Bees Make Honey

Here, my friends, are some bees gathering pollen from Rose of Sharon blossoms in my backyard. Rejoice!





T. Renner, "Bees Make Honey (series)," digital photographs, 2008.

"Immediate Touch" Class at SLAM, #2

Second class in the "Immediate Touch" was "Superimposed images, chance, and gesture:" Choose an object from the museum collection. Make a drawing from life by measuring the object to establish proportional relationships. Establish tonal range and lost and found edges. Create a second drawing of the same object on tracing paper, this time employing blind contour technique. Attach transparent image over perceptual drawing."


T. Renner, "Bird Figure" (detail), 2008, charcoal pencil on paper, 15" x 13".

O.K., it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools but I couldn't get either my black china marker nor my white conte pencil to sharpen. (Note to self: bring pocket-knife to class next time.) I reached a point where I was tired of fighting with my tools and just declared the base drawing done, even though I could have worked on it longer.

Instead of doing one drawing on transparent paper I did two. The paper we were given for the project was actually more translucent than transparent so I what I've done is to scan the contour drawings and to make them transparent in Photoshop. Smudges remained opaque.

Overall, I'd give myself an "A" on this one. I think you could slip it into the "Immediate Touch" exhibit and nobody would bat an eye.

The image above is a detail from the finished piece because of the limited size of my scanner.

"Immediate Touch" Class at SLAM, #1

I just finished my first, in a series of 5, studio class called "Drawing: The Immediate Touch," at the St. Louis Art Museum, and it was excellent.


T. Renner, "After George Caleb Bingham, Self Portrait, in the Style of A.R. Penck," pencil and watercolor on paper, 10.25" x 14", 2008.

It's cool to take a class that not only introduces you to work you haven't seen before but also forces you to paint in styles and with techniques with which you're unfamiliar.

According to the SLAM web site, the class "will challenge your notion of drawing. Its inspiration comes from the Art Museum's featured exhibition The Immediate Touch: German Austrian, and Swiss Drawings from St. Louis Collections, 1946 - 2007. Participants will view and discuss the drawings of such notable artists as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter and then work on individual assignments using the materials, techniques, and ideas of these influential artists."

Tonight's assignment was to "choose object in museum collection. Make drawing using simplified planar forms. Return to class and create a watercolor based on the drawing. Use complementary colors to create full range of chromatic intensity and introduce color harmonies by mixing chromatic grays."

So far so good, I think... I'd give myself a "B" on this exercise because I didn't really fully tackle the color assignment.

-- Tony

New Show Up Now at Meshuggah Cafe

It's my one year retrospective!

You can see 25 works from my first year of painting at Meshuggah Cafe, 6269 Delmar, in the University City, Missouri, Loop.

The show will be up from now until August 18.

All pieces are for sale!

-- Tony


T. Renner, "For Franz Kline #1," 2008, acrylic on paper, 6" x 4".


T. Renner, "Ragtime Blues #4," 2008, acrylic on paper, 7" x 5".


T. Renner, "Ragtime Blues #3," 2008, acrylic on paper, 7" x 5".


T. Renner, "Improvisation for Anthony Braxton," 2008, acrylic on paper, 7" x 5".


SOLD! T. Renner, "For Dock Boggs," acrylic on paper, 2008, 6" x 4". SOLD!