- Hi, welcome back. Certainly glad you could join me today. I thought today we'd do a
fantastic little panting that I really hope you'll enjoy it. So I tell you what, let's start out today, have them run all the
colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us. While they're doing that
let me show you what I've already done up here. Today I have, well it's a
standard old 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched canvas but
you use whatever size makes you happy. I've already got it up
here, I've taken black gesso and I've just covered this
area in here with black gesso and allowed that to dry completely. And I sort of have an idea
that I wanna do something with a little lake here and maybe we'll put a
little mountain back here. I don't know. But the big thing I want
to show here is try to make some rocks under the
water that you can see. So we've done that with the black gesso. I've just taken and just
dropped here and there. Just to give it a little effect like so. Okay everything that's
black then we've covered with a liquid clear. A very, very thin coat. Tiniest little amount you could imagine. And then on top of that I've
covered all the black area with a mixture of sap green, phthalo blue and then a little Van Dyke
Brown just to dull it down 'cause otherwise it's very bright. The part of the canvas that
we didn't have any black gesso on I just covered with liquid
white like we normally do. So, I was just finishing up
putting a little bit of this color on here and this
once again a mixture of sap green, phthalo blue, and a little bit of Van Dyke Brown. Now we know we're gonna
have water in here. If we had covered this
with a liquid white, it would be opaque but
since we used the clear, it's nice and transparent. So we can just take the same color, that same color that
we done everything with and just begin laying
that right over the top. And right from the very beginning, we'll have the basis for our water. Beautiful little color
there, sort of a blue-green. And this will look like
all kinds of little things in the edge of the water. If everything works just right. There. You see, that way part of
your painting's already done before you even get started. And this is a lazy man's way of painting. I look for very simple
ways to make very effective little paintings and I
hope that'll make your painting life much easier for you. And here, to make these
little effects I've just taken the corner of the brush and just tap. And it goes right into the liquid white. We don't care 'cause
we're gonna mess with that in a little bit. So I tell you what, let's start out today, we'll use the old fan
brush and let's make us some happy little clouds
up here in the sky and for that I'm gonna take a
little bit of Prussian blue. We'll use a little Prussian blue today. And a little touch of midnight black. And we just mix those on the brush. And I'm just using a fan brush
but you could use a Filbert brush or a one-inch brush. Whatever. Very little paint on the brush. Okay, let's go up here. Now let's make some big
decisions to where our clouds are gonna live. So we take the corner of
the brush and very lightly, and very little color, very little color, just begin putting in a basic cloud shape. That's all we're looking for. Now, interestingly enough,
all I'm interested in here is the white area, this dark
is gonna be blended out. In other words, use the
white area here to form your basic cloud shapes. Be more concerned with this
than you are with this. This we don't care about. And I'll show you why
here in just a second. There. And we'll have some nice
fluffy clouds in here. Maybe in our world there's one
that lives right about here. And he just bounces around. Has fun all day. Clouds are very very free
and when you paint them, try to paint them that
way, try to paint them with a looseness and a freedom that just shows that they're floating around. Maybe we'll have another one right here. Once again, we're worried
about the white area here. Not the dark. And that's all we're
concerned with at this point. There. Little more color right in there. Okay, let me grab a little
one-inch brush here. And you could continue
to use your fan brush but we'll just use this. Just wanna blend this out and I'm trying not to touch the edge. Just blending it out. And it'll blend with the
liquid white and automatically it's gonna become lighter
and lighter in value and you can blend this to any degree that you want of lightness. There we go. See, just blend that right out. Now then. We're just using sort of
little criss-cross strokes to blend that. And maybe right down here at water's edge, we'll just take a little bit of that color and let it blend up. We just picked up a
little color on the brush from doing these other clouds. Okay. Now then, let's have some fun today. We'll wash that old brush. And we wash our brushes, as you know, with odorless thinner. Shake 'em off. And just beat the devil out of them. That's the whole fun part of this. Now then, let's grab a fan brush here. Go right into titanium white and I'm gonna load quite a
bit of color into the bristles on both sides. Very full. And let's go right up
here and begin looking at what we have. Now then, we wanna take
the white and put it right on the edge and this is where you make all your little fluffies. Right out here on the edge. There. Look at that. See them clouds? They just
start coming right together. That easy. This is just straight titanium white. Nothing else. But now it makes sense to
why we were more interested in the light area than
we were the dark area. And I'm just using the
corner of the brush here. Just to create all those little effects. Okay and we'll have one
that lives right here. Like so. Here is one. A lot of paint on the brush though. And just using the corner of
the brush, I'm making little tight circular strokes. There we go. Now, a little bit right in here. This is a very simple way of
making very effective clouds. And easy to do, even if you've
never painted a cloud before. These you can do without any problem. Clean dry two-inch brush
and very lightly now, I just want to blend that all together. Just blend it right in with
that blue color we put on first. And this is what will give
you cloud dimension and shape, form, have some darkness underneath. But great big fluffy clouds. This is a fantastic way of
making clouds in seascapes. Beat the brush there just
to knock off excess paint that I've picked up
'cause there's quite a bit of paint up here. There. And we'll just blend this one in. We don't want him left out. He'll be all upset if we leave him out. But now we take that blue
and blend it right in there. Just blend it all together. As I say, this is one of
the nicest, easiest ways of making great big fluffy,
very effective clouds. And it'll work for you. This'll work for you. Very gently we'll sort
of fluff it up a little. Just very gentle. Good dry brush, clean. And we can just blend all that together. There. And the more that you work with this, the more gentle and
subdued it will become. And you can work it
and work it and work it to whatever degree that you want. Up to you. Up to you. Let's wash your brush here. I enjoy that. Okay and we'll wash this big brush. Shake it off. (chuckles) And just beat the devil out of it. All right. Let's have a little mountain back here. We said we was gonna have a mountain. We'll use some, how about some black? We'll take black and just a little bit of Van Dyke Brown so we just basically have black and brown, or brown and black. Pull it out flat. Cut off our little roll of
paint so it's right out on the edge there, it lives right
on the end of the knife. Let's go up in here. Now we have to start
making some big decisions. In your world you have to decide
where your mountain lives. So just begin placing
in the initial shape. The basic shape, that's
all we're worried about at this point. We really could care less
what's happening in here. The other thing that we're worried about is a nice top. The outside shape. The rest of it, we'll
worry about that later. But at this point, just enjoy. There. Just really push that paint
right into the fabric. Get tough with it. Okay. Take a two-inch brush and lightly pull it. This will blend the paint out
and it removes excess paint. It makes it easier to
put the next layer on. We want it to be very dark. There. Something like so. And a little bit here. Now the more you blend this, the softer and more
subdued it's gonna become. And if you look right here
you can see the brush strokes. That's a nice way of sort
of laying a mountain down. It's just by using brush strokes
and you really don't even have to worry about what you're doing. Just let the brush work
and it can lay your whole mountain out and show you
light areas and dark areas and all those beautiful places. Let's take a little titanium white, a little dark sienna, maybe I'll put a least little
touch of the bright red in it but very little, maybe even
a little Van Dyke Brown. But try to leave your
color marbled like this so there's a multitude
of things going on in it. Then we'll take, cut off
our little roll of paint. I don't have a lot of paint
on there, just a little. Now then, now you can begin
just coming in here and playing. Barely touching the canvas,
let the knife flow with angles. Just let it flow. I'm also gonna mix up just
a little black and white to make some grey. I want a little grey too
so we can sort of work back and forth between these two. Oh that's nice. Makes it look very rough. I want this to look like
a very rough old mountain. He's had a hard life. There. That's better. A little lighter, I think it'll
show a little more for you. But allow the paint to break. Almost no pressure. No pressure, just the weight of the knife. Little highlights here and there. Gonna bring all these things together. Let 'em go, just enjoy. And the more you practice with
this the easier it'll become. We'll take a little bit of
that dark color and use it to go right back. See and you can create a
shadow by using that basic initial dark color. There. Maybe a little touch right over in here. There we are. But play with this a little. It's unbelievable what you
can do with this big old painting knife here. Looks like a putty knife almost. With a little practice you can
do entire paintings with it. On some of the earlier shows we did the entire painting using
nothing but the knife. Back in some of the earlier series. Just to show people that it could be done. And if you practice with it, you'll just fall in
love with what happens. There we go. (hums) But be happy when you paint. There, a little bit of
the light color just let a little light zing through there and think about where the sun would play. Not too much though,
I want these mountains to stay quite dark. Don't want them to get too bright on me. And maybe a little bit right in here. Just sort of make up your mind. Let me go back to some
of the pure dark color. We can begin adding in some of these dark shadows. Not solid though, let the paint
break so you get all these little holes and bumps
and it just makes it so much more interesting. There. Otherwise it (chuckles) it looks sort of like you just iced a cake and that's not what we're looking for. Think about all the little shapes. Little mountain goats live up here and they need a little place
to go up in here and hide. In the last series I showed
you my little squirrel Bobette, she is so precious. Hope you enjoyed her. She's long gone now though. She grew up and took off. She's living on her own now. Has a little house in Orlando, Florida. There. That's where I found her so
that's where I turned her loose. There we are. So if you see a little grey
squirrel running around Orlando that very well could be her. Say hello to her. Treat her nice, she's a super lady. Annette and I had a lot of fun with her. Raised her from just a tiniest
little thing and in the last series I showed her
biting me on the nose one time. I don't believe she done that but she did. Okay, enough of that. Let me wash my old brush
and get it cleaned up. Shake off the excess. (chuckles) You ought to see our studio. Now then I just wanna
create a little bit of mist right at the very base here, not much. Just a little. There we go, just lift it up. Lift upward. Tap it. A tapping creates a misty effect. There. Okay. Now then. So I say, those are some
old dark mountains that live way back in the woods back in there. Let's take, we use some sap green, a little bit of black,
some Van Dyke Brown, a little Prussian blue, we'll
just mix them together here. Very dark color though. Very dark, should look
black on your palette. Let me wipe my knife off. Now then. We'll just use the old fan brush. Load it full of color. A lot of paint. Both sides. Okay, let's go up here. Maybe in our world back here,
there lives some little trees. They're far back here on the
other side of this little lake. There. See we're just tapping some
very basic little shapes. There we go. Like so. And one of the questions
I get quite often is that people wanna know if I'm using
a palette that's different than the one that they have. This is just plexiglass palette. The only difference from the one you have, I take sandpaper and scuff this one all up so it doesn't shine so bad when the studio lights here shine on it. But otherwise it's exactly the same. We have to dull everything
that we use here. Including the brush
furrows and everything. It's all painted black
or dulled or something. But they are absolutely no
different than what you use. There. Maybe here we'll just push
up and then give it a little upward lift. We'll make these look like
they're really far away. Like that, there. Push down a little bit 'cause
I want a little reflection in the water. Okay now we take our two-inch brush and you have to make a big decision. Where's your little reflection live? Maybe. Maybe, yeah, it's right there. See, just by pulling
straight down on the bottom of these little trees, automatically you create your reflection. Automatically. There. Add a little touch more
color right in there. And it goes way back
over here into nothing. We don't know where it goes over there. Knock off the excess
paint then very lightly come across. Now if you wanted to
sparkle these, watch here. This is fun. Take a little white on the
brush, see there's just a little bit of white, now watch. Come right in here. And it makes like little
shimmers of light. Really, it'll sparkle up your painting. But don't get too wild with it. It gets nice and pretty
soon you just wanna cover the whole thing with it. Too much is distracting. Just a very small amount. Just enough to give it that shimmer. Just a shimmer. We don't wanna kill it. While we have that white on there, we just gently go across that. Now the white is a very opaque color. Can't see through it so
be careful of you'll lose all these little indications
that you worked so hard to put in here to make it
look like there's rocks right along the edge in here. Okay. Maybe we'll put a little land
back here, what the heck. I'll just take a fan brush
and just push upward. We'll have a little peninsula there, maybe this one goes way back. We don't know where it goes. Just let it go. I'm gonna take another
fan brush, I have several. Put the least little touch
of titanium white on it. Very small amount. Now, this is sort of
a sneaky little trick. Watch right up here. I wanna make the indication
here, like as little little tree trunks way
away but at the same time, create another plain and just by doing that, can
you see what's happening there? It looks like there's a whole other plain. And it also looks like there's
a lot of little trunks. So if you ever get one that's
a little bright, just work it. That dark color will eat it up. That easy. You can make all kinds of little things. That's sort of sneaky but it works well. Now, we'll take some yellow, a little bit of black. We just mix them on the fan brush here. Little black and yellow, makes
a beautiful dark green color and that's exactly what I'm looking for. Load both sides of the brush. Okay. Now then. We said we was gonna have
a little grassy area here so just take the brush
and just give it a little upward push. Just a little upward push. There, we'll make a little
indication way back in here of a little grassy area that lives right in front of these trees. There. Maybe a little touch back
here, that's farther away. A little more difficult to see. Take a little touch of liquid white now. A little liquid white, I'll
put the least little touch of dark sienna in it. See I don't want pure white. I want it to have sort of a tone to it. Cut across. Okay, let's go up here. Now then with that, we
can come right in here and just put the indication here and there of a little water line. Just a little light area in
here to break all this up. But this is where you create the shape, the bottom shape
of your land back here. You can have it go up and
down but these lines need to go basically straight, if they don't your water just won't look right. It'll look like it's gonna
run right out of your painting and get your floor wet. And just push very firmly. Act like you're trying to cut a hole right through the canvas. Right through the canvas. And if you want one to go away, look here, you can just rub it, see? The more you rub it, the
more it's gonna pick up that color underneath
and it'll just go away and leave you. (chuckles) That's all there is to it. Okay. I think it's time we really had some fun. This big area back here,
I want that to be some large trees that hang over the water. So I want to start out
and just put a few little indications back in there
that maybe there's some little trunks that are way back in there. Take a little Van Dyke Brown, a little dark sienna, a little white. I want this to be quite dark. Just enough so it stands out. And just go back in here and we're not gonna see a lot of this. We're gonna cover it up. But if you can see through
the branches here and there you're gonna see the
indication that there's things happening way back in here. Just a few. We'll do some more in the foreground but just want those back there. We'll just use an old two-inch brush. I'll take a little of that black. A little cad yellow. We'll get a little yellow
ochre, a little Indian yellow. Shoot, once in a while, a
little touch of that bright red. Not much. 'Cause if you put red and green
together, they make brown. Okay. There. Now tap firmly. We're gonna push, wanna push that. See that little ridge of paint
that it's leaving behind? There's one just like it on the brush and that's what we paint with. Let's go up in here. Now then you have start making
some big decisions in here. Where does all these little
things live in the background? Start up in here. Just use the corner of the brush and begin tapping in. So very gentle, very gentle. But you can just make all
kinds of beautiful little leafy indications just by
tapping with the corner of that brush. But now it's very important at this point if you begin thinking about shape and form and all the things
that make a tree an individual. Trees are like people,
each one's different. Some are tall, some are short. Some are thin, some are a little heavier. Some are great big. They're really individuals. Just like people are. And when you're doing your tree, do it just like that. Think about the different shapes. All right, there. Just dropping little rascals in. Wherever you want 'em. See as I said earlier, most of
these are gonna be covered up but some of them will show here and there. And they're very pretty. Big old branch that hangs right out here in front of the mountain. But all that black gesso in
there make it so much easier. You don't have to put any of that dark in 'cause it's already there. There. Then just begin laying this in. Wherever. A little darker. Back in here there's... There, I hope you can see those. They're there. They're quite dark. But these are little
things that live way back in the background. Now then. Maybe we'll take some Van Dyke Brown. Maybe in our world we'll just tap in. There's a nice tree trunk
that lives right there. We'll give him a friend. Just tap, firmly tap. Go right into a little white. Take the white and go
right down this side. And then blend it back
together, that'll give this indication of a nice tree trunk there. That easy. A little bit on this one. Gotta make those little
noises or it doesn't work. There we go. We'll take our liner brush, a little paint thinner, a little brown, and here and there just put the indication of a few big branches that live
right up in here somewhere. There. See? And you put as many or as
few as you want in there. Now then, we'll go back to our two-inch brush that we were using earlier. Make a nice, little bit brighter green 'cause I wanna come in here
and I want this to stand out. There. Just put the indication
of some nice little leaves that live out here on this one. There we go. Not too many 'cause I
don't wanna lose all that nice background that we had back here. Let some of them come
right across the trunk and that way it helps push
it right back in there. Now then. Down in here. We'll just have all kinds
of little bushes that live right down. And by changing the angle of the brush, you can create all kinds
of different little shapes and little bushes. Little bunny rabbits have
to have a place to hide. Change the color a little. Just vary it a little bit
between the different yellows and all that. Now then, right along in
here, just take the brush and begin thinking about
the lay of the land. And we can tap in all kinds of little soft grassy areas that just live right along in here. And the more you tap this,
the more it picks up the color and the darker it'll become. So, there we go. Okay, just tap though. Very gentle. And very very easy. There. You see there. And you can create all of
these little grassy areas. Okay, a little here. Sometimes it's nice to leave
little dark areas in here too and that'll give the indication
that maybe there's little indentations in the ground. It's just not perfectly smooth, there's... There we go. Little places to hide in there. Let it come right up underneath like so. Then the super easy way, I'm
gonna leave this quite dark over here because in my mind
it'll be in shadow over here. And you'll pick out little high points. But once again, the more you tap on this, you can keep on 'till it
looks just like velvet. And it's very very pretty. Shoot, I think we about
have a finished painting. Tell you what, let's take a
little red on the liner brush. Sign this one and we'll call it finished. Hope you've enjoyed this one. It's a little different. It'll give you some experience
using the black gesso. I think you'll really be pleased with what you can do on this. So from all of us here, happy painting and God bless, my friend. (relaxed music)
