7:19 PM: so far today i’ve emailed out 40 invitations to the exhibition. above is the one i designed and below, the poster designed by cmc aspen’s design department. as the opening gets closer, i’m feeling more anxious than i normally do prior to the opening of an exhibition. i can’t really tell you why that is, but i wouldn’t say it’s a bad feeling. just ususual.

i’ll continue going through my list of names tomorrow, and send more out, as will mikela to her list of contacts. i’m going to leave it up to their crew to decide where the various paintings should go, although the larger verticles will definitely be hung on the big 2 story wall.

my talk is scheduled for 6 on the evening of the 29th. i’m planning on keeping it short, although i do have lots to say about the evolution of these new paintings and what they represent in the arc of my career as an artist. i’ll make sure somebody tapes it so that i can post it here for you to see.

trail walk to a beloved spot /  by Philip Tarlow

12:14 PM: this morning our trail walk was later than usual, and we stopped lower down the trail, at our old resting spot, where i’ve made many drawings. i was missing it! so i made a couple of drawings & took some photos of the site to share with you.

this morning’s creek drawing

tweak to acropolis museum III 78x16" oil on linen, paddlers on bright yellow on our living room wall 2022 /  by Philip Tarlow

paddlers on bright yellow hanging on our living room wall until the 19th, when we take it to aspen

we wanted to see what this one would look like hanging in our house, so just before our dinner guests arrived, i brought it over from the studio and hung it. in the simple, clean lines of the house, it looked way better than in my cluttered studio! lets see how it looks at aspen cmc.

11:03 AM: in order to leave time for the oil paint to dry, this is really my last opportunity to make any tweaks to the paintings for the show. mikela had pointed out an issue with the face of this hs girl seated in the school hallway, so this morning i corrected it.

i tweaked the face in this area of the painting this morning

continuing aspen prep & a trail drawing this morning, modified this afternoon /  by Philip Tarlow

3:06 pm: this is the trail drawing i made this morning, with the modification i just now made.

tape, tape & more tape...preparing for aspen /  by Philip Tarlow

6:44 PM: over the past few days and probably through the weekend, i’ve been photographing and labeling the paintings bound for the aspen CMC exhibition, opening september 29. it’s the kind of thing i’m not great at but i’m doing the best i can…

big changes to "ano kato acropolis museum III" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:04 PM: there was way too much going on in this composition, and the nude in the upper center didn’t work at all; she drew your eye and that was all you could see. so now she’s a ghost image; one of many in this new series i’m creating.

the two schoolgirls however remin ,albeit slightly simplified and more integrated into the whole composition.

the transparent glass floor of the acropolis museum now reigns in the upper half of the painting. the nude ghost image establishes ambiguous mystery, while the creek water and branches in the lower section suggest a theme running through my works for the past 2 decades.

the two hs students on the school hallway floor bring up a period when mikela and i frequented colorado schools, in this case denver, where we suppported students in artfully discovering and telling their stories.

tweaks to "ano kato acropolis museum II and III" 48x24" /  by Philip Tarlow

ano kato acropolis museum III 78x16” post-tweaks

2:05 PM: once i finished the tweaks to ano kato acropolis museum II, i moved to ano kato acropolis museum III, which is a long narrow canvas, 78x16” this one combines images from the acropolis museum, a high school hallway and a crestone creek-scape, represented by the blue pool of water and branches on the lower portion of the composition, all viewed from above. a nude museum visitor with her back to us dominates the upper portion of the composition, with a seated school girl in about the middle. suggested at the very top are a couple of more museum visitors. from afar, this painting reads as a mysterious story, a kind of dream space, open to interpretation.

11:17 AM: there’s another very similar painting to the one i tweaked yesterday: ano kato acropolis museum II, which is 48x24”

this is the one i’m tweaking this morning. it’s tricky making changes to a painting that was originally done over a year ago. it’s also a lot of fun, ging places and using colors i wouldn’t have back then.

here’s where it’s at right now. i’m going to continue working & post a bit later.

prep for aspen / more work on dwell” / tweaks to ano kato acropolis museum 66x26” /  by Philip Tarlow

4:07 PM: part of my prep for the aspen show involves tweaks to some older pieces, like this ano kato series painting inspired by photos i took in the acropolis museum, which at the time had just opened.

i added some highlights to their hair & clothing and gave more emphasis to the lights you see on the floor, which is transparent.

dwell, 17x80” following some tweaks i made this morning

2:16 PM: this morning i re-engaged with dwell, 17x80” i made a few additions to the cnetral portion of the composition, which break up the long horizontal with a blue triangular shape and a black rectanular one. now that i’m looking at it, i think something more is needed so i’ll posr once i do that.

12:11 PM: views of my studio & storage room with paintings that will be transported to aspen on september 20 and hung at cmc aspen in preparation for the opening on september 29.