Her Thoughts – Page 7

Aspiration for 2018

fhoffman January 2, 2018 art, artist, Artist blog, Artist studio, British Columbia, Charcoal drawing, Drawing, Expressive Realism, faye Hoffman, Life drawing, Portrait commission, Portrait drawing, Sergio Lopez, Uncategorized

While the holidays were pretty full of family travel and social highlights, I did manage to get a couple days in the studio to continue my drawing work. I had some fun with a portrait of my husband (below) and a couple attempts at life drawing from photographs which were not at all successful – but good practice! Always!

Portrait of the Artist’s Husband, charcoal on Stonehenge paper, 18”x24”

I’m not one for making resolutions for a new year. I prefer to think about what I’d like the year to contain so I can focus on that over other things, rather than make hard deadlines. Deadlines are for work. With that in mind, I want to attend more life drawing sessions at UVic, since I’m in such close walking distance and because I want to be better at creating consistently successful life drawings. Currently it’s hit and miss. Much like the way I’ve focused on my studio drawing and am having more and more success at completing pieces I am happy with. I feel that I have a deeper understanding of the materials and am able to use them to the effect I want. And now I’d like to have that with life drawing.

An inspiration for that is a beautiful life drawing which Andrew bought me for my birthday. It’s by artist Sergio Lopez . Isn’t she beautiful?!

Classical Pose, charcoal on paper, 18" x 24" — Classical Pose, Sergio Lopez. Charcoal on paper, 18″ x 24″

Expressive Realism

fhoffman December 4, 2017November 19, 2018 alla prima, art, artist, Artist blog, Artist studio, British Columbia, Charcoal drawing, Drawing, faye Hoffman, Portrait commission, Portrait drawing, portrait painting

The other day as the endless social media scrolling engulfed my brain, I came upon an artist’s post in which she labelled her work “Expressive Realism”. I’d never heard the two terms combined before and it piqued my interest. So here’s a quick Google response to the combined terms as it relates to literature:

“Definition: Expressive Realism is a fusion of the Aristotelian concept of art as mimesis with the Romantic concept of art as expressing the perceptions and emotions of a person “possessed of more than unusual organic sensibility.”

Characteristics:

Expressive realism values richness, honesty, and immediacy and rejects schematism, implausability and ideology.
Literature is a reflection of life.
Literature is authentic when it describes the world of social relationships or conveys the inner experience (often seen as “universal”) of the individual quest for identity.”

So, does this suit my latest drawing series? Yes, I do believe it does! And it is exciting to encapsulate the awkward place I’ve been where I have one foot in realism and the other in expressionism – not feeling right going more one way or the other.

Now I will go back to the literal drawing board and continue on, already knowing where I was going but reassured and re-inspired! How fun.

Persistance

fhoffman October 27, 2017 art, artist, Artist blog, Artist studio, British Columbia, Charcoal drawing, Drawing, faye Hoffman, Life drawing, portrait painting, Sidney Fine Arts, Uncategorized

As per my last post, I’ve decided to focus on drawing again and for a while. I’m determined to keep drawing until my success rate improves. Right now, unless I have one of those surprising moments when the drawing flows off my hand successfully on the first attempt, it takes upwards of 4 “warm-up” attempts to create a piece I am satisfied with. I’m seeing and feeling success and that’s most important. I’m also learning to accept the warm-up period as a part of the process rather than the pain I have to go through to get to where I want to be. And I invested in a large role of delicious Stonehenge paper so that I wouldn’t feel limited by how many of the very expensive sheets of paper I had left (thanks to our sales at the Sidney Fine Arts Show which replenished the art supply fund!).

I’m looking for work which feels loose and simple enough to not look over-worked and which has line and edge quality which is both pleasing and awkward. Some smooth, precise areas and other messy, course areas; Balance and feeling and an interesting person, gesture or look.

And I’ve planted the seed in my mind to create a large work of a combination of drawings of several people – an epic piece. We shall see how long it takes to get me there. And then on to the painting which would come out of the drawing! It may be a long road but at least I am seeing small successes and you know I just LOVE the process.