"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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Plein Air sketch - Hillside tree line

Three sketches completed during my weekend class “Painting the Autumn Landscape in Watercolor”.    On Saturday, the first day of the class, we climbed a hillside behind the Taraden Bed & Breakfast in North Bennington, VT to paint the the visible from that spot.  It was a beautiful early fall day – just warm enough and with bright sunshine interrupted periodically by one of the fluffy and fast-moving clouds.   From our spot, it was possible to view the a great deal of the  peaks of the Green Mountains – from the north east to the south.  To the south and west, the distant Taconic Range was also visible.  I did these sketches during the day.

The first sketch was done earlier in the day, when the sky had relatively few low clouds that cast their shadows over the mountains. Because they were moving, we could watch the shadows race over the surface of the hills and mountains.  One of the biggest challenges when painting “en plein air” is handling the constantly changing conditions, especially the light and shadow conditions on the ground.  The solution is to sketch, in pencil, the main forms and then watch for an attractive pattern of shadow. Once it appears, quickly add the shadow shapes in pencil.  Once you start painting, you can refer to the light areas of the mountains and hills to get the local color, and watch for more cloud shadows to get that color.

Each of these sketches is about 6 x 8 in size and each was completed in less than10  minutes.  For me, the key to lively plein air sketches is working quickly.  The other advantage is that it will train you to see both the shape and color of the scene you are painting very quickly, which translates to greater skill as an artist.

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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"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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“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.

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“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.

“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.

“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.

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