Tony Conner Artists Blog

"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.

"Early November"

A depiction of the light of early November on the leafless and wizend tree.  Trees, particularly weathered old trees are always inspiring to me. This work is a cousin of several other of my recent works, all of which are the genesis of two sketches – one in pencil and one in watercolor – done on Boston Common in June of 2003.

This painting began, as many of my paintings do, while perusing old sketchbooks.    While paging through, I again came across the pencil sketch from my trip to Boston.  As usual for me, the rugged, weathered look of the trunk was attractive.  The sort of tripod form of the main branches as they grow up and away along with the sense of the main trunk twisting over itself also caught my eye.

Often, upon finding an inspiring sketch, I’ll begin composing a new painting. In this case, I decided to create another pencil sketch using this sketch as the model for the new drawing.

This was last November.  I am very attracted to the quality of light in November.  It is clear and bright and yet is also obviously fading.  The shadows cast on a sunny November day are sharp but seem to have a transparency that is different from other times of the year. In the painting, I wanted to capture the sense of November light as well as the character of this old tree.

The new pencil sketch is shown below.

In the sketch, I tried to create a new tree, but wanted to retain the sense of twisting trunk and the tripod form of the  main branches.   Once complete, the sketch remained near my easel for some time while I considered  it’s possibilities as a finished painting.  Obviously, the sketch was turned into a painting, the one featured on this post.

As I mentioned, this work is the cousin of several others.  One in particular , “Prairie Oak“, has had particular success in juried exhibits – it is shown below.

“Prairie Oak“

Interested in either of these paintings or any of my other works – contact me via email – mail@tonyconner.com; or by phone – 802-753-1156

My artists website - www.tonyconner.com

My architectural illustration website – www.tc-ai.com My house portrait website – www.houseportraits.biz

“Farm In Winter”

9″ x 12″

Don’t get the wrong impression, I am not pining for winter.  Although I am not a winter sort of guy -  I exist mostly indoors with a mug of hot tea not far away from December to April – there are many things that I find very paintable in the winter landscape.   Anyone who checks this blog often will realize that painting is a process with me.  The process begins with sketches.  Usually, I start with pencil sketches that have been drawn at one time or another, often outdoors  on location.  In this case, I came across the sketch, below,  from an older sketchbook.  It usually my habit to note the date and time of the sketch, although this one had no such notations, so I am not sure where the scene really is or when I sketched it.

In any case, I liked the composition a good bit, without much change.  The scene is suggestive of summer or fall, with lots of leaves on the trees.   I decided to go straight to a color sketch, rather than to pencil thumbnails.  One feature I wanted to emphasize in the final painting was the low, elongated left hand barn building.  In drawing the contours of the buildings for the color sketch, I elongated this building even more and connected it to its mate.  I wanted to suggest larger, complex farm building arrangement so added additional shapes that suggested additional buildings, sheds and/or wings.  To emphasize the “horizontal-ness” of the building, I also made the sketch in an elongated, or panoramic format. The actual size of the sketch is 2 1/2″ x 6″.

Although winter was not on my mind as I began to work, the contours were suggesting a peaceful and calm winter day. The notion of calm led to the selection of green as the local color of the barn buildings, since both color and value contrast would need to be minimized in order to convey “peace”.

The color sketch is shown below.

Color sketch for “Farm in Winter”

2 1/2″ x 6″

As you can see, I went to a more conventional “landscape” format for the final painting, thinking that it would actually emphasize the shape of the focal point even more.  I also brought the building forward and balanced their collective weight in the upper right, with the muddy road, a scrubby leftovers from fall in the lower left foreground.

A quick browse through my galleries will make it obvious that light on trees, especially on the trunks of the trees, is a favorite theme and subject.Many times, my studio paintings begin with an older sketch, developed through a series of thumbnails, often followed by a color study or two.   This latest work began quickly from an old thumbnail sketch. The thumbnail indicated a deep forest and meandering creek, with bright sunlight streaming in from the left of the picture plane.

Rather than working out the composition with thumbnails and studies, I decided to jump right in.  I sketched out the composition on a half sheet of stretched watercolor paper and worked with a wet-in-wet background.

“Glow Woods”

13″h x 20″w

Unframed

$520

The initial underpainting was developed with layers of paint applied directly in successive layers.  One of the greatest challenges of working in watercolor is in creating rich darks without creating “mud” or muddy passages.  In this work, the deep foreground darks were developed by layering glazes over the background and over each other, but only after each successive glaze had completely dried – becoming “bone” dry, as I often tell my students.

The resulting painting worked well enough.  The contrast of the highly reflective stream with the dark shadowed forest along with the tree trunks that seem to glow with inner light create a bit of a fantasy look to these summer woods.

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.

Tony’s watercolor painting “Prairie Oak” will be exhibited as part of the Southern Vermont Arts Center 16th Annual Winter Members Exhibition.  The exhibit opens with a reception on Saturday, January 12 from 2:00 – 4:00pm, and continues through Tuesday, February 5, 2008.

“Prairie Oak”

“Prairie Oak” is a studio painting inspired by a work painted on location. The subject of the painting would seem to be the tree, whose shape dominates the pictoral space. Actually, the tree is the foil for the real subject with is the light that strikes portions of the trunk directly and reflects up into the branches snuggled up under the dense summer canopy. Much of the painting is executed with a very direct manner, laying in color and value in a single application. The foliage canopy especially was painted in this way. In contrast, the effect of reflected light on the trunk was created in a very methodical application of color layered in washes, one over the other. The result is a work rich in color and light which evoke the feeling of sitting under a large shady tree on a a summer day.

As I mentioned earlier, this painting was developed from a work painted on location. Despite the title – “Prairie Oak” – the genesis of the painting comes from a work painted in a location far from any prairie. “Common Old Man” is the original, on-location painting.

“Common Old Man”

“Common Old Man” is a painting of a weathered old tree on Boston Common – hard to be further from the prairie. At first glance, the relationship is not very evident. Certainly, the technique is not similar. Like most of my on location painting, this work is very direct and instinctive. Looking closely though it is possible to discern the basic structure of the “Prairie Oak”. Obviously, the setting of this painting is such that there would have been a lot of other things happening in the near and distant backgrounds. Those things were eliminated in this painting, giving the work a somewhat “prairie” feeling. That attitude was retained in the studio work.