"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.