Hi. Welcome. Certainly glad to see ya again. Today I thought we'd do a
fantastic little painting on a black canvas, as you can plainly see. I tell ya what, let's start out, have 'em run all the
colors across the screen that you need to paint
along with us at home, and while they're doing that, let me show you what I've done up here. Today I have my standard
ole pre-stretched canvas, but I've taken black
gesso, and I've sorta just painted a little thing like
this with a foam brush, and I've left the center unpainted, but I've graduated that
black gesso into it. You start out here, and as you lose all your black gesso it'll
happen automatically. Then we've covered the whole area with a little tiny, tiny
bit of liquid clear. On top of that, I've just put a mixture of alizarin
crimson and phthalo blue. Proportionally, much
more crimson than blue. I want it sorta to the reddish side. That's how we've got this prepared. I thought today we'd just do
a very warm little painting. I think you'll like it. It's a lotta fun to do, and I really think you'll enjoy it. Let's start out with
a little 2-inch brush, a little bit of the titanium white, just load some on, no big deal how we get it on there. I'm gonna go right up
here in this light area, and I'm gonna start and just make little criss-cross strokes, just
little criss-cross strokes. It's beginning to pick up that color that's already on the canvas, and immediately beautiful
things will begin to happen. If this is gonna be our
light source right here, then we start in the
center and work around. That way, it'll progressively get darker as it goes out. Once again, that also
will happen automatically. You don't have to worry about it. All you gotta do is start at the center, and work outward. You can do this in any transparent color. This is also very pretty
to do in just phthalo blue or sap green, any of these
colors that are transparent. If you wanna find out if
a color is transparent, just take a little bit and rub it on black gesso, and if the black area still looks black, then
it's transparent enough to do what we're doing here. Let me wash the ole brush. We wash our brushes, as you know, with odorless paint thinner. Just shake off the excess, (brush rattles against bucket) (chuckling) and beat the devil out of it. You can go back as many times as you want into the center area to make it as bright as you desire. Let's load the brush again. I do recommend that you clean the brush between each application of this white paint, otherwise you're gonna take that dirty color right back into the center, and you'll
lose your brightness. Start in the light area and work outward. Always working outward. Make the little criss-cross strokes because that's easier to blend. Instead of having big circles, little criss-cross strokes
blend out quite nicely. There. Let's just keep working it outward here. I want to keep the edges
of this quite dark. Don't want it to get too bright, but when you're doing yours, you might want it to be very, very
bright, and you can do that. Color stands out so much
more on a black background than it does on a white background. You won't believe the difference. This black gesso may be one of the neatest things I've ever come up with. Alright, now then, let's see what we have. Just put a little in this corner up here. Very lightly, we just brush across, and that'll remove the brush strokes. There's a lot of action
happening in the sky. If you wanted to smooth it, (banging brush) I've got several brushes going here, you can take a clean
brush, and just blend it. I sorta like having some
of these little action things happening, but it's up to you. If you wanna make it smoother, if you keep blending it like this, you can make it so it
looks absolutely like silk. Just like silk, very smooth and very nice. (brush swishing) Alright. Now we have us a light source. Let's have some fun today. Tell ya what, let's use
the old round brush here. I'm gonna mix up alizarin crimson and phthalo blue. We'll just mix those two together. Once again, we have much more crimson than we do blue. I want this to be a lavender color, but to the bluish side. (knife tapping palette) It's very difficult to tell when you're mixing color like this
what color you have. Sometimes put a little white out there, and then you can see what color it is. And that's just what I'm looking for. Alright. Let's take ole round
brush, and I'm just gonna tap it right into that color, just tap it. Let's go right up here. I want some little trees that live back here in the background. This round brush is one of the neatest foliage brushes that you've ever seen. It makes background foliage probably better than any brush that we have. It's so nice and easy. All you have to do is tap. There. (brush tapping) Make some beautiful
little background trees. Be a nice place for my
little squirrel to live. I tell ya what. We've got so many requests about that little squirrel, this is
all gonna be just the same, I'm gonna tap in some
little trees, I'm gonna show you my little rascal again here. He is one of the cutest little devils that you've every seen, and it's fun to watch him eat. That son-of-a-gun, he can tear up an eye dropper in a heartbeat, and if you've seen this one before, this is the one that we named Pea Pod the Pocket Squirrel 'cause he wants to live in
your pocket all the time. I think if you allowed him to, he would stay there 24 hours a day. I raised him ever since
he was just a small baby. In only a few more months, he'll be ready to turn loose and out on his own, have his own family. There we go. I'm still just tapping
in some basic little background shapes here, just to create the illusion of foliage
way in the background. Ok, very good. Alright. Let's put a few little
highlights here and there. For that, I have another round brush. I have several, so I don't have to spend all my time just washing brushes. I'm gonna take a little touch
of the alizarin crimson, a little bit of cad yellow,
a little yellow ochre, I wanna make this a very bright little painting in the background. Some beautiful warm colors, a little bright red in there, too. Phew, that's nice, sort of an orange color. Let's go right up in here and maybe, maybe yup, you're right, looka there. A little light just
zings right through there and just lights up that little bush, just lights him up. Now, let's take, I'm gonna take just titanium white and bright red. I'm gonna make some
beautiful little colors here. This'll be sort of a hot pink color. Once again, just tap it
right onto the bristles. Just touch, phew, look at that. These are the kind of paintings, though, that you can put in a
room, and it'll warm it up. It will absolutely just warm it up. Once again, you can do this in any color. It's such a fantastic
day here, I feel like doin' it in cheery, bright colors, but maybe you'd like to do
it in greens or something. That can be just as striking. I'm adding a little
touch of the phthalo blue to that same pile now, just varying the colors back and forth. Now we're going to a cool color. Blue is a very cool color. Put it right next to the warm colors, and it just makes a striking contrast. Maybe another one of those. I like that. Right there. You make the decision. You make the decision, wherever you think they should be. (brush tapping) There. Didn't that brush make some beautiful little things very, very simply? There we go. Another one right there. Alright. Now, take a little bit more of the white, little more of that bright red. Once again, I'm just going back and forth between these various colors, but I want 'em to be warm against cool and cool against warm. The pinks against the blues, vice versa, that's what'll really,
really turn people on when they see your painting. There we go. Let's go right over in here. Take this little one, maybe bring it right on down like that. And here and there, there and here, I'm gonna add the least little touch of sap green to our color. Maybe here and there we can see a little green in some of these bushes, but it's gonna be a very light green. I don't want any dark greens back here. It would change the whole mood if you was to put a dark,
dark green in there, just a nice sparkly little green. If you notice, some of 'em here have been left unpainted. That really makes it
look like a deep shadow, and that was done intentionally. There we go. (brush tapping) Maybe a little touch right in here. Once again, I want to leave some of those up in the background unpainted. Makes 'em look like
they're really far away. Super. Let's take our little script liner brush, and I'm gonna dip that
in some paint thinner and go right into the lavender color. We want this paint to be thin, almost, looka there, it
runs, it's almost like ink. Turn the bristles in there. That brings it to a very sharp point and loads it full of color. Need a lot of color, ok? Maybe there's some little tree trunks that we can see just here and there. These little delicate things in here really give depth and
dimension to your painting, 'cause they're always in the woods. You always have little sticks and twigs and limbs and branches,
whatever you wanna call 'em. they're always there, and they're very nice to
put into your painting. They add realism to it. There we go. I know we're not interested in goin' out and makin' a happy buck or two, but if you're out selling your paintings, and I've said this so many times before, this is what separates your painting from other people's is this
little bit of extra in it. Makes you special, and we know that you're special. There. (brush splashing in liquid) Now then, it's time to
really have some fun. Let's take an old 2-inch brush here. In my world, maybe I'm gonna have some little grassy areas that'll come right down through there. I'm gonna take, first I'ma put a little touch of that same lavender color on this 2-inch brush, and then I'm gonna go right down, there we are, to the yellow. I put that lavender on
there so when I touch this yellow, I'll get
varying shades of green, and I'll go into the yellow
ochre, the Indian yellow. Once in a while, I'll bounce a little bit into the bright red. I'll just vary these back and forth. Tap the brush, giving it a little push, so it creates that little ridge of paint. You can see it right along there. That's what we're looking for. There's another one on
the end of the brush. That's what we work with. Let's go up here. You have to think about the
lay of the land already. Maybe our land's gonna flow something about like that. Begin thinking about how you want this to lay or to flow,
whatever you wanna call it, lay of the land, the way the land flows. Everybody has their own
idea of what you call it. Little more of the color. Go right back up in here. Now I want it to get darker as it gets back in here, darker, darker, so you can tap it more or just use less and less pressure on the brush. We'll sort of vary. We'll go into a little more of the yellow ochre here and there. You can change the planes in here or the lay of the land just by doing that. See, it leaves a little
indentation in there, and it creates interest in your painting. (brush tapping) That easy. Ok, little touch right in here like so. There we are. Things will begin appearing if you just start out with a general idea. You don't really have to plan each and every little thing here. It'll just actually start appearing if you just let it work. Let the paint work, the canvas work. Shoot. Now, sometimes it's fun to take your brush and go into a small
amount of titanium white. Just load a little tiny bit on there. There you can see I think, just a very small amount. I don't want much. Think where you're light's coming from, and just pick out a area or two and let that really shine. It'll look like there's light just zinging right through there. It'll really, really
sparkle your painting up. Just think where it would hit, but don't overdo. This gets feeling good, and
it's real easy to overdo. Then it absolutely will
lose it's effectiveness. Back to our darker colors, just add in some little
things here and there. Alright. You know me. (chuckles) I like water, and that would be a perfect
place for a little stream. I'm gonna dip the fan
brush into liquid white, go into titanium white. I'll be right back. Get the least, least little
touch of phthalo blue. So we have liquid white,
titanium white and phthalo blue. The liquid white's in there
only to thin the paint, because a thin paint, as you know, will slide right over
the top of a thick paint. Let's go up in here. With this thinner paint on the brush, in my mind, right about in here, there's gonna live shoo, a
happy little water fall, see. Pull it straight, and then go down. Over and down, like that. Decide how big your waterfall is, push upward, create a little foam, now we can let that waterfall just work right down here. It's gonna pick up the color that we put on that black gesso. We have that nice lavender color on there. Shoo oops, looka there, fell over again. Water got trapped in
there and fell right over. Just make up little stories and let the water go bloop, wherever you think that little bloop should happen. That easy. That easy you can create the illusion of a little stream that's just bubbling and playing, probably some little trout live in there. This is a place my little
squirrel would like to live. This certainly is a lovely spot. He'd have a good time here. Good time here. Hope you like seein' those little rascals. They play a very
important part of my life. Right now, I have five little squirrels and two crows. I've talked about the little crow in another series, both of 'em had been injured by guns, people shooting 'em,
just for the heck of it. I'm not opposed to hunting, but I'm certainly opposed to people just shooting things just for
the pleasure of shooting 'em. Don't wanna get on that soap box. Let's go back here. I'm gonna take some of
that lavender color. (brush tapping) Take the old 2-inch brush, and maybe, let's go right up here. Maybe in our world, there's a big tree that lives right over here on this side and watches over the waterfall, so we need some dark. The dark is in here only so we can put light on top of it. That's all we're putting it in here for. Somethin' about like that,
just to give us a basic shape. In this tree, I'm gonna make a light blue here. Actually, it's more of
a bluish-gray color, and maybe there's a
happy little tree trunk that lives in our tree, right about there. See. There. We'll put leaves I think
on this tree, so we don't need too much, just a little
bit of this might show. Somethin' like that. Now we can go back to
our old 2-inch brush. What the heck. You could use 1-inch, 2-inch, anything. We'll use this. It's handy, and it's
already got paint on it. We'll go more into the
yellow ochre on this one. Let's go right up here. Now, using just the corner of the brush, let's come in here and put the indication of all kinds of just
beautiful little foliage on this tree, just wherever
you think it should live. There. But work in patterns, layers. Think about the shape of the tree, just don't throw it on at random, or that's what it'll look like. There, see there's another
little batch right there. And maybe, maybe, maybe in our world yep maybe there's another
little bush that lives right here underneath this tree. Just make up little things. Maybe we'll put some grass that comes right down here, just a little. Little grassy bank that lives there. We'll decide where that goes later. Time to have some real fun. Let's take some liquid white. We'll put it out, and I have
quite a bit of liquid white. I'm gonna take dark
sienna and Van Dyke brown, and mix it with that liquid white. We make a brown color that's very thin, very thin, ok. We go back up here. Let's use our filbert brush today. I'm gonna take the filbert
brush and go through the two browns, Van Dyke and dark sienna, load it quite full of color. Stay right there, now bring this up, now this thin color we've made, just pull one side through, see? So we have light, dark, light and dark. Now we can go right up in here. I want some rocks and stones back here. All ya gotta do is touch, and that easy, in one stroke. You can make the highlight and the shadow of numerous little stones and rocks, and there's a bigger one, see? You decide where they live, and just drop 'em in. That easy. Shoot, I'll tell ya what. This is just too good here. It's just a perfect place. Let's put a nice stone right there. And maybe another one right there. See that. Big ole stone lives there. We'll give 'em a friend. Friend lives there. Maybe, sometime I get carried
away with these rocks. They're so much fun to make, I just get to makin' 'em and can't seem to quit. We'll have a whole bunch
of 'em right there. We'll put another big one right
about there, big ole stone. Now, let's go back to
our brush that has the it has liquid white on it, titanium white in it and a little touch
of that phthalo blue, not much phthalo blue, just a little, and I bet you know what's coming. (chuckles) You know me. I love moving water, and it's so much fun to make. Phew, yup, just a happy little waterfall right there, and it just works its way right around these stones. There we go. Just splashes right outta there, and of course, right there, too. And we push upward to make some splashy areas, some little foamy things that are happenin' down
here, 'cause we need those. That's also a nice way
of cutting off the bottom of your waterfall and making it as long or as short as you want it. Now then, we can just come back in here and put all kinds of
little water movements, little things that are
happening in the water. Any time you want a little foamy thing, you just push upward with the brush, and that easy, you can have it. Tell you what we need to do. Let's take a little more
of our little grass color here, come right down like that, (brush tapping) and maybe, shoot I'll tell ya what, take a little yellow ochre, little touch of the bright red, let's
get a little crazy. Little bit crazy. You can use any color you want, and maybe, maybe, yeah, you're right, it's just a little bush
that lives right here. He sorta hangs out over the water, right on the bank. Back into our greens, and just let somethin'
hang out right about there. So, it really looks like it's
protruding out over the water. On the other side, maybe
just bring this right on out. Just a little cove where the water goes, then it zings right on down the stream. There. Shoot, let's have some fun. Let's have some fun here. We'll take paint thinner, quite a bit of paint thinner and go right into my brown colors. There. You want a lot of color in this brush. Let's go up here. Let's get crazy. (chuckles) Yeah, let's get crazy. In our world there lives a big ole tree, right about there. I'm doin' it with a liner
brush 'cause I wanna make it have a lotta
bends and wiggles in it, but you could do it with
a fan brush or whatever. It doesn't matter. Let's give him a little friend. Everybody in my world
has to have a friend. There. About like so, and maybe even, let's
go on the other side. We don't want it left out. Maybe there's a little
one that lives right here. He goes clean off the canvas. Now we just put in a few little arms, few little arms. Gotta have some arms out here. There we go. Tell ya what, you can also take a brush and pull it through that thin color that we made for rocks, and just go right down like that, see, and
it'll create the illusion of a beautiful highlight on these trees. That easy. That easy. Little bit more on the color, we can go along in here, and we just need to put
some arms on this tree. We don't want it left out. Wherever, maybe right up through there. This big ole rascal, it
needs somethin' on him. Just let your imagination go here. Just let it go. There. I did a painting very similar to this for our newsletter a while back, and it was one of the best paintings I think we've ever done. We had so many comments about it, and people painted it at
home, and it worked for 'em. It's unreal. We have art contests every year, and I know that one's comin' this year. People will send that one in, 'cause they were happy with it. There. And wherever, wherever. You can put as many little
limbs out here as you want. Now then, let's go back,
get our ole 2-inch brush. We'll go back into that
same yellow-green color, and just tap a little more color, the same way we did to make
the little grassy areas and the bigger trees. I'm gonna put a few leaves up here. I don't want too many because I don't wanna lose this background, but just a few nice little floaters that just sorta hang around up in here, wherever you want 'em. There. Once again, I don't want too many up here, 'cause I'd like to be
able to see through this, and see that background that we worked so hard to put in. There, somethin' like so. Maybe on the other side here, maybe we'll change the flavor. I'm gonna add a little bit more of the yellow ochre and
Indian yella to that side. Yeah, that's nice. I like that. Just a little more to the gold tone. It's a very colorful little painting. As I mentioned early in this show, this is a painting if
you hang it in a room, it will certainly brighten your room, and everybody will love it. These black canvases are so phenomenal because every time you change the light, it looks like a new painting. Let's add a little bright
red to yellow ochre and go out here and do this ole big one. There, just really brighten him up. There we go. Just a little leaves that hang out here, have a good time, somethin' like that. Sorta look at form and shape on your tree. That's so important. Maybe this ole limb down here's got a few. Like there. There. We can take the liner brush. A little touch of the light
color, and here and there and there and here
maybe put the indication of just a few little sticks
and twigs and things like that. I think this one's about done. Let's take a little paint thinner, a little bit of the bright
red, and we'll sign this one. Certainly hope you've enjoyed this one because if you try this,
guarantee you'll love it. Send us some photos. We'd love to see what you're doing. From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend. (light jazz music)
Beautiful