Hoffmann - Paint With Intention & Consistency

Paint with Intention & Consistancy

SHAPE, VALUE, COLOR & BRUSHWORK

By Joan Hoffmann

2015

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all my patrons. They follow my career: painting, teaching and protecting wild habitats.

Their encouragement and feedback are profound and easily overlooked. This book will encourage you to listen and learn from your own patrons. They know what they like and they like what they see.

All rights reserved.

Published by

Joan Hoffmann 2013

Table of Contents

1. Paint with Consistancy

2. Pre-Painting List- What you will put in every painting

3. Paint What You See-Train your eye to know what you see

4. Shapes: Scale, Positive & Negative space and Composition

5. Value-Do you need a dark to power your light values?

6. Color:

Color Wheel- a checklist of how to use colors

Complimentary Colors- colors come in pairs

Neutrals- find the complement

Color Temperature

• Mixing Colors-Warm or Cool Temperature, Light, Medium or Dark Value
• Toning Colors-Tone color with color (not white)
• Mixing Blacks-warm black or cool black?
• Quality of White-Warm or Cool? Do whites distract the eye?
• Highlight Color, Naples Yellow: mix your own color
• Color Perception
• Color Notes- Find the right color by adding color

7. Brushwork

8. Critique, Evaluations and Pre-painting Checklist

9. The Commercial Side of Painting

• What if someone asks about a painting?
• What happens at the studio or gallery?
• What if someone wants my painting?
• What if I dont want to sell my work?
• How do I set a price for my art?
• Local Art Scene
• Make Art a Conversation

10. The Conscious Painter

Paint with Consistency

This book guides you to understand that painting is not about hopes and dreams but about you and your steadfast stories. Therefore painters that find angst over how, what, and why for they paint will find this book full of tips. I walked down this path and unraveled it and so can you.

I am compelled to paint. And I am not one to spend hours assessing the mystical or profound. I am practical and down to earth. But either way one looks at painting, I believe it ends at the same point. Painting is part of human existence and its been said that color is eternal.

My first book included all basic painting techniques. If you have some experience painting than these techniques will be second nature by now. This book takes these techniques, expands on them and puts them in context to your painting style, habits and desired outcomes. I concentrate on composition which is design and scaling objects to each other and to the shape of the canvas. Paint the way that you envision-take focus-and use consistent sizes, shapes and scales. These are symbols and your style.

For example, how much does symbolism play into painting? It wasnt until one day in painting class when a student announced that he did not believe in symbolism that I fully understood the concept. Andy Warhols symbols are his sole purpose and he understood it early on in his career. For others we need time, but the sooner you understand the happier you will be. Find clarity and let your paintings sing.

Pre-painting List: What you will put in every painting

Conceptualize your painting and translate that concept into shapes, values, colors and brushwork. Paint it. Begin with a scale, relaxed design and composition and apply the paint with decisive brushworks including palette knife. Your vision is translated into these elements that are possible to paint. My book, Paint with Intention , explains how to do this and this book helps you apply these techniques, by narrowing down what is most important to you. Your vision and consistency in painting will excite you and others. This is what makes a painter continue to paint and therefore to become accomplished.

Most of us have routines in our daily lives, in fact it is how we find time to paint. This routine is memorized and we use it to guide us. I suggest you use this same method to paint. Experienced painters know that a great painting can happen at any moment and some take hours of labor. But a great painting will not happen at all if you dont find time to practice and paint. Find time to visualize a paintings shapes, values, colors and brushwork, even if you do not have time to paint it.

Here is my over-arching guide to achieve my best paintings:

I like to paint outdoors. I like to be spontaneous when I paint and I like to be inspired. My pre-painting list keeps me ready to paint, and with all my necessary supplies at hand I paint when the moment is right! This list is part of my method to a spontaneous end. I organize my painting needs like I do my exercise clothes or my kitchen. It is not a constraint but a method.

It is a waste of my precious time if I agonize over whether to bring my watercolors and paper when I am getting ready for a days hike or an outing to the park with my family. I made this decision once and I do not second guess it or make the decision over and over each time I leave the house. It is my routine.

After a day outdoors or even a long day backpacking, I stick to my routine and I take a moment to resupply my watercolor kit because this works for me. I thoroughly wash brushes, get rid of dirty water. Add fresh water and wipe or clean my palette. I pack it up and I know I am ready for tomorrow.

I oil paint outdoors and use the same be prepared method. It will make the whole process easier. I use the old fashioned plein air easel because I keep it supplied with materials for three oil paintings and I do not need to carry an extra bag full of supplies. It holds small or large tubes of paint. I have moved to water base oils so I carry water and use a small jar that fits into the easel (same for carrying turps). I clean brushes after every outing, but I clean my palette before I close my easel at my painting location. Therefore, I wake up, put my easel in the car (backpack) and go.

This method really helped out when I was staying in Carmel, California and spur of the moment decided that I would enjoy a day at Pt. Lobos painting and enjoying the spring weather. Unknown to me there were fifty painters who were attending the first National Plein Air Expo and they were trying to find parking amid the regular tourists and there was only parking outside of the State Park which required a long walk to the ocean side scenery. I could quickly gather my painting gear, put it on a luggage rack with wheels and stroll into the park.

Without understanding how and what I needed, I would have given up in this mayhem. Remember that it is important to do a painting, so if I had given up at this location, there were obviously plenty of scenic locations in Carmel to choose from. Dont let a change of plan, interrupt achieving a painting.

Last but not least I know I will encounter bugs, bad weather, wind, and more. I know how to set up quickly and buckle down to paint. My pre-painting list includes what I will paint before I ever see the scene. I like paintings with a feeling of space (keep objects small), I like sky (give it enough room on the canvas to have expression) and I prefer form over flat objects-three dimensional space and I use lavender to enhance form).