Frank Walters Zoom Demonstration

Friday 21st November 2025

Frank is an award-winning ad man who started teaching watercolour painting on Zoom during Covid. He went to Hornsey College of Art to do his Foundation Course and while there someone from an advertising agency gave the students a talk which inspired him to go into the advertising industry. He began as a junior in 1972 working for Leo Burnett Advertising. He still works in advertising on occasions now.

Frank has a regular Wednesday Zoom class. This watercolour of Flatford Mill in Suffolk was painted during one of these Wednesday Zooms. His objective is to help people to paint expressively, to loosen up and create atmosphere in their paintings. He stressed there is no right way or wrong way to paint. Everyone will produce something unique but at the end of every session he asks people to show what they have produced so that people can learn from each other. He often learns from them too. He went on to mention some of the artists he particularly likes and has learnt from: Edward Wesson, Edward Seago and John Singer Sargent.

Frank has often contributed to The Artists & Illustrators Magazine. In the magazine there is a regular step-by-step section and Frank showed us his recent contribution to this starting with the composition pencil drawing and then following the development of the painting through to its completion.

Tonight Frank is going to paint two different scenes. In the first he will start with a pencil drawing of this castle in Scotland. The second painting of a snow scene will be a freer painting without any preliminary drawing. The whole image will be achieved using just paint and different paint brushes.

He has chosen the Scottish castle because he likes the strong shadows. Light and dark make what is called value. “Colour gets all the credit but value does all the work” he quoted, adding this is especially true for watercolour. It is so important to retain the white and the light in a watercolour. It is possible to use gouache Permanent White to paint white into a watercolour but Frank prefers not to do this.

These are the colours in his palette. He was asked which paints he uses and he likes Rembrandt , Schminker and Daniel Smith artist quality paints. When it comes to paper Frank likes  Baohong Rough and Saunders Watercolour Rough.

Always remember the warm and cool colours of the colour wheel bring vitality to a painting. The blues on the first row are the cool colours, the earth colours in the second row are the warm ones. Frank uses the same colours in his plein-air palette.

Looking at the composition Frank decides that he will make the sky dark where the side of the building is light and where the building is very dark he will make the sky lighter to give a strong contrast. He begins by sketching the composition out with a 4B pencil making decisions about how much to include or leave out. Always decide what should catch the eye and avoid anything that might detract from it.

The sky will be painted wet in wet using a 1 inch or 1.5 inch square brush. Frank begins by loading the brush with Cobalt Blue to paint the light right side of the sky and then adds Indigo and Sepia to produce a darker neutral blue/grey for the left side. Painting a sky always needs a little serendipity as it can only be done once, there is no going back.

The buildings are painted in warm earth colours with Raw Sienna and a touch of Orange. There is not time to wait for the sky to dry so Frank is careful to avoid the colours leeching into each other. He paints the lower section with Burnt Sienna and then the water with Cobalt Blue using a No12 Synthetic Da Vinci brush to leave ‘dry brush’ highlights in the water. One of the advantages of doing two paintings simultaneously is that it means the first can be left to dry.

The snow scene of Magdalene College Cambridge will be painted without a pencil drawing. Frank cleaned his palette and then used fresh Cobalt Blue and Sepia to create a very pale wash across the sky. The horizon was on the lower third where he was careful to leave the white for the snow.

Frank used a large square brush with Sepia and Cobalt to create a soft grey that he used for mark making and shapes. The college tower and the darks will come at the end when the rest is completely dry.

While the snow scene was drying Frank returned to the Scottish castle to begin putting in the mid tones. He used Olive Green for the bushes and greenery and Cobalt and Sepia to create a neutral grey for the mountain which was deeper but similar to the cloud above it. He used a No8 Prolene paintbrush which has a great tip for painting lines and some of the areas that needed more precision. It is particularly useful for negative painting. He took care to retain the light.

Once again while one painting dried Frank was able to return to Magdalene College to paint the tower. As always the pigment to water ratio is important, also it is important to keep the vertical lines vertical and horizontals straight and horizontal.

Frank used Cobalt and more Sepia to up the colours in the foreground. He put in some of the larger branches remarking that branches generally stretch upwards. He will use a rigger brush at the end to paint the finer branches. Back to Scotland.

He used more pigment and less water to put in the details on the building adding a few windows and the gate. He used Cadmium Red and Sepia for the roofs. Then it was time for the shadow wash using French Ultra Marine for a warmer blue together with Alizarin Crimson and Indigo to create the dark shadows on the buildings. He also added dark reflections from the buildings to the water in the foreground. This is where he will leave it.

Frank returned to the snow scene with No 3 Pro Art rigger brush. It is not at all expensive, more expensive brushes are available, however this one works well. The brush got the name rigger because it was made to be able to paint the rigging of ships. It works well for trees as well.

Frank used Sepia and French Ultra Marine, ensuring to keep it more blue than brown, to add more branches and foliage to the foreground. The image above is not quite the finished painting. Frank was recording the session and he will send details of this and the end result to Sue Whitehead, the Chairman, who thanked him for providing such an interesting demonstration with two very different paintings and lots of information about how to paint them.

For details of Frank Walter’s Wednesday Zoom demonstrations message him at : http://www.frankwatercolours.com

Following the demonstration, as promised, Frank sent these two framed images of the paintings and the recording to FCSA. Such a delight and wonderful to see them come into existence.

Write up & screen grabs by Carole Head