starting “windows 3" /  by Philip Tarlow

windows 3, 17x21” oil on linen at the end of my painting day

2:24 PM: this morning i began work on a new painting in this 17x21” series of oils on linen, titled windows 3. like it’s predecessors, it’s inspired by photos i shot recently of the crew installing our 12 new windows.

i decided to continue what i began with windows 2 & 1, as i felt incomplete with this series. it deserves more, especially since it rests so heavily on my passion for views from above, and most of the photos i shot are from our upper floor looking down. in looking at 1& 2, i felt like i could definitely take this series further.

this is, thus far, being borne out by this morning’s experience. i’m feeling more certainty; from mixing the colors i want to use, to the way i paint light & shadow, to my compositional decisions. but i do see now that i need to order more smaller oil brushes, which i’m about to do.

continued work on "japanese creek" & "july 7 creek." /  by Philip Tarlow

2:56 PM: this morning my first glance let me know that these 2 paintings were unresolved. so i set to work, switching between the two, as i love to do and which helps shift the energy and open new doorways.

collaging was part of the process, allowing me to cover busy areas in one fell swoop and, in the case of july 7 creek, to add the printed, cropped image of part of a flower.

my current feeling is that, after many decades of painting & drawing, i’m just now finding my groove. “realism” and “abstraction” are meaningless when talking about art. muzic and majik are more appropriate, i think.

BELOW: july 7 creek on the left, july 7 creek on the right. the language they speak has been evolving over a long period of time. it needs no translation. prehistoric cave painters would get it as well as generation alpha. the muzik & the majik.

DETAIL of collaged, cropped flower

more modifications to" july 7 creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:21 PM: today i focused my attention on july 7 creek. initially, my intention was the to somehow resolve the blankness of the white space on the upper left. soon however, mt attention shifted to the entire left half of the composition. i think it’s a more interesting series of marks and colors now, but still unresolved, and may have gotten too busy. more work is definitely needed tomorrow.

4:25 PM: at the last minute, before leaving the studio, i added this white semi-circle. as i gazed at it from 25 feet, i saw that the blue needed to be broken up. amazing what a relatively monor stroke can do to the entire composition!

BELOW: yesterdays state is on the left

DETAIL showing the white semi-circle i added at the very end

modifying everything! /  by Philip Tarlow

4:46 PM: i did a lot today, on all 3 paintings i’ve been working on the past few weeks. on japanese creek for example, i opened more white space, taking out the green trees on the upper left nad taking out the dark red swirl on the right. it’s just a better painting, period!

5:29 PM: what i did on july 7 creek was somewhat similar: more white space, less busyness.

the green on top ahs been reduced. and what was left of the large rock in the foreground has been divided up into a series of smaller rocks surrounded by a touch of creek water.

continuing work on "11-30-22 creek" after 3 days away from the studio /  by Philip Tarlow

2:02 PM: 3 days is a long time to be away form my studio, especially when i’m in the early stages of a new painting. how do you get back into that groove? i futzed around for a few hours, preparing my breakfast, reading about the new apple watch & going to the post office to pick up my shoes, which had been placed in a locker. turns out, the new shoes from rei were not in new condition, and had obviously been worn by someone before they were sent to me. i’ll call rei tomorrow & arrange to send them back.

so back to the painting. it’s one of a series i’m doing, all 17x21” oils, which will be included in my march, 2023 exhibition in athens. the most recent 3 all contain creek elements: rocks, water, branches, as well as areas inspired by 18th c. japanese prints. i’m finding it very natural to combine these two elements, allowing me to include colors, marks & forms you wouldn’t normally find in a creek-scape. or at least not in the creek paintings i’ve been making over the past few decades.

there are no short cuts to this evolution, and it’s very exciting for me to have reached this point in my development. in addition, as i’ve mentioned in recent blog posts, i’m learning when to stop for the day. took me long enough! it’s a combination of physical tiredness and listening for the buzzer in my head that lets me know i’ve run out of creative juice for the day.

11-30-22 creek on 11/30

11-30-22 creek at the end of my painting day today

starting "11-30-22 creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:08 PM: i felt complete with the two paintings i’d been working on over the past week, so i launched into a new one, having learned a lot along the way. and that’s what counts. my learning curve seems to have gotten steeper recently. i could be imagining this, but i feel that with each new painting, i take a leap. not forward, but upward!

so it will be interesting to have a 3 day break, when we have a series of doctors appointments, and then be back in the studio on sunday. if past experience is any guide, i will have digested what i’ve been learning and find myself on a new foooting with the painting i started today, which already contains new solutions, like the orange/yellow rock in the center of the composition, with it’s green shadows.

continued work on "japanese creek" and "july 7 creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:37 PM: lots of interruptions today, but i was able to get some work done on these two paintings, which i feel pretty good about. i’ve got to run now, so i’ll say more later this afternoon.

ok, i’m back. so i consider my two latest paintings breakthroughs. why?

all the previous creek inspired paintings i made were, to one degree or another, simplified, abstracted. these two go further, incorporating other, japanese inspired directions, resulting in a new personal language

japanese creek at the end of my painting day today

july 7 creek at the end of my painting day today

continued work on july 7 creek," / starting "japanese creek" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:47 PM: this morning i made some modifications to july 7 creek, focusing mainly on the lower left portion of the large rock in the foreground. i’m still not completely satisfied with it, and actually may go and rub out what i did this morning. it needs to be lighter. so i just now did that, and here’s what it looks like.

i’ll modify it when i’m fresh, tomorrow.

i started a new one mid day, titled japanese creek.

it’s inspired by a japanese work i discovered in my folder of recent photos. i was attracted to it’s wonderful patterns & colors, and felt an interesting connection to my creek-scapes. too early to tell….we’ll see where it goes next.

japanese creek in it’s infancy today

"july 7 creek," day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:10 pm: i continued work on july 7 creek this morning, all the while casting glances at this 2020 creek watercolor. that’s because i find it’s a great example of how painting plein air allows me to focus on what matters, with no time to dilly dally. as a result, a unique balance is achieved, difficult to repeat in the studio setting. this one is a rare example of compositional and coloristic perfection, and thus can serve as a role model, as it were, for what i’m attempting here in my studio.

so is what i did today in the studio up to these high standards? maybe. without copying what i achieved in the 2020 watercolor, i believe i accesed the immediacy of strokes and the elimination of the unnecessary and merely descriptive. i can’t sustain this other worldly space for more than a few hours, at most.

and the trick is, as those of you who follow my blog are aware: knowing or better yet sensing when to stop. when i’m sitting on my little 3 legged stool next to the creek, that sensing is a lot easier & happens more naturally.

not unlike making love, there is a point beyond which there are diminishing returns.

2020 creek watercolor, painted in late summer, on site

july 7 creek as it looked at the end of my painting day today

re-working windows 1/ starting july 7 creek /  by Philip Tarlow

first stage of july 7 creek, 17x21” which i just started this afternoon

2:50 PM: after working on changes to windows 1 most of this morning, i started a new 17x21” oil on linen. right now it’s a composition based upon photos of the creek i shot a few years back on july 7th. at this early stage it’s a drawing with colored pencils & no other medium. you can see here the inspiration for most of my recent plein air watercolors like the ones you see BELOW.

now i’m preparing to leave for the house so that mikela and i can take our afternoon walk up the creek on this rather warm day. 48° F is, in case you were wondering, unusually warm for us at 8,000 ft. at this time of year

12:47 PM: windows 1 following a second round of re-working moments ago

12:48 PM: the area on the upper right, above the crouching installer, was distracting from the whole, so rubbed it out & used mostly white oil paint with a few strokes of yellow oil stick to simplify the area. from afar, it reads way better. i may leave it for now & keep casting furtive glances as i move on to something new.

12:09 PM: when i brought windows 1 over to the house, it became clear to both of us that it was too busy. too much going on, which was not allowing the composition to work at a glance, which it always should, no matter what. so this morning, fresh from a good nights sleep, i began working back into it. at first i used collage. but that wasn’t working, so i removed what i had collaged and began re-working it just using oil paint & oil pastels. for example, the blue line on top, where his richly patterned shirt was, is oil pastel stick. from 20 feet away, where i’m currently sitting in the studio, it almost works, but not quite. so i’ll go back into it & see what emerges.

BELOW: before & after