Feb 3, 2012 - Silk Road Covered Bridge Bennington, Vermont

Silk Road Covered Bridge,  Bennington, VT.   Like most winter days in VT, it was “cloudy with breaks of sun” as the forecasters like to say.  When I sat down to paint, there was sun light hitting the left – south – side of the bridge and some of it was passing through the lattice structure and landing on the white door casing on the interior right. By the time the drawing was done, the sun was pretty much gone.  I left the sun & shadow pattern on the inside of the doorway never-the-less.   The finished sketch is about “9 x 12″ and done in a D’Arches 140lb CP watercolor paint book.

Winter colors dominate this sketch, just like they do in the previous two – Feb 1 & Feb 2, 2012.   It is a challenge to create enough variety in the grays and other low intensity earth colors to keep shapes from merging with one another too much.    The grays in this sketch are mixed from either ultramarine or cobalt blue with burnt sienna, raw sienna or Quinacridone burnt scarlet.  Using these five pigments in varying combinations creates a nice variety of color and value which gives the sketch the look of winter without being too somber.

This can’t really be described as a “wet-into-wet” watercolor painting, and yet the technique is used in a number of places – especially in creating the look of distant forest without much fuss.   Beyond the distant trees in the background, it is also used on the foreground right roadway, the sky and in laying in the initial rusty, violety (if there is such a word) red on the covered bridge itself.

If there truly are trends that take hold, become popular and then eventually give way in watercolor, I would have to say that ultra, macro realism is the current look and technique for watercolor painting.  All the big national and regional watercolor exhibits seem to have more every year.  Sometime that doesn’t leave much room for those of us still painting in “older”, less trendy styles and techniques.  I tend not be a follower, so will continue working in the style and with the techniques that produce what I like to describe as “representational impressionism” seen in most of my work.

In the classes that I teach, I have noticed my students having two very different reactions to the wet-into-wet watercolor technique.  They love the look it produces, but seem to feel nothing but frustration when trying it themselves.    By popular request and in response to both of these reactions,  I have put together a new class called Wet-in-Wet Watercolor and will be offering it for the first time in just a couple of weeks.  The class will teach the basics of the technique along with several skills needed to handle wet-into-wet watercolor without, or at least with less, frustration.  Not only will the class teach the skills but is guaranteed to loosen up the work of anyone using them.   More info on the Wet-in-Wet Watercolor class can be found by clicking here.

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Plein air artists Tony Conner & Elissa Gore painting in rainy conditions during the North Bennington Plein Air Competition, Sept. 8, 2011

The 2nd Annual North Bennington Plein Air Competition kicked off yesterday in the midst of heavy downpours of rain.    Managed to complete “North Bennington Train Yard” despite the rain.

The painting depicts a portion of one corner of the historic train station and the small yard that serves a local farm store and feed mill.

The event continues through the weekend with a number of public events scheduled.   See the event website for details – http://pleinair-northbennington.com/2011-schedule-of-events/

Weather on the first day of painting was a challenge. Very heavy rain most of the day had the artists doing their best to stay under some sort of cover and protect their paintings.

Opening on Thursday, July 28th, is a two-person exhibit of new work from myself and ceramic artist Jessica Phillips.  The exhibit titled “Sacred Vessels & Vantages” features twelve new paintings created just for this exhibit.

With the theme words “sacred” & “vantages” I decided to create work in a format that would evoke the idea of vantages while focusing on the “sacred” moments of the rural landscape.  All twelve of these new paintings paintings were composed in this challenging format with the goal of creating works with balance, movement and visual focus.  These new works also bring focus to one aspect or another of a typical rural landscape in summer.

'Clouds& Sun II"

"Open Late"

The exhibit runs from July 28, 2011 through August 22, 2011 at the NAACO Gallery, 33 Main Street, North Adams, MA.

The public is invited to the Opening Reception on July 28th from 6 to 9pm.

Contact me if you have any questions, need directions or any other info.  Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

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"Afternoon Farm"

“Afternoon Farm” is one of 13 works which will be on exhibit at the Bennington Free Library, 101 Silver Street Bennington, VT from August 28 through December 31, 2010.   Planned as an ever-changing exhibit, Wallworks provides an opportunity for patrons to enjoy fine art while visiting the Library, and to learn more about the many talented artists who live and work in our community.

The exhibit will feature 13 of my watercolor landscapes which depict the variety of color, texture, light, shade, and shadow of the seasons in Vermont.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, August 28, 2010 from 1pm – 3pm.  The public is invited. For more information, contact the artist at 802-375-5548 or email at mail@tonyconner.com.

The library can be contacted at  802-442-9051 or on the web at www.benningtonfreelibrary.org

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

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"Bridge In Morning Light"

4″ x 9″

Private Collection

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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"Watering Cans"

This is a quick sketch of two of my wife’s watering cans done as a demo for a recent class.  The cans sit on a table top and were catching the bright late summer light.  The pattern of light and shadows caught the eye of one of the students  so we used it as the subject for the day.   The color scheme is nearly mono-chromatic, using a limited palette of cobalt and ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and some quinacridone burnt scarlet.

It is large for a sketch, nearly filling a quarter sheet (11″ x 15″) paper.  The subject was sketched in 2B pencil on the paper first, large washes were placed on the cans first, the main shadow on the table surface was added next.  Once dry, shadows were added on the spout and side of the large can and on the underside of the handle on the small can.  The work was finished up with some glazes of blue and raw sienna on the cans to produce some 3 dimensional modeling and ambient light effects on the shaded side of the cans.

“Equinox Road”

20″ x 27″

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.

“Along The Way”

9″ x 13″

Unframed

$235

It’s been almost two months to the day since the last post!?   Summer is a busy season for me with exhibits, shows and fairs.  The unfortunate reality is that actual painting time tends to get squeezed.  I have been more productive lately,  with a number of works in progress and a few completed.

As is the case for me quite often, this work began as a search through old sketchbooks for ideas and inspirations.  In this case, a very old sketchbook contained a color sketch completed in the little town of East Arlington, Vermont in 1994.

East Arlington Vermont – Sept 7, 1994

The sketch is painted as if it was peak foliage, but it couldn’t have been that early in September.   Anyone who has looked at other posts on this blog knows my attraction to raking light and sunlit structures.  Looking at this one again inspired me create a similar feel but in the summer season.

My first thumbnail sketch was an attempt to keep both the feel and the scene as it was depicted in the original sketch.

After completing the first thumbnail, I decided to try another with the structures moved to the top of the composition and to give up the attempt to keep them as they were in the original sketch (and still are in East Arlington!).

This was the thumbnail that I decided to go with – with a couple changes.  In the final painting, farm buildings were switched with each other – the main building ended up to the right and the “el” building to the left. In addition, the both were pushed a bit farther into the distance and another building was added to the left to create more distance in the final work.