(elevator music) - Hi, welcome back. Certainly glad you could join me today. You got your old brush warmed up and ready to do a fantastic little painting? Good. Tell you what, let's start out today and have 'em run all the
colors across the screen that you need to paint along with me. And as usual, they'll come
across in the same order as I have them laid out on the palette, starting with the white and
working all the way around. So let's go on up here, let
me tell you what I've done. I've got my normal old canvas up here. And I've covered it with a thin, even coat of the liquid white so
it's all wet and slick and it's ready to go. So let's just do a nice
little painting today. It's such a beautiful day. Maybe we'll do something with some warmth. And let's take a little
alizarin crimson here, and we'll just use this
old two inch brush, and just tap a little bit
into the bristles like so, and tap the bristles firmly here. That assures a nice, even
distribution of color all the way through it. Let's go on up here. Maybe right up in here, we'll just take, we'll just put a little bit
of pink in the sky today. When you're doing this, be careful that it doesn't
get too bright on you. This crimson is quite
strong and very quickly it can take over your whole world. And we don't want to set the sky on fire. All we want to do is
just create the illusion of a nice little glow up in here. That's all we're looking for,
is a beautiful little glow. Maybe today, let's do
some nice mountains today. That's always fun. I enjoy mountains very much. I lived in Alaska for about a dozen years and it's one of the most
beautiful places I've ever seen. Certainly, God was having a good day when he made Alaska. It is unreal. Now then, let's take, why don't we use a little
phthalo blue, what the heck. Won't even clean the brush,
we'll just add a little bit of phthalo blue right on there. The blue is much stronger than the crimson so you can add it right on
without cleaning the brush, no big deal. Then we can go up here and using our little crisscross strokes, let's just lay in a happy
little sky all the way across, just like so. There. And just let it come right
down to this pink area. Once again, the blue is so much stronger, it'll just eat up any of
this paint that you cover. You don't have to worry about it. Now then, maybe we'll have a
little water in this one, too. What the heck, what the heck. While we have this old brush going, let's add a little bit more
of the blue, just a little. Let's go down here at the bottom, and maybe our water lives right down here. Just pull from the outside in, like so. There. A little more paint, and just pull. Now we'll have still water today. And still water is always
flat, it's always level. So try to keep these strokes
as straight as possible. You don't want your still water to be going uphill or downhill. You want to keep it as
straight as possible. There. Let's wash the old brush. That's a fun part of all this. Okay. We wash our brushes, as you know, in odorless paint thinner. We shake off the excess, And just beat the devil out of it. Okay now, with this nice clean brush, all we're gonna do here is just
blend these colors together, still using the little
X-strokes or crisscross strokes, or crosscriss strokes,
whatever you want to call 'em. There we go. And we'll go gently across the water also, just to bring it all together. There. Okay, Shoot, we have a happy little sky. Let's devote most of our time today into doing a fantastic mountain. I get so many letters from people, and mountains are just about the favorite thing going right now. So let's try that, let's try that. We'll take a little phthalo
blue, a little alizarin crimson and mix it together. And this is very dark, it'll
look black on the palette, so take a little bit of
white and then check it out and see if it's what you want. Maybe we'll add a little
bit more crimson to that. I want a lavender color, but
I want it to the blue side. Pull it out flat, cut off
our little roll of paint, it lives right out at
the edge of the knife. Let's go up in here. Now you have to make your
first major decision. Where does your mountain live? Let's come right up in here. Maybe our mountain starts right here. And all you do is take
that knife and firmly, you can probably hear how firm is it, firmly push in a basic shape. And the only thing we're
interested in at this point, is just the top up here. We could care less what's
happening with the bottom. Don't worry about it at all. Don't worry about it at all. I said big mountain, I
wasn't kidding, was I? This is gonna be a big mountain. Maybe it'll come all the way over here. Now we're scraping off
all the excess paint. There. And scrape it hard. This old canvas is tough. You're not gonna hurt it. Don't worry about hurting it. Just really get in and scrape it. Now we'll take a clean, dry, make sure it's dry, two inch brush, and I want to pull that out. That'll do two things. First of all, it'll make
the mountain lighter at the base than it is at the top, which is exactly what we're looking for. Secondly, it removes excess paint. It makes the next layers
much, much easier to apply. Much easier. If you have a lot of loose paint on there then it's difficult to make the next layer stick on top of that. There we go. We'll just let it just blend right off into nothing over here. There we go. And one thing that's very nice
when you do your painting, this little bit of pink that's
left down here at the bottom. If everything works just right, that'll look like mist,
so try to save that. It can be your very good friend. There we go. Maybe, sort of looks
like a natural place to, maybe the light's coming
from the left side today. So let's just take a
little titanium white, let's make a mountain
that's very easy to make. We'll take a little white with
a little touch of blue in it, but very little, just enough
to cool it down a little. Maybe even a little bit
of black into it also. There, it makes a nice bluish-gray color. Oh, that's nice. And don't overmix it,
leave it sort of marble. And I've got the small knife. I thought I'd use it today. But once again, our little roll of paint, and let's go up in here and
begin making some decisions. Think about where the
light's coming through here and just zinging, and playing,
and having a good time. And maybe it comes right along in here. There. Just begin applying all
your little basic shapes. Just think if you were a sun beam and you were zinging down the
valley, down through here, where would you hit? There. See this is a very simple way
of making some nice mountains. There we go. This little knife, I like it
because it sort of gets into all the little places here. You can make all these little duars, just all kinds of little things. Wherever you want 'em. Once again, just think about
where light would strike and lay it in. But there's not a lot of paint
here, not a lot of paint. There we go. See, if you don't like one, you just rub it and it goes away. There. And down at the bottom here, I want it to just disappear. So here I'm applying
quite a bit of pressure. Up on the top, no pressure. But as you work down,
I want it to disappear, so there I'm adding
more and more pressure. So just sort of experiment a little and see what works well for you. Think about where these little, all these little shapes
and highlights would live. There. And you can put as many or as few as you want on your mountain. There we are. In Alaska, there's a lot of
mountains that look like this. And they're so beautiful. As I mentioned earlier, I'm
sure God was having a good day when he made Alaska. There, maybe there's a little bump there. You can do that just by taking the basic shape of the knife, putting it in, let it just
sort of disappear back here, and then once again,
more pressure down here. You begin to see how that little pink area is showing through. And that's what's gonna
create that illusion of mist down at the base. You could do this with a
large knife if you wanted to. It works just as well. But I just sort of like this
little one for things like this where you want a lot of detail. And you want to create shapes. You can paint entire
paintings with these knives. There. Okay, see, you just
sort of think about it. Think about it, let it go. There. More and more pressure down here. See, it's really very simple. It's a matter of angles
when you're working on these mountains. That's really all it is,
it's just a matter of angles. Maybe there's, look at that. See, maybe there's a
little thing right there. Wherever you think they should live, that's exactly, exactly
where they should live. Alright, maybe over in here. A few more little duars in there. Just wherever, wherever. And you can put all
kinds of little details. It's up to you, up to you. Painting is as individual as painters are. There's as many different ways to paint the same scene
as there are painters, as many different ideas. It's really an individual thing. See, gonna add a little dark here, and there's not a great deal. Just enough to, just enough to
give us a little indications of some shadows in those deep areas. Don't want a lot in there though. Maybe right in here. Just rub it a little, and
then just blend it together. Just using the edge of the knife. There. And if you've never
painted mountains before, this is one of the easiest ways that I've ever came up with to make very effective
mountains, very easy. Let a little bit of that light color just pull back here and there. And here I'm using the
small edge of the knife. Use both edges, that's why
it has two edges on it. And that way you can create
all kinds of effects. Alright. And that's basically all I'm looking for. I want that mountain to
be far away and distant. Let's have another one right here. Shoot, that works out nice. Let me show you something here. You could take the brush, if you want to create
more mist in this area, you could take a brush and tap it, and then gently lift it, but always follow those
angles that you've created. There. Now then, same color. Come right over on this side over here. Let's have us a nice mountain and it lives right there. Okay, let it come right on down, wherever. Wherever, maybe coming down here. Maybe there's a big drop
off right there, like so. Just sort of let your imagination go. Mountains grow in every kind of shape. Just whatever happens
that day, let it happen. There. Maybe it comes right on
down in there somewhere. Now if you want this
mountain to look closer, it needs to be darker. So I'm gonna put a little
more paint on this one than I did that one back there. So I want it to be darker, stronger... There we go. Maybe it'll go like that. And there, all we're trying to do is just put color on the canvas. You could put this on with
your show, it doesn't matter. Just apply the color. Now we'll take this brush
and begin blending it out. Grab it and blend it, there. Think about the angle though,
that you want it to flow, how you want it to flow. And just by using brush strokes, you can create all kinds of
little things happening in here. There we go. But by using this angle, it
gives you that impression that the mountain, the lay
of this land on this mountain flows in that direction. That's exactly what
we're looking for today. I want those mountains
to look like they just flow right down the side there. Okay, good. Very gently, very gently,
just bring it all together. Okay, shoot, let's wash the brush. And we wash our brush
with odorless thinner, shake it off, and just
beat the devil out of it. Tell you what let's do. Maybe take a little of that
titanium white that I had here. Maybe right in here, let's
just lay a little white, and that has the least,
least, little of touch of the phthalo blue in it. Maybe there's a little snow, or glacier, something that lives in there. There. But I don't want it to
be pure white all over. I want it to be like shadows,
not to be too bright. Put this in first then we
can add a few highlights here and there if we wanted. There we go. Now then we can take a
little bit of the pure white and just highlight this,
let it just bounce. Very gentle, barely caressing the canvas. Allow the paint to break, it'll create all those
little things in there. There. And just let it follow
those angles like so. Okay, we can take our large brush then and very gently, very gently
just blend it together. But this is two hairs and some air. I think I'm gonna put a
bunch of trees in there. So most of that's not gonna show, so don't spend a lot of
time worrying about it. Let's build us a tree. We'll take some black, some prussian blue, very dark, little Vandyke brown, little bit of this sap green, shoot, you could throw in a little crimson, too, if you want. Mainly a good dark color, good dark color. Okay, let me wipe off the old knife here. Alright, let's make some evergreens with, we'll use a fan brush today. We'll go right in here, load
a lot of color into the brush, both sides, back and forth, just really fill it up. Let's go right over here. Now you have to make
some big decisions again. There, our tree lives right there. Take the corner of the brush and just go back and forth, just like so. There it is. Them son a guns live right
there in the bristles. All you gotta do is sort
of shake 'em out, like so. There. And maybe he comes right
down there, I don't know. Wherever, let's give him a friend. You know me, I think
everybody needs a friend. It could be the most
important thing in your lives. There. My mother was with me in
Alaska for about a year and she fell in love with the place. Maybe one of these days, her and I'll get to go back up there. She's a super lady. She was born and raised in the South and when she got to see Alaska, she had never seen scenery like that. So she was as fascinated with it as I am. Now if you have trouble
making this paint stick over the top of all this
white that you have back here, add a little paint thinner to your color, put it right on the
brush, but very little, very, very little. You can always add more, but
once you thin your paint down, then it's a son of a gun
to try to get it back. So just add a tiny, tiny little bit. And maybe there's a little baby
tree, he lives right there. Right there, maybe that's his mama. Alright, okay, let's see here. Maybe, I'll tell you what, maybe there's another
little tree right there. Let your imagination just take
you wherever you want to go. Shoot, you could put as many or as few trees as you want in your world. There. Shoot, let's have a big tree right there. We'll have us a whole
forest, it looks like here. Now, in painting, one
of the biggest things that I like about doing the paintings is to show depth and distance. Each one of these little things here creates another plain in
your painting so it looks-- Let me show you something,
let me show you. Maybe, if we wanted to
create the illusion, I'll just use that same color. I just want to show you how to
create depth in your painting because that's very important. Let's just take a little of that color with a little of titanium white on it. And maybe in our world we want
to show another plain here. If you wanted to, look here, you could just come right in here and create another layer right there. Just be doing that... We'll put it behind the tree. See there? And when this painting is done, hopefully, that'll come out to look like a whole nother layer. Now then, let's create a little
mist at the bottom of it. With a clean brush, I'm gonna lift it up in very short little strokes, make it look like little
distant trees and stuff that's way back here in
the distance, very quiet. Now watch here. Watch here, let's go
back to our fan brush. After you put trees in front of that, it'll push everything
back, it'll push it back. Let's have another one right there. See there? Leave some space so you
can see through here. And see that there's trees behind. Look at that. See, now you can see distance in there. Maybe just, let's put one
little crooked one there. There he is, poor little guy. Alright. Now, let's put something underneath here for all this to set on. We'll just use that same
color, it doesn't matter. Mainly we're looking
for a nice dark color, nice dark color, that's all. Something about like so. And let me grab another fan brush here. I have several of them going. Let's take a little yellow,
a little bit of that color, grab a little sap green, mix it in there. There. Maybe a little more of the sap green. I want it to have, oh,
there we're looking-- that's what we're looking for, dark green. Let's go up in here, and let's see, our light's coming from the left. Our mountain tells us that. So let's add some highlights here. a little more on the
left than on the right. There we go. Give these little trees
some nice highlights. There they are. Use the other side of the
brush and we can do that one. There, but don't kill all the dark. Don't kill all that dark, that's
what makes these evergreens so nice, is the fact that they're dark. It creates contrast in your painting. There. There we go. Forgot this one, don't
want to leave him out or the rascal'll get mad. Nothing worse than a
mad tree, I'll tell you. There, little bit up in this one. Shoot, we got us a whole forest here. Let's use a one inch brush now. Maybe there's some nice bushes that grow right in front of these trees. We'll just push in some color. There we go. Wherever we want 'em,
wherever we want 'em. There. Okay. Now I'm gonna use another one inch brush and add a little bit of paint
thinner or liquid white, either one to it, and
let's go right through this yellow and green that we had here, that sap green, cad yellow. We could pick up a little Indian yellow, a little bit of the yellow
ochre, all those yellows. I want to make various shades of green. Pull that brush it in one direction, load a lot of color into it. See, and that brush is sort of rounded. You pull it this way
and then turn it over, and it's rounded. Look at the end. There's a lot of paint there. Alright, let's go up here. Now, let's come right up in here, and let's begin creating all kinds of individual little bushes and trees that live back here in
front of these evergreens. Just push 'em in. And if you have trouble making this stick, add a little bit more of the
liquid white or paint thinner. If you use paint thinner, though, add very, very small amounts. In a heartbeat, it'll
get your paint so thin that it'll just run. Very, very small amounts. Here's a little right there. Wherever you want these little rascals. A little more of the yellow ochre, just to change the flavor a little, but do one bush at a time. Give 'em names. There. And as we travel around the
country, talking with people, it's one of the questions
that people talk about over and over, they have
trouble making these bushes. And the problem normally is that they try to do too many at once. I know sometimes it looks like here, we just take off and we
sock in 50 bushes at once. But they're one at a time, one at a time. I want to take a little bit
of that green and yellow, and mix it on the two inch brush. Let's have a little land under here. There we go. There we are, see. Angles are of most, most important here. Most important. Wherever you want this to go. Our yellow ochre in
there, our Indian yellow. There. Now then, shoot. It's alright. Tell you what, let's have
a reflection in there. All you gotta do is
grab the bottom of that and pull it down, just pull straight down. It's important that it goes straight down. Let all those little colors just go right into the water here. There, that's straight down. There. Come across, and that quick,
we have instant reflections. Now then, take the knife, we'll use a little Vandyke brown. Maybe there's a little bank in here. Let's bring it wherever
you want it here, like so. Here and there, maybe
it runs up into there. Okay, now then, let me take the fan brush with some of those same
yellows and et cetera, pop in a few little grassy
areas right at the bank, right there at the bank. If you want to reflect a
little of that in there, grab the least little amount
of if and pull it down. Least little amount, not much, not much. And very lightly, once again,
just go across like so. Maybe we'll have a tiniest
little bit of waterway, I don't want much in this. I want to keep it dark as possible. Little liquid white on
the knife, and drop it in. There. So, as I said, we travel
all over the country and get to talk to people
and do shows for PBS. And if we ever get to your area, why don't you come and see us. I'd love to have an
opportunity to meet you and talk with you, and see photographs of what you're painting. And so if we do get to your
area, stop in and see us. There, let's have a little bush lives on this side of the water. Maybe he lives right there, right there. Create a little reflection
like that, go across, little bit of highlight on this bush in yellows and greens, like that. And that quick, you can
create a little bush, put a little bit of land under, and we're about to have finished painting. There we go. I think we'll put a little
waterline under there, and call this one finished. A few little sticks and twigs. That's all there is to it. I hope you've enjoyed this one. Hope to see you soon also. From all of us here, happy painting. God bless. (elevator music)
