“Plein Air Watercolor Painting”- Thursday evenings, 6:00pm – 8:00pm, July 9, 16, 30 & August 6, 2009
“Afternoon Farm”
Private Collection
We’ll meet at the end of long summer days to paint the Vermont landscape as it appears, bathed in evening light.
Plein Air painting was popularized during the Impressionist era. Those artists were interested in recording unique light effects that can be observed only while on location outdoors.
This class is designed to imitate the Impressionists, developing observation and recording skills as well as enjoying the outdoors during the delightful Vermont summer. We’ll focus on the unique experience of painting “en plein air” – both the pleasures and the challenges.
The instructor will work with each participant individually, helping them to develop knowledge and skills in all facets of watercolor painting, especially the particular considerations of painting on location – scene selection and simplification, composition, color selection and mixing, brush handling, and fluid control.
During the workshop, we’ll explore and apply a variety of watercolor skills and techniques including; wash methods, brush techniques, edge and texture variety, and color and value composition.
Instruction is individualized, with the instructor spending time with each participant, building specific skills for successful watercolor painting.
The class is appropriate for painters at all levels – beginner to advanced. We will meet at a different location in the Bennington area each of the four weeks in order to observe and paint beautiful scenery and evening light. The class focuses on watercolor, but other media are welcome.
Vermont’s natural scenic beauty is enhanced each spring when the work of Vermont artists and craftspeople can be seen firsthand during Vermont’s 17th annual Open Studio Weekend May 23-24.
My studio will be open from 10am - 5pm both Saturday and Sunday, May 23 & 24. I’m looking forward to again welcoming visitors my studio, showing new works and discussing my work, materials, processes etc.
Open Studio Weekend is a statewide celebration of the visual arts and the creative process. Bennington County, Vermont is home to many fine artists and artisans including the other members of The Artisans of Southern Vermont. The other twenty-nine members of the group will also have their studios open this weekend. The fine work represented by this group includes other paintings, jewelery, pottery, furniture, sculpture, and more.
Take the Artisans of Vermont Open Studio Driving Tourand be eligible to win a $150 gift certificate to the artist’s studio of your choice. Simply visit at least 8 of the 30 Artisans of Southern Vermont studios, get the artists signature and then leave the form at one of the open studio locations. Drawing to be held on June 15, 2009. Open Studio Driving Tour map, instructions and “Studio Sleuth” form downloadable here.
Officially out of winter mode - my latest work is pictured below. This work was inspired by a few things; a simple demo for one of my classes on creating rather than using tube grays, making plans for a summer class at the coast, and a simple sketch found in one of my sketchbooks.
This is my last winter painting for the year. This one, titled “Late Winter”, is from a real location near White Creek, NY and was drawn in a sketchbook some years ago. The painting is imbued with the feeling of late winter. Generally, March is the time when fields begin to emerge from under the melting snow, creeks and streams begin to thaw and flow. The sky is also usually lighter and has fewer clouds while the sun brightens.
“Late Winter” - Watercolor landscape - 13″ x 17″
More information about the creation of this work, including the original pencil sketch, can be found at my artists blog.
Interested in this painting or any of my other work - contact me via email - mail@tonyconner.com; or by phone - 802-753-1156
As winter winds down here in the great white north, I am finishing up some winter themed works. The latest is this one.
“Up Country“
9″ x 13″
Although the work seems only to depict winter at its coldest - snow everywhere, half frozen river, and even a lifeless sky
drained of color and movement by the cold. In reality it is study in color and design featuring mostly the contrast between depth and reflection in the moving water areas.
A depiction of the light of early November on the leafless and wizend tree. Trees, particularly weathered old trees are always inspiring to me. This work is based on sketches of another tree sketched and painted on location in Boston. For more information on the process of painting this tree, see my artists blog.
Interested in this painting or any of my other work - contact me via email - mail@tonyconner.com; or by phone - 802-753-1156
Don’t get the wrong impression, I am not pining for winter. Although I am not a winter sort of guy - I exist mostly indoors with a mug of hot tea not far away from December to April - there are many things that I find very paintable in the winter landscape. Anyone who checks this blog often will realize that painting is a process with me. The process begins with sketches. Usually, I start with pencil sketches that have been drawn at one time or another, often outdoors on location. In this case, I came across the sketch, below, from an older sketchbook. It usually my habit to note the date and time of the sketch, although this one had no such notations, so I am not sure where the scene really is or when I sketched it.
In any case, I liked the composition a good bit, without much change. The scene is suggestive of summer or fall, with lots of leaves on the trees. I decided to go straight to a color sketch, rather than to pencil thumbnails. One feature I wanted to emphasize in the final painting was the low, elongated left hand barn building. In drawing the contours of the buildings for the color sketch, I elongated this building even more and connected it to its mate. I wanted to suggest larger, complex farm building arrangement so added additional shapes that suggested additional buildings, sheds and/or wings. To emphasize the “horizontal-ness” of the building, I also made the sketch in an elongated, or panoramic format. The actual size of the sketch is 2 1/2″ x 6″.
Although winter was not on my mind as I began to work, the contours were suggesting a peaceful and calm winter day. The notion of calm led to the selection of green as the local color of the barn buildings, since both color and value contrast would need to be minimized in order to convey “peace”.
The color sketch is shown below.
Color sketch for “Farm in Winter”
2 1/2″ x 6″
As you can see, I went to a more conventional “landscape” format for the final painting, thinking that it would actually emphasize the shape of the focal point even more. I also brought the building forward and balanced their collective weight in the upper right, with the muddy road, a scrubby leftovers from fall in the lower left foreground.
While always a proud American, I have not often been proud of actions that have been taken in my name in recent years. That sense of pride which had shrunk in me recently, was resurgent last night as I watched polling results come in. In all honesty, I can’t remember ever feeling so proud to be an American. All Americans deserve Congratulations today!
Much has been made of the historical significance of electing the first African-American as President. That point is so very true and remarkable. The depth of meaning to the black community was lost on me during the campaign as I focused on the positions and qualifications of the two candidates. It was only in seeing TV images of African-Americans with tears streaming down their faces that I understood how important Barack’s victory was on a deeply personal and emotional level for so many. Congratulations to all whose private hope, dream, desire, or what they may have thought of as only wishful thinking, has been fulfilled on Election Day 2008.
Congratulations to both candidates for their campaigns. While the campaign had its ugly moments, the overall tone taken by both sides was more high than low road. While Obama received my vote, if a relatively few things had been different, I could have cast my vote for McCain. Both men seem to me to be sincere, honorable and have only the best in mind for the United States of America. Both of their Election night speeches were gracious and both spoke of unity, a quality that has recently been missing from our national and political discourse. Both recognize that hard work that is ahead. Barack Obama in particular used the words “sacrifice” and “humilty”. It is my sincere hope that our newly elected Democratic President and his Democratic majority in Congress keeps these two words in mind as they move forward.
Congratulations to those whose candidates won. Whatever your issues, they seemed to carry the day. Remember that with victory, often comes the temptation to dominate, while progress and success usually involves cooperation and teamwork. Most importantly, remember that future victories will require a record of progress and success.
Congratulations - yes, Congratulations to those whose candidates who did not win. Don’t forget that you get another chance in the elections to come, and that you have the great privelege of walking a mile in the moccasins of those who have been on the losing side in the past and those who may be on the losing side in the future. Use the experience to develop inclusion and unity with the losers the next time you come out on top. Rather than despair of the prospects now that the opponent has won, try to remember that it is rare for your worst fears for the future to actually come true, and that good ideas and good work come from both political parties.
Congratulations to all of us for bearing our part in the democratic system we have been given. While daily news bombards us with seemingly infinite reports of political fights, scandals, corruption and excess, it is easy to lose sight of the unique beauty and unique burden of our system of government and elections. Once again we have peacefully and successfully transfered power from our current sets of leaders to new ones. There is no substitute for an informed and involved electorate.
My painting, “Equinox Road” has been accepted into the 11th Biennial North American Open Exhibition of the New England Watercolor Society. There were 418 works submitted by watermedia artists from all over the United States. One hundred works were accepted. It is a thrill to be included in this prestigious show.
The exhibit will be open from September 19 through November 2 at the South Shore Art Center, 119 Ripley Road, Cohasset, Massachusetts. The public is invited to the Opening Reception & Awards Ceremony which will be held on Friday, September 19 from 6:00 to 8:00pm.
I wrote about the process of creating this painting back in April of this year. That post can be seen here. It includes information on the germination of the idea, exploration of compositions and the final creation of the actual work.
This painting is one of a series of works completed this summer (see “Along The Way“) that celebrate rural scenery, roads, farms & fields. Although I sometimes question the thought during the dreary days in January, February and March, I really am fortunate to live and work in such a beautiful and quaint area of the country. Vermont and the surrounding New England states and even the neighboring areas of upstate New York provide so much “paintable” subject matter.
Both farms and covered bridges are so strongly associated with Vermont. As an artist, it can be difficult to add anything artistic to subjects that have been painted by many other artists. Even so, barns, sheds and all of the other working structures found in this area hold particular facination for me, as do the seemingly endless rural roads where one farm follows another as you travel along.
The quality of light at this lattitude begins to take on the look of autumn as July wanes and fades to August, particularly in the afternoon. In this painting I hoped to combine the typical and romanticized farm building, and use it to depict the light on a late July afternoon.
The result is this painting. Thanks for looking - and enjoy the remains of summer.
Primarily a self-taught artist, Tony has been a dedicated watercolorist for more than twenty years. He continues to work in other media and with different subjects – a practice that both challenges and enhances creativity and artistic perspective. His works exhibit a range of representational expression, but common to all is a concern for the quality of light and its effects on form, color and texture. Many of his works are completely focused on the quality of light itself. His paintings are constructed by transforming individual elements into broad shapes of color and value. In the depiction and feeling of light, his paintings contrast the elements of color, value and transparency.
His watercolor technique follows the traditions of many of early masters of the medium, but also incorporates bolder elements from the modern approach. The result is a unique and expressive style which depicts a strong sense of light through the interaction of sharp value and temperature contrasts as well as a creative use of color.
Expressing the rural landscape of New England and Vermont in particular has been the focus of Tony’s work for most of the last 15 years. More recent works are a diverse mixture which includes the rural landscape, “view from the garden” florals, as well as that of his new-old favorite - the seascape.
A native of Winchester, Virginia, Tony currently works from his studio in Bennington, Vermont.
Vermont’s natural scenic beauty is enhanced each spring when the work of Vermont artists and craftspeople can be seen firsthand during Vermont’s 17th annual Open Studio Weekend May 23-24.
