(gentle guitar music) - Hi, glad you could join me this week.

Today I thought we'd do a fantastic little painting that, it'll make ya happy in here.

So let's start out and have 'em graphically run all the colors across the screen, and they'll come across in the same order that I have 'em on my palette.

While they're doin' that, let's go up here and talk a little.

I started with a black canvas today, and it's covered with a flat black acrylic paint, and allowed to dry.

On to that, I have added... Oh, I just sort of went all around here and I put a little bit of Alizarin crimson here and there, a little bit of thalo blue in spots, a little Prussian blue, just sorta mix 'em up and let 'em happen.

What the heck.

Now, I'm gonna go right into some Magic white.

And we'll go right up here, and just start making little criss-cross strokes.

And look at all the beautiful colors that begin happening.

These skies are really not planned, we just sorta let 'em happen.

All kinds of beautiful little things will happen.

And the more Magic white you add, the lighter the sky will get of course.

And you can make the sky... oh, you can make it to where it looks like it's noon if you want to, or you can make it dark.

This is your world, so you have to make these decisions, what time is it.

Here we are, and it's just a fantastic way to make a very effective, quick little sky, and not much of the sky is gonna show so I'm not worried about having a a lot of sky today, just want some pretty little colors happening back there.

Alrighty.

Now then, we'll wash the brush.

And we'll wash it in this odorless paint thinner, and there's a screen down in the bottom I scrub the brush against.

Shake off the excess, and then, (flapping noise) then you cover the whole camera crew.

Okay, let's have some fun up here today.

I'm gonna go right into, we just mix these colors on the brush, I'm gonna take a little Alizarin crimson, a little sap green, Van Dyke Brown.

Just mix 'em on the brush.

Oh we'll go into a little burnt umber too, what the heck.

All we're looking for is nice dark color.

Let's go up to the canvas here.

Maybe there's some little trees that live back here.

And all I'm gonna do is just touch the canvas.

See?

Just touch.

I don't wanna kill all the background color, I want some of that to show through.

And we just put in some happy, basic little tree shapes, wherever you think there oughta be a tree, that's where there oughta be a tree, just wherever you want 'em, drop 'em in... drop 'em in, just wherever you want 'em.

And let it go.

Okay, maybe maybe tell ya what, maybe there's, maybe there's one who lives over here.

Little trees live everywhere.

Wherever nature deposits a seed and it grows, that's, that's where he lives.

Maybe, maybe there's one back up in here.

And let some of 'em be very light, just let it literally just disappear.

Just absolutely disappear.

Quiet little trees.

Okay, now then, big 'ol tree lives here.

I'm just using the corner of the brush, and just gently gently tapping, striking the canvas and givin' it a little pull.

And I'm always pulling to where, toward the trunk, we know there's a trunk in the center of this tree, so I pull the limbs toward that trunk, and it helps make 'em look right.

Now if you want one that's very light, just an indication here.

Back in here maybe, wherever.

Now then, without cleaning the brush, without cleaning the brush, I'll add a little more right here first.

I'm gonna go right into a little bit of the yellows, and this is Cadmium yellow, a little yellow ochre, and just pull it right through that paint.

Pull it right through the paint, like that, okay.

Go up here, now we can put some highlights on these, and all we're gonna do is just touch.

Now if you have problems making the paint stick, add a little Magic white, or a little paint thinner, either one, and it'll make it stick much easier.

And, I'm gonna put a little paint thinner.

And then we can go back in here and see how easy it comes off?

A thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

There we go, okay.

A little yellow ochre, we'll go right up here, ooohh that's pretty.

Just think where the light would strike.

These little paintings should make ya happy.

And if painting teaches ya nothing else, it'll teach ya, it'll teach ya to look at nature and to see some of the most fantastic things imaginable.

Sometimes we spend our whole life looking at things but we don't see anything.

And painting teaches you to see.

It really teaches ya to see.

I have people call and write all the time and say, you know Bob, you were right, for the first time, I saw a tree that's lived in my front yard for a hundred years, and I never paid any attention to it.

Add a little permanent red to my color too, we might as well get crazy today.

And you can make these any color you want in your world.

Okay, a little sap green thrown in here and there.

I'm gonna put a happy little bush right about there.

Let's go over to the other side of the canvas, we'll drop some in over there, don't want it to be left out.

Just like that.

Barely, barely touching.

Maybe there's another one that lives right here.

I'm gonna leave this one right here without putting any highlight on it, so it'll look like it's really far away and you can put several of those in your painting, it'll really help, once again, create the illusion of distance.

And distance is created by making numerous planes in your painting, and planes are just different levels.

Here's a plane, here's a plane.

Each time you put another plane, it creates more depth in your painting, it makes it much more interesting.

And that's what brings the happy buck home.

Let's have some nice soft little grassy areas back in here, and all I'm gonna do is take this large brush, and begin tapping.

Now there's color on the bottom of this canvas just like there was on the top.

But I'm just pushing very easily so it doesn't mix.

Later on, maybe we'll, maybe we'll put a little water down in the bottom of this.

Then we want it to mix.

Right now, we're not even using the color that's underneath.

But we will.

There we go.

Again, makin' some little hills.

Tell ya what, I'm gonna take the liner brush, put some paint thinner on it, and go right into my dark color.

This is brown and Alizarin crimson, sap green, all those colors I was using.

And let's just put a indication here and there, a happy little tree trunk.

Just here and there.

Now remember, you're not gonna see all of trunk, because there's leaves on, on this side of the trunk, so just here and there.

Now maybe there's one that lives out here.

To where'd they live.

These also help create different planes in your painting and give it more depth.

There we go.

Okay, let's go right over here.

There's one.

He's got a friend that lives there.

That's another thing, when you paint, painting brings you new friends.

I have met, since I started painting, thousands of people that are so dear to me, and they're so special.

And if I had never started painting, I probably would've never had the opportunity to meet so many fantastic people.

Just like you.

And when you start painting, you'll find that it changes your whole outlook on life, it changes your attitude.

You look at nature different, you look at life different.

And sometimes I get fanatical and I even have a little pond behind where I live and I feed the fish, and they come up and I'm a little crazy, I set there and talk to the fish, and they're on the verge of answering, that's what scares me.

I feed 'em bread every day and they come up there and they wait on me... and really, it does nice things when you begin to understand nature and you fall in love with it.

And it makes you appreciate the fact that you, you've been allowed to be part of it, and to explore it.

And hopefully, hopefully it'll be there for your grandchildren and my grandchildren, and they too, can see some of the fantastic things, if we just take care of it.

Have to take care of it.

I'm just goin' back and forth here between permanent red, yellow ochre, Indian yellow, a little cad yellow, whatever happens.

And throwin' in a little sap green every once in awhile.

Let it go.

There we are.

Boy, that's pretty.

Creates a lot of distance in the painting.

There we are.

Let's go to the other side here.

Let's make a happy little hill right over here.

But when you're doing these black canvas, don't always think they have to end up being very dark, you can make canvases that when they're finished, you would think it was noontime, maybe.

They do not have to end up being very dark paintings, they can be light and shiny, bright.

Experiment with 'em.

Have fun.

Learn to mix color on the brush.

Don't worry about mixing it on the palette.

Mix it on the brush.

Okay, now then, I tell ya what, I'm gonna get a little bit of paint thinner on my liner brush and back into some of this brown color, and let's put a little tree or two that lives well, I see one that lives right there.

There he is.

Give 'em another little arm, trees need arms too.

There we go, and make his little trunk a little stronger.

He's gotta stay here when the wind's blowin' hard.

So he needs, he needs to be strong.

We don't want any weak, old trees in our paintings.

Maybe he's got a friend that lives right over here.

A little more paint thinner here and there, there we are.

There.

Now we're beginnin' to make some thick, deep woods here maybe.

Oh yeah, you're right, there it is.

There it is.

And trees grow however, however makes 'em happy.

And sometimes, you know when trees are little babies, maybe the big bear comes through here or the moose or the... or maybe a deer, and he steps on that tree and hurts 'em.

But the little tree doesn't give up, but maybe he grows up and he's got all kinda, oh, oh, all kinds a little crooks and bends and hurts in 'em.

And that's what makes 'em interesting.

Don't make all your trees just perfectly straight up and down.

Let 'em bend and play, and have fun.

Okay, I'm gonna go right into a, let's try a little cad yellow here.

Okay, any color that's bright enough it stands out against your background.

And we'll just put some happy little indications here and there.

Just let 'em drop right off your brush.

You can use this brush sideways or straight on, just to make some little indications, not looking for a lot of detail yet, it's too far back.

Practice with these big brushes.

You would not believe what they'll do.

Then we add a little yellow ochre to that same color, and we'll drop some happy little leaves right on that little tree.

Maybe there's a few little leaves live right here on this tree.

There.

This is the same old dirty brush, my gosh, it's got every color in the world on it.

I'm just adding yellow onto the tips, and then it's all mixing together right there on the brush.

Let's add a little permanent red in there in the yellow ochre and see what we get.

You know, we don't make mistakes, we have, we have happy accidents.

And some of these happy accidents turn out to be some of the most beautiful effects.

If you were trying to make 'em, you couldn't make 'em.

So when you get one, don't get upset.

Look at it before ya, before ya wipe it off.

Sometimes, sometimes these happy little accidents are the nicest things that could possibly happen in your painting.

Okay.

Let's come right down here.

I'm gonna take a small amount of the Magic white again.

Just the tiniest little bit on my big brush, and in my mind, yep, there's gonna be a little bit of water down here.

I like water.

I spend a lot of time playin' with the water.

As I say, I have all these fish that I feed.

Sometime, we buy up to a couple a hundred loads of bread at a time and we, we have all these fish trained, and they almost walk right outta the water.

They come up and eat bread.

And a couple hundred loads might, might last a week.

Now you understand I have a lotta fish friends.

And they come up and... and they sit around there and wait.

They'll almost climb up on the shore and come knock on a door, wanna know where dinner is.

I have a lot of friends that come over and look and they can't believe all these fish.

Anyway, enough fish talk.

Let's get busy here.

Van Dyke brown, burnt umber.

And let's put, let's put some land in here.

What the heck.

Just let it play like this.

Let it play and have fun.

Wherever you want land.

It don't matter, anything you don't like you cover up, we'll just put grass right back over the top of it.

Just wherever you want it.

Wherever you want it.

Now then.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, yep, comes right down through there.

There we go, right over.

Look at that.

Isn't it fantastic that you can do that with a great big ole knife and it almost looks like a putty knife.

There we are.

Okay, now let's put some highlight on there, I'm gonna use yellow ochre.

Yellow ochre, and I'll put a little permanent red into it, small amount of permanent red, and some burnt umber.

Now this burnt umber is very... very reddish, it's almost like a burnt sienna, it's a little different than most burnt umbers.

So it's almost like a sienna color.

Cut across, get that small roll of paint right on the edge of the knife.

Let's go up here.

Another thing I wanted to mention, 'cause I get some letters somtime.

When you look at my knife up close on television, it may look a different than the knife you have.

And the reason is, I put tape on this knife, so that it doesn't glare on TV.

But it's the same knife, it's just that I've put a little tape on there.

There we go.

Now let's use a fan brush.

Fan brush is a lotta fun.

You get a little paint thinner on it, go right into some cad yellow, sap green, sap green, yellow ochre, and just mix all these colors on the brush.

Lookie there, just look at all the colors happening on that brush.

That's what we're looking for.

We don't want one flat dead ole color in there.

Let's go up to the canvas.

Now then, we can begin bringin' all this together.

And all we're doin' is touching, pushing, bending it upward.

Look at that, just bring it right down into these land areas that you've built in here.

Okay.

There we go.

And anywhere you want grass to be, you just come right over the land, no big deal, this is your world.

You can do anything.

You can really do anything, but you have to believe, always believe in yourself.

Maybe, let's go over to this side here.

Believing in yourself may be, may be the most important thing in life, 'cause if you don't believe in yourself, nobody else is gonna believe.

And you can do anything.

You can do anything.

And if anybody challenges that, you tell 'em Bob said that you could do anything.

(mumbles) Little Magic white, and I put a little bit of blue in it, and a little brown in it, just to dull it down.

I'm just gonna pull it out, cut across, let's go up here.

And we'll put a little bit of water line right in here.

Just let this play.

There.

I need a little more of the Magic white on my palette, about to run out here.

Didn't mix quite enough.

There we go.

Let that run right on around like that, let's go right there.

Isn't that super.

Okay.

Let's have some fun.

I'm gonna take a big brush, go right into all my dark colors of brown, sap green, all of 'em, and then... there it goes, comes right down like that.

And we'll just cut that little pond right off, put it right where we want it.

Take a large brush, and we'll just tap some little highlights right on there.

And you could do this with a fan brush, this is just a little bit faster.

Let it get darker, darker, darker, darker as it goes toward the corner here.

Darker, darker, darker.

Lookie there.

Good, that's all you need.

Okay, let's build some big trees.

Grab a fan brush.

And I wanna make a, I wanna make black.

Let's clean off a spot here.

I'm gonna take a thalo green, Alizarin crimson, thalo green, Alizarin crimson, in about equal parts, and I wanna mix this very good.

Pick it totally up off the palette, turn it over.

Pick it up, turn it over.

There you go.

Lemme clean my knife here.

Now then.

We need some, we need some big trees.

Gotta make a decision, I'll just use a fan brush today, the knife works fine, but the fan brush is in my hand, so we'll try it.

And there is a big tree who lives... there's where he lives.

Make a decision and throw 'em in.

Just drop it in.

'Cause on your canvas, you can do anything you want.

Give 'em a big ole foot stickin' out here, don't want 'em to fall over in the little mud puddle there and make a big splash.

There we go.

And let's give 'em an arm.

A tree needs an arm too.

There we go.

Tell ya what, tell ya what, yep, right here, we'll just put us another tree.

We can have as many trees as we want in our world.

Another big ole tree.

And this one's closer to ya, so he's, he's bigger, he's stronger.

Give him a big ole strong root here, oh he's floatin' in the water.

He's floatin' right there in the water.

Maybe he's got a little friend.

He lives here for protection, he knows this big tree won't let anybody hurt 'em.

There.

And we'll just, while we got this good dark color on here, we'll just drop some in the bottom, we gotta give it some land for him to... for him to live on there.

See there?

That easy.

That easy.

Okay, now I'm gonna take another fan brush.

Today I think I'll just take a little yellow ochre, and a little white, a little yellow ochre and white, and let's just go right here, and just, all I'm doing is touching the canvas, just touch.

Just touch.

A little little bit of highlight playin' on these trees.

Just so it stands out... like so.

Okay, let's do this other big tree over here.

Same thing, I'm just gonna use the same color.

You can vary these colors a little bit.

Add a little permanent red right in there too.

Just sorta tap, makes it look like bark, rough and strong.

There we are.

Now a little bit on this one over here.

He's skinny little tree, so he doesn't need too much.

There.

Okay, maybe, tell ya what, let's give 'em a little arm right there, tree needs another arm.

And maybe shoot a big ole arm on this tree, he's a big healthy strong tree, we'll give him a big arm.

And you could do these arms on these trees with a knife, it'd work just as well.

I'm just in a fan brush mood today.

And maybe we'll put, maybe we'll put a few little indications up here of some leaves and stuff, so let's go right into the yellow, a little yellow, a little yellow.

And I'm still using that same old dirty brush.

Okay, let's go up to this tree, and I'm gonna take and all we're gonna do here, is just touch, and just sorta let some, let some happy little leaf indication, just float around up here.

They're really not... they're not connected or anything.

Just sorta let 'em float around.

Isn't it pretty?

It's fantastic what you can do with a little imagination and an almighty brush, and a dozen colors.

There.

And once again, use the colors that make you happy.

I use colors a lot of times, that are a little brighter than I normally would, just so you can see it better on your set.

And if I can teach you how to do it, then what you do is, that's up to you, 'cause each one of us sees nature through different eyes.

And what you see is what you should paint.

Lookie there.

Little bit of brighter color there so it stands out.

Okay.

Gives you an idea of how that's done.

Now, I take the ole fan brush and we go right into some yellow and some green.

Let's just drop some happy little grassy areas that are livin' right down here at this big tree's foot.

And sort of do these in layers so it creates depth in 'em.

Little the dark color... like so.

Take a little yellow ochre, little highlight.

I think we just about have a finished painting here.

Put a little water line here.

Shoot, I think we're gonna call that one finished.

And from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, God bless, and hope to see you again.

Thank you.

(instrumental music)