For this exhibit, I’m creating a series of works which are literally vistas in the form of wide panoramas – all of the paintings have  lengths measuring more than three times that of their height.  “Mid-Summer’s Day”, shown above has dimensions of 8″ x 29″.

Creating work for this exhibit has been a dual challenge.  There are a couple of technical challenges: first is composing in the panoramic format while maintaining focus, movement and balance in the works; second, for me anyway, is the art of creating the variety of greens that are evocative of the summer landscape.  Most of my landscape paintings depict either fall or winter.  Since I tend to mix my own secondary colors – orange, violet and green, it has been a challenge and a pleasure, working with the yellows and blues on my palette in various mixtures.

The second challenge is that of theme.  The word “sacred” will evoke meaning which is personal to everyone.  For me, living, observing and painting in a rural area, I cannot help but see something of the sacred in the beautiful scenery that is all around in this area.  It is the idea that it is possible to see beyond the ordinary, and perhaps even to the sacred, when taking the time to actually stop and look at what is all around.

All of the paintings in the series depict Vermont landscapes and include both studio and plein air works.

"Clouds & Sun"

The exhibit “Sacred Vessels & Vantages” opens with a public reception on Thursday, July 28, 2011  from 6 – 9 pm.  The exhibit is on view through August 22, 1011.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

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"On The Point"

This watercolor painting depicts the gradual and subtle changes that occur as winter changes to spring.  During this time of the year the light is slowly becomes brighter and warmer, earth that has spent weeks under layers of snow begins to reappear and streams thaw and begin to visibly run at the surface again.

This scene is late in the day with bright slanting light and it’s associated long shadows.  Like many of my works, this watercolor painting emphasizes warm/cool contrast in its color scheme – perfect for depicting the everchanging balance of cold and warm weather.

 
Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

I enjoy welcoming visitors to my Studio Gallery. It is open by appointment – please contact me to arrange a visit.

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"End Of Season"

My latest landscape painting  began as a demonstration for my current “Landscape Painting in Watercolor” class. The class focuses specifically on the most efficient and effective techniques needed for painting watercolor landscapes.  Since the class is held indoors, we are working from photos.  The two reference photos  are shown below.  In this particular class, we combined images from the two photos while simplifying the subject and focusing on large shapes and in applying three basic kinds of watercolor washes – flat, graded & variegated.  By the end of class, the large foundation washes had been applied. I finished the painting in my studio principally by adding the touches of value, color and especially the textures needed to depict that time in autumn when the fields have been harvested, the leaves are gone and frost has removed the life and color from any remaining vegetation.

The reference photos are from scenes that are near but across the road from each other.  The sweeping, quiet rhythm of the fields from the left photo was attractive to me but I felt it needed more focus.  Adding the farm buildings and road from the right photo added the point of focus needed.

As is my tendency, the color in the finished painting has been enhanced with additional “chroma” or intensity and the field shapes along with the road enhance the feeling f movement.  I’m attracted to both the rhythm and contrast of open fields – both cultivated and uncultivated.  As mentioned above, farm fields – after the harvest – and open fields in the time after frost have unique textures.  Suggesting these textures is a visual cue as to the season – despite the color that is more expressive than realistic.

The content of the current class, plus some additional information, will be offered again in “Watercolor – the Essential Techniques” on the weekend of November 6 & 7, 2010.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

I enjoy welcoming visitors to my Studio Gallery. It is open by appointment – please contact me to arrange a visit.

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"Under The Canopy"

This painting began as a demo for my recent “Painting the Autumn Landscape” workshop, held last weekend.  On Sunday, the second day of the workshop, we decided to set up on the grounds of the historic Park-McCullough House in North Bennington, Vermont.  The grounds have many paintable scenes, but this one which included these three old trees attracted our attention.  The day was mostly cloudy with sunshine breaking through now and then.

The twisted, gnarled and rough trunks of older trees, deep shade with bounced light, and the filtered sunlight found under the branches of  tall trees are all attractions for me.  The composition was a bit difficult due to the separation of the trees.  For an artist, it is always appropriate to change visual reality.  In this case, the biggest compositional decision early on was where to place the trees in relation to each other. The decision was to leave the proportional spacing nearly as it really exists, mostly because I wanted to capture the foliage of the largest tree in the middle – specifically, the different areas of  that were back lit against the areas that were shaded, along with the large “U” shaped branch on the left side. I wanted un-obscured views into these areas so knew that I couldn’t move the left hand tree much closer to the middle tree.   Because of that, I decided to leave the right hand tree pretty much in place as well – actually, it has been moved a bit closer to the middle tree to keep it in the picture plane. This decision left two large,un-interestingly shaped background spaces on either side of the main tree.   To add interest to the areas, I made sure to provide activation  – graded washes in the deep background and the shapes of some shrubs along the low stone wall.

The overall effect works fairly well, capturing the look of tall, old trees in early autumn with their glowing leaf canopies, deep and luminous shade on their trunks and dark shadow on the ground underneath.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

I enjoy welcoming visitors to my Studio Gallery. It is open by appointment – please contact me to arrange a visit.

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"Armstrong Road"

Another painting done during the Billsboro Winery Plein Air Festival – and my personal favorite from the weekend.    For a plein air work, it is large – 14″ x 21″.  Generally I work at quarter sheet size, or smaller, when I paint outdoors.   I chose a larger size for this work mostly because of the nature of the landscape.  The geography of the area around Geneva, NY is mostly flat with some rolling hills and very large farm fields.  Unlike my home state of Vermont, this area features roads that stretch out straight toward the horizon, hardly broken by curves and turns.   The format of a half sheet of watercolor paper emphasizes the horizontal and seem particularly appropriate for this scene.

I wanted to capture the road stretching into the distance and the expansive fields of crops interrupted only by a few farm structures that, though vary large in reality, are dwarfed by the rest of the landscape.

The painting would suggest that it was a rainy day.  It wasn’t rainy, but the sky was moving and moody.  The puddle to the far left was not actually there.  The ditch was, but I felt that the ditch without a pool of water would be a bit uninteresting so I added the puddle and reflections.

It was also very breezy – I had one hand on the easel for most of the painting session.  During those times when I stepped back to take a look – I had also to be prepared to sprint to catch the easel from being blown completely over.   Just to show that plein air painting can be hazardous, it once blew over and whacked me upside the head while I was looking away – a week later, I still have the wound on my temple to show for it!

Why is it my favorite from the weekend?  Not totally certain but it came out fairly well given the trying conditions and the mild headache delivered by my easel halfway through the session!  This kind of subject always appeals to me – rural landscape, moody sky, the contrast of color and value.  This work was especially fun and challenging because of the variety of greens needed to separate one field from another.   I completed three other works during the weekend – “Lady in the Park” was posted earlier this week and the other two works “Balmanno Glass” & “Rose Hill Afternoon” can be seen on my facebook page.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

I enjoy welcoming visitors to my Studio Gallery. It is open by appointment – please contact me to arrange a visit.

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"Lady in the Park"

This painting was completed during this weekend’s Billsboro Winery 3rd Annual Plein Air Festival and was awarded Third Prize in the Competition.

The scene is the war memorial pool, fountain & statue, titled “Peace” in Pulteney Park, in downtown Geneva.

I began the work early in the morning and wanted to capture the feel of the light on the statue and the four fountains.  The pool itself is constructed of an unusual orange colored stone, perhaps granite, and is lined with a bright blue material. In contrast, the statue is a light colored stone that captured light, shade and shadow in very subtle shades of gray.   Being in a park setting, the memorial is surrounded by all sorts of trees and shrubs of varying shades of green.

Often in my work, I take liberties with local color.  In this instance,  the bright orange and blue of the pool seemed just right to me, so I stayed fairly true to the look of the scene as it exists.

As always, working “en plein air” has its challenges.  On this particular day, with bright sunshine and summer temperatures, the biggest challenge was getting washes that were wet enough.

This work has been purchased and is now in private collection. Contact me if you have an interest any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

I enjoy welcoming visitors to my Studio Gallery. It is open by appointment – please contact me to arrange a visit – email:mail@tonyconner.com or phone:802 375 5548

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"Vents"

As sometimes happens when painting plein air, my recent Plein Air Workshop was visited by rain.  As a result, this work which began as a class demo was done while I was sheltered just inside a door to the back deck of the Media Barn at Taraden Bed & Breakfast.   The view was of  the next barn over and the massive vents lining the roof peak.

Selecting a good subject for a plein air painting involves seeing the big picture rather than the detail and simplifying from the overwhelming amount of subject matter.  In this case, my low – relative to the peak of the next barn – point of view, the swirling storm clouds in the sky and the interesting angles of the barn roof caught my attention.  The rain slick roof was reflective of  both the light and of the vents.

Although plein air paintings can be relatively accurate depictions of the artists surroundings,  it is generally my way to take liberties with color for most of my plein air paintings.  This one is no exception.  For the most part the scene in reality was a study in gray and green.  The sky, the vents themselves, and the sides of the white barn were all some shade of gray.  The barn trim and the one element of greenery – the tree at far left – were green.  Knowing that I would want to inject color, I took my cue from the vents, the tops of which were heavily weathered and corroded.  Thinking of corrosion as rust, I decided to include a heavy dose of orange  and related colors into the composition along with the local color greens.   With those two colors included, it was a conscious decision to create the painting based on a triad of secondaries — green, orange & violet – with the subtle violets infused into the grays.  The result is both harmonious and contrasting in a balanced way.

An interesting thing to note about the subject barn is that it was the studio for the noted abstract painter and one of the best known color field artists, Ken Noland – see his official website here, and his Wikipedia entry here.   The barn itself is very large and served Mr. Noland very well in the creation of the large works he was known for.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

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"Beached"

In my post on May 6, I mentioned that my usual landscape subjects were not inspiring me and that the my usual solution to lack of inspiration is to work on something new.  At that time, I began working on a still life composed of wine bottles placed in front of my studio’s picture window.   At about the same time, I began teaching a new class at our local career development center.   In preparing for the class, “Creating Watercolor Paintings from Your Photos” , I was searching through my own stock of reference photos for something to use as an example. The photo below caught my eye.

The photo was taken at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, in Vergennes, VT some years ago.  The subject boat was up on blocks as a static display – its days on the water were probably over.   The simple shape of the boat and simplicity of the working rigging was appealing to me, although I wanted the boat to be in a different setting.  I don’t often paint from photos but prefer to use them as reference.   In this case, the essential shape and character of the boat were lifted from the photo and placed on a beach.

Many of my seascapes feature cerulean blue, especially mixed with cadmium red to create soft, strong, granular grays.   Cerulean appears in the sky, water, shadows and even on the red hull of the boat.  I have an affinity for the bright overcast that is often the condition at the coast.  I’ve included that sort of condition in this work and find that the cerulean/cad red combination can help create a convincing representation.

Painting a seascape themed work probably has to do with some anticipation.  I’ll be showing work at two outdoor art festivals this summer – Beverly Arts Festival in Beverly Massachusetts in June and the Manchester Arts Festival in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts.  Both are in the Cape Ann area – one of my favorite painting haunts.  I’ve planned for painting time around both festivals and am looking forward to painting along the coast again this summer.

"River Valley"

4″ x 11″

Private Collection

With out going into a lot of detail about why, part of my painting process often leaves me with odd shaped leftover pieces of paper.  Many of them are in this “panoramic” format where one dimension is more than twice as long as the other.   The shape is well suited for a panoramic view of a landscape scene.    The scene depicted in “River Valley” is not any where in particular, but rather it is a made up location designed mostly to allow the depiction of deep, lush wooded hillsides and a sparkling, reflective river flowing through.

The summer landscape can be difficult to paint since there is an overwhelming amount of green.   In this case, I decided to focus on the look of deep, cool shade and shadow areas on the hillsides by pushing the color toward blue.  The sense of summer green is there but is subordinate to the blues.   Surrounded by so much dark and low intensity color, the ribbon of sparkling river stands out as a visual pathway through the painting and into the distance.

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

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"Side Street"

12″ x 20″

This painting began as a demonstration painting created for the residents of Equinox Village in Manchester Vermont.   The scene is adapted from pencil sketches done on Cape Cod in the early 1990′s.    Though the sketches are older, the sense of place from that July morning has stayed with me.  Although the Cape is a popular vacation area in the summer, and has all the things that go with that, the backroads and village streets away from the tourist areas are as quaint as one would expect.  The original sketches were created on a July morning, with bright sun already raking the streets, creating dramatic shade and shadow in contrast to streets, yards, fences and homes washed in brilliant light.

The challenge for this painting was two-fold: first, painting for an audience presents its own challenges in trying to balance speech – explaining techniques, color choices and thinking – while maintaining a focus on the work in progress; Second, balancing the many shade and shadow areas with the sun-struck portions of the painting.   Speaking while painting I managed.  More difficult was getting the shade and shadow areas just dark enough to convey the point without creating the sense of a “black-hole”.  The bottom half of the painting – edge of a building to the left, its small side yard, the large expanse of street, a white picket fence line, and the yard with tree to the right, are all shadow.  Since the main focus of the painting is the white cottage home in the upper center-right, the value difference between this large area and the brightly lit street that leads to the house needed to be minimized.   Low intensity color in the mid-value range accomplish the sense of shadow without creating too much contrast.  Detail is also kept to a minimum in this area – in fact there is not much detail in any area of the painting – only the illusion of it.

My audience commented on the choice of color for the secondary house, the red-orange one, in the upper left.  True, it was somewhat of a dangerous or – can I say it – daring choice.   Yet it was a conscious to add that color in that location in order to help draw the eye into the background  where the focal point is placed.  The painting is dominated by cool color – green, mostly, with cool blues and violets as well.  The introduction of the warmer hues provides movement, contrast and relief from the overall cool dominance.  Red, as the complement of green, adds a glow that helps convey the sense of bright sunlight ” bounced” from lit surfaces into the shady areas.   By the way, this red color is a low intensity red that looks brighter because of its placement in an environment that is saturated in its complement. The color itself is a hue called “Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet” produced by Daniel Smith Artists Materials.  It is a deep, cool, gray red,  and is a favorite color of mine. It mixes quite well with a range of blues to produce transparent grays and gray-violets.

In addition to the red house, a number of warm areas were introduced into the painting to support the sense of bounced light and to keep the eye moving through the painting.  The extreme foreground fence post had a good bit of warm grey-orange on the foreground face.  From there, one can find touches of warmth in all of the fence lines as well as in the doorway of the focal point house, in the tree trunks and in the cast shadows.

I have made several paintings out of these sketches, all very similar in composition.  Below is another version done some years ago.

"Cottage"

11″ x 15″

Private collection

This version takes a similar perspective of looking up the street toward a house catching the raking light of a summer day.   Notice the differences in the two paintings in terms of color choices, point of view &  value range

Contact me if you have an interest in this or any other paintings on the site. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

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