Frederick George Cotman is known for his expressive watercolors and oil paintings, which mainly show landscapes and everyday scenes of ordinary people. In his works, the British artist works almost photorealistically and relies on expressive color tones and an atmospheric play of light and shadow. During his time in London, the artist created more than 30 paintings. He belonged to the Norwich School of Painters, a Norwich landscape painting school that was artistically committed to realism. The influences the painter gathered during his time at this school are omnipresent in his work. Photorealistic depictions of natural landscapes and people are among the artist's strengths. The Norwich landscape was often the inspiration for Frederick George Cotman's landscape paintings, with paintings of stretches of coastline, estuaries, and depictions of historic buildings of the region being the focus. Furthermore, the British painter was known for scenes from the everyday life of ordinary citizens at the time. "One of the Family" is his most famous painting and shows a simple family sitting together at the dinner table enjoying the meal. The family's horse curiously pokes its head through one of the windows and is fed by its mother. Paintings such as "The Ladies' School," "Working and Watching," and the aqura painting "In the High Chair," which portrays an infant, are also part of Frederick George Cotman's oeuvre. Throughout his life, the painter was fond of the simple things in life and devoted himself to everyday things as well as to depicting local landscapes. Thus, Frederick George Cotman belonged to the current of realism, which he did justice not only in the choice of his motifs, but also in the manner of artistic representation.

Whether watercolor or oil painting, Frederick George Cotman's paintings always have an incredible depth, which the painter creates with an impressive play of light and shadow. The backgrounds are usually designed dark, while the depicted people literally jump out of the environment and appear particularly vivid and plastic. When depicting his landscape paintings, Frederick George Cotman always makes sure to capture the mood of the season in which the painting was created. This is particularly evident in his painting Morning Fog, Hemingford Gray. Areas of the landscape scene that lie in the fog appear almost transparent and gauzy, while those areas that have been spared from heavy fog appear more bold and vivid. This creates a depth effect that appears photorealistic and gives the picture its atmospheric expression. Furthermore, Frederick George Cotman likes to play with color contrasts, which is particularly evident in his oil painting Runswick Bay. Here, the deep blue of the sea water and the reddish brown of the coast form a strong complementary contrast. The painter also uses complementary colors in his figural depictions such as "One of the Family." Here the background is in brown tones, while the clothing of some of the figures is in blue.