Feb 12, 2012 - Neighbors Sun Porch In Morning Light

Neighbors Sun Porch in Morning Light.  This view is out the window on the west side of my studio which looks into my neighbors back yard, the back of their house and their sun porch.  On Feb 6, I sketched the view out the large picture window on the eastside of the studio, which gives me a view of the back of our house and some other neighbors homes.

In the interest of full disclosure, this sketch is actually a continuation.  Based on the notes in the sketchbook, it appears I began this work some time in March of 2008.  Not sure if I decided to abandon it at that point or thought it was finished.  In looking at it again this morning, it appeared to be unfinished, even for a sketch.

So, I picked it up again and began to work on it.  The first thing I noticed were the number of important elements I had left out of the initial start: the shadowy shape of the tree trunk at the far left; the curvy branch that sweeps diagonally down across the middle of the composition, the tops of trees and branches that stand above the rooflines; and, not least, the in-through-out effect of the sunporch windows at the far right.  Certain of these missing elements were sketched in with pencil, some were simply rendered with brush and paint.

This sketch is on Canson Montval paper.  Like the Aquabee paper, Montval is described as “cold press’, but is not quite as toothy as most cold press papers.  It is also a “slick” surface – meaning that it is not very absorbent – so both the water and the pigment sit on, rather than being absorbed into, the fibers of the paper.  It is a surface I enjoy painting on anyway, although I use it exclusively for sketches, not for studio paintings.
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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Feb. 10, 2012 Beechwood Road Looking South, Hoosick Falls NY

Beechwood Road, Looking South, Hoosick Falls NY.   I’ve painted this location twice in the past – both times as autumn scenes.  This time the scene also resembles late autumn even though it was actually painted in mid-February. There should be lots of snow on the ground, covering these farm fields but, as I have reported in earlier posts, it has been unusually mild and snowless all winter long.

I found this scene both dramatic and simple, with clear sky, bright sunlight and large expanses of field and woods.  In one way, this was a watercolor painters dream scene, with all the elements laid out in large, simple shapes, and a nice balance of warm and cool hues.

My aim was to transfer the simplicity to paper.  I tried to emphasize the large shapes and warm/cool contrasts with simple, flat and hard-edged washes.

The warm burnt orange of the fields was pushed in both the foreground and distant fields.  The actual local color was more in line with the color seen in the left part of the middle field.  Why do that?  Catching light on the middle field required that it be contrasted with similar elements.  Depicting  light striking one object requires a visible difference in intensity, temperature or both.  In the case of this sketch, the foreground field is also catching light but painting it in the same manner as the middle field would have left this very large simply painted shape with very little visual interest.  By “pushing” the color – increasing its intensity –without cooling the color – changing its temperature.  The contrast in intensities between the fore and middle ground convinces the eye that, while both are lit, the middle ground is catching a great deal of intense sunlight.  At the same time, the foreground stays warm enough and light enough so that it has visual interest and so the addition of fence post shadows in the foreground left are visually credible as well.
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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Feb 5, 2012 - North Bennington Freight Station, February Sunset

Feb 5, 2012 – North Bennington Freight House, February Sunset.  I came upon this scene around 3:30 in the afternoon.  The winter sky was bright and cloudless and the setting sun was striking the freight house and the historic North Bennington passenger station brightly and at a very low angle.  The light was changing rapidly so I drew in simple shapes, mapped the lines that separated sunstruck areas from shadowed areas and began to paint as rapidly as possible.   In all, this sketch was completed in about half-an-hour – at least twice as quickly as any of the other sketches in this series begun on Feb. 1.

The color scheme in this sketch is not reminiscent of winter at all.  Both buildings are painted in a shade of maroon. The freight house is old and appears to be unused, so is not really in a state of good repair and has not been painted in some time.  The passenger station is well kept and is used by the Town of North Bennington for meetings.  Perhaps I was a little tired of the muted winter palette, as the warm colors of this scene were really appealing the moment I saw it.

Incidentally, a portion of the space in the old passenger station is also used for the annual North Bennington Art Park.  The North Bennington Art Park is an annual event in which many of the professional working artists in the area exhibit their paintings (indoors) and sculpture (outdoors).
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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For this exhibit, I’m creating a series of works which are literally vistas in the form of wide panoramas – all of the paintings have  lengths measuring more than three times that of their height.  “Mid-Summer’s Day”, shown above has dimensions of 8″ x 29″.

Creating work for this exhibit has been a dual challenge.  There are a couple of technical challenges: first is composing in the panoramic format while maintaining focus, movement and balance in the works; second, for me anyway, is the art of creating the variety of greens that are evocative of the summer landscape.  Most of my landscape paintings depict either fall or winter.  Since I tend to mix my own secondary colors – orange, violet and green, it has been a challenge and a pleasure, working with the yellows and blues on my palette in various mixtures.

The second challenge is that of theme.  The word “sacred” will evoke meaning which is personal to everyone.  For me, living, observing and painting in a rural area, I cannot help but see something of the sacred in the beautiful scenery that is all around in this area.  It is the idea that it is possible to see beyond the ordinary, and perhaps even to the sacred, when taking the time to actually stop and look at what is all around.

All of the paintings in the series depict Vermont landscapes and include both studio and plein air works.

"Clouds & Sun"

The exhibit “Sacred Vessels & Vantages” opens with a public reception on Thursday, July 28, 2011  from 6 – 9 pm.  The exhibit is on view through August 22, 1011.

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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"On The Point"

This watercolor painting depicts the gradual and subtle changes that occur as winter changes to spring.  During this time of the year the light is slowly becomes brighter and warmer, earth that has spent weeks under layers of snow begins to reappear and streams thaw and begin to visibly run at the surface again.

This scene is late in the day with bright slanting light and it’s associated long shadows.  Like many of my works, this watercolor painting emphasizes warm/cool contrast in its color scheme – perfect for depicting the everchanging balance of cold and warm weather.

 
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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"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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"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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“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.

This work, with its final details and adjustments made only a few days ago, represents the final statement of a series of explorations in paint. It’s title, as well as the painting itself is more metaphorical than literal. The idea began with a quick color sketch in early February. That sketch, show below, was created on the fly focusing on composition and color rather than subject.

"winter sketch" - thumbnail sketch for studio painting 3" x 4"

Although the idea was to explore a winter theme, once completed, the sketch appeared to feel more like the the time between winter and spring,

where winter hangs on in patches of snow while the brightening sun spreads warmth over the cold landscape. A few days later, after having considered the initial sketch, and mulled over the image, I created another thumbnail sketch, shown below.

winter sketch #2 for studio painting

This sketch was created specifically to explore a color scheme that would better convey the contrast between gathering warmth and retreating cold. There are more warm hues and warmer mixtures of the cool hues and a stronger play of direct light.

After completing this sketch I decided to do a larger study to help work out composition, color and color mixes. This work, shown below, is the result. It was compelling enough to be given a title. More importantly, it was invaluable in discovering where I would encounter problems and showed where the the composition would need adjustments.

"Equinox Time"

This work is available – contact me for more information

"Equinox Road"

In earlier posts I have talked about the process of creating a painting. The question is often asked and it is a struggle to answer because, for me at least, so much of the process occurs in thought and consideration rather than in action. This post includes four physical works completed between Feb. 4 and March 30 – almost two months. While these were

not the only sketches and paintings started, worked or completed in that time, the question could be asked as to whether these four couldn’t all have been completed in just a few days. The answer is both yes and no and has to do with the internal, non-linear, often wandering, parts of the process.

Thanks for taking a look at this latest work. Enjoy the coming of spring!