Sketch of the Day – Feb. 24, 2012

Feb 24, 2012 - Farm On Middle Pownal Road, Pownal, Vermont

Farm on Middle Pownal Road, Pownal, Vermont. Seems that I’ve been visiting Pownal, VT a good bit recently. This small quick sketch was done looking at another farm in Pownal, this one along a dirt road known as Middle Pownal Road. Like my previous two sketches (Feb 22 & Feb 23), this one takes a minimal approach and puts more emphasis on the effect of light and overall design than it does on capturing reality. The color palette for this sketch is a return to the one from Feb 22 with cad red and thalo blue dominant and the addition of cerulean and raw sienna. Although this is a much less finished work than many others in this series, it’s simplicity brings focus to the main theme which is the bright, winter morning light striking the side of the barn. The sketch is built with all of the elements supporting that single theme – light struck trees, long shadows and snowy fields also capturing the bright sunlight.
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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Sketch of the Day, Feb. 21, 2012

Feb. 21, 2012 - Deep Woods Near Chester Vermont

Deep Woods Near Chester, Vermont. In traveling from one place to another and with a full schedule, it was difficult to find time for a sketch today. This scene presented itself so I pulled over and made a quick go of it.

I’ve always been attracted to sunlight filtering through the tree canopy and spilling onto snow pack. The contrast of deep gray shadows against the patches of light along with tree trunks displaying various conditions of light, shade and shadow is so appealing that I usually have difficulty not stopping everytime I see something like this.

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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Sketch of the Day, Feb. 19, 2012

Feb. 19, 2012 - Tree Trunks in the "Y" Woods

Tree Trunks in the “Y” woods. Today is the second day of my Wet into Wet Watercolor workshop and rather than try to start another sketch during lunch, like yesterday, I did this work in the morning before leaving for the class. Our neighborhood has the great benefit of having a preserved stand of woods in its midst. Called the “Y” woods, for reasons that I don’t know, it is a great place to walk the dog, ride a trail bike, XC ski (when there is enough snow to do so) or just stroll through. It is home to all sorts of wild critters, from the mundane – rabbits, mice, squirrels, deer – to the somewhat exotic – bear, moose, fox, coyote and even, according to one neighbor, Canadian Lynx! It is common to hear the call of owls emanating from the woods at night. In fact, while out walking the dog just a couple nights ago, we both heard the call of a Great Horned Owl low and rumbling through the trees! This little scene presented itself near the edge of the woods as the morning sun caught the standing and fallen trees and cast gray-blue shadows.

For the first time in this series, I used Fabriano Aquarello paper fitted into a home-made sketch book. Being a slick paper, it works in a very similar way to the paper in the Moleskine Watercolor Sketchbook.

 

 

 

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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Sketch of the Day – Feb. 9, 2012

Feb. 9, 2012 - Mid-winter Afternoon along the West River, Weston, Vermont

Mid Winter Afternoon along the West River, Weston, VT.   Done on a bright, cloudless winter afternoon, the bright sunlight created bright blue shadows on the snow, cast from these houses and structures along the river.   The West River is a slow moving river at this point and is actually frozen over. Depicting ice, specifically in a frozen lake or river is a difficult challenge. While the surface is reflective, the reflections are soft and muted.  At the same time the surface is generally much lighter than that of either standing or moving water.  Compare the ice covered river and reflections in the middle left of this sketch to the moving water depicted in my sketch of the Williams River on Feb. 8.

This sketch is about 9” x 12” and  was done in my D’Arches Watercolor Book.  Again, the colors are all of those I’ve mentioned before as being my “winter palette” – ultramarine & cobalt blue, burnt & raw sienna. For this sketch, I did add a significant amount of cerulean blue – the sky was done with a single light wash, slightly graded darker to lighter from the top to the horizon, and in the lightly shaded snow areas in the foreground and middle distance.  The deep greens of the pine and fur trees, I used Daniel Smith Quinacridone Deep Gold mixed with Ultramarine Blue.

Earlier I mentioned that the West River is a slow moving river in this part of the state. As many folks know,  hurricane Irene, which was actually a tropical storm by the time it hit Vermont, did a great deal of damage when it came through.  Although most of Weston escaped relatively well, the West River was a raging river during the storm.  This video on Youtube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59qE3GK0sw4 – shows the river about ½ mile downstream from where I did this sketch.  There is a dam at that point and the video shows water pouring over the dam and flooding the historic Weston Playhouse which is on the village green in Weston.

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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Sketch of the Day – Feb 3, 2012

Feb 3, 2012 - Silk Road Bridge Bennington

Silk Road Covered Bridge,  Bennington, VT.   Like most winter days in VT, it was “cloudy with breaks of sun” as the forecasters like to say.  When I sat down to paint, there was sun light hitting the left – south – side of the bridge and some of it was passing through the lattice structure and landing on the white door casing on the interior right. By the time the drawing was done, the sun was pretty much gone.  I left the sun & shadow pattern on the inside of the doorway never-the-less.   The finished sketch is about “9 x 12″ and done in a D’Arches 140lb CP watercolor paint book.

Winter colors dominate this sketch, just like they do in the previous two – Feb 1 & Feb 2, 2012.   It is a challenge to create enough variety in the grays and other low intensity earth colors to keep shapes from merging with one another too much.    The grays in this sketch are mixed from either ultramarine or cobalt blue with burnt sienna, raw sienna or Quinacridone burnt scarlet.  Using these five pigments in varying combinations creates a nice variety of color and value which gives the sketch the look of winter without being too somber.

This can’t really be described as a “wet-into-wet” watercolor painting, and yet the technique is used in a number of places – especially in creating the look of distant forest without much fuss.   Beyond the distant trees in the background, it is also used on the foreground right roadway, the sky and in laying in the initial rusty, violety (if there is such a word) red on the covered bridge itself.

If there truly are trends that take hold, become popular and then eventually give way in watercolor, I would have to say that ultra, macro realism is the current look and technique for watercolor painting.  All the big national and regional watercolor exhibits seem to have more every year.  Sometime that doesn’t leave much room for those of us still painting in “older”, less trendy styles and techniques.  I tend not be a follower, so will continue working in the style and with the techniques that produce what I like to describe as “representational impressionism” seen in most of my work.

In the classes that I teach, I have noticed my students having two very different reactions to the wet-into-wet watercolor technique.  They love the look it produces, but seem to feel nothing but frustration when trying it themselves.    By popular request and in response to both of these reactions,  I have put together a new class called Wet-in-Wet Watercolor and will be offering it for the first time in just a couple of weeks.  The class will teach the basics of the technique along with several skills needed to handle wet-into-wet watercolor without, or at least with less, frustration.  Not only will the class teach the skills but is guaranteed to loosen up the work of anyone using them.   More info on the Wet-in-Wet Watercolor class can be found by clicking here.

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Sketch of the Day – Feb. 1, 2012

Feb 1 2012 - Near Sunderland VT

I always encourage students in my classes to liberally buy and use sketchbooks to develop their skills.  Yet since, last fall when both art and non-art related things started taking up my time, I’ve been ignoring my own sketchbooks.
Beginning yesterday, Feb 1, I have a new commitment to liberally buy and use sketchbooks – actually, I won’t need to buy any since I already have a drawer full of them – and to post at least one new sketch every day.   I’ll ask that you hold me to it by asking me when you don’t see a sketch posted on a particular day.

The first effort is this one, sketched in watercolor in a Kilimanjaro Originial Bright White Paint Book,  was done just off Sunderland Hill Road in Sunderland Vermont.   It’s been an unusually mild winter in Vermont so far. In the valleys and lower altitudes, there is hardly any snow on the ground.  This view looks northwest through an old forest.  Although it isn’t seen from this vantage point, there is a stream just on the other side of the large foreground trees.  Rather than snow showers, we were having rain showers, which left the puddles in the road.  The sky alternately cleared and clouded over as I painted so this is a designed composite of the rapidly changing 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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Limited Edition Prints Available Online

"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).

 

 

“Under the Canopy” – Plein Air Watercolor Painting

"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/

Watercolor Sketch – Covered Bridge

"Bridge In Morning Light"

4″ x 9″

$99

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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"Farmyard" – New Watercolor Landscape Painting

“Farmyard”

9″ x 13″

$325

 

This is one of what I often describe as one of my “drive by” paintings.  Most of my paintings are the result of series of sketches and studies that culminate in a so-called finished painting.  Sketches completed on location are usually the starting point in this process, and I very much enjoy the “en plein air” painting experience.  Although I always have sketching gear with me when I am away from the studio, I don’t always have the time to stop and sketch.

 

That was the case with this work.  I spotted the scene as I was driving by, back in early December.  Late in the afternoon, with only a small amount of snow on the ground at the time,  I passed by this forlorn looking building surrounded by fields that looked as if they had not been tended in quite some time.   Along with the building was a single tree – sapling really – casting a long shadow across the yard.   My car flashed by as I did my best to commit the scene to memory.   Within a day or so, I had sketched out a composition on paper and begun to paint.  After several sessions of studio work – this painting emerged.

 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.