- Hi, welcome back. Certainly
glad to see you today. It's a fantastic day here and I hope it is wherever you're at. So I tell you what, let's start out today and have em run all the
colors across the screen that you need to paint with us. While they're doing that let me show you what I got done up here. Have my standard ol'
pre-stretched canvas up here and I've covered it with just a thin even coat of liquid white. And the liquid white just makes the canvas wet and slick, so we're all ready to go. So let's do a fantastic
little painting day. Today I wanna, I wanna show you a very simple little painting
that really works well. Let's do something easy, start
with the ol' two-inch brush and let's go right into a little
touch of the phthalo blue. And just touch a little and pull it out. And then tap the bristles, that gets us a nice even distribution of color. See all the way through the bristles. Okay, let's go up here. Cause we have the liquid white on here, the color is continually mixing. So you start at the
top, making little x's. Little criss-cross strokes, just like so. See how it blends with that liquid white. If you had a dry canvas, ooh! It just doesn't work like that. The liquid white really
allows you to blend color. It makes life easy when
you're painting. There we are. And as we work down toward the horizon we want it to get lighter
and lighter in value. And that will happen automatically, because once again the
paint's mixing with the liquid white that's on the canvas. And so it gets lighter
in value automatically. You don't even have to do a thing. Something about like so. Now maybe I wanna darken
the edges a little. So I'm going to add just a
touch of the prussian blue. Prussian blue is much stronger
than the phthalo blue, so just a little bit, don't want much. And we'll go right up
here, right on the edges, and I wanna darken those,
so when the painting's finished your eye's
gonna go up in this area. The light area will lead
your eye right into it. And a little touch
maybe on the other side. What the heck, we don't
want him left out, there. And just very gently go right across. It just takes out the brush-strokes and brings everything together. Okay now, we have a
little brush going here. We take a little more of the blues. I use both blues, what the heck. Let's start with phthalo
like we did on the sky. Let's go up in here, maybe
there's a little water in here. You know me, shoot I love water. Now still water is always
level, always level. So try to keep your strokes
as straight as possible. There, a little more of the
blue over on the other side. And pull from the outside in. That way this is a nice
feathered edge here. You don't have a distinct line that you have to try to work out. And just pull from the outside in. And don't worry about it this time. Anything that we don't want to be water, shoot we'll just cover it up... Just cover it up. There we go. Now the fun time. (chuckles) Let me wash the old brush. If you've painted with
me before you know this is the highlight of the whole painting. There we go, just shake it off. (loud banging) (laughs) And just cover the entire studio. You should see our camera crew. Now then, I just wanna
brighten this a little. So I'm gonna take the least little, least little touch of cad yellow. And just put right in here,
just a little yellow highlight. Not much, not much... And then we'll work that in. And when that touches
blue it'll just make us a nice greenish color and we
don't mind it in the water. All right. And that easy, we have sky and water. See, I told you this was
gonna be a very simple little painting that's easy enough
that even if you've never painted before you can do this one. You can do it (loud banging)
and you can clean the brush. Now then, let's build us a little cloud. Everybody likes to have
clouds in the painting, so I'll show you a very simple way. We'll use the ol' one inch brush and just pull it through some
color, titanium white. Just pull it through
and let's go up in here. Maybe our cloud lives right
here, little tiny circles. Little tiny circles, there you go. And just let that brush dance and play. But think about a basic cloud shape. Don't just throw it up there and think that a cloud will appear. You have to have a basic
shape to work with. Something about like that,
what the heck, we don't care. Clouds are very free, very, very free. Now with a good clean, dry,
two inch brush, gently, gently, gently just
using the top corner of the brush, blend the base
of the cloud very gently. I'm just beating the brush to knock off the excess paint, then we'll
fluff it a little, like so. And very gently, one hair
and some air, whisper light. Just go right over it,
tell you what, shoot that was so much fun let's get crazy. Maybe in our world there's
several little clouds. I'm gonna add the least little touch of the bright red to that. And let me say "least" one more time 'cause it's a very small amount. And once again pull it in one direction. See, got a little color there. Alright, let's go up in here. You probably noticed there we put tape on the furrows of these brushes and stuff. Just so they don't shine too much. I get letters sometimes that
say, "the equipment that you "use looks different than what I have." It's no different, it
really is no different. All we do, is we have to dull it. Otherwise when all these
lights in the studio hit it, it would shine and make
big glares on the TV and this mean ol'
director would yell at me. So we just, we just put a
little bit of tape on there. And the knife, I spray paint
it with just black paint. There, shoot. Tell you what, that's such a nice little cloud, maybe it's got another
little friend right there. But do it in layers,
finishing one cloud at a time. Don't get greedy.
Sometimes it gets feeling good and you just mmh, get sort of carried away and try to do them all at once. Just do one little cloud at a time, one little cloud at a time. Blend it in, fluff it, tease it. There, very lightly.
One hair and some air. Oh maybe. Shoot we're having
so much fun with clouds. I tell you what, I'm gonna
put another one right here. Now when you're doing your
painting you decide, you decide. Wherever you want to put a cloud, then that's the right place to put one. Don't put one here just because I did. Put one in your painting
because you want it there, and then it's strictly yours. I just wanna show you how to make a cloud. How many clouds you make or where you put them, strictly up to you. Painting should be very free. Maybe sometime you just take and spin the brush a little bit. Put in some little wispy
clouds, little floaters. Just sort of spin the brush and let these little rascals just float in
there. See how hazy that is? (loud banging) Now, same thing again. Just
blend the base of the cloud. And use the top corner of the brush. See, if you use the bottom corner you can't tell where that's hitting. You use a top corner and you can see exactly where it's hitting. See, if you hold it
that way you can't tell where it's hitting, you're just guessing. And you want to be able to control this rascal and where it goes. Over here, these little
wispy's, I'm not even gonna do anything with. Just
blend right over 'em. These are little soft
floaters that live way back in the distance somewhere
far away. Far, far away. (loud brushing) (loud banging) All right, and that easy. We
have some happy little clouds. Now then. I tell you what, let's
build us a little mountain. I'll take some black with van dyke brown. Least little touch of prussian blue, I don't want much blue in this. I want mostly black with
a little brown and blue. Just to change the flavor.
Cut across and we get a little roll of paint, lives right out there on the edge of the knife. See him out there? Now,
come right up in here. Let's have a nice mountain
that lives right here, see. Now I've had some people say that it's hard to make
mountains. I'm gonna show you the easiest way imaginable. All we do is just put in a basic shape. And you decide the shape of
your mountain, you decide. If you don't live some
place there's mountains and you want to paint a
mountain, there's books and video tapes and all kind of stuff that show you all different
shapes of mountains. Or just make one up, just make it up. Be creative when you paint. Just let your imagination take you to worlds that exist only in your mind. But you can put them on canvas. There, I think I've
mentioned some other series. That's probably what
initially got me interested in painting, is that I could
create any kind of world that I wanted, any kind of world I wanted. No bad stuff here. That's
why we have happy little trees and everything's happy here. Okay, now I'm just going
to sort of pull that down. Grab it and sort of pull it down. Just like we would normally
do to make a mountain. See it's getting lighter down at the base. And over here we'll just
go in this direction. And all we're doing is
just pulling the color out so that the next thing sticks easier. There, get rid of that excess
paint more than anything else. All right. Now let's take
a little touch of the, oh we'll take some titanium
white, least little touch of dark sienna. Maybe just
a touch more than that. Ooh that's nice, that's nice. Little roll of paint once again. Put a very small roll of paint. Now then, go up in here and
just barely touch, barely touch. Just let it sort of float
down the mountain. See there? Okay, see how easy that
is? Now if you do it fast it works better than just barely doing it. For some reason it works better. But no pressure, you
want this paint to break. And by break, I mean have all
these little holes here in it. See there? Now maybe a
little touch right in here. (swoosh) Gotta make those little noises. And sometimes those little
noises really do help. For some reason they just sort
of make things work better. There, all right. We'll just
use that same ol' brush. Shoot, we don't care. Take a little bit of
cadmium and yellow ochre. Be right back. Get a little touch of black,
little bit of sap green. There we go. But mix
these colors on the brush so you have a multitude of
things happening on the brush. A little indian yellow here and there. And we'll touch the least
little touch of bright red. All on one brush though,
look at all the colors that are in that one brush. And
we're touching and pushing. Okay, let's go up here.
Now I'm gonna make little grassy areas that flow right up the hill. So all we do is touch and tap. Follow the angles, always
follow those angles. There, see em'? But isn't that simple? All you're doing is just tapping. The most important thing
is the angles here. You don't want your
mountain to flow up this way and you put grass that's going
in a different direction. It will disturb you. I bet
you've looked at paintings and your mind says, "something's
wrong with that painting." You might not be able to
tell exactly what it is but you know something's wrong with it. And sometimes it can be
something as simple as that. So these little things that
we talk about all the time. Like the lay of the land and
following the correct angles are most important, most important. They'll make your painting
special, very special. Watch here. See, that
one sort of went on over. So all you have to do, we'll
take a little touch of black. Put right there. See, just
give it something to stand on. Don't want it to just
lay out there by itself. There, and very lightly pull that down. And I want it to remain a little darker. So it looks like it's
closer in the foreground. There, very lightly. Just let
it blend right into nothing. And you can do that with
just the knife, that easy. Least little bit of color on the knife. And you can put the
indication here and there of little things that are happening. But that's just a little black on there. See how it makes it look like these little things happening back there? And every time you have
a little projection here, you need a little shadow underneath it or it won't play with ya. It'll
just go home and leave ya. There we are, there. See then with a clean brush you can very gently just blend that up a little bit. But isn't that a neat
way of making a mountain? It really looks like it's far away. Now we go back to our brush that has the grassy colors on it. And we can begin just putting
in all kinds of little things. And once in a while you can
hit a least little touch of titanium white and just put a little bright spot here and there. But don't over do, or it
will lose it's effectiveness. Like there's a little light
hitting right there, bing! Here it comes, going
right over. There it is. I tell you what, let that
go right on out there. Once in a while you can
hit a little sap green just to give it little
dark areas here and there. So it's not all the same identical color. There we go, there. But isn't that a fantastic
and very easy way of making a gorgeous little mountain, whew! Sometimes I get carried
away. I see something here. Let's take some black, prussian
blue, a little crimson... And sap green. We'll just
mix all those together. Okay, let me wipe my knife off. We just wipe the ol'
knife on a paper towel. Use a number three fan brush and I'm gonna put some of that dark color on there. Both sides loaded full. And
maybe right up in here, lives... Yep, maybe there's a little stand of evergreens that lives right in here. I think that's what
you call a whole group. I know it's not a heard of evergreens, so I think it's a stand of evergreen. A whole family, what the
heck. A bunch, there. Now back to our brush we
were making the little grassy areas with. Put a little
grass right there in front. And see that dark color will make an instant shadow underneath it. You don't even have to worry about it. There we go. Now then... Let's get crazy, you know me. You know me, I like to play. Let's see, we had black,
a little van dyke, a little prussian. Mix
that same color again. Once again our little roll
of paint, there it is. Maybe over here on this side, yep. Let's have another one
that lives right here. Another big ol' mountain
that comes down right there. Certainly does now. Maybe this one's got a
little bump right here too. And then comes right on
out like that somewhere. There we go. But mostly black. I'm using a very dark color here, mostly black. Now, grab that and once
again just pull it out. Just like we did the other one. This is just a repeat of the other side. You'll do it twice and that'll
give you a lot of practice... A lot of practice. (loud brushing) And once again, we take a little white, put a little touch of dark sienna in it. Maybe a least little touch
of black into that one, just so it has some variations. Come right up here, barely touch, whisper. Just whisper light, let it
go. Let it go, no pressure. I think I mentioned before, when I was teaching my son Steve to paint. I used to tell him just to
pretend he was a whisper that floated right across the
mountain. And he understood that. Made him understand what
a gentle touch this is. A lot of times I just
absolutely dropped the knife. 'Cause I'm holding it so gently. All right. Now we'll go
back to our brush that had the little grassy colors on it. And let's just sort of
bring all that together. There it comes. See, just let that grass float right up there though. Just let it work its way right up there. And you have to decide how
far up the mountain it lives. Since this is your world,
you make that decision. There we go. Wherever, wherever. There. Okay, maybe there and
there I'm gonna touch a little tiny, tiny bit of the bright red. But not much, not too much bright red. But once again, and I know
you get tired of hearing it, but pay attention to these
angles. They're so, so important. These angles are what make
it work. They make it work. (loud brushing) Something about like that. And you can make this as bright
or as dark as you want it. Depending on your mood and
what you see in your painting. Anyway that you want it. Sometimes when you're
not in such a good mood paintings have a tendency
to get a little darker. Because paintings reflect your mood. Sometimes you're not even
conscious of it, it happens. Now then, I'm just gonna
take a clean, dry brush. And I wanna tap the base of
this to create the illusion of mist down here, Just
the illusion of mist. There, right down here at the base. Okay, very gently. You can also grab and
lift upward here and there to make it look like
little distant tree shapes. Little trees that are poking up. (loud brushing) Tell you what, we'll just take
that ol' dark that we had. Go right into it. This was an evergreen color.
So let's go back in here. Maybe there's a little bit
of land lives right here. There it comes. Just tap it in. The big thing I wanted
to show in this painting is how to make very
simple little mountains. And I think we've done some nice little mountains there for some
quickies. And you can do that. There, this is just dark colors so we can put a lighter color on top
of it later. It'll stand out. Absolutely have to have
dark in order to have light. Gotta have dark, gotta have opposites. Dark and light, light and dark
continually in a painting. If you have light on
light, you have nothing. If you have dark on dark,
you basically have nothing. There we are. You know it's like in life. You've gotta have a little
sadness once in a while so you know when the good times comin'. I'm waitin' on the good times now. There, I'm mixing black,
a little satin green, prussian blue, van dyke
brown, alizarin crimson. Anything that looks dark.
Let me clean off my knife. And we'll load up the ol fan brush here. Full of color, lotta color.
Let's build us a forest. Maybe back here, and all we're gonna do is touch and pull down. Don't worry much about
this, all you're looking for is some very basic little
shapes back in here. Just some basic little shapes wherever you think they should
be. Something like that. (loud brushing) There, these are little background trees that are far away, far away. They just live here and they look back at that big ol' mountain
range and have a good time. Now then here and there,
and there and here. There's a few, that are a
little more distinct, there. So use a corner of the fan brush and put you some little arms and limbs. Little hands, whatever. All kinds of little things
out here on these trees. There we go. And you just decide
how many live in there. Wherever you want 'em, there. Okay maybe over here a little bear. Maybe a little stronger here.
A little more light hit 'em. There we go. We'll give him
another friend, what the heck? Something like that, all right. Let's go on the other side,
don't want him left out. We'll give him a nice big
strong tree right there. There he is. But as you work down, push harder and harder with the fan brush. It'll force the bristles to bend downward and will make all those little hangy downs things underneath the tree limbs. And evergreens always seem to have those. Little hangy downs, I don't
know what you call them. Little limbs that hang down, so their... They have to be little hangy downs. And you put as many or as few
of those in there as you want. Now one of the most
fantastic things that happens with this little technique,
is reflections, watch here. When I was a traditional painter I used to agonize over reflections. In this style of painting it's one of the easiest things that we do. Just easy, pull straight
down and go across. But it needs to come
straight down, straight down. And very gently go across, like so. Let me go back to our brush that had the grassy colors on it. Satin
green, yellows, all the yellows. Just mix 'em on the brush though. Okay, let's go up in
here. Maybe there's a... Look at that, yep you're right. Just a nice little area back
here. Something like that. There and all we're doing is just tapping. No big surprises here, just tapping. But follow the lay of the
land. That's most important. You decide where it's at
and how you want it to be. Okay maybe over here it
comes this direction. I don't know, it's up to you.
You make the big decision. We just show you how, but
you make the decisions. When you have this much power you have to make big decisions. Let's have some fun here. We'll take a little bit of liquid white. Let's put in just a little
water line right into here. (paint brush scraping) Just sort of let that just
go right around in there. Wherever you want it, wherever. The other side over here. Have
a little on right in here. I want this one to look like
it sort of curves around. Just do that like that. And
I'll put in there first. And then I'll put the dark
so you can see it behind it. A little reflection down, go across. Then all we have to do is put
a little highlight on there. There we are. Then come back, our little
water line, drop that in. We'll take our fan brush, put
a little dark green on it. And we can add just a
few little highlights on some of these evergreens,
not a great deal. Want to keep them quite dark.
Something like so, just a few. Let's go on the other
side and give it a few. I think with that, we just
about have a finished painting. I really hope you try this one. Cause as I said at the beginning, this is a very simple
painting that you can do even if you've never painted before. So, from all of us here
I'd like to wish you happy painting and God bless my friend. (instrumental jazz music)
