Iskra Fine Art

  • Prints
    • The Tarmac Residency: Airport Landscapes
    • Ink Painting Abstractions
    • Immersions | At The Shore
    • ColorBath: Images of the Harbor
    • The Floating World
    • Industrial Strength | Urban Industrial Landscape
    • The Scaffold
    • Industrial Pastorale: The Rural/Urban Landscape
    • Botanical Prints | The Natural World
    • Construction | Reconstruction : Urban Landscape
    • Infrastructure
  • Drawings
    • Pencil Drawings: Pandemic Pause
    • Drawings in Dust 1
    • Signs & Symbols (Archive)
    • Botanical Drawings (Archive)
  • Photography
    • Seattle Waterfront Park Photography
    • Architectural Photography | Construction Sites
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Mixed Media
    • Modern Botanical | Mixed Media on Plaster
    • From the Sea | Water Paintings
    • Sleep Studies
  • Journals
    • Wayfinding Journal (Archive)
  • Shop
  • About
    • Contact
  • Blog
You are here: Home / Archives for how to watercolor books

Tom Hoffmann’s New Book on Watercolor Painting

November 29, 2012 by Iskra Leave a Comment

I was thrilled today to receive my copy of Tom Hoffmann’s new book on watercolor, “Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium,” just out from Watson Guptill. You may know Hoffmann as a painter of incandescent skies and inimitable backstreets, an artist who takes “the unpaintable” and transforms it– he can make the most ordinary extraordinary. Over the course of his career his work has moved through many phases, but always it holds an indelible signature. His paintings are about paint and how it wants to be, combined with wonderful leaps of reduction and abstraction. His best work captures the air and the time of “place”, with a haunting sense of both immediacy and reverie.

This new book provides a valuable and fresh approach to understanding the medium. It’s a big picture view that will fill in what is missing from the volumes that teach you how to render kitten fur or use frisket to paint birch trees in the snow. (Not that these techniques aren’t valuable for any painter’s repertoire……) I am happy to be included in the book with a study for “From One Tree.”

From One Tree Botanical Watercolor Study
“From One Tree” watercolor of laurel leaves on hotpress Fabriano © Iskra Johnson

Hoffmann’s is the latest in a series of truly fine books written by instructors at Seattle’s Gage Academy of Art. Collectively they are setting a new standard for instructional books, many of which are becoming best sellers in their area of expertise. A list of other books by Gage instructors is included at the end of this post. Stay tuned for a book launch party and show at Gage in January. And if you would like to see more of Tom Hoffmann’s work you may visit him at his website.

A selection of books from Gage Academy instructors:

“Landscape Painting: Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice,” by Mitch Albala

“Classical Painting Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice,” by Juliette Aristides

“Contemporary Drawing, Key Concepts and Techniques,” by Margaret Davidson

“Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential Techniques from Inside the Atelier,” by Juliette Aristides

“The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression,” by Gary Faigin

 

Follow the book and see more work by the contributors at the Hoffmann Watercolor Facebook page.

 

Filed Under: Watercolors Tagged With: books by Gage Academy instructors, how to watercolor books, tom hoffmann waterfolor book, watercolor books

Join Iskra’s Mailing List

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to receive show announcements, first peek at new work and my semi-monthly blog by email. I primarily use the blog for news and updates but by signing up you will also receive the occasional newsletter and special offers for items in my shop.

Iskra Fine Art Blog

the creative process | conversations with artists | the contemplative impulse in art

Instagram

Sunday studies of motion and emotion. I’ve been Sunday studies of motion and emotion. I’ve been in an obstinately “unproductive” space this past week, but used my time well. Motion: I went swimming for the first time in 5 years; in the autumn’s holy light, the lake is a sacrament. Emotion: I watched three years of The Split in four days. Cried my eyes out. In awe of acting and a script this good. Sometimes you just have to take a vacation from yourself and let other people do life for you. On Hulu, BBC possibly the best relationship drama I have seen.
I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid

Featured Posts

  • How to Purchase Artwork from Iskra Fine Art
  • About This Blog
  • New Directions in Contemplative Art: Conversations with Artists
  • What is a Transfer Print? (Artist Statement)

Categories

  • Abstract Calligraphy
  • Airport Landscapes
  • Architecture & Sense of Place
  • Art Reviews
  • Art Sales
  • Artist Studio Visits
    • The Mystic Muse: Artists Working in the Contemplative Traditions
  • botanical art
  • Botanical Art Cards
  • Collage
  • Construction/Reconstruction
  • Digital Collage
  • Drawing
  • Essays
  • Featured Post
  • Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past
  • Iskra Sketchbooks & Journals
  • Iskra Writing on Medium
  • Living With Art
  • Meditation & Buddhism
  • Mixed Media
  • Music
  • Object Lessons: Essays and images inspired by "A History of the World in 100 Objects."
  • Painting
  • Photocollage
  • Photography
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Poems
  • Print Sale
  • Prints
  • Recent Posts
  • Road Trips
  • Social Media for Artists
  • The 100 Day Projects
  • The Alaska Way Viaduct
  • The Garden
  • The Gardener's Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena
  • The Spiritual in Art
  • The Street
  • the Tarmac Residency
  • The Water Tower Project
  • Transfer Prints
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Watercolors

Archives

Search

Connect on Facebook

Iskra Fine Art Facebook Page

Creative Inspiration

  • Alternative Photography
  • An Artist's Retreat
  • Anonymous Chinese Textile Genius: Moo Won
  • Chocolate Is A Verb
  • Contemplative Art Process: Danila Rumold
  • Eva Isaksen
  • Old Industrial Japan
  • The Altered Page
  • The Heart Sutra Loop
  • The Patra Passage

Galleries for Contemplative Art

  • ArtXchange Gallery
  • Seattle Asian Art Museum

Links

  • CollageArt.org
  • Iskra at SAM Gallery
  • Iskra Fine Art on Houzz
  • Seattle Art Museum Blog
  • Seattle Artist League
  • Seattle Print Arts
  • Seeing Fresh: Contemplative Photography
  • The Painter's Keys

What I'm Reading: Online Magazines and Books I Love

  • 16 mi.
  • Essays by David Whyte
  • Evening Will Come: Poetry
  • Hyperallergic
  • Painter's Table
  • Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art
  • Streetsy
  • The Original Van Gogh's Ear Anthology
  • Tricycle Magazine
  • Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty
  • Vanguard

Let’s Connect

  • Contact Iskra
  • How to purchase artwork
  • Iskra Fine Art Blog : The creative process, conversations with artists, the contemplative impulse in art

Join Iskra’s Mailing List

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to receive show announcements, first peek at new work and my semi-monthly blog by email. I primarily use the blog for news and updates but by signing up you will also receive the occasional newsletter and special offers for items in my shop.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

All Images Copyright © 2023  Iskra Johnson · Site by LND · WordPress