3 days with Tom Hoffman: Day 1

I’m just back from a 3-day workshop in San Francisco with Tom Hoffman. To say it was fabulous and inspiring is an understatement. But to be more articulate than that is impossible. I’ve come back full of ideas and things to explore, but they’re too new and half-baked to put into words.

This was so new for me:
I work almost exclusively in sketchbooks, which is pretty different from plein air painting: in the workshop I worked at a easel most of the time, on quarter sheets of watercolor paper, and from a much larger palette than my usual little kit. But the biggest difference was that so much of my own work depends so heavily on line. Tom’s workshop was a whole new way of thinking and seeing: in shape and form with no pen lines to fall back on!

Below, without much more than a couple of comments are my studies from Day 1.

It rained all morning, so instead of working plein air, we worked from photos in the morning. (Another totally new one to me, I work almost exclusively from life)

And then it stopped raining and we stepped out and painted cloud studies. I could not resist adding in the buildings and wires and cranes…

If you ever have the chance to attend a workshop with Tom, jump at it. I’ve never heard anyone articulate the process of seeing and painting as clearly as Tom does. And if you don’t have a chance to attend a workshop anytime soon, get the book: It is wonderful, I’m re-reading it now.

Day 2, coming up next…