Cabin at Trail's End

(soothing music) - Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

Thought today we'd just have a good time and have a happy little painting up here.

So let's start out and 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 got done up here.

Today I've got a piece of adhesive back paper stuck up here just contact paper, something you'd buy at the local hardware store or supermarket.

Now I've cut a little oval in it and just stuck it on there, and we've taken a little black gesso, and I've painted a little design.

I know I want a lot of dark in here and I want a big bush or tree or something there.

Other than that, we don't really care.

We let the black gesso dry completely, then we put a thin, thin coat of liquid clear over all the black.

Then I've covered that with just a little bit of sap green and van dyke brown.

I put the van dyke brown just to dull it down a little.

And with that, we'll have a good time.

See what happens.

Now you don't allow the liquid clear and the transparent color to dry before you start.

It's still wet.

The black gesso is dry, but the transparent color is not.

Let's start with a little bit of Indian yellow today, just a small amount on the two inch brush.

Let's go right up in here.

Maybe we'll have a... Just a little glow coming right out of here.

(swooshing) Very little color is needed.

(swooshing) 'Cause it'll mix with the liquid white that's on this part.

I don't know if I mentioned that or not, but it's liquid white up there.

(swooshing) And, we'll have just a very nice little color right there.

(swooshing) Okay, now then.

We won't even wash the brush.

I'm going to go right into a small amount of bright red, just a small amount.

Takes very little.

It's extremely strong.

(swooshing) And we'll go up in here right above the Indian yellow and we just put in a little touch of yellow and red mixture right there.

Since I didn't clean the brush, we have both yellow and red in the brush now and it's going to make a nice orangey color.

And that's just what I'm looking for.

There we go.

Okay, and we'll just keep right on going here.

We'll take, shoot let's just go into a little touch of the pthalo blue now.

We've got... (tapping) We started with yellow and then we have some red in between.

Now we're going into a little touch of the pthalo blue.

If we try to put the blue right against the yellow everywhere it touched, of course, we'd have bright green, so be careful unless you're looking for a nice green sky.

There.

Then we wash the old brush.

That's the fun part of this whole technique.

Shake off the excess.

(thwacking) (giggles) And just cover everything in the studio, good.

All right.

Now with a clean, dry brush, want to go back in here and just blend all this together.

(swooshing) Something about like that.

(swooshing) There we are.

(swooshing) Now then.

By using this black gesso you can see some of these little designs here come through, and we're going to use those to our advantage.

So, when you're putting this on, I use a little sponge or a foam brush or something, let all these little patterns happen because they become your good friend.

They're gonna create the illusion of all kinds of little things back in there.

Watch what happens here if we take a little bit, we'll use a little bit of sap green.

And a little touch of the van dyke brown.

Same colors we have in the background, but I don't want much paint.

Very little.

Very little.

And we can go back.

We just take the corner of this old brush, and we can begin dropping in some basic little shapes here and there.

Don't need a lot.

And some of these that we did with the black gesso I want to leave alone.

I want them to show.

Don't want to touch 'em.

Don't want to touch 'em yet.

There.

Okay?

Now then.

Tell you what, let's use the little oval brush today.

And we'll go into a little touch of the yellow, grab a little sap green.

Sap green and yellow, little yellow ochre, maybe even a little black, dull it down some, there we go.

Little Indian yellow.

Just touch, give it a little push, little push.

And we can go up in here and we can come in here just using the top corner of that brush and put an indication of all kinds of little leaves and stuff on all these little background trees.

There.

But that oval brush will just make gorgeous, gorgeous things back in there very easily.

We want these to be just about the color of the sky so they sort of just blend right in there.

Okay, maybe over in here too.

Some little bushes.

Isn't that fantastic how well that little brush works?

And it's easy to notice this when it has a black handle, and I say that over and over 'cause people sort of get confused when they go to pick up a brush.

That's the reason we made this one with a black handle, so it'd be easy to tell.

There.

And that's basically all we need back here.

Let's have some fun today.

Tell you what let's do.

See we've just painted in some streaks over the black gesso.

I want to go right up in here and grab a little of the, we'll use some midnight black.

Maybe add a little dark sienna to it.

Just sort of work 'em back and forth like that.

Lot of color on the brush, and maybe in our world maybe we'll have an old tree that lives right there, just like so.

And all you have to do is pull straight down.

Straight down, and you can create the trunk.

And here's one, looks like it's broke off.

There.

Now, let's take a little titanium white.

A little touch of the dark sienna.

(scraping) Mix 'em together here.

I'll put a little black in there, too.

I want to gray that down some.

So we have white, little dark sienna, and black.

Cut off our little tiny roll of paint there, very little.

And let's go up in here and we'll just have to make a determination of where's the light coming from?

I think it's coming from the right, so we'll put a little highlight color over here.

Right there.

Just let it work down, down, down, down, down.

Little bit there.

And once again, just let it sort of work down.

And even on this little trunk here that's been broke off, little touch right in there too.

All right, now we get our liner brush to that lead paint thinner.

Paint thinner and go into the van dyke brown.

Get the paint very, very thin, though.

Very thin.

Okay, let's go right up in here.

Let's put some limbs on these little trees here.

There it is.

See that?

But if you have trouble making this paint flow, add a little of the paint thinner to it.

It's all you need.

You can create the illusion of all kinds of little limbs and sticks and twigs that just protrude out here from this little tree.

Maybe this is an evergreen tree of some kind.

There.

Let your hand be a little nervous.

Sometimes I get letters from people and they say that they can't paint because they have a little nervous twitch.

In this case, you're ahead of the rest of us.

Use it to your advantage, there.

Okay, maybe there's even one hanging off there, I don't know.

Wherever.

Now then.

Let's take, tell you what we'll use number three fan brush, I like it, and I'm going to go right into a little bit of the black.

Little black.

Let's go right up in here, and just push upward.

It will create the illusion of some few little leaves back here, little pine needles.

There, don't want a whole bunch.

Just a little.

Okay, then we'll take that same color, go right through a bit of the cad yellow, and black and yellow as you know make a beautiful green.

There.

Let's load a lot of color into the bristles, and we'll come along here and put a few highlights on this.

Don't overdo, though.

It's very easy to overdo.

Just a few little doers that live in there.

There we go.

Now then.

We just sort of work in layers.

I'm going to take a little color on the oval brush and just highlight right in there, and that'll push that whole tree back, or the whole group of trees.

There's several trees in there.

Just by doing that, though.

That'll push it way back into the distance, there.

All right.

Shoot.

Tell you what, let's look at this big old bush over here.

We'll take a little black, little sap green.

We'll just mix 'em on the brush.

Little crimson.

I'll just mix 'em together.

Okay, let's go right up in here.

Now maybe up in here there's some, we'll just take the brush and push the corner of it.

Maybe this is a big ol' bush or big tree lives right in there.

See how easy though, when you have the black gesso back there this is very simple to push in a little color.

If this was a white canvas, you would have to work quite hard to get this that dark.

So use that to your advantage.

Let's have some fun, tell you what.

Let's take a fan brush today.

We'll take some yellow.

We'll take all the yellows.

Little Indian yellow, yellow ochre, cad yellow, get a little black.

So we'll make a multitude of greens right here on the brush.

We have all different kinds.

I think you can see there, there's you can see layers of different color and it happens because you mix the color on the brush rather than up here on the canvas.

Now let's take and just sort of pushing upward, should be a nice, easy way here of making some very effective little bushes and trees just using the fan brush and pushing upward.

Darker, darker, darker, dark.

Darker, darker as it gets down toward the center here.

Here comes another one, but just push upward.

Leave some dark spaces in between your little individuals in there.

Okay, maybe over in here somewhere there's one.

Think about little clumps here.

Little groupings of limbs and branches.

Shoot.

There.

This is a very, very nice and easy, I'm going to put a little touch of the bright red on there too.

Let's have a sparkler right there, yeah.

There we go.

Maybe a little bit more of that red.

I like that red.

Mm.

Just brightens up your little bush there.

But this is a very, very simple way of making a tree that looks a little different, and it has a multitude of things happening in it.

Multitude of things.

There.

Just think where the light would strike it.

You can get carried away here sometimes.

Maybe there's another one lives right there.

Just push upward though.

It's all there is to it.

It's so simple, but you can overwork it.

You have to do it then get away from it.

Do it, get away from it.

There.

Something like so.

Over here, not as bright because this would be more into shadow.

Much more into shadow over here.

Don't want a lot of detail in that one.

All right.

This is such a beautiful little place.

I tell you what let's do.

Let's have some fun.

Maybe right here, shoot.

Let's take some van dyke brown and maybe in our world there's a little cabin that lives right there.

Just take the knife, just take the knife and put in a basic little shape.

Something like so.

And if you have a lot of paint here, which I don't at this time, but you could scrape out a basic shape, and that would remove the excess paint.

I don't have much here right now, so we don't have to do that, but sometimes you get a lot of paint buildup here and it makes it a lot easier if you can just zip it out.

Okay, let's take some white, little black, mix it together.

Make a nice grayish color.

Maybe the least little touch of the dark sienna into it.

Ooh, that's nice, that's nice.

Okay, cut off our little roll of paint.

Very little.

And let's go right on down here.

Just sort of let the knife just work and play and bounce.

Just boop boop boop boop boop.

Right on down.

Right on down, just like that.

Something like so.

Then we'll take the small edge of the knife and come over on this side.

And just touch what looks like little shingles that you're sort of looking up there and seeing.

Then in the front... We'll put a little more dark sienna in that same color.

I want it to be more into the brownish hues right now.

Touch, then pull straight down.

Straight down.

Delicate, delicate touch though.

Barely, barely touching the canvas.

Just graze it, graze it.

I'm going to add a lot of van dyke brown to that same color and come over here, and put a dark side on this cabin.

There's a little color there, but it's much darker.

Now, we can take the van dyke brown, come across.

Isn't that easy?

We'll just build this little door in there.

We can take just a knife here and scrape out a, maybe there's a little window there.

Just scrape the paint off and we'll take a little blue.

Little white, pthalo blue and white and we'll just put the indication maybe of a little light in the window.

Not much.

Not much.

Little van dyke brown right on the edge of the knife.

We can turn it into some little boards, little slats.

There we are.

Take the knife and just sort of cut around so the door stands out.

Now we're going to do a cabinectomy.

Figure out where you want the bottom of the cabin and just cut it off.

You have unlimited power here, you can do that.

You can do that.

Shoot, you can do anything on this canvas.

Anything.

Little bit of highlight right along there to make it stand out a little more.

Just like so.

Now we can come back in here.

We'll just use a, tell you what we'll just get a big brush here.

Little bit of the black, cad yellow, yellow ochre, Indian yellow.

Here and there some bright red I'll use and let's begin just bouncing in some little bushes that live back here.

Maybe this guy's like me.

He didn't cut his yard very good and it's just sort of growing up over the house.

Little touch of the red.

There.

Okay.

Just sort of decide where you think it'll be.

Maybe back in here we can begin seeing the indication of some little grassy areas back here behind the cabin.

All we're doing here is just tapping.

You know, while I'm doing this, I'm going to put in a whole layer of grass here.

But every year, one of the highlights of my entire life, is going to New York City to Central Park.

And in Central Park we do a show with all the friends that we have in that area.

And this is one of the most spectacular events of the year for me.

But look at the number of friends that come to watch us paint and to paint with us.

And we have one of the best times.

Hey, there's my wife Jane.

Hi, Jane.

That's a first, how you doing?

And that was Annette with her, my partner.

You'll probably never see Jane on TV again.

This is some young friends that brought paintings for me to see.

Look at this, can you believe some of the paintings that these fantastic people are doing?

It's unreal.

And people came from all over to bring their paintings and show us and to share a day with us that was spectacular.

Absolutely spectacular.

There, look at that.

There's a father and son team I believe that paints along with us.

Watches the show.

Look at that, this gentleman here, a good friend.

He came all the way from Italy.

All the way from Italy.

And here's some of my young friends.

Of course, when he got home his mother probably raised the devil with him 'cause somebody wrote all over his shirt.

But we had fun doing it anyway.

There.

Look at this, isn't she the most precious young thing?

And here's my friend the bulldog.

He's got a hat on.

And the little poodle.

But isn't that super?

If you live in that area when we're there next year, come and see us because we have a super day and the people of New York City have been so fantastic to us.

And I would like to thank each and every one of them for coming out and seeing us and supporting us and painting with us.

Makes it very special.

Very, very special.

So I say this show each year in Central Park is absolutely one of the highlights of my entire life.

There we are.

I think Joan did a whole section in the newsletter this time about it showing some of the super people and the times that we had.

Okay, as you can see here I'm just putting in layers of grass just by tapping.

Now you have to decide maybe there's a little bush that lives right there.

Right there.

Ooh, there's one with a little bit of, little touch of the bright red in it.

That's pretty.

Just sort of fill that all up, bring it together.

There's another little bush.

But see, look at all the different layers in there.

That black gesso is one of the most marvelous things for doing this because a lot of it that you're seeing is actually the black gesso showing through the transparent paint.

Let the gesso work for you.

That's one of the neatest things that I've ever invented.

I really don't know why somebody hadn't invented it a long time ago.

But it, to me is logical.

I think we should have had that in art for many years.

Let's take, tell you what, we'll take a little of the van dyke brown, dark sienna, mix it together.

Use the old fan brush.

And there's a couple of more trees here.

And let's just touch and pull down.

Now we have to make a decision.

I want these trees to be in the back.

These here to be more in the foreground so we'll just pull them right down in front.

That easy.

There.

Maybe there's a clump of trees here.

Maybe it's a family of trees.

Mama, and papa, and little guy there.

Little guy's like Steve, my son.

He's got bigger than I am.

All right.

There.

Take a little of the van dyke brown, some paint thinner, the liner brush, and let's go right in here and we'll make some little branches that hang off this.

Little branches, but the paint is very thin so it just flows.

There, see 'em?

And you can put as many or as few as you want into your world.

As many or as few.

Just sort of let your imagination take you wherever you want to go.

There.

And maybe, shoot, let's take a little white, little touch of the dark sienna in it, and we'll put a little highlight on that tree, too.

Want a little touch right along there.

Something like so.

There.

Just enough to make it stand out a little from the canvas.

Now then, take a fan brush with a little brown on it.

A little bit of white.

Don't overmix the color, though.

See, there's a multitude of things happening on there.

And maybe right up here in our world, maybe there's just a happy little path that lives right here.

See all you have to do is just go back and forth and in my mind, there's a little indentation in the center so I sort of work the brush that way and it'll make it look like people have walked on it for many years and sort of wore a little valley down here.

There.

Okay, I'm gonna go back to our two inch brush.

Let's set that path down into the painting a little more, and by taking the large brush, bringing some of these grassy areas right over the top like that.

Then it'll come together.

See how that pushes that path right down into there?

Sneaky, huh?

There we go.

Okay, this would also be a nice painting to leave the cabin out and put a little stream or something in there.

Or you could get carried away with this one.

There's so many things that you could do with it.

And that's really what we're trying to do with this show.

We want to show you how to make certain effects and then just sort of turn you loose on the world and let your imagination go.

Because that's where painting really becomes fun is when you use your imagination, your own creativity.

And you don't just copy.

There, I want to have a few little sticks that hang out of this old... Maybe this is some kind of big old bush up here.

There, you see things like this in the woods and there's old sticks that are parts of limbs that have died or whatever and hanging out and they make 'em so interesting.

So interesting.

You take a little, a lighter color, brown and white, and maybe there's a few inside here.

Just a few that are on the inside that you can make out.

Something like that.

There, wherever you want them.

Wherever, wherever, wherever, there we are.

All kinds of little doers that live in there.

And a few that you see projecting back.

These little sticks though give depth and distance to all your little doers.

Okay.

Tell you what let's bring the camera up here.

I'm gonna take the contact paper off and let's take a look see at what we have.

(tearing) There we go, this is called the moment of truth.

Isn't that fantastic?

That contact paper does such beautiful little things.

But tell you what.

Let's take, let's let these trees project right on out of our painting.

Sometimes I like to do that.

Just let 'em slip right out, there they go.

Wherever, wherever, wherever.

There.

Maybe that one goes sort of yahaw over there.

So they're not all just straight telephone poles.

And we can go back to our script liner brush with paint thinner on it, a little bit of the van dyke brown.

And let's come right in here and let's put in some limbs and stuff up here in this area.

There.

Just wherever, wherever.

Okay, few back in there.

Maybe we'll even put some leaves on those trees.

What the heck?

In your world, you decide.

Maybe the trees are dead, don't have any leaves.

Or maybe they just went bald, who knows?

That's what's happening to me.

There.

Okay, now then.

Let's take our, we'll just use that little oval brush who just worked so well for us today.

Take a little green, put in there.

A little black and yellow makes a little nicer green.

And I'm double loading it.

I've put a dark color and I went to a little bit of this brighter color right on the tip.

So if we look in there, see it dark, and right on the tip that little bit of yellow?

Now watch, watch.

When you come up here you go straight in to the canvas, just take it shoo, like you're trying to stab it.

Barely touch.

Barely touch.

So you get the highlight and the shadow all in one stroke.

But just go straight in, barely touching.

And think about form, think about shape.

There, see how those little leaves just float all around in there?

This oval brush makes that happen.

So easy, so easy.

When we're teaching people, this is the one that they usually fall in love with.

This is the brush.

Because it works, even if you've never painted before, this little devil works great for ya.

Here we are.

Just decide wherever you think there's leaves and maybe there's not leaves on everything.

Once in a while you can dip it into liquid clear and touch, and it'll go right over thin paint.

All right.

About like that.

I don't want to kill my background.

That gives us indication.

So, I'll tell you, let's take our liner brush.

Little paint thinner.

Little bit of the bright red, and let's sign this one.

We'll sign it right along in here.

Luckily, I have a very short name so it's easy to sign.

There.

I think we'll call that one finished.

Hope you've enjoyed this.

It'll give you some nice ideas and you'll like it.

From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

(soothing music)