The Better Bennington Corp’s annual downtown art event will take place on Friday, March19th and Saturday, March 20th, in the 210 South Street Building <link to Google map> in downtown Bennington.  One hundred works of art by local and regional artists will be exhibited and offered for sale for  $100.00 each.

The first One Hundred for $100 event was a blockbuster success, with enthusiastic crowds and a number of artists work selling out.  A special feature this year will be an exclusive preview of the exhibit from 5:00 – 6:00 p.m., with champagne, special hors d’oeuvres, and smooth jazz by  Blueprint. Tickets for the preview event are $15/person.  At 6:00 p.m., the doors will open to the public and the artwork will be available for sale.   The proceeds of the event benefit the non-profit Better Bennington Corporation as well as the artists,  who receive 80% the purchase price for their artwork.

Three of my small works -”Barn Snowscape”, pictured above, “Woods Edge – Afternoon” & “Snow Cover Landscape”, both pictured below – are included in the exhibit.

After 6pm Friday the 19th, admission is free.  For more information please call the Better Bennington Corporation at 802-442-5758 or visit www.betterbennington.com.

"Snow Cover Landscape"

"Woods Edge Afternoon"

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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Park McCullough View

Myself, along with 31 other nationally known fine artists will be descending on Cranford, NJ to PAINT THE TOWN! The artists will transform Cranford into a town-sized outdoor painting studio for three days.  The event culminates in a grand finale show and sale of all artwork.  All participating artists are accomplished and jury-selected artists and will be creating  original oil, acrylic, pastel and watercolor paintings at locations throughout our area.

The public is welcome to watch and visit the artists who will be painting in the town parks, along the river, in select private gardens, and at historic sites and in the downtown.

Plein air painting events are extremly popular and fast growing art experiences – you’re invited to join me and the other artists at this premier event.  The event begins Wednesday June 9th and continues through Sunday June 13th.

This Event is hosted by Jersey Central Art Studios, the Cranford Chamber of Commerce, and the Cranford Downtown Management Corporation.

"Desert Hills"

Watercolor- Beyond the Basics, Tuesdays, March 16– April 6, 6:00 – 8:30pm.

A follow-on to the Basic Watercolor class, this popular class will continue to help unravel the mysterious ways of the watercolor medium.  With a focus on the fundamentals, participants learn the basic skills needed to successfully paint with watercolor.  The class is designed for the rank beginner, for those who struggle to make their watercolors look “right”, and for those who might be picking up the watercolor brush after a long time away.  At whatever skill level, the class is sure to be educational and fun.

This class is held at the Southwest Vermont Career Development Center, 321 Park Street, Bennington VT 05201

Class fee $85. Sets of Basic watercolor materials are available if needed for an additional and optional fee of $60.00

CDC Winter/Spring Class Registration Form
CDC Winter/Spring Class Schedule

"Bridge In Morning Light"

4″ x 9″

$99

Since it has been non-stop snow here lately it has been hard to get outside for new material.  In the case of this small watercolor painting, I went back to my sketch books.  Covered bridges are plentiful in Vermont and are painted by many.   It can be hard to take on a subject so well explored by artists over time.  Most of what is to be said about the subject has been said.  That said, I dove in anyway.  The watercolor paper chosen for the painting is by Sennelier, a French art supply company known for its fine professional grade watercolor paint.  The paper is from a small watercolor block shaped in this long horizontal (or tall vertical) format.  The paper itself has a heavy coat of sizing which makes it “slick” – the pigments lie on the surface of the paper rather than becoming absorbed into the paper fibers.

The focus for this work was getting a good composition onto the unusual dimensions of the paper.   A long span of covered bridge seemed to be a good fit for the page.   Without any particular color scheme in mind, I chose colors that are favorites of mine – cerulean blue, Daniel Smith’s Quinacridone Deep Gold (I blogged about this color in a September post) and Dioxazine Violet.    Deep Gold suggests autumn, so the painting depicts the bridge in autumn.

I am always attracted to light effects.   Light as it appears early and late in the day is particularly appealing in the way the slanting warm light affects all the surfaces it touches and causes any standing object to cast long shadows.    The combination of two cool colors and one very potent warm color suggested a play of light and shadow on the long side of the bridge.

The finished work seems to have captured the look.

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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"Bowls on Striped Tablecloth"

Exhibit on view from February 25 to  March 22, with an Opening Reception which is open to the public on  Thursday, February 25th, 5-7 pm

Just Desserts: the sweet and not-so-sweet juried art exhibition featuring fine art and fine craft created by its members and nonmember regional artists.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, a representational array of non-edible artistic delights and objects associated with serving dessert will adorn the gallery’s front hall exhibition space. Not all of the art has a literal interpretation of being something sweet, however, as “just desserts” can suggest something entirely different.

Please join us for the opening reception to be held on Thursday, February 25th, 5-7 pm that will surely be delicious!

“Light Dusting”

10″ x 14″

$395

This scene could depict either the early time of winter when light snows begin to cover the fields, or late winter when the snow cover is receding.  The title gives a hint that it is early winter and in fact that time of year is the inspiration. Unlike most of my work, this painting has a very limited and muted color palette – necessary for a realistic depiction of the terrain as it looks in early winter.

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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The latest exhibition of North Adams Artists Co-op  continuing members’ latest masterpieces and the introduction of our newest members to the public. While “fresh paint” will fill the air with “just off the easel paintings”, “hot pots” will emerge from the kiln with surprises in store for both artist and viewer.

My watercolor painting “Calla Lilies In Bold”, along with four other works are included in this latest NAACO Exhibit.

The Opening Reception will be held tonight, Thursday, January 28 from 5pm to 7pm – the public is invited and encouraged to attend.  The exhibit will remain open through February 22, 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.

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"Barn Snowscape"

“5 x 7″

This small work began as a study for a larger composition and took on a life of its own.  The main challenge for this work and for the larger painting was in balancing the warm and cool areas and in unifying the colors.  The background went in first with yellows, oranges and mixed violets for the forest and the trees.  I wanted to use blue  for the snow shadows – primarily cerulean and ultramarine – which I did.  The problem was that the foreground and back ground did not relate.

The solution was to pull background color into the mid and foreground, while bringing the cool blues up into the sky areas.  The barn itself contains colors from all areas of the painting.  Because of this and because it is the focal point of the painting,  it created a great deal of harmony and unity on its own.

There are three other significant locations where color was added specifically to create unity – the silo, where an intense spot of cerulean blue was added high, so that it would overlap the background, while using the deep violets from the woods on the lower parts;  the left forground snow cover has both violets and a spot of warm orange mingled with the ultramarine; and the fence post to the right, which anchors in the foreground and overlaps the mid-ground and background.  The post was the last item painted and received cool blues where it overlaps the background and warm orange-grays where it overlaps the cool snow shadows.

This and other works on this site are available for purchase. 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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“Rural Route”

5″ x 22″

This watercolor painting is unusual in several ways.  It began as a warm up excercise using  an oddly shaped leftover piece of watercolor paper and leftover paint from the mixing areas of my studio palette.  Using a single brush for the entire painting – one of my favorite 1″ flats (Winsor Newton Series 295 aquarelle) and drawing no lines first, I picked up some palette gray.   Palette gray is a term I use for the pools of leftover pigments left on the palette during and after a painting session.  The colors tend to mingle freely creating areas at the edges of the pools where multiple colors have run together forming unusual grays and browns.

The first stroke placed on the paper ultimately became the facing wall of the small, dark gray farm building near the center of the picture.  Once placed, both the color and shape reminded me of a weathered old barn and of a previous winter farm composition – http://tonyconner.com/2008/11/18/new-work-designing-winter/ – and that  became the point of departure.

Trying to stick to the original exercise, I continued to use only the 1″ brush and the gray and brown leftovers from the palette.  The building roofs were created by painting the negative areas of sky and trees around them.  Wanting to add some color punch to the forground I did pick up some cerulean blue for the left foreground and some Ultramarine mixed with some of the “palette brown” for the muddy road.  By the way, I have recently begun using Ultramarine Blue by M. Graham & Co.  I find it to be a terrific watercolor paint, with great color character and intensity.

I finished up the painting by placing the falling down fence in the forground and glazing on some deeper and darker color on the faces of the building that were not catching direct light.
This and other works on this site are available for purchase. 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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Having lived in Vermont for the past 20+ years has not made it easier for me to endure winter.  It is long, cold and dark. Worse, there is usually not a warm spring with gentle rain and bright flowers as a reward.   People from places that have warmer, or at least, milder winters ask how I get through.  The answer I think is in the fact that while the weather can be a challenge, the winter landscape is quite visually beautiful and exists in a unique serenity.   The sun can seem to be absent for days at a time when, suddenly, the clouds open, the sun shines and the snow cover changes from flat white to mottled white, grays, blue, violet and even warm hues of ochre and yellow.  It is at those time that trees and saplings cast their sharp shadows across the snow.  Such was the case when I created this small painting.  The sun appeared briefly after several days.

This and other works on this site are available for purchase. 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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