[music] Hello again, thanks for joining me.

I'm Nicholas Hankins and it's a pleasure to have you along with us for another adventure in the Bob Ross wet on wet painting technique.

Come on up to the canvas as I grab a little Phthalo Blue on the old two inch brush and I'll tell you a little bit about what I've got going on here.

As you can plainly see today, I have a very vertical 12 by 24 inch pre-stretched double-primed canvas on the old, on the old easel today and it's already been covered with a nice thin even coating of the liquid white.

So it's all wet and ready for us to have a little fun on the old, on the old easel today.

I just, like I say picked up a little phthalo blue to get started there.

Might, might just sort of wipe my brush off down here on the bottom.

I don't know that any of this is going to show, but it's, it's kind of a good way to clean your brush out if you want to.

Just sort of wipe off the excess, don't have too much paint on there.

And we'll go right into titanium white, tap it right into the top corner of that brush.

And I want to come up to my little sky here and just kind of tap, tap, tap, tap, tap with the top corner.

Some little clouds that live up here.

Just using the top corner of the brush and sort of turning and moving the brush as I go.

This may be, right here, the easiest way that I know of to paint clouds in this method.

Grab a clean, dry brush.

Just going to soften that, lift it up, lift it up and brush across just like that.

This may be the easiest way to paint little clouds in this technique that there is.

Every time we have a class at the Bob Ross workshop, we have people come in and try the, the method.

Maybe for the first time they've ever tried painting and we have them paint clouds this way.

It works.

It works every time.

And it looks so good.

It looks so good.

All you have to do is tap, tap a little paint on the brush and tap it right back off.

Lots of fun.

Lots of fun.

Don't have to think too hard, so it's, it's tailor made for me.

There we go.

Something about like that.

Big thing is just don't cover up, just don't cover up all your dark.

Leave a little showing in there.

Fluff those up a little bit, brush cross.

Knock them down, set them into the sky.

Make them soft like clouds.

And when they're soft like clouds, stop touching them.

[chuckles] It's the best painting advice I can give you.

When it looks good, stop touching it because it's not going to get any better if you keep on keeping on.

All right.

Let, it's, it's what Bob would call big decision time.

Now we're going to mix of blue and black, a little crimson and Van Dyke Brown as well, mostly blue and black, a little bit of crimson and Van Dyke Brown.

And we'll make a nice color for a great big mountain.

I've got a big mountain planned for this painting.

Kind of a, looks like an alpine looking mountain.

Mountain lives way up here in the sky.

Certainly does now, doesn't it?

[chuckles] Big, big mountain.

Right up there.

And I'm really pushing quite firmly, scraping that paint into the fabric of the canvas.

Got another little peak lives kind of right over there.

Scrape away all that excess paint.

Feel like you're just trying to take that paint and push it right through the fabric of the canvas and have it, have it squeeze out the other side.

You won't, it won't really do that but that's, that's kind of the feeling you want, the pressure that you want.

Really firmly work that into the canvas.

One more little peak there, I think.

All right.

Make a little room on the palette and clean it off.

Got a do little, got to do little housekeeping as we go.

Back to our, back to our two inch brush I was using for the clouds.

And we'll just kind of park that on there.

And then we're going to brush this mountain [Nic makes "shoo" sound] out and follow the contours that you've sort of established in there, even the little brush strokes that you make as you grab your paint, pull it down.

They'll kind of help suggest some of the contours that live in your mountain there.

See that, get a feeling of right side.

I don't know if you can see it on the camera, but you'll certainly be able to see it at home when you paint Can get a feeling of the right side of the mountain and the left side of the mountain just from the brush strokes.

And that's really cool.

That's pretty cool.

All right, let's come in here and find a little titanium white.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and have prepared here, off to the side a little white and phthalo blue and a little touch of our mountain mix.

I'm just going to mix all that together so I have a little shadow color all ready to go.

We can kind of jump back and forth between highlights and shadows as we work.

I like having that shadow color ready and available as we go.

So, we'll take a tiny little roll of paint, touch it to the canvas and just let it [Nic makes "wwhht" sound] float right down.

Don't press or push on your knife at all.

Just let it be light as a feather.

[Nic makes "wwhhhooo" sound] Float right on down.

Touch it, let that little roll of paint touch the paint touches the paint but the metal blade of the knife doesn't touch.

It's just, just paint touching paint, that's all.

[Nic makes "shhoo" sound] Come right on down.

[Nic makes "sssoo" sound] Maybe, put a little bit back here.

And we'll start working, we'll start working with some of our shadow color before we get too far along.

I, like I say, I want to be able to jump back and forth just a little bit.

So we'll, we'll put a little shadow color back here behind this peak, a little touch behind that one, maybe a little right in there would be pretty.

And then coming down from this one, certainly.

[Nic makes "shoo" sound] Just let it sort of flow right into that one.

I'll work those together a little more in just a second.

Get just a little, there we go.

A little stronger back there.

A little bit from this one.

[Nic makes "shoom, shoom" sounds] Back over to my highlight color again, a little touch at that white.

And I'm going to have one of these stretch all the way across there.

[Nic makes "sssoo" sound] Just light as a feather.

Light as a feather.

You want to land on that canvas like a, like a butterfly with sore feet.

There we go.

And then maybe this, maybe this wanders on down and around like this and then heads off in that direction maybe.

[Nic makes "sshhoo" sound] As long as you're touching it lightly, it'll work out real well.

It's when you push on it that you get in trouble.

A little bit of shadow behind this side.

Zip, zip, zip.

Just like that.

Easy and care free there.

Easy and care free.

Just let those two little areas work together a little bit, something like that.

Down here on this closer slope, if you want it to feel like it's a little closer, you can put some dark in first, take a little bit of your dark mountain mixture, original color there.

Just work a little bit of that in behind the slope.

Then we'll come back with our shadow.

Just pulls it that much closer.

There we go.

All right.

That's quite, that's quite a big mountain, we've painted there, huh?

[chuckles] That's good, though.

We can have, we can have big mean mountains.

They're interesting.

More interesting than little boring ones, right?

All right.

We'll just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap the base of that snow.

And I'm following the angles in the mountain as I tap.

I'm not just coming through and tapping it off in a straight line.

I'm trying to sort of build all of those little angles in there.

And then very gently, two hairs and some air, I'm just going to sweep up and sweep over it, soften it down, leave lots of mist down here at the base.

You want that mountain to look like it's just, just up there floating in the atmosphere.

Not really, not really tethered or anchored to anything just yet.

Not just yet.

We'll get there, though.

I promise.

We'll get there.

I'm adding some white and mountain mixture into the same little pile there with some more Van Dyke Brown and a little sap green.

We'll make sort of a grayish green color.

See what happens here.

Grab a, grab an old fan brush, load it up full of that gray green color.

Let's go back into the background back here in this misty area, I'm just going to tap, take that brush and tap.

Tap straight down, sort of tap and crash.

[chuckles] Tap the top of that brush in there and just let it crash down.

Let me try that again and see if I can get my hand out of the way for you.

There we go.

Tap and crash like that.

At least that's what I call them in class.

I call these tap and crash trees.

There we go.

We don't want them too dark too fast.

They just kind of hang out way back there in the background, back to my two inch brush, I'm going to a tap the base of those tap and crash trees very firmly.

Give them some mist.

Far away mist.

Make it foggy down there at the base.

Might even float up over them so they appear very far away.

And I'd like some closer trees now.

So let's take some of that same color.

A little more mountain mix, maybe some more brown, crimson, and sap green.

So we're a step darker.

Not as dark as we want to be just yet for the foreground, but we're a step darker.

And as you come forward in a landscape, that's exactly what you want to have happen.

And it gets darker and darker and darker and darker as you go.

And that's precisely what we want.

Again, I'm going to load that brush just absolutely full of paint, and we'll come back up here and find some of these far distant little trees.

Maybe these branches on these go up today.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Just take your, take your brush and brush handle, push it up as opposed to down.

Sometimes, sometimes we'll make little trees that the branches hang down and sometimes we make little trees that the branches sort of shoot upward like this.

And it all has to do with whether you have your handle down or up, just depends.

Some people really prefer one or the other.

I like them both, but some people really have a preference for one or the other and it's been my experience when they when they learn to paint trees, they'll tend to paint one better than the other and that's the one they always paint.

[chuckles] So, I just, I kind of like both of them.

I don't know that I particularly enjoy one more than the other or that I paint one better than the other.

I've just enjoyed both of them so much.

Again, back to that two inch brush.

Kind of tap the base of those trees and sort of do two things.

I want to soften the base and I want to kind of create the impression of some far away distant little vegetation back here, bushy leafy, deciduous type vegetation just kind of growing in the valley down there.

We don't know exactly what it is.

And I don't know that it matters, but just something kind of soft back there.

Like that.

You can even take your brush and tap into a little cad yellow, yellow ochre.

Back and forth, just get some on that top corner.

And you can add a little highlight like there's a little sunshine just sort of sparkling through there, dancing on the tops of those little bushes and having a good time.

I don't want to overdo, though.

I don't want too much of this.

But a little, a little flavor of it is, is real nice.

All right.

Time to get serious.

Time to get serious.

I'm going to move that gray green out of the way in case I want it for something later.

And we're going to fortify our mixture more blue, more black, brown, crimson and sap green.

Make a lot of it, make a lot of it.

Big pile of dark color.

Good old dark color.

Whoo, that's lots of it.

Okay, that's good.

That's what we want.

I'm going to take our take our old fan brush and wash that gray green color out of it.

Dry him off good.

And let's come back, load that brush full of this dark color now.

Absolutely full of that dark color.

Might even get just a little drop.

Ooh, just a little drop, not much, of odorless paint thinner.

That'll just help it stick over the mountain a little bit.

Don't want to get it too thin, though, that could be, that could be trouble.

And again, I'm gonna have some of these little trees that the branches just sort of bend upwards.

Working back and forth in a, almost like a little Z pattern.

It's like you walk down the steps and you come back to the middle and you walk down the steps on the other side and come back to the middle.

And you just keep repeating that.

You just keep repeating that pattern all the way through your tree from the middle down, from the middle down.

You've got a big tree right on here, on the edge.

It kind of bookends our painting today.

Tall, skinny tree stands over here.

I just, I just learned right before we started taping that there are alpine pines and subalpine pines.

And alpine pines are a little, a little more narrow, a little more scraggly looking.

So I suppose this is a, I suppose these are alpine pines.

And the subalpine pines are a little bushier.

Nice to, nice to at least sound like I know what I'm talking about.

I thought that was very interesting.

Hat, hat tip to my friend Mike here at the station for telling me that.

Giving me a tree education before we, before we painted them.

I just always called them happy little trees, [chuckles] kind of covered all my bases.

There we go.

Boy, these, these are big tall pines, big, tall, happy little trees.

Is that an oxymoron: big, tall, happy little trees?

Here we go.

Now let's take a little dark sienna, Van Dyke brown, a little touch of titanium white, mix it all together into a marbled appearance.

Don't have to mix it too thoroughly.

We'll come up here and give these little give these little trees a indication of a little tree trunk living in there.

Something like that.

Maybe scratch in a couple of little sticks and twigs coming off of their trunk.

Jump back over to my, my big, my big fan brush that has the dark color in it.

Now, I'm going to wipe it out a little bit and I'm going to pick up some liquid white and then I'm going to pull it through some cad yellow and yellow ochre.

But it's been softened with a little liquid white so it will stick.

As we know, and the golden rule of this technique, as we've learned from Bob, is a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

And that's just what we're going to take advantage of right here.

I've got a nice thin highlight color, so it will stick to that thick, dry base color.

That dark that we put on there first, right from the tube, it's nice and dry.

That's also why you can't let your paint get too thin too fast.

It won't, it won't allow for any highlighting later.

Paint will just mix in with it, and you'll, you'll be a mud mixer and that's no fun.

But it is, it is kind of a necessary part of learning to paint.

You have to mix a little mud to figure out how to not do it.

So let's take some of this dark color, and I want to, I want to have the distinct feeling that we're kind of in a little valley here.

Kind of on the side of a hill and it's just rolling down the hill like this.

There we go.

As you tap, your brush is going to indicate the lay of the land.

So be thinking about that as you tap.

As you tap all that in there.

Let me reach over and grab, I've got another two inch brush going here.

I'm just going to touch it into a little, a little bit of the liquid white and come back to my yellows.

Just fill it full of that.

A little touch of the sap green in there also and give it a little tap and a push forward like that.

Tap, push forward and push up that little ridge of paint on your palette.

There you go.

Let's come back up here and we'll add a little highlight to this distant meadow, this hillside meadow.

There we go.

Just let it kind of roll right over.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Sometimes it's even fun to take a little, let me grab a little more liquid wine on a one inch brush.

Sometimes it's fun to take a little white, maybe some blue, some of that alizarin crimson, you can make like a little, little flower color, a little lavender or something.

Isn't that pretty?

Maybe this is a, a lupine meadow.

You can see little flowers growing out here in the grass.

That little change of color sometimes is really, really nice, especially when you've got a lot of green in a painting.

Here's a little bright red with it just to change flavor.

There we go.

Now let's have a little fun.

Let's take, I'm going to grab another clean fan brush and just fill it up with more of that dark, dark base color.

Let's come back up here.

Sometimes you can take a tree that's in the background and just hook on to it and pull it up closer.

That's what I'm going to do right there.

Pull that one a little closer.

Come back with a little, a little bit of liquid white and my yellows, add some highlight.

There we go.

Suddenly that tree is just that much closer.

Let's go back in with our, our big two inch brush, top corner of our two inch brush, and we'll plant some little bushes down here.

Kind of darken, darken this corner a little bit.

There we go.

Need a, need a few on this side as well.

Kind of close up that little gap.

A little something growing there on the hillside.

Come back with my brush that's got all the light color in it and I dip it into just a little touch of liquid white, again.

Come back to my yellows, yellow ochre, cad yellow, a little bit of both of those.

Let's come back and add some little highlights to the tops of these bushes.

Sun kissed, little patches of foliage out here.

Just kind of glow, kind of glow in the sunshine.

I'm going to add a little green and dull them down, darken them down.

Maybe not dull, but darken them down a little as they come into the corner.

There here we go.

Something like that.

You can add a little bit of your base color to it.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] Just bouncing back and forth between ochre and cadmium yellow, a little bit of sap green.

You can even get a little bright red in there.

Just go crazy.

Just go crazy.

Have fun with it.

Tell you what, speaking of going crazy, let's do this.

Let me clean up a little patch here on my, on my palette and take some of that white, dark sienna, and Van Dyke brown mixture I had earlier.

And I'm going to add a little liquid white to it, soften it down, make a nice light, a nice light, sort of grayish color.

Grayish brownish color, a little softer though.

Let's wipe off my knife.

I'm going to grab a filbert brush, load it on both sides, nice and full with Van Dyke Brown, maybe a little Van Dyke Brown and Midnight black, nice and full.

Both sides.

Watch this, pull one side, then through the light color.

Let's come up here and add some little, little stones laying out here on the hillside.

Just little rocks laying out there.

I can go back with some, some of our grassy color plant a little grass around the edges.

[Nic makes "doot, doot, doot" sounds] Go back to my, back to my fan brush.

Watch this.

Let's come in here and maybe, maybe right here on the edge, we didn't even know he was there until just now.

[chuckles] Maybe there's a big, big, big, big evergreen that's just, just out of view over here.

And he's got some branches that are hanging in just barely hanging in the frame there.

Something like that.

Come back with a little highlight and just yellows, a little bit sap green, mix it all together.

We'll pop a little highlight on those branches.

Something like so.

We might see just a little, just a little branch here and there, kind of holding all that up so.

As we wrap this one up, let me thank you for joining us.

Hope you'll paint along.

And until next time, happy painting.

Take care.

[Music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankins' book of 13 Never before Seen painting projects from Bob Ross, call one 800 Bob Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]