starting jazz 16; when a blur & scrape says more than precise descriptions / details of jazz 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 16 on day 1 35x37”/89x94 cm. as it looked at the end of my painting day, when i scraped over it with my palette knife

3:43 PM: today, after my usual futzing around & trying, over breakfast, to make sense of the articles in art forum magazine, i started painting jazz 16. i spent practically the entre day working on the figure of a skateboarder and then a tennis player throwing up the ball. i was taking special care with the female skateboarder, putting little touches on her legs, her arms her garment, her hair.

at the very end of the day, when i was getting pretty tired, i grabbed my spatula and scraped over everything. so all my details became a blur. and i like the blur. i like it better than before. i didn’t think to photograph the painting before the scrapes, so there’s no record of it. but honestly, now that i’m gazing at it i way prefer the blur!

actually, it started when i looked at the cover of the latest art forum magazine. it has a blurred photo of a frontal view of a standing nude. i found it far more interesting, compelling actually, than if it had been sharp & clear.

so what do i do about the others, which are pretty detailed?

the art forum cover i was referring to in my post

12:03 PM: here are 3 details of the recently modified jazz 12.

my new HB Tower / revisiting jazz 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 12, 35x37”/89x94cm. following extensive modifications just now

BELOW: jazz 12 before and after today’s modifications; so much easier on the eye

3:28 PM: jazz 12 looked way too busy, with no compositional reason for all the yellows. so i went back into it using a light, warm grey. it has allowed me to take a deep breath, but we’re not there yet.certainly it’s easier for the eye to scan this composition now without getting stuck on bright yellows or pinks. but it’s not singing yet. let’s see where it goes tomorrow. right now, especially after all the physical work of re-attaching the canvasses to the walls, i’m cooked, and as soon as i post this, i’ll go back to the house & lie down.

1:14 PM: yesterday my new hb tower was delivered. it’s a 4 step folding ladder with handrails for safety and a tool bag on top, which is proving very convenient. this morning i re-attached 11 of my jazz series paintings to my east & south studio walls. this makes it much easier to get a far better sense of the whole series, except for the 3 that are over in the house. and this new perspective is going to affect the paintings i’ll be making from today on.

so now that it’s already 1:20pm, lets see if i have the evergy and presence to paint!

a lighter blue for "jazz 11"/modifications to “jazz 12” /  by Philip Tarlow

at work today on modifications to jazz 12

3PM: when i took jazz 12 back to the house to see how it looked there, we both agreed it needed more work. so i just finished making some modifications, while attempting to maintain the simplicity and flowing quality of the composition. tha was tricky, because this one emerged one day in a burst of energy. BELOW: the before & after

12:37 PM: the blues in jazz 11 looked a bit too dark as i’ve been gazing at it hanging on my studio wall. so this morning i lightened them. the BEFORE and AFTER are BELOW:

modifications to jazz 13,14 and 15 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:29 PM: today i made modiifcations to 3 of my most recent paintings: jazz 13, jazz 14 and jazz 15. the biggest was the addition of a skateboarding figure inthe upper left area of jazz 15. compositionally, which is most important, she balances things out. in addition, it somehow makes more sense to the eye and helps integrate the two themes of mosaic with skateboarning; a thousands of years old topic with a contemporary one. might the ancient greeks and romans made mosaics of sketeboarders if they existed in the 5th century B.C.? one of their subjects at the time were action scenes, and skateboarding definitely falls into that category!

in jazz 14, with the addition of the walking figure with the plaid shirt, there are now 3 figures, now surrounded by a light blue, which visually unites them in addition to being a lively and seductive color.

and in jazz 13, one figure has been eliminated, greatly benefitting and uncluttering the composition.

the before (left) and after images can be viewed BELOW.


BELOW: jazz 13 before & after

BELOW: jazz 14 before & after

BELOW: jazz 15 before and after:

starting "jazz 15" although i'm not done with 14 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 15, 35x37”/89x94cm. as it looked at the end of my painting day today

2:11 PM: when i couldn’t find my favorite artfix primed linen, i ordered a roll that thas a slightly rougher tooth until i could find the one i usually use. i wanted to try it out today, so i stopped work on jazz 14, which i started yesterday, and began work on the new jazz 15 to try out the canvas. while it doesn’t have the same extreme sensitivity as this one, it ain’t bad. so now i’m working on two simultaneously, which is always my ideal, and i’ll continue tomorrow morning.

the one i started today on the artfix L22 U universal primed linen, continues with yesterday’s inspiration: ancient roman mosaics. the figure on the left is working on restoring one. the skate boarding girl is a partner of the one i painted in jazz 14 yesterday. the color of her dress turned me on; painting the lighter rose and the deeper red shadows of the dress were, i dare say, orgasmic for me. the deliciousness of making the darker shadows of the dress, offset my the pink of her legs is what painting in oil is all about!

starting jazz 14 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 14 as it looked at the end of my painting day today

2:46 PM: having completed jazz 13 yesterday, i dove right into jazz 14 this morning. the composition hasn’t fully formed, so what we can see are two figures and a detail of a thousand year old roman mosaic: the two eyes and the nose can be discerned to the right of the skating female figure. the almost texturless portrait linen is facilitating the kinds of brushwork yopu see in, for example, the skater’s violet dress, flying in the wind and with her swirling movements. tomorrow morning will be critical in this new painting’s development.

jazz 13 continued from yesterday /  by Philip Tarlow

today i took jazz 13 to the next level. some elements of the composition have transformed or disappeared entirely, having been scraped or painted over. there are more varied and vivid colors than in the previous 12 paintings in this series. while some figures reappear, others are new to the jazz series.

in yesterday’s post i had this to say about the bird on the lower right: the creature to the right of the tennis player is actually a bird, believe it or not! it’s from my growing collection of over 200 images of mostly rare birds found throughout the world.

as for the colors, whereas in jazz 12, i thought i had been daring in my departure from the grey, white or blue backgrounds, this one when viewed next to the others, including the most recent jazz 12, absolutely POPS! so there’s a clear progression from the first in the series to what i did today. not that i haven’t employed vivid colors in the past, but they were almost always somewhat muted. at the time, i thought they were positively bold, but that was due to the fact that i was still emerging from my 15 year stay in greece, when soft earth tones were the rule. if you look at all 13 in the grid on my jazz page, you’ll see right away what i’m talking about when i say it POPS! https://www.philiptarlow.com/jazz

so….what next? we’ll see tomorrow!

3 pm: i was perusing a book on matisse over breakfast this morning and came upon these two quotes.

he was not only a great painter; he was a great writer as well, and was able to express complex, timeless thoughts on art with few words. his critique of the early abstract school of painting is as valid today as it was when he wrote it.

starting jazz 13 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 13 post- scraping

4:52 PM: just before leaving the studio to take our creek walk, i went over to jazz 13 and did some scraping. that broke up the realist aspect of the composition and laid the groundwork for what i’ll be doing tomorrow morning.

the eye more easily perceives this as a composition rather than a brd, a nude, an athlete….

jazz 13 as it looked this afternoon at the end of my painting day.

1:59 PM: i’m having to change all the jazz series numbers because jazz 5 wasn’t viable to i dropped it from the series.

i feel complete with jazz 12, which i completed 2 days ago. yesterday was all about logistics, so i didn’t paint. i needed a break anyway. so this morning i started jazz 13, which has the same dimensions as the rest of the series: 35x37”/89x94cm. i think it’s a good start, and tomorrow will be a critical day because it’s hard to know whether i can get back into the groove i was in today.

the creature to the right of the tennis player is actually a bird, believe it or not! it’s from my growing collection of over 200 images of mostly rare birds found throughout the world.

i’m beginning to see my huge collection of photos as source material, more and more valued, for the new paintings in the jazz series. they lead me into the unknown, a little like a game of chess with ever shifting pieces which have ever shifting ways of moving about the board, or in this case the composition. if they start getting too predictable, i scrape or paint over them. perhaps a more accurate analogy would be JAZZ, which of course is the title of the series. which takes us back to thelonious monk, the initial inspiration of the series. if you’ve never listened to his music, take a listen and maybe you’ll get where i’m coming from.

starting "jazz 12" /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 12, day 1. 35x37”/89x94 cm. oil on portrait linen

2:27 PM:i ran out of steam a little while ago, so i’m stopping for the day. i’m also having some pain in my right lower jaw, which is where the temporary crowns were inserted. so i’ll go back to the house, lie down & put some ice on it.

following along the path i carved out with the previous 3-4 paintings in my jazz series, this one is a lot more colorful with it’s pinks, blues, greens & bright yellows. inspired by 18th c. japanese prints and melding them with some of the figures seen from above from my growing series of images shot as far back as 10 years ago, and working always with an ever present awareness of exactly what the diebenkorn quote below so eloquently puts forth, i continue to zero in on my voice; my note.

working on the extra fine portrait linen is making all the difference in my work. brushing on the colors is really magical; no other surface i’ve worked on has this quality. so i just ordered 2 more rolls. if i continue with these dimensions, that should provide me with enough canvas for about 36 new paintings!

today’s palettes, can be seen BELOW.

12:35 PM: this morning i got to work on a new canvas: jazz 13. this doesn’t mean i’m done with all the previous one; there’s always a possibility i may decide one of them needs more work.

as i continue working, i wanted to post this great quote from diebenkorn:

 

“Values come from the individual. I feel that a forceful quality in art, truly representative of our modern situation, will rise above the labels of abstraction and realism. A painter, as Elmer Bischoff puts it, responds to the visible facts of the paint on the canvas which clarifies and refines his feelings as do words for the poet. This way a painter is bound to reflect himself and his times.” —Richard Diebenkorn, 1957

continued work on jazz 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

jazz 12 35x37”/89x94cm. as it looked at the end of my painting day.

3:50 PM: blue replaces grey: in an unexpected move, i painted out the central female figure and replaced most of the greys with a light cobalt teal bluish. it sets off the oranges from what shows through of the under-painting and created what looks, from this 20 foot distance, to be pure magic!

i feel like i’ve been persuing this result ever since i embarked on my journey with jazz 1, at the beginning of may. it could never have happened without my sometimes wavering but never absent persistance; true of a lot of things in life, isn’t it?

as well, i couldn’t have made these end of day modifications had we gone on our planned trail walk. when mikela asked me how the weather looked, i said they were predicting thunderstorms right about the time we planned on walking. so far they haven’t materialized, but the threat made us cancel our walk and gave me the opportunity to do further work on jazz 12.

BELOW: before and after the changes i just made

detail, showing how the underpainting plays a role

jazz 12 as it looked moments ago, after painting over most of what i did yesterday

2:08 PM: you might ask youself, since he knows when he’s making the first stage of a jazz Iseries painting that the next day he’ll be painting over it, how can he be so ernest about it? can’t answer that.

earlier today i added some figures, two of which are the walking guy in the plaid shirt who, as you know if you read my blog daily, is inspired by a shot from above of the central character in the tv serial the good doctor.

yesterday’s work, which has become an under-painting, peeks through in spots, giving me that unpredictable distribution of shapes & colors i so love. i ran out of the claessens medium texture primed linen i had been using, and until the new rolls arrived, i cut a few pieces from what’s left of my highly prized quadruple primed, VERY expensive, tightly woven artfix portrait linen. you may not be able to discern the difference by looking at an online photo, but in person and up close, the difference is very obvious, especially when i’m painting on it.

most of what i did today was done on my painting table and not with the canvas tacked to the wall. a lot of what i did involved drawing the figures with a brush, and i find this a lot easier when i’m making the drawing while standing, with the canvas on a flat surface.