Tom Hoffmann
Tom Hoffmann is a watercolor painter. As both practicing artist and teacher he has been dedicated to the medium for more than thirty years. Tom's work is primarily painted from life in the city and in remote landscapes throughout the Northwest. He values an economy of means that allows each stroke to carry the maximum weight of information and meaning. In Tom's paintings, two stories are being told at once: one comes through the subject matter, which speaks of the dignity of labor, the utilitarian beauty of the work site or the perfection of wilderness; the other comes from the paint itself. When watercolor is applied with confidence the finished painting is a record of the process of its creation. Every brushstroke remains separately visible, which allows the viewer to see and understand how the illusion of space, light and substance came to be. Tom's respect for both his subject and his medium are unmistakable.
Tom Hoffmann's paintings have been shown in the Seattle Art Museum, Frye Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Whatcom County Museum, The Copley Society of Boston and the Armory at Park Avenue in New York City. He was educated at Amherst College, Massachusetts and the University of London, England.
To view additional work by this artist, please visit www.hoffmannwatercolors.com.
Artist's Statement
Anyone who has tried painting with watercolor knows why it is a notoriously difficult medium. Its transparency allows each movement of the brush to remain visible in the finished work. Attempts to refine or cover up mistrokes end up looking fussy, or worse. That same transparency, though, is the very quality that gives watercolors the immediacy and brilliance that make them irresistible. They are literally lit from within. The best watercolors feel right because the paint has been given room to assert its fluid and transparent nature.
Realizing the potential of watercolor involves taking chances. The risks that are such an important part of the medium can be understood in terms of specific variables; they are informed risks. Knowing how to see what is essential to a particular scene involves skills that can be isolated and practiced.
My classes are designed to assure each student that the choices they make while painting are conscious choices. The ultimate goal of a course of study, afterall, is to become one's own teacher.
Anyone who has tried painting with watercolor knows why it is a notoriously difficult medium. Its transparency allows each movement of the brush to remain visible in the finished work. Attempts to refine or cover up mistrokes end up looking fussy, or worse. That same transparency, though, is the very quality that gives watercolors the immediacy and brilliance that make them irresistible. They are literally lit from within. The best watercolors feel right because the paint has been given room to assert its fluid and transparent nature.
Realizing the potential of watercolor involves taking chances. The risks that are such an important part of the medium can be understood in terms of specific variables; they are informed risks. Knowing how to see what is essential to a particular scene involves skills that can be isolated and practiced.
My classes are designed to assure each student that the choices they make while painting are conscious choices. The ultimate goal of a course of study, afterall, is to become one's own teacher.