Sometimes the anticipation of going fishing surpasses the actual event of fishing.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I was raised in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes.

You better believe there's been fishing in my life!

Today I'm going to show you a painting, "The Fisher Boy."

We have it in two parts.

Part one being a little different.

Let me just read one line.

"Dare to take a chance."

That's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna start with acrylics, just a few minutes, then the rest of part one and all part two will be oil paints.

That's stepping out there, taking a chance.

This little boy was baiting a hook and I saw him and videotaped him while I was attending the Wyeth Museum in Pennsylvania.

I think it was Chadds Ford and right on the museum grounds you had this beautiful stream going by and that was an actual scene.

Very much what I saw is being shown there.

Let me tell you about the priming of the canvas.

I've primed this with one Paynes Gray, two Thalo Blue, one Ultramarine Blue, and then white.

It is all dry, of course.

The drawing is on and very firmly done with an outline of acrylics.

It will be such that when I put paint over thinly, I'll still be able to see my subject, so I will be starting with acrylics.

So let's go ahead and do that and a small amount of acrylics I do will be on the flesh, face, arms and legs, just flatly placed on.

Then we'll put a little wash of red color on the shirt and blue on the jeans.

So here's what I have.

This is Burnt Umber and Raw Sienna, equal parts with a little red and some white.

This will go on the face.

You see the nice response it has right away when it is with the priming of the canvas we have.

I picked up another brush too so I have a little round brush.

And we're going to put this nose on there.

Now when you look at the drawing, you say well do you have an eye over there?

I'll say yeah, but it shouldn't be.

You'll just see a little bit there so we'll make that all red and then make it correct.

When I'm placing this on, it is purely just one value.

When I put the first highlight on the nose you think, that's good, what're you going to put down that side?

But I need to have flesh color, so this is not the highlights of the flesh.

They will come when we put the oil on.

I'll surround that little eye, because it's nice to have that line working for you, for us.

Pick up a little water, go back to the same area.

We have just a little bit under the nose here, I better fill that in closer.

I like to save the lines here and there.

Here where I want to save it was on the eye and then the bottom of the nose, but I'll come a little closer so that doesn't become too hard of an edge.

And then we'll come down on the lips like that and over there.

And the ear is just a little darker.

So all I'll do on that is just put a little light on the edge.

All right now, I'll take the flat sable brush, I think I still have paint in it, and I'll go ahead and put this on the arm.

Love the relationship of the color with the prime color.

Use a little water.

I'll just put every area that has the flesh color on right away.

Come down on the legs.

The legs below will be very dark, so we'll have to glaze just a little darks on them, but we're just establishing the flesh wherever it is as one value.

And we have a hand.

You do have the little divisions between the fingers, so we'll hang on to those.

And if I feel, which I do, if the arm needs any anatomical correction, then we can do it at this time.

So I can come just a little bicep there rather than just straight down.

Small thing, but you certainly in dealing with the human form, you want to be quite accurate.

Just a little bit on the elbow there.

Now we have one more to do over here.

Over on the other arm.

I wonder if he caught any fish.

You don't see any fish lined up next to his little basket, do you?

Okay, coming down putting on, again the fingers and you see as I do this I'm watching so that I don't necessarily run out to the line because here I want to make sure that his elbow or his-- that's your wrist!

That your wrist is narrow enough.

Okay that'll be enough on that.

We'll take and put just a little wash.

This is red, what are you, Naphthol Red?

We'll put some of this on, just as a wash.

I don't need to have this be dark or light or anything other than just putting on to have a base so when we put on oil, we can go thinly and yet it won't look, the underneath won't show too much, the underneath being the first prime color.

Come down next to the arm and see, as I do it at this time, now I'm coming in and I'm covering a little bit that dark line so that the arm is truly is its right size.

Okay so that'll be enough.

What about you?

Oh you're part of the collar so that has to be the red as well.

Okay, we'll stop with that and then we'll do the same thing with the blue.

This is uh...Thalo Blue?

Are you Thalo Blue?

I need to take a touch, yes Thalo Blue.

On the use of this, I'm looking at coming in the shadow area of the trousers, so that which is out at the knee is lighter, so why even put this on top of that?

Because the priming almost gives you some of the family of blue.

One more place down in here, his shadow and then the back.

Again I want you to notice how I-- oops maybe if I get out of your way-- if you notice how I'm cutting into that line so the arm isn't too wide.

I don't know why in my original drawing, sometimes a drawing can confuse you.

You put it on, it looks right, but when you start putting form in it, you realize you need to do the little adjustments.

All right.

We are in business.

We'll stop there, and we'll let the acrylics dry and we'll come on with the oils.

[soft scraping] I'm placing walnut oil on the canvas, I have it put on.

I'll even it out, remove a little bit of the excess from this, then we'll start by putting in.

This is water behind there.

You almost feel like it might be sky, but it's going to be water.

We'll start with, this is Paynes Gray, Turquoise Blue, a little white, a touch of Yellow Ochre.

This will be very close to the color that's there.

Just a little lighter perhaps, which is good.

We'll come around this side.

When I come around this side, I feel a need to just cut that down just a little bit, so he isn't quite so rounded there.

And then we'll push this over to there.

That's with a small brush, and then once you've come near the object, then you can use a large brush and extend it out very easily.

You can extend it with less paint and cover a lot of territory.

All right, that surrounds him.

We'll put in hair so he doesn't have blue hair.

Oh I saw this movie once, the boy with green hair.

You're the boy with blue hair.

Down on the palette, I have, you are Yellow Ochre and Viridian Green.

We're going to push this on up at the top of the canvas and we'll push it across.

Your idea here is to let a little bit of it show and a little bit of the blue coming through.

Now this green you think, what's causing that?

It was those beautiful trees on the far bank being reflected into the water.

But I want you to realize how much use you make of that priming of the canvas.

Now on the left side, it was a little more in the dark.

So we'll take Burnt Umber.

We'll take some Burnt Umber over and I believe as I mix it, I'll push it just a little bit into the greenish tone.

[soft scraping] I'm conscious again of needing to let some of the blue show through.

I don't think that's quite dark enough.

Let's take some Thalo, excuse me turquoise.

Don't call you the wrong names!

When I have 20 grandchildren, oo, you gotta be careful because they each have individual feelings and individual names.

Grandpa, I'm not Shadow, that's the dog!

Oh, ok. Oo.

Now, look what my brush stroke does.

It let's just kind of a few little almost ripples show out there.

I'm gonna take this same brush without adding any more paint, but just come over.

This is what you call protecting the corners.

So when you have darker in the corners, then your eye stays more in the center of the canvas.

Isn't that pretty?

Now I notice when I've done this, I've come there, and I'll probably have to use a small brush to come real close to him.

Oh actually I don't, because there's light green there.

So I'll put this on.

I'll blend that in just a minute.

Come over on the back side of him and there's dark water right next to the shore, there.

So we'll blend those two areas, then we'll go on to something new.

There, and then on this side.

You know the nice thing about this area, when I say this area, I'm not talking about Pennsylvania, I'm talking about Fargo, Minnesota-- you can go fishing, what'd you say, 24-7, 24-7-12.

That means 12 months a year you can go through ice, you can go when it's non ice.

Oh, it's so neat.

Okay, so we'll come with the next and let's do this.

I want to kind of isolate the little child.

We'll have plenty of time to work on him because we have a whole next week to work carefully on him.

So let's work around him with getting rid of some of the prime color.

This is cad yellow and Turquoise Blue.

It gives us a vivid green.

We'll come like this and when I say like this meaning that what I leave will eventually be our rocks.

I believe I'll take a small brush.

♪ I believe ♪ And we'll come closely to the body.

And this is so nice with that strong light against the leg and then it lets the leg sort of rise up away from the surroundings.

A little bit in here and remember what I said earlier.

I had left a line.

Now when I put this on, I come right on top and against the line and very aware of should I narrow the line a little bit, for instance, here.

I had already narrowed that little bit by leaving the line, now with the green cutting into it, it does a fine job.

Now when I come over here, we'll come around the tackle box.

Oh, you know something on the tackle box which I've noticed?

See the perspective?

See the perspective?

See the wrong perspective?

They all need to go the same way.

So at least on the outside I'll make the perspective right at this time, then we'll have to correct that line on the inside later.

So those are small things.

You just need to have it right.

I was painting one time.

And I was painting a horse, it was on this PBS wonderful Prairie Public, the series.

And I was painting a horse and I was painting down someplace, calling it the whithers, it's not the whithers down there.

People would say, oh what a great horse-- he doesn't know his horses.

I saw a baseball scene once and it showed something that was totally impossible to happen and it just discounted whether it was painted well or not, because it was an error, so you want to kinda correct things as you do them.

I remember my teacher Claude Buck.

His teacher's name was Ameal Carlson, and he just idolized Ameal Carlson; he could do no wrong.

Well, I went to a museum, and I saw a picture, or a painting done by Ameal Carlson and it had a pheasant on it, just lying down.

Oh gee, that was well done.

And then he had a little vase over to the side, and the vase was not symmetrical.

And I went, I don't know why, But I said Claude, that vase is not symmetrical.

And he said well, that's probably the way he wanted it.

Geesh.

And maybe he did!

Okay I'm going to, while I'm here, just touch a little bit of leaves out into the stream.

I'll use a different brush.

Let's see, you'll do.

Using the same color I have there, but this will just make-- oh, see the nice work it does?

It's so important to have the right brush.

It's so important to take care of your brushes.

Now, when I paint on the shows, we sort of use some of the same brushes for oils and acrylics.

It might be nice if you had a separate set for each to really honor what they do, so you're not mixing the oil and the water in the same brush.

Now these are going to be highlighted, but I'll just put them in in general.

Okay, taking that same small flat brush, we'll creep around with our green and isolate those things that are not grass.

I'll take a larger fan brush.

It just goes a little faster.

When you work close to the actual object, then of course, you are going to be a little more careful and the small brush will do that.

Okay, I think that will be enough for that.

Let's go ahead and just start a little bit of work on the boy, on the hair.

I'll take first, let's see what should we take?

Let's see, this is Raw Sienna.

Buck you tell us, don't guess.

Raw Sienna.

You know, you always wonder will this be dark enough to start with, and what makes it work is that dark tone of the prime of the canvas.

So see, this looks plenty dark.

If you were to put this on, well let me just show you.

If you put this on white, it doesn't look very dark.

But by having it against the blue.

Gee, what a, I hope you could see that.

Against the blue, then it responds with some see through and some just dark.

Here as I've gone higher on purpose, I've touched a little bit against the water, the wet water, so that it will lighten it a bit.

I should've gone over and asked that little boy his name.

Boy did he have some blond hair.

Okay, we'll put this on and then I'll come just a little, let's see, what should we do now?

Let's let that set, because when we put on the highlights, it'll be nice to have that.

I think I'll start just a little bit on the face.

We'll start with very simply putting a glaze on.

You're Alizarin Crimson, you're Burnt Umber, and you're raw sienna.

I've kinda brought them over then just see, I think that will work.

Kind of a little combination of the three.

We'll put this on as a glaze.

Want a little bit more of the umber, so I'm leaning, jump over there, just a little bit more of the umber, so it's a slight bit more powerful.

Now, we're not painting a different nationality, we're just putting this on so we can push on some lights.

But we'll have that on very flatlike, and then we'll wipe just a little bit, this is kinda fun to do, you just wipe slightly and we'll be adding lights onto that.

But look at the difference between what it was and what it is.

If you just come into the room, you say well, I don't how can I tell what it was?

You have to be there on time.

My mom she'll call me up and chew me out and say why didn't you tell me you were on TV today?

Well you know I don't know what the schedule is out here.

Okay, let's put the same color over on the arm.

See, this will give us a nice ability, as we did on the face, put it on, then wipe away.

And you can wipe or leave as much as you want.

On the arm, we'll wipe on the highlights but we'll leave it darker in the darks.

Now this doesn't have much of what you say darks down here, but if we put this on then we can work with it.

Right now, we'll leave the arm just like it is.

Come over to the next one, same thing.

This will be quite light, but we won't have to change it much.

Come down on, where are you, oh,here you are.

On here and then what I finally want to do with this flesh color and that just will just about take us through this week.

You be sure and come back next week.

You come back, you all come back!

We'll put this down on here and this is quite dark down there, so we won't be doing much, if any, on the wiping.

And on this leg, ♪ the anklebone connected to the head bone.

♪ If he bends over, that's almost right, isn't it?

Okay, I'm not going to wipe those, we'll just let those set up a little bit.

I think as a kind of a final going away, we'll take ah, now back to this green grass color, see, when I look at this, then I'll say okay, get rid of the line.

Come down here, get rid of the line.

This was just a little wide so see, it's so neat when you've outlined it with acrylics, if you outline it with acrylics, then you can cut into it quite easily.

What do you have over here, I'm just kinda looking all over.

I guess what I could do on the right side is take some more of that grass color and I'm using just a little bit of oil, and we'll come up and just start some of the reeds that are going up above the edge of the grass into the stream.

That's very attractive when you can just separate the two by little teeny strokes.

I can't wait.

This is white and a little Yellow Ochre and green.

Look at the light here now.

I would suspect we could even go just a little lighter later.

"Lighter later!"

What about on the right side?

We want to make sure you're separating the land from the water.

Boy, you you're kinda in a mist, but I think you're going to come out of it.

So next time, we'll go ahead and finish part two, "The Fisher Boy," and that will continue with oils.

See you then!

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