Tony Conner paintings in watercolor » autumn

Watercolor Sketch – Covered Bridge

TC — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:21:55 +0000

"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.

“October Leftovers” – New Autumn Painting

TC — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:22:35 +0000

“October Leftovers”

10″ x 14″

Another painting of the autumn season. The look of moving water reflecting the colors of the environment around it has become a new inspiration for my work recently. Like “Late Autumn – White Creek“, this painting features a stream and its banks, along with the trunks of the trees near the ground. This painting is a depiction of an autumn day in what I like to call “mid”-autumn – that time when leaves are beyond their peak and the branches of many trees are bare. What leaves remain have faded a bit in color. Despite the lack of leaves, the waning light of the sun means that there is darkness in the depths of the forests. The color scheme for this work is a favorite of mine – the complementary color scheme of blue and orange. In this work, orange and other warm colors dominate, giving the work an upbeat feeling even though this time of year is really a time portal to the darker days of winter.

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.

New Painting Depicting Autumn

TC — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:53:43 +0000

“Late Autumn – White Creek“

11″ x 15″

Private Collection

The change of season from summer to fall to winter is rapid and dramatic from late September through late October. I have several works that explore this theme currently underway. This is the first of the works to be completed. More to come.

New Autumn Landscape

TC — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:04:37 +0000

“Golden Afternoon”

11″ x 15″

This painting began as a way to experiment with a new color, Daniel Smith’s Quinacridone Deep Gold. My palette doesn’t change much in that I generally stick with colors and brands that I am used to, this one caught my eye while browsing the Daniel Smith catalog. Once the paint arrived, I had to use it! The color out of the tube is an intense golden orange color – one that reminded me of the color one can experience standing in a Vermont hardwood forest at peak autumn color. The light filtering through the golden leaves infuses the entire landscape with a magical golden color. Looking for quick inspiration, I scanned my photo archives for an autumn landscape and found one that seemed to have just the correct light conditions. With photo at the ready, a couple quick thumbnail sketches and a color sketch launched the work shown above.

New Work – Light, Color, Contrast

TC — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:32:43 +0000

My latest work is a departure from the paintings inspired by the current season. This work is titled “Crow Foot” and represents a departure from my “normal” work in several ways.

“Crow Foot”

20″ x 20″

This work looks more like autumn than any other, although I had no particular season in mind. This work is more about color and design than anything else. The important subject is the play of light and shadow on the foreground tree trunk and on the ground. The contrasting of light and dark,warm and cool is a favorite concept for me. This painting uses both to present a view into a shadowy forest on a warm, sunny day. In many ways this is a minimalist work. There is little texture on either the tree trunks or on the forest floor or even in the paint marks themselves. There is consistency in the treatment of edges – nearly all shapes are hard-edged. The combination of these elements along with the warm dominance are unifying factors. The work uses simple shapes and forms with the rhythm of shadows providing movement and excitement. The square format is unusual for me and not really deliberate, although it seems to contribute to the modern, minimalist feel of the work. The original sketches, shown below were drawn in squares – for no particular reason, except that the square format appealed to me at the time. If you are interested in the process, read on….

As is often the case, I perused some old sketchbooks for ideas for this painting. In this case, one contained this series of three sketches of the foot of this old tree in the woods. The sketches are undated but it seems as if they had been done within the past few years. All were completed in an unusual square format. The sketches, shown below, are thumbnails each being approximately 2″ x 2″.

Thumbnail Sketches for “Crow Foot”

These sketches explore the composition of the shapes and values for the finished work. It is only since sharing my work on this blog that I have discovered how creation of a painting actually stretches over very long periods of time for me – months or years. Without dates, there is no way to be certain exactly when these sketches were completed. Clearly the pencil thumbnails convinced me that the composition should feature one main tree trunk with roots in the immediate foreground and lit by side light – since both color sketches feature that composition. Generally, the color sketches are completed after finding a value thumbnail sketch that I am comfortable with. As I recall, these were done sometime in the past year, although, again, they are undated. In rummaging through a portfolio of older works, I came upon these two color sketches, after I had completed the two studies shown below.

Color Sketches for “Crow Foot”

Two small compositions based on the same sketches. After discovering the pencil sketches, I completed these two color studies. Although they began as studies, I brought them to the stage of finished work and gave them titles.

“Old Crow 1″ “Old Crow 2″

Each of these works explores a slightly different viewpoint and points of emphasis. Both are somewhat less lively, even more foreboding and moody than the larger work. As studies, each helped in the decision process, especially in terms of color, shape and placement.