Wokingham Art Society Newsletter

Demonstration: Watercolour Townscape, demo by Keith Hornblower

21st January 2020. Report and photos by Rod Jones

Keith is a Fellow of the Society of Architectural

Illustration and a frequent exhibitor at the Royal

Institute of Painters in Watercolour.

For his subject he had downloaded a picture of

Wokingham before the re-development.

Although he has been an architectural illustrator

for more than 20 years, his aim was not to

produce a topographical rendering but to provide

a watercolour impression of the scene.

For this demonstration, he was using a sheet of unstretched 140LB Bockingford

Although his drawing was restricted to establishing

the eyelevel and the main perspective lines, his

experience as an architectural artist clearly

showed in the confidence with which the main

elements were sketched in. A rubber was used

once but we were left with the feeling that this

was only done to warn us that excessive use of a

rubber can affect the evenness of washes and

should be avoided.

Keith mixed his colours from tubes on his

palette although, as we can see from the

image on the left, he likes to further mix

them on the paper. Drips were totally

ignored.

The sky was a very light tone of cobalt blue

and burnt sienna was used for the bricks

on the left of the picture. The shadows on

the right were created using a mixture of

cobalt blue and burnt sienna.

A fairly dilute mixture of cobalt blue and

yellow ochre provided the background

trees in the centre distance.

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Demonstration: Watercolour Townscape, demo by Keith Hornblower

21st January 2020. Report and photos by Rod Jones (Contd.)

At this stage, the addition of foreground

washes to indicate the road surface and

the pavement have taken care of all the

drips and we now have a car which is

now seen to be a convertible.

Keith saw the excessive contrast and detail in

the shop windows on the left as a distraction

to the eye which he eliminated by a wash of

dirty water (here seen wet)

More detail is added to the right-

hand foreground .

Figures are added to the scene and details

on the left mid-ground are refined.

(The shop name is a particularly effective

addition)

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Technical notes:

Keith mostly used a squirrel mop for

the large washes and said that, alt-

hough he did use a lot of Rosemary

brushes, he doesn’t have any particular

favourite (although I noticed that he

did use an Escoda synthetic brush

which is widely recommended by a lot

of artists, notably the Australian watercolourist, Joseph

Zbukvic.

Keith mainly uses watercolour paints by Schminke and Holbein.

As he was adding the black posts, I asked him whether he was using Ivory Black. He said he didn’t

know - black is black - then he paused and said that actually the blackest black that he had was

called Peach Black. After a number of expressions of puzzlement from the audience, I thought that I

knew how the name came about.

I said “ You must have bought it from a Spaniard” Keith looked puzzled.

I explained: “Iss peetch black Senor” and the penny dropped.

“Actually” Keith said, “I got it from a Japanese supplier” but my theory still seemed to hold water.

Thanks Keith for a really lively and interesting demonstration

Postscript: When I sent him the first draft of this review, Keith told me that Peach Black is

actually made from burnt peach stones (although I still like to think that it sounds more

like a corrupt pronunciation of “pitch black” !

I have since Googled “Peach Black” and find that it is available

from Holbein, Shin Han and Sennelier.

Demonstration: Watercolour Townscape, demo by Keith Hornblower

21st January 2020. Report and photos by Rod Jones (Contd.)

Nearing the end...

The right-hand foreground shadow helps to give depth to the painting - Keith called this an up-

side-down wash - strong at the bottom and tapering in strength as it moves away from the

viewer.

The street furniture adds more perspective and the addition of the kerbstone on the left of the

street is particularly telling.

All that now remains is to add the

sunlight to the figures in the left

midground using Schminke Jaune

Brillant guache and the masking

tape can be removed.

- Rod Jones

The finished result