continued work on "the last supper" / August 24, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

11:56 AM: i whited over the upper half of the last supper this morning: dressed the bare breasted dinner guest, yellow and blue stripes surrounding the composition and added a patterned area of squares beneath the figure in green.

i see a significant improvement in the overall composition, and my eye is no longer confused by the pink hue of the upper half, as well as the architectural elements , which are now just ghost images. the richness and vibrancy of what’s going on in the lower half now bursts forth in a way that, frankly, overshadows it’s neighbors tacked to my east studio wall.

*the last supper* 38X20”/96.5X51 cm as it looked moments ago

the last supper at noon today & at 2pm / August 23, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

2pm: i did quite a bit more to the last supper this afternoon, and i’m just about cooked.

it’s getting there, but still needs more work. another figure will join the dinner party, & the upper 1/3 of the composition needs clarification. i like the plaid pattern on the bottom, as well as the bare breasted diner bottom right. the fireplace & chimney add an interesting dimension, and i love the figure in red, from the previous, underlying composition, who has somehow survived thus far.

11:58 AM: i’ve been working on the last supper this morning, and here’s where it’s at right now, still workin’

*the last supper,* 38x20” as it looked moments ago

jātaka is now "the last supper" / August 22, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:10 PM: taking into consideration the new direction this painting has taken, i’ve renamed it. it will now be titled the last supper. the reason for this is an old photo i found in the stack of photos i’ve printed out on large sheets of heavy photo paper. it was shot from the upper floor of a friend’s house here in crestone, during a period when our little community was still intact. a dozen of us had sat down to dinner at two separate tables and, aware that there was a prime spot on the upper floor to view it, i left our table briefly to go up and capture the scene. i was unaware at the time that this would be one of the last times such a gathering would take place. in the ensuing months and years, the attendees at this dinner would begin leaving crestone, which began growing at an alarming rate, introducing a new wave of crestonites we didn’t know. at this dinner were people most of whom had been here from the beginning, when crestone/baca was still a tiny town where the residents knew one another intimately.

and so, in a very real sense, this was the last supper.

bear in mind, this is only day 2 of my work on this new painting.

*the last supper* 38x20” at the end of my painting day

starting "jātaka" / August 21, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:40 PM: this morning i cut some new pieces of extra fine portrait linen into pieces matching my previous 4 paintings: 38x20”/96.5x51 cm.and started work on a new one, titled jātaka.a chinese term referring to the former lives of the buddha, and dating back to the northern wei dynasty (386-535).

experiment 1 whited over....again! / hu 1 continued / August 19, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

1:58 PM: i had thought hu 1 was resolved, but not so fast tarlow! i started finding all that grey a bit boring. so first i went over the entire paiting with bubble wrap tinted with white oil paint. then i scraped into that, removing most but not all of it. then i introduced a triangle of yellow ochre next to an adjacent area of blue, which is where it’s at now. certainly more visually interesting than that grey.

i’m leaving it like this till i come back fresh in the morning.

here’s the freshly whited over experiment 1

experiment 1 / museé d'art moderne, paris, 2012 drawing / / August 18, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:53: i started working into experiment 1. going back to the house & i’ll post more when i get there.

*experiment 1* at th eend of my painting day today

11:18 AM: in 2012 mikela and i were in paris. when we visited the musee d’art moderne, i made a series of drawings of sculptures that were being shown. this is one of them, made in pen in a small drawing book i always carry when traveling.

not yet sure what i’ll be doing today in the studio, but stay tuned and i’ll update.

important tweaks to “jazz 9” & "hu 1" / “experiment 1” / August 17, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:45 PM: i’ve been looking at the jazz series since it was created, tacked to my studio wall. this one, jazz 9, was completed may 26 of this year. i kept feeling like it needed something more, and today was the day. i added one more plaid shirted figure seen from above, who was photographed in conjunction with the good doctor tv series, where he plays the lead role. in addition, i added the horizontal orange stripe in the upper right corner.

i think this is a great example of how a good composition can become better; the newly added figure seems to fill a void, adding a further tough of mystery to an already mysterious pictorial event.

BELOW are BEFORE & AFTER images.

12:24 PM: i had started painting over an 80x20” canvas with a new painting of piso yialia, the beach on the island of andros, in greece. it was so boring i couldn’t stand it, so yesterday i made some marks using oil pastel. then, this morning, following the work i did on hu 1, i looked through the tubes of paint that had been lying around unused, for months, maybe years. i came across one, made by lefranc, called sahara yellow. it was so old that the cap wouldn’t screw off, even with pliars. so i cut off the bottom of the tube & squeezed a bunch out into an old miso container, along with a squeeze of another old tube of cadmium red purple. with the stretched canvas lying flat on my painting table, i made sweeping marks, then later on painted into one area with those characteristic white creek bubbles i love so much, in a blue ground.

for now, i’ve designated this my experimental canvas, and we’ll see where it goes. interesting to see it hanging nevt to the current series.

10:40 AM: this morning, after that all important overnight break from observing hu 1, i observed thatt the grey that i surrounded the figures with yesterday was a tad mindless and predictable.

so a little while ago, i interrupted my breakfast to make a few changes while the painting was still tacked to the wall. ultimately though, i needed to take it down and work on it lying flat on my painting table. i also adjusted the left arm of the dancing figure, which looked as though she had bulging biceps. when you compare the BEFORE and AFTER images posted here, you’ll see what i did, and, with only those few changes, the entire painting jumps to life. am i exaggerating?

grey-over of HU 1 / August 16, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:12 PM: i felt this morning that hu 1 sorely needed simplification, so that the key elements of the composition could shine, as occured with almost half of the paintings in my jazz series, which you can view here: https://www.philiptarlow.com/current

the human figures, as well as the floating duck, now sing their songs uninterrupted by compositional fury. the blue rectangle of color on the upper left is tasked with holding the note; holding the space, which i think works unexpectedly well!

the grey in *hu 1* functions in much the same way as it does in *jazz 8,* 37x35” which you see here.

more tweaks to "hu 1" & beginning work on "piso yialia" / August 15, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

2:22 PM: i still wasn’t happy with the upper portion of the composition of hu 1, so i went over what i had done, took out the skateboarder and instead painted in a dancing figure with checkered shorts, who has appeared in previous paintings & is part of a celebration following the 2020 olympics. the green diagonal floor with triangles of sunlight behind her really does it for me. i also introduced a stronger orange next to the duck and the walking plaid shirted figure, as welll as a light speckled floor surroiunding the dancing girl with the red hat. i think this may be it for hu 1!

for the past few weeks, i had the tall, narrow 80x20” untitled painting sitting in storage waiting to dry. i had made a preliminary drawing of the landscape at piso yialia on the island of andros, in diluted grey-black oil on the off-white ground. so today i started working into it, using a photo i had shot 10 or so years ago or perhaps longer, i can’t really recall and the photo isn’t dated.

this landscape is very familiar to me, and much loved; more so than any i can think of. so it’s a delight to be making such a large painting of it. a lone figure sits high on the rocks overlooking the sea and the landscape beyond, with it’s characteristic, for andros, beautifully constructed stone walls. thus far, i’ve only worked on the upper half of the composition, but i’m definitely excited about it!

*HU 1* at the end of my painting day today

tweaking shinkeizou & hu 1 / August 14, 2023 by Philip Tarlow

3:21 PM: at the very end of the day, i added a jumping skateboarder, who has appeared in previous paintings. the upper left portion of the composition seemed empty & disconnected from the rest of the composition.

seeing as it was a last minute move, i can’t really tell whether or not it works. tomorrow…

12:17 PM: i felt that the yellow stripe i painted on the upper right of shinkeizou was too pale and didn’t become a part of the composition as i had wanted. to this morning i went over it with a somewhat brighter yellow, added a few red marks and painted a grey stripe adjacent to it. i think that did it, but i have to sit with it.

on hu 1, that blue triangle made with an oil pastel stick in the uppe rleft corner of hu 1 wasn’t working at all. so this morning i took it out with solvent on a rag and in it’s place sketched out a round table, which was in the original photo of the good doctor and kept that area white, except for the red diagonal of a door frame, nicely mirroring the two red diagonals further to the right.