sangres sunset, day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:14 PM: i skipped a day because we drove up & back to denver to pick up our repaired car & drop off the rental, wioth a stop for a blood draw on the way. it was a 12 hour day, and i was exhausted this morning, but i had to come to the studio to fulfill what was in my vision while we were away.

a day away can be benneficial. and in this case, i think i proved the point that in order to do something worthwhile….even brilliant, you often have to do something mediocre first.

why the radical changes? i wasn’t really in a representational landscape space. so as much as i loved the patterned photo of the sangres at sunset, shot through the screen of our bathroom window, the painting itself wasn’t exciting me, and represents something i might have done a fe wyears back.

BELOW: sangres sunset on 7/7 (left) & today

sangres sunset, 66x16” oil on linen at the end of day

sangres sunset, day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset as she looked at the end of my painting day today

3:44 PM: i’m stopping here for the day, but i’m not done by any means. for one thing, the color of the sangres will become more golden…

sangres sunset, 16x66” oil on portrait linen, as she looked moments ago….still working…

1:32 PM: i’m taking sangres sunset to the next level today & here’s how she looks at the moment.

sangres sunset as she looked at the end of the day yesterday

a print-out of the sangres sunsey photo i shot through the ecreen of our bathroom window a few days ago

8:17 AM: i don’t usually post on my blog this early, but i’m in the mood. sangres sunset brings up a bit of fear and dread; where will she want to go next? no preconceptions is the rule of thumb, but she started out with these shots of the sunset i took through the screen in our bathroom, which is where the dotted patterning came from. it made me want to use it in a painting. so, not having the right size stretcher bars handy, i found an older stretched canvas with a partially completed painting i didn’t really care about. thus began yesterday’s process of unstretching the older painting, squaring up the stretcher bars & stabilizing them with corner braces and cutting and stretching a piece of my beautiful primed portrait linen. i can’t imagine painting on the older, rougher linen i had before, so i’ll be ordering 84” long rolls of this rather expensive canvas in the future.

i hadn’t anticipated getting as far as i did yesterday afternoon, especially since all that physical activity triggered my strained groin muscle pain & i had to apply ice. but there you go, i jumped in and began with sky, but two figures unexpectedly jumped in from photos i recently shot in salida of visitors to the beautiful riverside spot.

on another note, this is turning out to be an intense mosquito season. just last night i got about 40 of them on the bedroom walls with my handy dandy exterminator , a tennis racket-like tool with a button the electrifies it’s web of metal strands and makes a popping sound accompanied by a flash & and acrid whiff of dead mosquito whenever i get one of them. they are especially fond of mikela.

minoan celebration / quacker / preparing to stretch new canvas for “sangres sunset” /  by Philip Tarlow

sangres sunset 16x66”, day 1

3:49 PM: i started painting sangres sunset about an hour ago & will continue in the morning.

12:33 PM: right now i’m preparing this stretcher bar for a new canvas

minoan celebration , 38x38”, oil on linen

10:41: minoan celebratoin is now dry enough to hand and photograpg. it’s almost impossible to capture the subtlety of the pinks or the greys of the figures, nut this will have to do for now, after adjusting on photoshop for the last 20 minues.

BELOW":quacker was re-shot today, resulting in more accurate color reproduction.

quacker, 35x38” oil on linen, re-shot this morning

DETAIL of quacker

"quacker", day 2 / minoan celebration pinked /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” on my studio floor after being pinked today. it’s to wet to hang till tomorrow, to avoid major drips

1:47 PM: following the revisions i made to quacker, i revisited minoan celebration, which was way too busy. i mixed up a subtle pink and went over all the business, leaving 5 figures to figure out their new relationship. they seem to like it! this shot shows the newly transformed painting lying on my studio floor, since it’s still too fresh & wet to hang it without major drips happening. i can shoot it hanging on my wall tomorrow morning & you’ll get a better idea.

quacker, 35x38” oil on linen, as she looked at 3pm today, after painting over the duck in the pond

12:38PM: i told you yesterday that it was likely quacker would transfrom! well, she did, and here’s how she looks today. it’s kind of a beach scene….for now.

“quacker”, 35x38", day 1/ modifications to “minoan celebration” /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” following todays modifications

3:39 PM: after starting quacker this morning, my gaze shifted to minoan celebration, which i had considered resolved. so i stretched her, and when i did, she calle dout to me for something a bit bolder; something that would take all the patterning, figures and creek references and allow them to sing their song more melodically.

so i introduced the blue, green and red around the borders, which actually seems to work. i’ll have to see tomorrow morning, when my vision if fresh.

quacker 35x38” as it looked at the end of my painting day today

1:27 PM: after stretching a new 35x38” canvas this morning, i started quacker. i think she speaks for herself.

when i started painting i imagined creating this image as part of a larger composition, with varoius views form above entering the picture. but at the moment, i’m satisfied just gazing at this duck, with her reflectoin in the orange water…

my intuition right now is: don’t mess with quacker; let her be. she reminds us of how peaceful, colorful and vibrant nature is.

after gazing at her for the past few hours, i’ll definitely be messing with her though.

"minoan celebration" day 6 /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” following todays modifications

1:52 PM: after gazing at the painting this morning upon entering my studio, i found the passage just to the left of the central female figure distracted from the composition as a whole. i tried collaging in that area, but that didn’t do it, so i scraped the collaged paper away and painted over it with white, which i then drew into with black charcoal. for the moment, that seems to have worked, but i need more time to gaze and evaluate.

the existing 5 figures form a loose semi-circle, and my mind keeps jumping in wanting to introduce a 6th figure on the left, but i’m resisting that.

as i’ve said in the past, i want the person or persons viewing the painting, whether in a hom, a gallery or a museum, to create their own story as to what’s going on here. ancient marble statues and museum visitors seen from above have been thrown together with the plaid shirted lead character from a hit tv series. and all are immersed in a creek landscape with suggestions of rock and water. so what’s the story? and why is it titled minoan celebration?

BELOW: the history of minoan celebration, starting june 27th through today. amongst other things, you can see where the title originated: in the minoan minotaur visible in the 2nd & 3rd images.

"minoan celebration" day 5 /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” oil on linen, following this mornings modificatoins

1:20 PM: on the left side of the composition was taking away from some of the more exciting aspects above and to the right. so i scrubbed it and whited over it, introducing a few hints of creek and rocks which, unexpectedly are somewhat gustonesque. if you’re not familiar, google philip guston and you’ll see what i mean.

i also worked a bit on the blue shirted figure at the bottom so that he pops more. he’s the same guy who you see just above him & to his right, but with his shirt, pants and hair painted in.

goodby minotaur in the "minoan celebration"/2014 museum interior /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” oil on linen, as she looked moments ago following the paint-over of the minoan minotaur

1:37 PM: just now i did something you might consider radical, but which is a normal day in the studio for me. i painted over the minoan minotaur, which was the centerpiece of this composition, allowing bits and pieces to appear beneath.

the result, i think, is a composition that’s easier on the eye, and at the same time creates a richer, more painterly surface. the figures that now dominate are inspired by a photo from above, shot years ago in the acropolis museum in athens. the female figures were ancient sculptures standing on the museum floor. and the walking figures are museum visitors. the familiar olaid shirted figure towards the top of the composition needs no introduction for those of you familiar with my work.

BELOW: before (left) and after todays modifications

i discovered this painting this afternoon in the pile of over 100n works that arrived from houston last week. they were all housed in the former gremillion gallery and in a storage facility that the gallery rented.

it will be a while before i can organize and catalogue the paintings. this afternoon i looked through one of the stacks of smaller works in oil on linen. this one is 16x16” and was painted in october, 2014. the subject is the interior of MOMA in NYC.

i brought it back to the house just now and hung it on a wall opposite our bed. the true test of any painting is to be able to gaze at it over time, at all hours and in different light. right now, it looks pretty cool!

in a way, this one reveals some of my core coloristic and compositional tendencies.

MOMA Interior, 16x16” oil on linen, 2014

"minoan celebration" day 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

minoan celebration, 38x38” as she looked at the end of my painting day today.

3:57 PM: i got a bit of a late start today, resuming work on minoan celebration at about noon. the minoan inspired bull’s head has gone through many transfromations; yesterdays version needed to have less intensity, as it was grabbing your eye when you looked at the composition. it’s better, but not quite there yet.

there was a point earlier when i whited over it completely, and whn i scrpaed away most of the white, it reduced the intensity and brought it more in harmony with the rest of the composition. i also modified the grey to the left of the bull’s head as well as introducing some of the square patterning we see on the right. at the very last minute, before cleaning my brushes, i introduced the light blue you see just to the right of the bull’s nostrils.

BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left

"minoan celebration" day 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:33 PM: this is minoan celebration at the end of my painting day today

1:58 PM: inspired by a minoan themed series of paintings i made a decade ago, i introduced this bulls head into the composition today.