Paperscapes Winter

paperscapes winter hannah tofts

paperscapes winter hannah tofts

From the city to the sea; Amsterdam to Scotland. Every move makes you look with outsider eyes. It’s a useful discipline; to decode your environment without presumption.

This time it was literally new horizons of changing light, colour and huge composition to tackle. And this time the weather rules, in your face, relentless and demanding. I haven’t dared to paint it yet, distilling my colours and views in collages first. Teaching others to look, to draw and paint has made me look more closely too. I’ll never presume the sea is blue, in Scotland at least. After months of waiting for the sun I gave in to the grey, mixing 69 shades, painting papers, cropping the sea and sky in to tiny mini worlds inspired by the classic 6x12 camera format. Choosing for intimate in contrast to the big.

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waiting for spring

Hannah can often be found drawing by a roadside, cutting cardboard boxes in markets, salvaging wood for her collages or collecting plastics from the sea; always making with whatever she finds wherever she travels. Torn between wild nature and her city by bike Hannah moved to the west coast to grow and draw her vegies, make with new finds and teach kids and adults to have fun looking and creating. Passionate about inspiring creativity and documenting the story to share Hannah co-produced the first book in her series of Ways of Looking, Art for Beginners from 'the art class' on a tuesday. Her recent co-production Plastic Sea is Hannah’s response to living by the sea, a 4 year document of looking, collecting and creating with plastic finds, to highlight our ocean issues.

paperscapes winter x20 ‘from the city to the sea’ first shown at Dutch Design Hotel Artemis Amsterdam March 2014 paint on paper cut, torn and glued by Hannah Tofts MA RCA artist/designer/author/teacher mixing 69 shades of grey in Scotland www.hannahtofts.com book design by Jan Battem, www.battem.com print on demand by CreateSpace.com copyright © 2014, Hannah Tofts Thank you to all the Art Team who gamely paint and draw on location in almost all weathers.

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