- Hi, welcome back. Certainly
glad to see you today. I thought today, we'd
do the little painting that you see at the opening of each show. So let's start out and have
them run all the colors across the screen that you
need to paint along with us. While they're doing that, let me show you what I got up here.
I have my standard old canvas. This is a double prime
pre-stretched canvas and I'm using an 18 by 24, but you use whatever size is convenient. And I've just covered the entire canvas in a little bit of liquid white. That's all. Just liquid
white. And with that, let's have some fun. I'm going
to start with prussian blue. Old two inch brush. Prussian
blue is a very strong blue. I like prussian blue.
Okay let's go up in here. We start up here in the
corner and we just make little X's or little crisscross strokes. Something about like that. And this will not be an exact duplicate of what you see at the
beginning of the show. But it'll give you an
idea of how it was made. There we are. Because we have no patterns, we use no tracings, no drawings. So nothing ever comes
out exactly the same. But, as I say once again,
it'll show you how it was made, and when you create your
own, you can add anything or subtract anything
from it that you want. There we are. We'll just bring
it on down about like that. Wherever you want. Okay,
I will go right into some midnight black. I want
to darken these corners. I'm darkening this because
this little painting has a lot of clouds in it
and I want them to stand out. So the way to make them look brighter, is to make the sky darker.
Makes sense doesn't it? There we are. Okay, and down here we can
just wipe off the brush, because it won't hurt anything. Alright, I guess that's pretty clean. Now then, I have several
of these old brushes going, so I spend all my time washing brushes. Let's go into some titanium white. Just tap the brush or wipe
it, it doesn't matter, just get some paint onto here. And let's go up in here,
and let's just take it, and begin tapping this.
Just tap it. Like so. Let me get a little more
color on the brush. There, and all we're looking for
here is very basic shapes. We're not looking for any detail at all. Just let that blend right on out. Something about like that. There, a little more
of the titanium white. Another little cloud right here, and you put as many clouds
in your world as you want. As many as you want, or as few. Maybe you don't want any
clouds in your world. It's up to you. Up to you,
totally and completely. That's what I like about
painting, it gives you freedom. You can experience any
world that you want. You can put any dream here
that you can conceive. Alright, something about like that. But all we're doing is just putting in some basic little shapes.
We really don't care. We're going to take the blender
brush here in a minute here and just blend these out, because
the canvas is wet up here. You can literally move color. You can make it slide right on the canvas. We have a sky full of clouds here. Maybe, yeah why not right there. Something about like that. Let that blend right on out to nothing. Wherever, wherever. Alright, let's get our little blender brush. These little blender
brushes are very, very soft. As my father used to say, they're as tender as a mother's love. There we are. There, and in my case
that was certainly true. I'm very prejudice but I think I had the greatest mother there was. Beautiful, beautiful lady, and I hope she's watching now. There, see how you fluff that
up with that little blender? It just goes right over. Right over. There. Okay, and once again, in your world, you decide how many clouds
live in it. Or how few. And that's basically all there is to making a lot of clouds very quickly. Okay, we'll wash the
old blender brush off, and I wash it the same way,
little paint thinner in there. It's not as much fun to
beat that one though. Didn't make near the mess. With a little blender, I normally wipe it on a paper towel or
a clean rag afterwards. Because you want it as dry as possible. I'm going to take some black, some prussian blue, little
brown, little lizard crimson, whatever. Maybe a little more of that
crimson. I like crimson. It's one of my favorite colors. Alright, pull it out as
flat as you can get it, cut across, get a little
roll of paint down there. You see it? Right on
the edge of the knife. And we had a mountain in our
world and it lived right here. All we're looking for initially, is the shape of the top here. That's really all we're looking for. We could care less what's
happening elsewhere. We will later, but right now
that's all we're looking for. Right there. Just this nice outside edge up here. That's all, that's all. Very little paint. All we're doing is staining the canvas. There, it does not take a lot of paint. Put a little bump right there. So just make a decision and drop it in. In your world, you have
total and absolute power. Scrape it hard. You
can probably hear that. Get in there and pull that paint off. You cannot get it all
off. Don't worry about it. The only way you can get the canvas back to where you can paint
another color is to wash it with paint thinner, just rinse it off. Which is okay, I do that frequently. If I don't care for a painting, I just wipe it off and
take a little paint thinner and wipe down the canvas, let it dry. Now there'll be a stain on there still, but when you put your
liquid white, black, clear, whatever on it, it's okay.
You paint right over it. Give it a few minutes
to dry though after you take the paint thinner and wipe it down. Alright. Something about like that. You know one of the questions I hear over and over in the letters that we get from fantastic people from
all over the country is: Can I use acrylics to do this? I wish you could. Acrylics, they're a fantastic medium, but they just dry too rapidly. This is a wet on wet technique. So we depend on it staying wet
through the entire painting. If it doesn't, then we've
defeated our purpose. Sorry to jump around like that. Just jump all over the canvas. There. Maybe a hair there. Just blend up a... Put a little titanium white on there. I want to create a misty
effect down here at the base. And, make that a little lighter, and then we can go back, tap a little bit of
that mountain color in, and put the indication of
some little things that are far away back in here, just by tapping. Just tapping. These are
going to be the ones in the background when we're done, if everything works just right. There. I touched a little
touch of cadmium yellow. Very, very small amount, and it will give an instant green. It looks like little green
things that are growing up the side of the that
mountain far, far away. Way, way back here. We don't
even know how far back it is. Don't know that we even care. Many, many, many, miles. Alright, over here now,
we can pull this one down. Just grab it and pull it. Pull it, let it come right into that, there we go. And all I'm doing here is
blending out the paint. I want to remove as
much paint as possible, so the next layer will stick easier. See it's mixing with the liquid white. Then automatically, this
beautiful mist will happen. You don't even have to
think about it. It happens. There we go. See you spend all your thinking time thinking about your painting. There. Alright. Let's take titanium white. Pull it out as flat as you can get it. So you just pull it out. Take the knife, go straight down on it. Cut across, get a little roll of paint. And in our world, now no pressure, no pressure, just let this knife just bounce and play. Right down through there. I think, let's have the light
coming in from the right on this one. If you're right
handed that's normally easier. Just think we're light
with strike and play here. And let it go. Don't just try to copy. In your mind, decide where all these
little highlights live in your mountains because your mountains may be different than mine. They're probably much better. Just, there comes a little
light, just let it play. We have a little ridge right there. See, that's all there is to it. Mountains, to me, are one of the most fun and enjoyable things to paint. I love them. I love mountains. I think I
mentioned many times before, I lived in Alaska for a long time. And Alaska has some of the most gorgeous mountains that God has ever made. I think you could find enough material to paint there to last a lifetime. Alright, and if you don't have the good fortune of living
in an area where there's all these beautiful, beautiful mountains, you can go to the library anywhere and pick up books that show pictures. Art books have pictures in them, So many, many ways you
can find photographs or drawings of mountains that allow you to paint some if you want to. Maybe you want to do this
without a mountain in it. And that's okay too. Okay, a little bit of this blue color, and we'll go right back up in here. And just begin adding in some shadows. Once again, this will
not be an exact duplicate of what was on TV at the
beginning of the show, but it will certainly
show you how it was made. There, see there. All those things that happened there just by changing my angles. I'm going to grab the small knife. It gets into these little
places much better sometimes. There. Very gently, no pressure, no pressure. I can't say that enough times. Alright, I get letters everyday that say: I'm having trouble making the paint break, or leave all these little holes. One of two things are happening, you're using a paint that's
soft, and it won't work, or chances are you're
applying too much pressure. But I used to have students do when I was teaching everyday, I'd have
them practice on their palette, until they can, every time,
pull that paint across there, and make it break. And the palette's made of plexiglass. So if you can make it break on plexiglass, shoot, when you get to canvas that's easy. I'm just tapping the bottom here. I want to blend this out a little bit. There. Following the angles. Always
following those angles. Now sometimes we come from a camera that gives you sort of a funny angle. So if that happens, don't think your painting
should look like it. We're coming from a different angle. Okay. That's a question I hear frequently is, I see you look to the side, what are you looking at over there? I have a television monitor
that's right off camera. So I can see exactly what you're seeing. And we have some of the most fantastic camera people in the business here. And they'll look at what I'm looking at, and between us, we'll turn everything so you can see it the best, and get the best results at home. There we go. Take a little of that, a little indian yellow, yellow ochre, and some of that bluish
color I had on the brush, and that immediately
would make a nice green. And we just sort of vary
back and forth here, some of these colors. Something about like that. And then lift it upward. Make it look like little
trees that live far back here. Little tiny trees, little baby trees, but they're really big, but
they just live far away. Far, far away. There we are. Alright. I think I mentioned this in
some of the previous shows, that the program is now playing in Japan. And recently we sent a
whole bunch of paintings. Original Bob Ross paintings
over and they did a big exhibit and hundreds
and hundreds of people came to see the paintings. It's fantastic. Fantastic. There, little bit right in there. Alright. Time to have some fun. Let's take, we'll take some prussian blue, some black, some crimson, and we'll put some sap green in there too. There we go. I mix up quite a bit of color, like that. I'm going to clean the old knife. Let's make the little trees
that were in the background. For that, I got your fan
brush, so I can just clean. Let's go right into this very dark color. This color should look
black on your palette. But because of the prussian blue, it will be predominantly blue. Let's go up in here. And we'll have some little
trees laid right in here. All we're doing is just
touching and tapping downward. That's all. That's all. Very, very simple. Don't
make it complicated. When they start breaking apart like that, it means its time to reload the brush. There. Alright. Maybe they come
right in there. Wherever. And really the only thing
you're concerned about is these nice tops. What's happening in here, you
could care less at this point. Maybe later it will become important. But at this point, we don't even care. Maybe we'll have these a
little higher and drop down. Now sometimes people say
mine look like fence posts. See, like that. They look like fence posts. The only thing that's wrong
is you don't have enough. Just go back and fill them up. Because as you know,
we don't make mistakes. In our world, we only
have happy accidents. And very quickly, very quickly, you learn to work with anything
that happens on this canvas. Anything. And it takes the fear out of painting. You don't worry about it. Because for so long
we've been taught that, you had to be blessed by
Michelangelo at birth, or you couldn't paint. Now you may not be able
to paint like he did, but you can sure paint this way. There we go. Because this works. And we got trees all the way across. Sometimes it's fun to take a little white, and you'll make it look like
little tree trunks right here. Just take a little white, and very gently, grab that and lift upward, just a little. Don't overdo, don't overdo. Don't overdo it. Looks
like little tree trunks far back in the distance. You can take the knife
and also cut through it. And it'll give an effect as very nice. Okay, time to have more fun. Let's go to that dark color. This is predominantly black. And let's have, maybe... We'll have some big rocks right there. Predominantly black though. There are some big rocks. All we're doing is filling in paint. And we could really do
this with a paint roller. It doesn't matter how you put this on. Just want to cover the canvas. In fact, if I had thought a little bit, we could've done the
bottom with black Gesso, And this would've already been done. Or you could've used liquid black. The difference between
liquid black and black Gesso, liquid black is an oil-based medium. It's designed to stay wet for
several days on a good canvas. Black Gesso is an acrylic-based. It's designed to dry very rapidly. It's for when you want
to work on a dry surface. Liquid black is when you want
to work on a wet surface. So it just depends on your mood. There, both mediums have their own characteristics and they're both neat. There we are. Something about like that. All we're doing is just covering it up. Now then, going to make a little black, a little white, mix them a gray color. Well there's a little
touch of blue in there too. Okay, black, white,
little touch of blue then. Whatever happens, pull it out like so, but its marbled, we haven't overmixed it. Little roll of paint on the knife. And let's go right up in
here and begin just putting indications of all these
little rocks and stones. Just let the knife touch and
sort of bounce along there, don't overdo. Don't overdo. Just let it bounce.
Let it bounce and play. Change the angle so some
of them look different. This is far away, we
don't know what it is. About like that. And I want it to get
darker and darker down here towards the base. So it gives the impression
that more light's hitting the top than
down here at the bottom. That's all there is to it. Okay, let's build us a
tree, or two, or three. For that I think I'll
use a little oval brush. It's easy to distinguish,
it has a black handle. Rest of them all have white handles. Alright. We had a big tree in our world
and it lived right there. Touch, make a little line, and we start just like
we do with a fan brush and using just the
corner, just the corner, And on this brush, once we get down, we go straight in, and it makes those gorgeous, gorgeous hanging downs that you see on evergreen trees. In some parts of the country, the limbs hang down really
low, they really hang down. In other parts of the country, They stick straighter out, so it just depends on... I
think on where the tree lives. Maybe it has to do with
water, I don't know. Sunlight. Don't know. There we go, got a little tree there. Go right into some yellow. Just take the same old brush, go into yellow ochre, cad
yellow, to make a green, and very lightly, we said our highlight was coming from the right side. And we'll add a little liquid white. Make it a little thinner. Our highlights are coming from the right, light's coming from the right, so that's where we want to
put the most emphasis on. There and then it'll get darker and darker down toward the bottom,
until it just disappears. There we go, something about like that. Darker and darker toward the base. That's important, it's most important. Alright, we had a little house in there. Little house lived right here. So all you do is touch and begin
scraping out a basic shape. Our little house looked
something like that. Scrape off all that excess color. Just get in there and scrape it off. We'll use a little bit
of the van dyke brown, dark sienna mixed together Let's just fill it in. Just fill it in. Little like a lean to on
the side of this house. There. Van dyke brown, dark
sienna mixed together. All there is to it. See, just all we're doing is
blocking it in at this point. Now we'll take the brown and
put some bright red in it. Little white, little white. And with that, we come back up here. and we'll just put in a little roof. There, wouldn't this be a gorgeous, gorgeous place to live? Look out over all these
beautiful moons and trees. Mm, I'd like to have this cabin. Take a little lighter
color and just highlight it a little so this edge stands out. Just a little like that. And we go back to our brown and whites, and let's put in a touch, touch of little highlights right there. Something about like that. Over here on the side, I'm going to add a little bit of that prussian blue. I want it to look more
like it's in shadow. There, maybe even a
little darker than that. Oh yeah, that's much better. I want that to be dark. Little van dyke brown, and just touch and make it look like old boards. Slabs, whatever you want to call them. And we need a door in our cabin. This little guy had to
have a way to get in there. Shoot. Cut across, add a little
bit of light color just to outline the door a little. Wipe off the old knife here. You know what, let me go back
to an old two inch brush. Dip it into a little bit of liquid white. Go into a bit of my yellows. We had a little grass around
the bottom of this cabin, so we use all the colors here, the yellows, a little touch
of red once in a while. Here it comes. But this
paint has to be quite thin, because we have to much
paint already on the canvas. Each layer of paint needs
to get thinner and thinner. There we go. Just tapping. We need a path. Got to have a path. No
way to get up in here. Take a little bit of that brown color, eh, I want it brighter
now. I can't make that out. Little dark sienna in there
and a little bright red. There, he may come home a little impaired, and he needs a path he can
see when he comes in here. Can never tell, that happens sometimes. Little sap green. Here we go, now you begin deciding where
everything lives in here. About like that. Want to make this look
like a little hill here. Shoot, maybe it comes
all the way up in here. Something about like that. Wherever, in your world, you decide. You decide. Little black, little white. Maybe there's a little
indication here of a little stone and a rock that lives there, and that's basically how we
did that little painting. Scratch in a stick and a twig. Shoot you finished. Hope you enjoyed this one, as I said it'll show you how
the little opening was made. So from all of us here, I'd
like to wish you happy painting, and God bless my friend. (light upbeat music)
