- Hello, and welcome back. Glad you could join me today. I hope you've got your palette set up and your Almighty Easel and you're ready to paint a beautiful painting with me. Today I thought we'd do a little painting that's just a lot of fun and I
really think you'll enjoy it. I'm going to have them graphically run all the colors across the screen that we'll need to do the project today. These colors will come across your screen in the same order that I
have them on my palette, starting with the white
and working across. So let's get started. And we'll start out
today with a little bit of Alizarin Crimson on the large brush, take a small amount of paint out, and tap it into the bristles. This assures a nice, even distribution of paint, all through the brush. Now, use very little paint. I'm going to put this in the sky, and I don't want to set the sky on fire. All I want to do is put a
little pinkish glow into it. Okay, let's go up to the canvas here. Now let's start right in here, and we make little x's,
little criss-cross. Now the canvas has already
been covered with Magic White. It's good and wet and
slick and ready to go. It's very easy to add more color, but it's a son of a gun
to try to take it off, so if you want more color,
just pick it up and put it on, but start with very, very little color. I'll add a little tiny
bit more right in here. There we go. Now while I've got that on the brush, maybe they'll come right
down in here with a little... Without cleaning the
brush, I'm going to go right into a small
amount of Prussian Blue. Now, the Prussian Blue
is very, very strong. Be careful with it. Little criss-cross. It will consume your crimson in a heartbeat, so be careful with it. Very little Prussian Blue. So, so strong. And once again, you can always add a little more, if you want it, but it's hard to take it off. If you ever do need to take it off, you can take a clean, dry brush and go over it, and it'll pick up paint, or if worse comes to
worse, if it's really bad you can take a paper towel or a clean rag, and just wipe the canvas
down and start over. Because at this point, you really haven't invested a lot of time or
energy into your painting. Okay. Yeah, and maybe I'll put just
a tiny bit of blue right here. Not that much, just a little. It'll have, maybe there'd be
a little water right there. We'll make that decision later. And I'm going to clean the brush, and we clean the brush with
odorless paint thinner. And there's a screen in
the bottom of my can. Hey! And we scrub the brush against the screen, and that takes the paint off, and allows the solid material to settle to the bottom of the can, and it doesn't contaminate all your paint thinner. Okay, there we go. Gives us a nice little sky,
very quickly, very simply. A lot of fun. Let's go, let's go, get
us a big old fan brush. And we'll go into the Titanium White, and load a lot of paint onto your brush. A lot of paint, pull it through there. And I'm going to pick up a
small amount of Permanent Red. Just a little bit, little
bit, it's very, very strong. Okay, look at all the
paint that's on that brush. There, let's go up to the canvas now. Let's build a happy little cloud, and maybe he lives right here. Now I'm just using the
corner of the brush, making tiny little circles. Tiny little circles. Get a little more paint on my brush. You're looking for areas
that have a lot of paint, areas that have virtually
no paint, thick, thin. Some areas, you don't
want to put anything on, so it'll turn out to be your shadows. Now, with a large brush I'm going to gently, gently blend this out. Just blend it. Little tiny circles. Tiny little circles, there we go. And fluff it, just grab
it and fluff it up. And then, very gently,
blend it all together. See, isn't that easy? It's a super way to make
fantastic little clouds very easy. Clouds used to give me a fit, until I found out how
easy they were to make. There we go. And this comes right on,
wherever you want it. Wherever. Still just Titanium White. Okay, now we'll just
take our big brush again and do the same thing. Letting the bottom out. We're not touching the top
edge of the cloud yet at all. And don't overwork it, probably
the biggest mistake made is overworking it, and you work it until it's dead, and then you just, you have a big old cotton ball
laying up there in the sky. Now, very gently, very gently. All you're doing is grazing it, barely, barely go across. Okay, and that's how
we make a little cloud, and there's many, many ways
of making clouds, this is probably one of the
simplest and most effective. Okay. Gotta make some decisions, now what are we going to have in here? Maybe we'll put a little
mountain over here. Now take, let's take some Prussian Blue, some Van Dyke Brown, and a
little bit of Alizarin Crimson, and mix them all together, pick your paint up, and turn it over. That assures that you'll mix it all, otherwise you won't mix
what's against the palette, so pick it up, turn it over like so. Okay, now we'll take a little
bit of paint on the knife. Let's go right up here, maybe there's a little mountain that lives right here. We're really, really pushing
this paint into the fabric. Just like you're trying to push
it right through the canvas. Now one of the questions that
I hear quite frequently is "Do I always use a stretch canvas?" I always do use a stretch canvas, if you use a canvas board, it will absorb your Magic White and very rapidly you're
working on a dry canvas. It creates unbelievable problems. I always use a canvas
that is double-primed, has two coats of primer on it, and that way the Magic White will stay wet for extended periods of time, and that's what you're looking for, because maybe you won't
finish the painting today and you want to come back
tomorrow and work on it. Some people don't paint
quite as fast as I do, and they want to come back and work on it, so your Magic White will
stay wet for several days. Okay, we'll pull out, this is just Titanium
White, and let's put, let's put a little bit of
snow up here on this mountain. Barely, barely touching. Barely touching. Just a whisper. Just let that knife, literally, literally float across the canvas. Maybe there's a little peak right there. That may be in the background. And you can make these as wide or as small as you want
them, just keep building up. It's your mountain, so you do
whatever you want to with it. It's your mountain. Okay, now I'm going to take a little Prussian Blue and white. Just blue and white, and we'll make a shadow color. Okay, pull your paint out flat, and then cut across, so you
have a small roll of paint, right on the edge of the knife. Okay, let's go up to the canvas. Touch, and just barely touch
it and follow the angle. Now, notice the angles are
opposite of the highlight. Highlight goes in one
direction, shadow in the other. Very, very simple way
to make little mountains that are very effective and beautiful. Okay, and you need these shadows. That's, the shadows, that's
what separates these. If you don't have the
shadows in the right places, then your mountains won't look right, and every highlight needs
its own private shadow. If it didn't have a
shadow, it just lays there. You need that shadow to push it up and to make it an individual. Okay, and let's make some mist on the bottom of this mountain. And for that we'll use just a clean, dry two and a half inch brush, and just tap, follow the
angles in your mountain. Always follow those angles. Mountains are nothing
but geometric shapes. They're just, they're games of angles. Study the angles. There, now we lift upward,
this removes the tap marks and creates beautiful,
soft mist, that easy. Told you you could do it. There we go. Okay, well this was fun,
let's have some fun. Now we've got us a nice little
mountain in the background and some beautiful clouds,
so let's have some fun. I'm going to go right into,
there's some Sap Green, and this is the mountain color, so this is Van Dyke Brown, Prussian Blue, Sap Green, and we'll throw
some crimson in there, too. A lot of paint on the brush, pull that brush through the paint. Bend it, load a lot of paint. Look at how it looks. Okay, now we're going to
put that rounded corner to the top when we touch the canvas. There, you can see it very well. Okay, let's go up here. Maybe, you've gotta make some decisions. Maybe, maybe, maybe, right there. Right there lives a tree. There he is. And this is just background, so you're not really concerned about anything, except just basic shapes. There we go. Just wherever you think
there ought to be a tree, that's exactly where
there ought to be a tree. Okay, now, maybe, maybe,
maybe, maybe, right there. And start thinking about the
general lay of the land here. Maybe this is going to be coming downhill, so start planning that. And wherever you want a tree, drop him in. And we can begin working on all kinds of little basic shapes here. But you're still paying attention to the general lay of the land. Maybe, maybe right there
there's a nice, bigger bush, and push that mountain
back a little further. Now when you're putting this in, you don't want to kill the misty area between the mountain and your background. If you kill this misty area, it's going to pull that mountain right up against this, and you want to keep some distance there and make the mountain look
like it's far, far away. So leave this misty area, it's very, very important to you, leave that. Okay, I'm just going here and dropping a little bit more of this background. This is a super way just to practice, just to have, really
have nothing in your mind except a time of day and a time of year, and hit the canvas, just
let something happen. Bring it out of here,
you don't have to trace and draw all these pictures on there. It's in here, all you
have to do is let it out, and put it on that canvas. Now maybe we're going to have
a little pond right here. Watch how easy it is to make a reflection. Let's go right in here, all we do is grab that, and pull down. We want the pond to reflect the color that's around it, so all you do is pick up some of this background
color and pull down. That easy. Reflections are one of the most fantastic things to do in this technique. Because a canvas is wet with the Magic White, oh son of a gun! It can make unbelievable reflections. Now these lines should be straight across. Go straight across with them, don't let the water here run on the floor. Okay, now then, let's put a few little
trunks here and there. We'll use a knife today. I want to take some Burnt Umber, a little bit of white in
it, pull it out very flat, cut across so we've got
that small roll of paint, right out on the edge of the knife there. There you can see it,
just a tiny bit, okay? Now, all you've gotta
do is touch the canvas, and the canvas will
pull off what it wants. If your trunk needs to be wider, pull it to the side a little bit. But most of the time, all
you have to do is just touch. And if you don't overmix your
paint, then it'll be marbled, and all kinds of beautiful little things will happen automatically, you
don't have to worry about it. You can set and mix up a
dozen different colors, or you can mix your paint
marbley and let it happen. Just let it happen. We learn to use everything that happens. That's what's so much fun about this, we talk about "we don't make mistakes," we, (chuckles) we have happy accidents. And that's true, there's nothing that you can't fix very easily. Now let's put some highlights on this, and I'll get a one inch brush, and let's go into a
little bit of Cad Yellow, and some Sap Green, some Sap Green there. Okay, pull that brush through that paint. Pull it through, a lot of paint, okay? I want to hold it up here
and let you look at it. See? A lot of paint. There we go, let's go up here, and maybe there's a nice, beautiful green bush that lives right here. Touch, just give it a little push. Gentle push, I know
sometimes it looks like I'm taking a run and start across the room and socking that canvas hard. It's a gentle touch, it's just that sometimes I do it very
rapidly and it looks, it looks like I'm pushing very hard, but it's a very light touch, okay? Now we'll go into a little Indian Yellow, and maybe there's a happy
little bush, lives right there. And we'll reflect a little bit
of that down into the water. Add a little paint thinner onto
my brush to thin the paint, and let's take a little Burnt Umber and put it right in with the yellow. Make a nice, brownish
color here, beautiful. So we get Cad Yellow, and Burnt Umber. Okay, let's go back up here. Maybe, maybe, there he is. Just had to look around and find him. There's another little tree back here, and let him darker, and darker,
darker as you work down. Let's throw in a little Permanent Red, should really brighten
this son of a gun up and make it stand up here and talk. Okay, don't kill all your dark
areas, they're important too, and layer these so it helps create the illusion of depth in your painting. Here I'm using the brush sideways. Just push up, bend,
that's all there is to it. Okay, I'm going to get a
little more paint thinner. Little more of the Sap Green, and we'll very quickly just drop in some beautiful little
leaves up here in these. If you have trouble
making your paint stick, add a little Magic White
or paint thinner to it. Remember our Golden Rule, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint. So this first layer of paint
that we put on the canvas is very, very thick, very thick. Good test for your
paint, take the top off, and squeeze it, the paint
should stand up, oh, about three quarters of an inch above the tube without falling over. That's the way you can tell if it's strong enough to do this method. If oil runs out of it or
if it's soft and creamy, it probably will not work for this method. This really depends on a firm paint, so you can stick these
thinner paints on top of it. There. Okay, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. There's another one. Just wherever you want
these, you drop them in. Let them happen. Okay, let's start putting
some landmasses in here and some reflections and all
the beautiful little things. Let's do the reflections here. Now, reflections happen so nice. Watch what happens with this big brush. Gently, gently, gently, pull down. Just barely, barely,
barely touching the canvas. Oh, such a soft touch. Now lightly go across. This is how you make the
beautiful mirror reflections. See there? It's that easy. Okay? Tell you what, today let's do
something a little different. Let's use a fan brush,
and I'm just going to go right into some Van Dyke Brown, some Burnt Umber, just
mix them up on the brush, and let's just go up here, and let's just scrub in some
basic land areas here. Just use the old brush, scrub it. All we're doing is putting
a nice, dark base color. And you've gotta figure out
where your water is going to be. Now go right into some
white, a little bit of, a little touch of blue, and there was brown on the brush already. So we get, and look, see? You can see how all the different colors are loaded on that brush. There's brown in deep, then there's lighter colors on the end, okay? Let's go right up here. Now all we've gotta do is just touch, and just, you don't want
to kill all your dark, now. You worked very hard to
put that dark on there. Don't kill it all. Just want to put some little
highlights here and there, and just let that little
brush play and bounce and... Fan brushes are fantastic,
fantastic brush, but you've gotta make friends with it. It's got to be a good buddy. And just wherever you want
these, it's your world. Your world. Okay, I'm going to take another fan brush. Now, I have several fan brushes going here so I don't have to wash them continually. Little Magic White on the brush, I'm going to go right
into some Cad Yellow, and we'll grab a little
green and bring down here, a little red, just mix all these different colors on the brush. Look at all the paint
on there, son of a gun! but they're all mixed on the brush. Now you can take, and touch,
push, and bend it upward, and build in all kinds
of little grassy areas. Wherever you want them. Follow the lay of the
land, most important. You don't want to kill all
these nice little things that you made with your fan brush here. Don't want to kill them all. Okay, let's go back. I'll tell you what, I'm going to get this old big brush, great big brush. Van Dyke Brown, some Sap Green, a little bit of Prussian
Blue, there's some crimson. (chuckles) Whatever, whatever, just pull it through
that paint, load it full. Okay, let's go right up here. Now you've gotta make some more decisions, what lives right about here? There it is, big tree lives right there. You knew that, didn't you? Right over that mountain you worked so hard on in that corner. There, maybe, maybe, maybe, it comes right down through there. Whatever, wherever you want it. Now, we just try to give you ideas here. These paintings should be used as guides, and at home, let your
imagination go crazy. You really don't have to copy, all you have to do is see how it's done. We really just try to teach
you how the method works. What you paint, oh my gosh, that's... That's as individual and
as different as people are. All right. Gives us a nice background, we can go in here and drop in some color now. And back to my one inch brush. A little Indian Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cad Yellow, Permanent Red, they're just all mixed, right here on the brush. There we go. All right. Touch, barely touching the canvas here. Barely, barely touching the canvas. Let all these things happen. Tell you what, we'll add a
little more green to that. There we go, put in some beautiful little green bushes right here. Wherever you want them. Whatever you want. And just varying color now, we're just going from the Permanent
Red to the Indian Yellow, Yellow Ochre, and back and forth. Whatever makes you happy. There we go, that's a
little bit right there. Once again, if your paint doesn't stick, add a little paint thinner. Oh, there's a nice bright red one, shining out there in the sun. And feel free at home to change color, use any color that you want. I'm going back and get my fan brush, and we'll pick up
some more of this dark color. And let's go in here, let's just lay in some little things
happening here and there. Just here and there,
wherever you want them. Just like so. And then we add a little
bit of the highlight color, we can go back in here and just, gently, gently, gently, drop
some of these things in. Maybe there's a little stone
that lives right there. Just a few little highlights. Maybe there's another little stone. See that little fan brush
just makes all kinds of fantastic little things so simple. Just let it happen. And we can drop some little grassy areas coming down in here. Follow the lay of the land. There we go, wherever you want them to go. Let's go over here, there goes one, sneaking up behind that stone. Okay, good, good. Tell you what, let's go right
into some Van Dyke Brown, and let's build a happy little tree. He lives right there. Right there. And what kind of tree? Let's make a birch tree today. They're a lot of fun and
very striking, very striking. And they usually grow in clumps, so we'll put, give him a little friend right there. And you can make as many
birch trees as you want, just want to show you how. Okay, now we need a little bit of white to highlight and touch,
give it a little pull, that's all there is to it. Just give it a little pull. Like that. Okay, now let's just put a few
little limbs here and there. Just some indications,
or you can also do this with a liner brush,
would work just as well. Just here and there. Maybe this one runs right across, wherever you want it to go. And we'll take, I'm going
to take the one inch brush, some Sap Green, some yellow. Okay, I'm going to put a little paint thinner so it's very thin. Let's go up here and just, very gently, I'm barely touching here, laying a few little leaf indications, just barely, barely touching. And I hope you've enjoyed this painting. It's a lot of fun, it'll teach you how to use a lot of the equipment. There, okay, I think we'll
call that one finished, and until next time, from all
of us here, happy painting! ("The Joy of Painting" theme song)
