A Look Back - Part 1

As the end of the year and the decade approach it's time to look at this year's works and interests both for personal review and to spark new ideas.

Hoff, "Winter Snow," oil on panel, 4x6

January was when I began doing daily digital drawings, and posted the first few, although I had been exploring computer drawing programs and methods for a long while. We had a couple of deep snows that prompted tiny oil sketches (right).

During part of the month we were in France for an international circus competition. Throughout the trip I made watercolor postcards and mailed them home from Monaco, where we attended the circus. I posted several of them here during the month. I also kept a couple of small sketchbooks handy and made graphite or watercolor records, some of which I posted after we returned.

Hoff, "The Second Deep Snow," oil on panel, 6x8

February was a month of deep snow on Druid Hill Creek, and I posted watercolors showing snow at its coldest and deepest. Here is a previously unposted oil from the same period, "The Second Big Snow,"done from a studio window after the sticky stuff covered almost everything.

Hoff, "The Last Scraps," watercolor on paper, 5x9

March once again showed how the calendar turns when the month of the war god comes. The snows abated and by the end of the month the creek was showing signs of life and growth (below) although a scrap or two of snow persisted. In the studio most of my work was either digital drawing or watercolor sketches.

One post in March involved a discussion of drawing hands and featured several digitally-drawn copies of hands drawn by masters of the past. A lot my digital work has involved getting to know the interfaces but also digital work has allowed me to copy many of the masters' anatomic works. March is when I began doing digital dailies which led to a daily posting on a new blog since last July. After posting about drawing hands I added a post on drawing heads and included a few copies of masters done in various media including metalpoint.

April brought the longer days of springtime and also some diversity into the daily digital drawings I was making. I made a number of drawings of classic cars and worked on facial expressions too. The weather was

Hoff, "April on Druid Hill Creek," watercolor, 5x9

gentle, mostly, and gave me a chance to do some more studies of Druid Hill Creek as the undergrowth began to burst into leaf. Most of the bushes were honeysuckle, which runs riot along the creek bank. Although we had hints of green early in the month it really wasn't until the final two weeks that green filled the woods.

Hoff, "On the Hudson (Plum Point)," watercolor on paper 5x12

May was the month I'd looked forward to for a long while, mostly because of the opportunity to work with my friend Garin Baker a master oil painter who also teaches at the Art Students League in Manhattan. The workshop was a resounding success, and gave me the impetus to head outdoors to paint for the first time last summer. It also caused me to think about a new plein air setup, an Open Box M, which arrived later in the summer. In the meantime it was a revelation to spend time confronting the subject, reacting to the environment, "making the best of an emergency" as John Sargent used to say about plein air watercolor.

Hoff, "Downstream on Druid Hill Creek," oil on panel, 9x19

Besides that, I continued daily digital drawings, watercolor sketches, and a few other endeavors.

Hoff, "Morning, The Garden," oil on panel, 12x9

June was a month of exploration, finding likely sites for outdoor painting, sometimes just spending time looking. Not far from the studio is the Raccoon River, which joins the Des Moines River close by. The rivers make excellent spots for paintings, and I did some work there. But my first tentative steps outside were onto a shady deck where I painted a trio of houseplants that were at last returned to the outdoors. I also painted the garden terraces on the sloping creek bank outside the studio, in slating morning light. The mysterious effect of very solft edges in nearly every part of the painting was appealing.

Hoff, "Francoise Gilot," digital

Hoff, "The Dredge, Newburgh, oil on panel

June gave me an opportunity to continue working through more digital drawings, particularly of heads and expressions. And I finished a full-size studio oil of a Hudson River scene based on observations, reference pics, and an on the spot watercolor sketch.














The rest of year was heavy with outdoor painting, a new watercolor sketch group, and some work in other media as well. More in another post.