Watercolour Demonstration with John Hopkins

John, an established watercolour painter, has recently moved to Wiltshire and is starting to find his bearings.

John was thinking about composition, moving things around, identifying tonal values and deciding where to put the horizon line. John’s view is that his paintings are merely his interpretation of a scene or a photograph. As we do not take in every single detail of what we see, likewise he does not attempt include every single detail in his paintings.did not pre-wet the paper but started from the top with well diluted burnt umber, liberally splattering traces of colour. Then, again top down, the sky with cobalt blue (ultramarine is too grainy), knocking back with a tissue to suggest clouds and then putting in some yellow ochre (wet in wet), for the buildings. The hair dryer then came out in preparation for the next stage which was the detail of the background buildings with a small brush.

The final picture was an excellent example of John`s approach to water colour painting, being very loose with his use of paint leaving the water colour to produce results which really suited the age and nature of the buildings in the painting.