- Welcome back. You know, we've had so
many cards and letters requesting more of these black canvases. Today, I thought I'd do
something a little crazy. I'm in one of those funny little moods. So, I've taken the liberty of going ahead, and covering the canvas
with different colors. And let's go over the colors that we used. I take in here in Alizarin Crimson. In about a half circle, and the whole bottom of the canvas is covered with crimson. The top is Prussian Blue. And then, we blended all of this together. Now, when you're preparing
these black canvases at home, be sure it's
flat black that you use. And allow it to dry completely
before you start this. So, let's go. We'll take a fan brush here, and I'm gonna start with a little bit of Titanium White. And let's just play a little. Let's just have a little fun. And we'll start right up in here, and we're just gonna begin
touching this canvas, and letting this just play around. You can see how it's picking
up the crimson underneath. Just let it go. Just move the brush. Just little indications
all over the place. And we'll make some happy little things in the sky here. There. Just let it play. But now you can see how it's picking the blue color up here. And we'll put a little bit over in this direction. There we go. Don't get it too bright. Okay, now we'll take the large brush, and we'll begin blending
all this together. And just very gently, just begin bringing it together. And this should create
beautiful little clouds. Little sunset type. Just turn the brush. Keep it moving. Circles, always in circles. There we go. All right. And then, we'll just
blend it all together. Mmm, isn't that unreal what
these black canvases do? And that quickly, we've made a beautiful little sunset sky. And when you're at home, let your imagination go crazy, and use these black canvases to do a multitude of things. The only prerequisite is that
the color you apply here, be a transparent color. So, that when you put
the lighter color on, it picks up, and just boom out it comes. All right. Probably for today we'll do let's do a lazy little river. Okay. Clean the ol' brush here. That is fun. All right, let's take the one-inch brush, and we'll use some Alizarin Crimson and Van Dyke Brown. Just mix them on the brush. Load a lot of paint into your bristles. A lot of paint. And we'll begin applying some paint here, and make general little
tree shapes and stuff. And we don't wanna cover
up all this beautiful little sky that we've put in here. Leave it loose and airy. There. And maybe there's a happy little tree that lives right here. I know at home you may be having a hard time seeing what I'm doing here. All we're doing is putting
on some base color. The brown and the crimson mixed together. Maybe we'll have some big
trees over here in the corner. There we go. All right. We're only using almighty brushes. It only takes a few
minutes to cover a canvas. Okay. That gives us something to start with. Now, let's build some happy
little reflections in here. I'm gonna take just a little tiny bit of Cad Yellow on the large brush. Just a small, small amount. It's easy to add more color, but it's a son of a gun to take it away. Touch, pull straight down. Touch, pull down. I see yellow is mixing with the crimson that's underneath, and makes some beautiful little colors. Look at that. Just pull it straight down. And this is our light source, so right under that we want it to be a little bit brighter. There we go. Now, very gently go across. Just enough to give it a watery effect. And since this is wet on wet, you can move things. You can push that paint. Make these reflections bend. Okay. Now, let's begin
highlighting some of these. Now, in reality, if you
had a sky like this, you would have nothing but silhouettes. But when you buy your first tube of paint, you're issued an artist's license, and an artist's license says you can do anything you wanna do. So, that's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna take a fan brush with a little bit of Van Dyke Brown, and Burnt Umber, just
mixed on the fan brush. And we'll put a few little
trunks here and there. And all we're gonna do is touch, and pull. If you wanted to highlight
those all in one stroke, add a little bit of yellow on one side of the brush. Just a tiny bit. And when you push, you'll automatically get the highlights. Let's go back, and
highlight this one a little. There. And maybe, maybe, there's
a trunk right over here. And let's have some big
trunks up through these trees. Just here and there. There we go. Okay. Now, I'm gonna take a tiny little bit of Magic White, just to thin
the paint a small amount. And I'm going to go a little bit into the Cad Yellow. Maybe a little more Magic White. There. Thin paint will stick to a thick paint. And we'll go into some Permanent Red, and back to the yellow. We'll make some bright little colors here. So they really stand
out on your set at home. And let's go up here, and
push in just thousands of little leaves. There. Now, the colors we've used underneath, the Alizarin, it mixes with the yellow, and doesn't destroy it. You don't have to wash
your brush quite so much. Let's go a little bit
into the umber color. There, a little bit of the
umber mixed with yellow. Just to dull it down just a slight bit. And we'll come back in here. There. And begin putting little indications of little things all over the place. Maybe there's a little bit right there. There we go. Now, I'm just going back and forth between yellow and red, ochre, a little bit of umber now and then. Okay. Now, maybe there's one that hides right down in here. Okay. You beginning to see the river yet? (singing) Up the lazy river. See, you've got to get in the mood, and sing a little, and have fun. It's a good thing I took up painting rather than singing. Okay now, let's put a little
bit of dirt along here. A little bit of banks, river banks. This is the Burnt Umber with a little Van Dyke Brown in it. Okay. And I'm gonna use a little bit of yellow and Burnt Umber mixed
together to highlight this. Yellow and Burnt Umber. Don't wanna get too bright, just so it stands out. Just touch barely, barely touching. Just enough to allow the
paint to pull of your knife. There we go. Now, we'll take a little bit of this is yellow. It's got a little umber in it. And we'll just make a
little waterline under here, just enough to separate the
reflection and the land. Just let that play around. There we go. Okay. Now, with the fan brush I'm just gonna bring
all this together here. Let's add a little touch of green to that. Just a tiny bit. And we'll just put a little bit of green working its way down through here. Just to bring the land and
the trees all together here. Okay. Now then. Let's take and we'll put a big bank coming right down through here. Just like so. Once again, this may be very hard for you to see on your set at home, but I'm just putting a
little Van Dyke Brown and umber right in here. Just to give us a nice base to work with. Okay. A little bit of waterline
underneath this one. Now then, let's take the large brush, and pull it through some color. There we go. I'm gonna add a tiny, tiny little bit of Magic White to that, just to thin it a little bit. There. Little more Permanent Red. Load a lot of paint
into the bristles here. And let's put some nice
airy, loose little leaves just up in here. Just very quiet little things. Don't wanna get 'em too many, just a few. Just where the light's
running through here, and playing, and having fun. Ah, look at that. There we go. And it's important that you leave a lot of dark in these paintings. A tremendous amount dark should be left. Now, add a little Sap Green to my yellow and red to make a dark color. I wanna put a little bit of highlight back in here. Just at the bottom of these trees, but I don't want it to be real bright. Just enough to give the indication that there's a lot of little things happening back here. There we go. Like so. Now, let's go back with some crimson and Van Dyke Brown mixed
on the brush again. Just mix them together on the brush. And let's put something over on this side. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe there's a nice tree right here. In your world, you can put
trees wherever you want them. Oh, I'd love to have my canoe, and come down this river. When I'm at home in Alaska, we have a little canoe that we run through all the little rivers and stuff. And take the camera, and take pictures of all the animals. And it's not unusual, still, in Alaska to come around a bend in
a beautiful little river, and see a little moose standing here. Little moose, they're big moose. Especially, when you're in a canoe, and they're not. There, I'm just gonna throw a few little trunk indications here and there. Okay. Now, I'll go back into some yellow, and a little bit of Permanent Red. And we'll put a few little
highlights on this tree. Just where you think a light would strike. Anytime you want to dull it, put a little bit of green with it, a little bit of Sap Green with it. That'll dull it right down. 'Cause red and green
mixed together make brown. Maybe a couple little bushes up in here. And then, we need some
land for that to stand on. So, I'll use a little
bit of the Van Dyke Brown with a little umber in
it, a little Burnt Umber. And we'll just lay some
happy little ground in here. There we go. And then, we can highlight that with the umber and yellow. Just enough so it stands out a little. There we are. This one over here, I'm gonna strength just a little. It's a little bit weak, so I'm gonna strengthen it. There. Put a little bit of highlight on it. Okay. Now, let's take the same basic colors, and let's just pop a
few little reflections down here in the water. Just here and there. And maybe right out here on the end, oh there's a fireball. (whistles) Nice bright one. The light's striking. And we'll pop just a little bit of that down into the water. Now, with a clean dry brush, I'm gonna very gently pull downward, just like so, and then, come across. Just enough to give it
a nice watery effect. Create a little reflection in the water. Okay. Now, let's take the fan brush a little more of the Sap Green. There. And we'll bring all this together with some nice little grassy areas here. Just touch, make the
fan brush bend upward. There we go. And maybe a little bit
into the reflection. As I say, I've done thousands
of these black canvases, and they never stop to amaze me, some of the beautiful effects that you can achieve with them. And we'll turn that into
part of the reflections. Come across. All right. Now, we'll take the knife here, and let's put a little
waterline underneath this one here, just like so. Isn't that something? Okay. Now, with the clean knife I'm just gonna scratch a few little
sticks here and there. Just little indications. Okay, let's put a few little sticks all over the place. These little sticks help create depth, because each group of them show different planes in the painting. Okey dokey. Now, let's bring this land
area right here together just using the fan brush. You can also do this
with your one-inch brush, or the 2 1/2-inch brush. There we go. Okay. Now, maybe maybe we need a little
path in this picture. Let's put a happy little path. We can walk around here, and find that big trout that lives out here in the river. So I'll use Van Dyke Brown, and figure out where you
want your path to go. And I'm just going to do him like this, just back and forth, back and forth. And just let him start working forward. Just so we have a general idea of where we're going here. There we go. Maybe this is a little hill, a little bank right here. So, we'll take the fan brush, a little bit of green, yellow, red, all mixed together. Just mix the colors on your brush, so you've got an absolute I don't know what it is, it's just every color. And let's begin putting some
little grassy areas in here. Oh, look at that. Let 'em climb right up the hill. Follow the lay of the land. I know you're tired of
hearing me say that, but it's most, most important. There we go. And keep it quite dark. Don't let it get too bright on you. Okay. Now, maybe there's maybe there's a couple of happy little bushes and trees that live right along in here somewhere. There is. Right there. Just a happy little bush. And maybe there's another one right here. And these protrude up a little higher, so they'll catch a little more light. They'll be a little bit brighter. There. Okay, and with the fan brush, we can bring this all back together again. Okay, let's use a little bit of the umber, this is Burnt Umber. And just put a little bit of highlight on our path, just let it play and have fun. Back and forth, barely, barely, barely touching the canvas. Just to create the illusion
of a nice little path. And don't worry about these edges, we'll straighten those up in a second when we highlight them. Okay. Now, back to the fan brush, and let's bring all this together. Let's start bringing it together. You know, if you've just
been exposed to this for the first time, and
you've tried it at home, I bet you never believed you could do such fantastic paintings yourself. Everyday, we hear from people that say, "My god, I've never painted in my life, "and I tried this, and it works. "It really works." There we go. Just bringing that together. Okay, and maybe, maybe over in here we'll bring this right on down. Just like a nice little hill. And we've got an old path going back through there. There, just let it disappear. Okay. There it goes. And we begin to create our path. Let's take a little
bit of the Magic White, little bit of yellow, Yellow Ochre mixed in here. Let's put a happy little bush that lives right here. This does several things. It creates more depth, but more important it
closes the end of the path, so we really don't know where it goes. It just goes right on off into the woods here somewhere. Just sort of closes it up. There's a nice little bush. You know, one thing I
would like to mention, while we have just a
couple of minutes here, the only way we know what to paint is if you let us know. So, drop me a line here, and you can address it in care of me, here at WIPB, Muncie, Indiana. And they do forward all the mail to me. And I'd like to know what
you want on the next show. That way, we can start
producing paintings, and I have to practice a little bit. And we'll get them ready for you, so the next time we have a series here, we can do the type of paintings that you want to see, and want to learn how to do. But we need for you to let us know. Okay, and we'll put a
few more little sticks here and there. There we go, just drop them in. And all you're doing is scratching through the paint, and allowing the
black canvas to show through. Just every so often, here. Okay. Maybe, maybe there's a happy little stone lives right here. So, we just take some Van Dyke Brown, and just lay in a basic
little stone shape. Then, we can take some umber, Burnt Umber, and a little bit of the yellow. Makes a very nice highlight color on these dark paintings. There. And don't mix it dead, just mix it so it's
marbley, as Bill calls it. Just marbley. There. Now, touch. Just let the knife wander down, down the side of your little stone here. Create some little highlights. These are just like doing small mountains. And with tender loving care, they'll grow up, and
be almighty mountains. There we are. A little bit of highlight right up here on the top. Just sort of bring that together. Now, we need to take and put the rock into the painting. Right now, it sort of
floats above everything. So, with the fan brush
here I'm just gonna add a little color underneath, just so we sort of bring it together. Just let flow right together like that. There we go. A few little sticks and twigs, and stuff like that in here. And when you're doing this at home, you have unlimited time. You could put all kind of
little details in here, and just do fantastic things. Let's see here. I want to brighten that
waterline right there so it stands out just
a tiny, tiny bit more. There. You can also wait till
these paintings dry, and go back and add very
nice little details into it. You don't have to do
everything while it's wet. You can allow it to dry. A lot of times in still lifes and stuff, you want to put little dewdrops on the leaves,and et cetera. It's really better to
allow the painting to dry, and then you go back
and put your dewdrops. If you wanted to put a nice little deer, or something, in here, what I recommend is you
scrape out the basic shape, remove this wet, loose paint, allow the painting to get just about dry, and then go back and
paint your little deer in, and then you don't pick up
all the underneath color. And it really works better that way. And this would be a super painting to put a little deer in. Okay. I think this painting
is getting close enough to the end, here, that
we can start worrying about a signature. And I'll dip into some thin oil, here. And just work your paint
till it gets like water, just like water. And turn that brush. Really turn it. And bring it to a very, very
nice sharp, sharp point. Turn it, bring it to a point. And decide where you want your signature. You know, so often we get questions like, "How do I sign my painting?" That's as varied as there are as artists are. You sign it in a way that's unique to you. That becomes part of your trademark. Okay, so that one's signed. I think we'll call it finished. On behalf of all of us
here at the station, happy painting, and have a super day. (jazzy music)
Yes, use liquid clear first.
Bob had not designed liquid clear so the earlier seasons (9 and prior, I believe, but don't quote me) where he used black canvases, he just applied the transparent colors directly and then white to create the effects. The CRI classes specifically mention this and say that you should use liquid clear; though you can get results without it, it's just harder.
I'd like to give this painting a try next and Bob mentions applying the transparent colors at the start of the episode but doesn't mention if he used any clear or oil prior to that. Is it just enough to apply the transparent colors and go for it? Or should I apply some oil/clear before, thanks!
The ones I recall him using liquid clear on generally have a dark background (usually black jesso).