Trish Hoskin – “A Day in the Life” Artist Showcase

Fusion Art is pleased to feature Australia based artist, Trish Hoskin in its “A Day in the Life” series. In this series of Artist Showcases, the gallery reveals the “typical” day of many of its award-winning artists.

Trish is an award-winning photographer and digital artist based in Australia. She has won numerous awards in Fusion Art’s online art competitions as well as been featured in the gallery’s Artist Spotlight solo art series.

Below please find, in Trish’s own words, the answers to 12 questions about her, her art and her “typical” day as she gives us a glimpse into her artistic life.

How do you start your day?

On a normal day pre-Corona Virus Lockdown, I jump out of bed at 5.30am and get showered, dressed, and head off to work for a 7am start. Whilst getting ready usually check social media for my art groups and any comments on work I may have uploaded the previous evening. During Corona Virus, I get a sleep-in until 6.15am and then once ready sit down at my desk to start my day.

How many days a week do your work on your art?

I try to do something each day, whether it is creating a piece or starting a piece, interacting with social media, reviewing some videos from my art groups or simply journaling some ideas or researching something to do with art.

Do you have a home studio or do you go to an outside studio to work? Which do you prefer and why?

No, I do not have a studio, just a lovely large desk that is in my lounge room, which has a lot of light in it during the day. As I am a digital artist, it makes it easy to work both inside and out. I do have a DSLR but prefer to work with my iPhone so I can do my “art” anywhere. I enjoy going on a little jaunt outside to gather photos, but as I have my phone with me, I am always able to grab a shot or two or knowing me more when something takes my attention. I can sit for hours though creating on my laptop and have been known to miss a meal when I am engrossed.

What kind of art do you create?

As mentioned above I am a Digital Artist so tend to use my own images combined with a lot of other Digital Designers products to blend and merge my own photos to create my art.

Walk us through your “typical” day?

If it is an art day or evening, I download any new products I have either purchased or part of being on two Designers Creative Team, where I am privileged to be. As part of receiving some fabulous products, I create work to display on various social media sites. Once anything is downloaded or I am ready to create, I tend to sit and look at a kit of products or some of my images and wait to have an idea spark. Once there is a trigger, I gather the elements I need, open Photoshop CC or my iPad Pro and begin to create. Sometimes it will all fall in place as to what I was aiming for and other times I will end up with something totally different that I started and am pleased with.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?

I work full time and often from 7am – 5pm so my time to create during the working week is limited which frustrates me, but I have to be really thankful especially during our Corona Crisis that I do have a secure full time position as I know there are many that haven’t been so lucky. Other chores take me away from my art and cannot wait until I can retire to spend way more time creating.

What do you enjoy most about being an artist?

I love creating and seeing the result. Sometimes I am happy with a piece and other times not. These pieces quickly disappear in the trash bin on the laptop. Sometimes when I may be searching for a piece for some reason or other I do get a bit surprised when I go over previously created pieces and without being “big headed” I am often surprised by earlier pieces and think wow did I do that. I do not directly seek approval etc. for my work, but it is lovely to see comments on the various sites I upload to especially for the Designers I work with. It is always a pleasure to start with a few elements, background papers and a photo and come up with a pleasing piece of art.

What do you enjoy the least?

I am a hoarder of photos, products etc. and continually running out of space and have so many cloud providers and external hard drives. Being a Virgo I am prone to be a little bit of a perfectionist so need to have them organized and catalogued and all in specific folders etc. I do not like the time I spend on this versus actual creating. I wish I had a copy of me that could spend the time doing the sorting, downloading and organizing so the real me could just create all the time!

Do you have any mentors?

Before becoming a Digital Artist, I used to paint in watercolor and pastels and was a member of an Art group and president of it for a combination of 10 years. One lady there took me under her wing, and I am still friends with her today. She is in her 80’s and what she doesn’t know about art and life is not worth knowing. I love that I can go and visit her every few months and show her my work and ideas and she will call a spade a spade. She doesn’t worry that it might hurt my feelings because I know it is not just to be nasty, she pushes me and makes me question my work and it is always to make me step outside my comfort zone most usually to my benefit. We talk for hours on the phone one night for 5 hours discussing everything and anything and I always learn something. I will be very sad when she leaves this earth.

Is the artistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?

It can be, as a lot of people don’t understand what I do and some people even dismiss my work, but I have to be true to me and do what makes me happy. I don’t mind being by myself at all and often love spending hours creating without anyone contacting me. I have found the time in isolation due to the Corona Virus a wonderful thing. Whilst I miss some things, I have reveled in it.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Be true to yourself, don’t be pushed in a direction that you don’t want to be, if you are happy with your work then that is all that matters. Don’t give up your art because people think you should be doing something else or helping them. Life is too short to not create art! Whether you sell it or not – keep creating.

What inspires you?

Pretty well anything. I used to be traditional in my tastes or what I captured, such as landscapes and floral pieces, however in the last few years I have turned to Architecture and love to see beautiful buildings etc. and capture them to create art with. I love heritage buildings but also love new modern architecture and so many things capture my eye and out comes the phone. I recently won a radio competition in my city for having the most images on a phone!. Currently I am up to 65,098!!! Obviously, some are never to be used, but I don’t bother deleting any unless it is definitely a rubbish image.

Thank you, Trish, for sharing a peek into your life as an artist!

Below are 4 of Trish’s award winning pieces. To learn more about Trish and see more of her work please visit her website.