Tony’s watercolor painting “Prairie Oak” will be exhibited as part of the Southern Vermont Arts Center 16th Annual Winter Members Exhibition.  The exhibit opens with a reception on Saturday, January 12 from 2:00 - 4:00pm, and continues through Tuesday, February 5, 2008.

“Prairie Oak”

“Prairie Oak” is a studio painting inspired by a work painted on location. The subject of the painting would seem to be the tree, whose shape dominates the pictoral space. Actually, the tree is the foil for the real subject with is the light that strikes portions of the trunk directly and reflects up into the branches snuggled up under the dense summer canopy. Much of the painting is executed with a very direct manner, laying in color and value in a single application. The foliage canopy especially was painted in this way. In contrast, the effect of reflected light on the trunk was created in a very methodical application of color layered in washes, one over the other. The result is a work rich in color and light which evoke the feeling of sitting under a large shady tree on a a summer day.

As I mentioned earlier, this painting was developed from a work painted on location. Despite the title - “Prairie Oak” - the genesis of the painting comes from a work painted in a location far from any prairie. “Common Old Man” is the original, on-location painting.

“Common Old Man”

“Common Old Man” is a painting of a weathered old tree on Boston Common - hard to be further from the prairie. At first glance, the relationship is not very evident. Certainly, the technique is not similar. Like most of my on location painting, this work is very direct and instinctive. Looking closely though it is possible to discern the basic structure of the “Prairie Oak”. Obviously, the setting of this painting is such that there would have been a lot of other things happening in the near and distant backgrounds. Those things were eliminated in this painting, giving the work a somewhat “prairie” feeling. That attitude was retained in the studio work.