starting a new 76x22" painting / drawing while on the phone /  by Philip Tarlow

painting the 72x26 stretched canvas with a tinted oil ground this morning

3:17 PM: i’ve been wanting to create a large surface with a tinted ground for some time now. so this morning, i found a stretcher bar that is 72x22”, cut a piece of primed linen & stretched it. then i chose a couple of colors close to what i had been imagining the ground would be and painted the entire surface. tomorrow, it should be dry enough to begin working, although i have no clue what i’ll be doing.

later in the afternoon, i had a talk with mikela, who wqas driving home from the school she was working at in la jara. as we talked, i took one of my reed pens and made this little drawing of some objects on one of my studio tables.

reed pendrawing i made while talking with mikela

stage of a 2015 painting in progress / 2006 painting of a priest buying fish /  by Philip Tarlow

11:34 AM: as i searched through my photo albums this morning, i came across this one, a stage in one of the studies i was making at the time. kinda wish i had left it in this state. well, at least i have a photo!

4:37 PM: today in my studio was an organizing day. most of the recent paintings that were tacked to my east wall have been taken down & rolled up, and few were stretched & are hanging on my south wall. the idea was to free up my painting wall, which will be repainted soon, and all the little tack holes smoothed over.

here you see a 2006 painting, a photo of which i came across. it’s a priest in the capital of the island of andros, chora, about to buy some freshly caught fish from a vendor.

small adjustment to the skateboarding figure on upper left of "jazz 15" / changes to "jazz 14" /  by Philip Tarlow

today was a day for tweaks and adjustments. jazz 15 was almost there following yesterdays work. but the flying skateboarder on the upper left needed a few tweaks to her body. once i made them it seemed to improve the entire composition! BELOW: the before & after.

my changes to jazz 14 were more substantial.

further work on “jazz 15” / changes to "u.s. open 2" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:54 PM: after completing the modifications to u.s. open 2, i returned to jazz 15, an older painting i returned to yesterday after painting over the lower left portion of the composition, which wasn’t working. i sketched out a bird yesterday afternoon, and today fleshed it out, adding those magical black dots. right now, looking at it from about 20 feet, the newly added bird tends to take over the composition. so i may have to return to the skateboarders and bring them up to the level of intensity of the bird. i did do some work on one of the skateboarders; the one on the upper left. the guy on the far left is a remnant of the floor mosaic, which igreyed over. so is he no longer an important part of this composition? we’ll see tomorrow morning, when i’m fresh.

u.s.open 2 BEFORE and AFTER this mornings changes

11:38 AM: after studying u.s. open 2 for 3-4 days, i decided to take out the red/yellow part on the upper left, and add the grey outline of a skateboarder on the right.

changes to "jazz 15" /  by Philip Tarlow

2:03 PM: the lower left portion of jazz 15 was bothering us both. so, after gazing at it on my studio wall for a couple of months, i greyed over that area of the composition and, just moments ago, sketched in a bird; the same one who first appeared in u.s. open 2. it will likely be overcast tomorrow, so i won’t have great light, but nonetheless i plan on giving the bird his features: beak, feathers, claws and those wonderful spotted patterns he/she sports! here’s the painting as it looked before i greyed over it, and moments ago.

continued work on "u.s. open 3" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:50 PM: i got somewhat of a late start today because we took our trail walk a tad late. in studying u.s.open 2 & 3, i determined that, of the two, u.s. open 3 was the one that most needed more work. i did quite a bit, as you’ll see from the before & after shots BELOW.

i way prefer today’s version. first of all, the triangle in the upper left, was coming from my head & was not an essential or even relevant part of the composition. the bir’d head was squinched and the green surrounding it was distracting. the tennis player’s shadow didn’t read as a shadow, whereas now it does. lets see how i feel about it in the morning.

continued work on U.S. Open 2 & 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

u.s. open 2 following today’s work

u.s. open 3 as it looked following today’s session

1:45 PM: i painted all morning, working on the next stages of u.s. open 2 & 3, & hit my limitof energy a few minutes ago. so i’ll post what i did, run into town to pick up a newly baked loaf of sourdough bread, then drive back home & lie down with mikela, who just returned from a conference she attended a few minutes ago.

one new element that has entered both paintings is a vibrant pink. and in u.s. open 3, a tennis player viewed from above with his racket poised for a serve. both paintings still need work, but i’m taking it real slow, since each has a very delicate balance and each, i believe represents a big step forward in the work i’ve been doing over the past 6 months, sice we returned form our trip to greece.

day 4: U.S. Open 2 / starting U.S. Open 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

u.s. open 2 as it looked following today’s work on the tennis player’s shirt, which is now yellow

BELOW: the tennis player in u.s. open 2 before & after today’s work on her shirt color

3:10 PM: i wasn’t satisfied with the skin tone on the body of the female tennis player adjacent to the bird, so i gave her a yellow top, which ties in with and balnaces the other yellows in the composiiton. not yet sure what, if anything will happen with the unpainted areas. i felt at an impass and din’t want to proceed unless i really felt the energy. so i started work on a new one: u.s. open 3, which has the exact same dimensions.

thus far, all we see is the large birds head adjacent to the drawing of a dinner table, which has also appeared in a recent painting: shinkeizou, completed last month.

u.s. open 3 on day 1

shinkeizou, with the same dinner table we see as a drawing in the new u.s. open 3

day 3, “u.s. open 2” / trail walk drawing this morning /  by Philip Tarlow

3:44 PM: i’m moving slowly on u.s. open 2. here’s the current state compared with yesterday. yesterday’s version on the LEFT

DETAIL of u.s. open 2

next steps with “u.s. open 2” / my solo skoufa gallery show in 2010 /  by Philip Tarlow

u.s. open 2, 20x38” as it looked moments ago, following a morning’s work

1:12 PM: this morning i continued work on the painting i started yesterday: u.s. open 2, 20x38” in oil on triple primed french portrait linen. i ran out of steam moments ago, so i don’t want to continue working on it till i’m fresh, tomorrow morning, following our trail walk. thus far, i haven’t done my usual scraping; i’m too attached to the brush strokes i’ve made on this superb surface.

detail; click on image to make full page & reveal brushstrokes

6:43 AM: in 2010 i had a solo show at skoufa gallery in athens. with the exception of 3-4 paintings, it sold out.

parade: this was one of the paintings in the exhibition

6:54 AM: it’s a chilly morning here in crsetone/baca, with the temperature hovering around 43F, but forecast to go up to 80F! in a few hours, i’ll be in my studio, continuing work on the new u.s. open 2. stay tuned!