Hoffmann Watercolors
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Tom Hoffmann is a painter, author and a workshop instructor. Watercolor has been Tom's primary medium for forty years, and still, somehow, the medium manages to stay just beyond his grasp. He have been painting and also been teaching for years.
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
Let's do some work practicing painting people in watercolor. Look up artists whose paintings you admire. Chances are you'll like their people, too.
A couple of things to keep n mind;
It's better to make your figures too tall than too short.
Legs are longer than we think.and heads are not that big ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
Using edge quality to create an illusion is familiar territory to most realist artists. It is especially important for watercolor painters, for whom the meaning of the shapes and strokes are realized by the behavior of the water. Look at this detail from a watercolor landscape.
You can see that the paper was wet when the pattern of the background was applied, and suddenly dried when it reached the foreground. The abrupt change of edge texture reveals which shape was meant to seem to be in front. The illusion is also supported by color temperature changes along a transition line betwe ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
In addition to the usual elements of a realistic painting in progress, such as color distribution or the illusion of light, a watercolor painter often needs to pay attention to and make decisions about the look of the medium itself. Is the paint worth looking at as a collection of brushstrokes apart from what it is a picture of?
Look at this watercolor by Georgia O'Keefe. The paint has been set free to flow and the transparent strokes are encouraged to allow light to pass through the subsequent layers. See how setting the strokes free demonstrates that the subject matter can ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
Painting by Susan Dory
Can you make a thoroughly abstract painting like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler or maybe Frank Stella or Donald Judd? Try to make a painting that doesn’t remind you of something else.
Take some time to look up these painters and when you are ready, start painting.
  ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
We have seen several images that only need a stroke or two, to move from realism to abstraction.
Look at this image from China Beach. What would it take to nudge this image from the realist to the abstract?
Can you move this image both ways?
Give it a try ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
How much information does it take before we can tell what the content is? Here's an altered landscape that has been cut and pasted. Nothing is missing, but scene has been changed significantly.
You can have all kinds of fun cutting up an image and then shuffling the pieces before putting them back together in a different order. You might expect to see some crazy, meaningless collages, but give it a chance. The subject needn't be a landscape. For example:
Use one of these or find your own image, cut it into thirds, reassemble it, and then paint it.  ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
Sorry to leave you so little time for homework. I'l get right to it.
Much of the painting work we do skips careful realism and jumps ahead to exaggeration and invention. We can recognize a moment where we may assume that the viewer know whats we are saying even though we've left out most of the available information.
Here's an image that would benefit from simplification and taking a few chances.
Here's another. How would you make fewer shapes? Do you need to make clear what all that -made stuff is ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
The tradition for the final homework of the term is for everyone to send a piece or two of finished or unfinished work. If you like, here are a few provocative images that you are welcome to use for copying or interpretation.
From many, one. Start with one big. pale shape and add color: light, middle, dark.
This Monogram value study is already done.
&n ..read more
Hoffmann Watercolors
1y ago
Let's select one of these paintings and simplify the shapes like we did for the monochrome studies, only here w'll copy the colors as nearly as we can. Use as many colors as you please. As an example, in the first image on the right side, there are three different groups of trees, two tall ones and one short. If you have made all three the same what would be an economic way to correct that? As you can imagine, this exercise will benefit from using lots of practice paper.
That's it. Pay attention to your technique. Do you adjust the color temperature or the hue to correct&n ..read more