“cottonwood creek 2” day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

cottonwood creek 2 16x37 1/2” oil on portrait linen, following today’s work

1:32 PM: i continued work on cottonwood creek 2 this morning, following the discoveries i made with cottonwood creek 1 a few days ago, which by the way feels like a few decades ago. a muted black, reds & yellows play a critical role in transitioning this painting from a creek-scape to a mystery-scape. the central blue form, derived from the costume of a tokyo olympics skateboarder, gives the eye pause; is this a windblown version of the tree trunks on the upper right, or….and what does “this image” refer to?

i love the way i’ve been starting these first two cottonwood creek series paintings, with realist elements inspired by photos i shot a few years back during one of my plein air sessions at nearby cottonwood creek.

the relationship between these descriptive marks identifying rocks, water & branches and the geometric primary colored patterning is left to the viewer to decipher. but that muted black is where the imagination keeps returning, taking the eye further back than the blue sky on the upper right, into an unknown territory.

a lifetime of observing and painting the landscape laid the groundwork for this moment.

today’s palette

at work this morning on cottonwood creek 2

"cottonwood creek 1" day 2 / starting “cottonwood creek 2” /  by Philip Tarlow

cottonwood creek 2, 16x37 1/2” in a very early stage of development today

2:30 PM: i stopped work on cottonwood creek 1 earlier today. usually if i’m uncertain as to whether a painting is fully resolved, it helps to move on to something new, all the while casting glances at the previous one. my latest such glance indicated to me that i may need to do a bit more; i’ll know better in the morning.

so i started work on cottonwood creek 2, which has the exact same dimensions: 16x37 1/2.” these dimensions in inches are designed to translate easily into rounded off centimeters to make it easier for the gallery in athens to have stretcher bars ready and waiting when i arrive once ii send them those dimensions. so, for example, these two canvases come out exactly to 95x41 cm.

cottonwood creek 2 is at a very early stage and will develop further tomorrow. i worked on it with my usual second energy burst, which happens around 1pm and peters out right about now. it’s cool switching from the tokyo olympics figures, which are dancing, jumping and colorfully dressed, to thes landscape inspired new paintings. cottonwood creek is one of our local creeks where i go to paint plein air during the warmer months. i use those works on paper and the photos i shoot while i’m there, to create studio paintings which, ideally, capture the energy of the creeks, with their roaring streams of water, fallen tree trunks and rocks glistening in the afternoon sun.

11:45 AM: earlier this morning, i took cottonwood creek 1 further. the red on the upper right was my most recent move, unexpectedly taking it from the realm of pure landscape and bringing it closer to my tokyo olympics series in color & composition, as you can see in this shot of it with a few tokyo olympics series works.

the lower portion of the composition consists of a drawing, with no colors other than the bit of blue on the lower right.

cottonwood creek 1 with some tokyo olympics series

taking tokyo olympics 14 to the next level /  by Philip Tarlow

12:09 PM: it’s a sunny, bitterly cold day today. when we got up this morning, it was -5°F. right now it’s up to 17° F.

although i had thought tokyo olympics 14 was complete, and i was oging to leave it very spare, today i was moved to go back into it, starting with the skateboard. i had made a small watercolor/gouache on paper, with some collage in november of 2021. i liked what happened with the collaging on the skateboard, so i used that as a model for this one in oils.. then i decided to go further with his trousers, which have a wonderful patterning in browns. i like where it’s at right now, so i’m going to call it a day & stop early, since i have a dentist appointment later this aftrenoon.

i think the greens, red & blues of the skateboard enrich the entire composition in an unexpectedly powerful way…now i have to ponder whether adding more color to his shirt will be effective.

BELOW: before & after today’s work

tweaks to "tokyo olympics 15" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:52 PM: i didn’t like the face & neck of the skateboarder in this painting, so i painted over them and repainted them, as well as some work on his helmut & chin strap.

other tweaks: i added to the blue surrounding his body & gave more definition to his thigh.

BELOW: yesterdays version on the left, and on the right, how the painting looked following my tweaks today

how his face looks following my tweaks

more work on tokyo olympics 14 & 15 today /  by Philip Tarlow

4:03 PM: following my last 2:52 pm post i did a bit more work on tokyo olympics 15 where, as promised, more figures and patterns have entered the picture. it needs more work, but is definitely on it’s way to join the rest of the series. stay tuned, as tomorrow may well be a critical day for both 14 & 15.

2:52 PM: today i placed tokyo olympics 14 & 15 side by side on my east wall and went back & forth between the two.

both paintings will eventually integrate with more shapes & figures, making it less specific and more of a dance, like the rest in this series, where the space is playfully intermixed with patterns and colors that allow the eye to move about the surface as though on a journey.

starting tokyo olympics 15 / baca panorama, 1999 /  by Philip Tarlow

4:22 PM: i started the drawing for tokyo olympics 15 earlier today. i’m still undeciided about whether otr not to do more work on the super-spare tokyo olympics 14, but i’m leaning towards doing a bit more, but not tooo much.

4:13 PM: as i went through some of the works on paper sitting atop my file cabinet waiting to be organized, i came across this plein air gouache on 2 pieces of paper of the san luis valley, where we live. it was painted in 1999, but of course it feels like ancient history.

san luis velley, 8x45” 1999, gouache on 2 pieces of paper

1:47 PM: i’m making the drawing for tokyo olympics 15. until i’m further along, here’s a quote from ˆmatisse:

you must understand that what i paint are objects thought of in plastic terms: if i close my eyes, i see the objects better than with my eyes open, free of accidental detail; that is what i paint.

small addition to tokyo olympics 12 and starting tokyo olympics 14 /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL: day 1 of tokyo olympics 14

3:20 PM: i made a tiny addition to tokyo olympics 12, giving the little guy on the lower right a mike,and strated tokyo olympics 14, which for the moment is delightfully spare & painterly.

more work on tokyo olympics 12 & 13 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:40 PM: today i did more work on the two most recent paintings in my tokyo olympics series of paintings.

i started with the most recent: tokyo olympics 13, which i felt needed something more in the lower portion of the composition, but not too much. so i drew in some creek rocks and branches, which i think work but may need to be bolder than the sketchy pencil lines i drew in. i think they also add a note of mystery, placed as they are beneath the skateboarder & the acrobat doing a handstand. as is true with the others in this series, it’s up to the viewer to fill in the blanks.

as for tokyo olympics 12, i had gone over the entire painting 2 days ago with a thin coat of light yellow and wsa waiting for it to dry sufficiantly for me to go back in without my brush picking up too much of that yellow.

it’s a totally different composition now, although, as i intended, the previous version, which i painted over, does peek through as a ghost image, adding richness and mystery.

so now, the composiiton has three singers, who played a key role in the post-olympic games celebration.

tokyo olympics 13, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:04 PM: i got an early start today, so when it couded over & started snowing half an hour ago, i was pretty much done for the day. as you will see below in the before & after photos, this is now a totally different composition, with only a very few elements left from yesterday.

it definitely looks more like it’s title: tokyo olympics 13! let’s see where it goes tomorrow.

BELOW: tokyo olympics 13 yesterday (left) and just now