"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.
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