"Farm Study"

My 2012 Class & Workshop schedule is ready and while there may be a class or two added, it is pretty much set. New this year, two plein air painting workshops to be held at Kenyon Ranch in Tumacacori, Arizona – one in April, the other in October. Kenyon Ranch is located in the high Sonoran Desert – a unique environment and habitat, it is the only place on earth where the saguaro cactus grows in the wild. I’ve also added a Wet into Wet Watercolor class at the suggestion of students from other classes.
Check the complete schedule on my website – http://tonyconner.com/​classes-workshops/.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

"Red Shed"

My Holiday Open Studio is Saturday, December 3rd, from 1 to 5pm.   Drop in, enjoy some holiday punch and treats, and browse around – perhaps you’ll find a unique gift for some else or even for yourself!  There’ll be many framed and unframed originals, prints, along with a new offering of holiday and greeting cards.  House portraits make a very popular gift and there is still time to have one done in time for Christmas. I also offer Gift Certificates that can be used to purchase original paintings, prints, cards, classes and house portraits.

For “cyber-shoppers” my online Print Gallery and Portfolio are both open for browsing and the purchase of prints or original watercolor paintings.

My studio is located behind my house – 206 Crescent Blvd, Bennington, Vermont.  Click here for a Google map of the address.

Look forward to seeing you on the December 3rd!

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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

I’m honored to have recently been elected to Signature Membership in the New England Watercolor Society.   My painting “Dock” was included in the 2011 Regional Open Juried Exhibition – my forth accepted entry in NEWS exhibitions since 2008, and the one that put me over the top!  The New England Watercolor Society is oldest watercolor societies in the country – originally called the Boston Watercolor Society.

The NEWS holds two exhibitions each year – a spring Members Exhibit and an Open Juried Exhibit each fall which alternates between an open regional and an open national on alternate years.

New England Watercolor Society membership has included many well known arists including Childe Hassam, Charles Copeland,  Hendricks A. Hallett and John Singer Sargent.

There are currently has 174 NEWS signature members representing all of the New England states.
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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

"Mid-Summer's Day"

Working hard getting work ready for an upcoming exhibit at the NAACO Gallery. This exhibit with the theme “Sacred Vessels & Vantages” opens Thursday, July 28th and runs through August. It is a two-person show featuring the work of ceramic artist Jessica Phillips and my watercolor paintings.

This exhibit will include a series of paintings created especially for this exhibit and this theme.  The paintings themselves are all in format of wide panorama – with lengths more than three times that of their height. “Mid-Summer’s Day”, shown above has dimensions of 8″ x 29″.

Knowing that the exhibit was scheduled well in advance, it was  goal to create work that was new and fresh for me, in one way or another.  The first challenge was in deciding how to approach the theme of “sacred vantages”.   Being a plein air painter, much of my painting time is spent outdoors – an experience that is almost always enjoyable just to be able to take in all of the sight, sound and smell from nature.  The balance of nature and human activity is at least solemn if not sacred.

In addition to the challenge of theme, I wanted these paintings to be something of a technical challenge as well.   In the end, I ended up with two technical challenges.  The first was in composing in a panoramic format that seemed to be a way to emphasize “vantage”.  The biggest challenge for me was in creating panoramic compositions while maintaining focus, movement and balance in the works.  In “Mid-Summer’s Day”, above, the barn grouping to the left along with the large tree serves as a visual focal point.  The sweep of the fields and the mountainside that angles down from the left  both serve to keep the eye moving across the scene.  For balance, there are the distant farm buildings  and the weight of the mountainside to the right.

The second challenge was to create a 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 to create the various greens.

All of the paintings in the series depict Vermont landscapes and include both studio and plein air works. More of the series can be seen on my artists website – www.tonyconner.com.

The exhibit “Sacred Vessels & Vantages” opens with a public reception on Thursday, July 28, 2011 from 6 – 9 pm  at the NAACO Gallery, 33 Main Street, North Adams, MA.  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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

"Rose is Rose"

This painting was begun during a recent class as a demonstration of the wet-in-wet technique, sing a bouquet of various colored roses as the “model”.

To paint a realistic looking rose is a challenge, due to their intricate and tightly bunched petals.  It takes a great deal of studied observation and skill to realistically render this beautiful flower.

As an alternative to a realistic depiction, one can work to capture the character and impression of the rose a few with simple techniques, starting with a wet-in-wet application.

The wet-into-wet watercolor technique is really quite simple to do and imparts a loose, free-flowing base that allows the color to remain fresh.  At the same time, it is a technique that many find scary and intimidating, mostly due to the fear of losing control of the wash.  While some control is lost, in the form of lost and indistinct edges, by employing the “dry on wet” techn

This painting was begun by wetting the entire sheet with clear water and letting that stand for a few minutes.  This is so that the surface could dry a bit by both absorption – by the paper – as well as a little bit of evaporation.  It’s possible to tell when the surface is ready by looking across the paper – there should be a good sheen but no appearance of any standing water or puddles.

I chose not to draw the shapes of the roses with a pencil, but used a 1″ flat brush to ‘carve’ the shapes out of the wet paper.   As mentioned before,  the wet-into-wet technique will result in lost edges.  It is possible to maintain recognizable shapes, even with their soft edges, by mixing your colors with a high proportion of pigment on your palette, picking up the color with your brush, and then “blotting” excess water from the bristles of the brush. (see images below).

These two steps will help maintain a little bit of that desired control.

The main shapes of the five roses were painted in and then the paper was allowed to dry.  I continued with the 1″ flat brush through the remainder of this painting, using its sharp edge to twist impressions of the curvy shaded areas that define the edges of the petals, and to add the stems and leaves below.   The painting was finished up with application of some loose washes in the background.

My 2011 Class Schedule is set – download a class schedule and registration form here.
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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

"Afternoon Farm"

Just added to my website is a print gallery with limited edition giclee’ artists’ prints.  The current gallery includes “Afternoon Farm”, shown at left, along with  prints of nine other works, the originals  of which are now in private collection.  These ten works were selected to fit the theme “Rural Light” and all depict some aspect of  light on the rural landscape.   The online gallery is located at http://tonyconner.com/print-gallery/.

The availability of  artists’ glicee prints provides an opportunity to have a lasting piece of artwork at an affordable price.

All prints are offered a 90 Money Back Guarantee – if it’s just not quite what you wanted, send it back for a full refund of the purchase price (excludes shipping costs).

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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

"Under The Canopy"

New watercolor painting – “Under The Canopy”. 14″ x 21″ Begun as a demo for my Painting the Autumn Landscape workshop this past weekend, finishing touches done in the studio. More about the painting and process here – http://tonyconner.com/2010/09/30/under-the-canopy-plein-air-watercolor-painting/

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.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes

Thirty four original framed works are on display, as seen in the photos below, along with unframed originals and artists giclee’ prints.

Looking forward to seeing and visiting with  everyone who stops by this weekend!

Downloads :  Vermont Crafts Council Studio Tour Guide map; Artisans of Southern Vermont Driving Tour map; Artisans of Southern Vermont Studio Sleuth game form; Catalog of framed originals on exhibit.

Contact me if you need directions or information. Email me at tc@tonyconner.com or by phone at 802-375-5548.

Sign up form for my email list for News, Events, Exhibits & Classes