No work of art is ever finished You lonely stop at a good place.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Guess where this was painted.

This was painted in Santa Barbara in the fall.

Do we have fall there?

Yeah, we do!

And it's a real nice "Golden Retreat," the name of the picture.

This is a pochade that I did from my visit to Oak Park near sunset time, then down below you find, which I have done in acrylic to this stage.

Now we're going to work today at this stage, the acrylic stage, but I might add a little bit more in there early on the acrylics stage so that when we put the oils on next time we'll have a head start.

We'll start with a large brush, and this is just water.

You don't necessarily see the water.

Oh!

If you see it, we have to name it.

Pelican River!

Red River!

[soft scraping] Okay, I'll push that around and then wipe just a little bit so it's not too runny.

Often what I'll do, and I'm going to do a series sometime which is all kind of acrylic flow, I'll have a canvas white like this, and lay it flat, put on some blues and reds and oranges and that, swish around with the knife, then I'll kind of let it flow a little bit, set it down to dry, and then you put something into that.

It is so much fun!

This is similar to that but we're not going to do this on a horizontal basis because cameraman 3 said he wouldn't do that.

Okay, so let's put some golden tone on.

Raw Sienna, straight Raw Sienna.

I'll put this on, and this is almost like having a primed canvas, because we put a lot of this on to make use of when we put color over it.

It just happens to be dry-- what happens to be white.

[soft scraping] Almost doing with a little bit of values, almost kind of scrubbing.

I know what I'm painting, so this isn't guesswork.

[soft scraping] It's mystery since I haven't done it before, but it's not guesswork... mystery.

Let's come down further, I'll take some more water.

This is a good tool to use, even though when I look at the original, I don't see a lot of brown showing through there, but this will give a little feeling so that if some dark goes on and there's a little bit of peek through you'll have something other than the white canvas.

[soft scraping] Okay, that gives me some help.

Next let's go with just a little bit in the sky.

I'm going to mix that in and then we'll see about putting in some start of the sunlight and then we'll put a lot of incidental greens and that in and then the darker color.

So for the sky I'm going to use a little bit of palette knife.

I'm going to change knives.

You came out-- you need to go back to school and grow a little bit, okay?

Here is white, and then let's take some Phthalo Blue.

What I do quite often is, I'll take just a little bit of, this happens to be Quinacridone Rose I like to add just a little red, rose or Ultramarine Blue-- something that will just change that blue slightly.

And there you are-- slightly.

I'll use the same brush.

Notice I'm not going to clean it.

It has a little bit of that Raw Sienna still in it.

[soft scraping] Like that.

What about down below?

No I think we'll leave it like that.

Okay, now I want to take some greenish tone.

Let's see, you're Sap Green, you're Viridian Green, you're Permanent Green Light.

Let's try some Sap Green.

You're a little bright so I'll take a little bit of Viridian Green with you.

And just a little bit of white.

When I say white, often I'll do this.

I'll pick up just a little bit of what's already there.

That was the little blueish tone.

Where are you going to put this?

I'm going to put this several places.

[soft scraping] Oh, this is exciting!

This is exciting time!

Because the excitement about this, I mean, I'm doing this I'm on stage, you're there, and I'm trying to convince you this is the way to paint.

It's a way to paint.

[soft scraping] We'll have this all as a sort of a base, and then we'll add some real darks, and you won't see a lot of this green uncovered.

[soft scraping] You can hear that scrub, can't you?

That's a nice big brush, just an old scrubby brush.

It does the work very well.

[soft scraping] Okay now down below, I think it'd be helpful if I just take some Burnt Umber which is right here.

Burnt Umber and you're Viridian Green, so that's equal parts, green and umber.

Isn't that nice and strong?

[soft scraping] It would help if somebody would answer me when I say something to you.

[laughs] I see a couple of heads in the studio shaking.

You know, I once, I was doing a video, this was before, was this before my TV days?

Yes.

So I would make, I went down to this place, rented a camera crew and then I invited some of my students to come and watch.

So I'm painting along, I look over, and my wife is asleep!

Oh my gosh!

Hey!

You can't do that!

Oh, I didn't let her forget that.

I forget what her reason was.

Okay, wasn't bored.

This is green and Burnt Umber again, equal parts.

Now I'll start coming across.

Let me just point to the pochade.

See I'm now going to start adding a few extra darks in.

Of course, all of this is preparation for when we put on the oil over it.

The pochade itself, as I've told you before, that I showed this on Facebook, and oh, the raves for it.

"Oh we love it we love it!

The sacred grove!"

and so on and so on.

[soft scraping] Any grove is sacred, isn't it?

Oh, you can make it that way.

It's special to you.

I remember Claude Buck, my teacher, we did a lot of portraits and still life together and I remember this one time we went out on location and it may had been down to Oak Park, and he was there and he said "Why do we paint anything else?"

And that's a neat feeling about whatever subject's in front of you.

Boy, when you're sitting down and you're painting a portrait, and you have oh, just a wonderful person in front of you, it's really a joy.

But it also can be a little agony.

I remember this one time this gal brought in her 5-year-old son.

She left-- the minute I started painting, he was running all over the place.

So I said "Oh one time there was a real scary..." So he's sitting there.

And when I finished it, his father said "I couldn't get that.

He says that scares me every time I look at it-- couldn't hang that anywhere.

So obviously I didn't get the sale, but I got a chance to tell some great stories about monsters!

[soft scraping] Now let's see where we're at.

This is fun.

Oh gee, I like that.

I think what I better do now, maybe just a little higher here, but-- oh, you look like a horse head.

I like you horsie.

You look so good.

[whinnies] Is that how a horse sounds?

Cameraman number 3?

[chuckles] All right, what do we have?

The lower water area.

I think I'll take some of that same umber and green just to establish some darks in there, then the water can have steps that sort of falls off from and we'll make that more the correct color.

The correct color there is going to be my Phthalo Blue and white.

Let's see, the sun's right there.

Oh, I may have to move the sun.

No, I like it there.

What I'll do, I'll bring the trees a little closer to it.

I was thinking I'd have to come over closer to that tree, but I think that'd be too far away, so let's do it this way.

That works so well when you have that little pre dark put on, and it's still wet so this blends in a little bit.

Some people, oh no I guess what they do-- I don't know what they do?

I know they spray their paints once and a while.

Maybe they even spray on the canvas so that it stays more moist.

There's different ways to do these things.

Now, I want to have some trees.

Let's bring this foliage over further to the left.

And that's what we were talking about over here.

And in doing that then I feel on the other side-- I need to push you back a little bit.

Otherwise it's going to compete with that.

We'll see.

Okay, let's put some strong highlights in the sun area.

This is yellow and white.

When I say "strong," I'm always thinking that when we come with the oil, we might leave a little quantity on.

I don't want too much quantity now because I don't want quite the texture in the acrylic stage.

You could have it that way, there's no rule against it, but it just dries a little faster this way.

Now, I see a kind of a golden orange tone around there that I think is very attractive.

So let's take some Raw Sienna and we'll take a little Quinacridone-- no you're not Quinacridone Rose.

What are you?

Quinacridone Red!

Boy that's cutting it pretty fine, they're about the same thing.

That looks pretty good.

So we'll put this on just kind of around the edges a little bit.

This will, up in the upper right corner there's some of that.

[soft scraping] Just blending a little bit that edge of the sun glow.

Oh, don't you like that smash down in the middle there?

This is red, red rose.

Just down in here.

I guess I better use it a little more straight.

More straight means not as much white in it.

I do a doubletake.

I look down here, there's more than there is up there.

I kind of like the bottom one so we'll add more over there.

A little on the bank.

Okay, I'll put a little light in the water and then we'll put a few branches and trees in.

Okay, so this is the light, right there.

And then it drips down to here.

And if I take just the smallest touch, let's take a fan brush, and sort of just drag, it'll look like the water's running over a ledge.

And down below it's not running over a ledge, but you brush it out side to side.

Okay let's put a few branches in, trunks.

I see a large one on the left side so I'm taking, this is purple and Burnt Umber.

It's just peaking through a little bit.

A lot of it's covered, so that's quite helpful But even if in doing it this way you want to make sure that you can follow through and it feels like it's anatomically correct.

What does "anatomically correct" mean?

Well, it tapers as it goes higher.

And it feels like if the wind were to blow, the tree wouldn't snap its branches because it has a grace in it that allows it to flow And you notice on this I'm actually seeing more than I see there in the pochade, but down here you can see that I've stepped this tree up a little bit.

Okay, there's a nice one in here.

And I want to make sure that I have just a little bit of an accent.

Did that sound like an accent, that's right, isn't it?

You don't have to talka different, do you?

That's not an accent.

There.

It isn't that everything you say is funny Buck, but just talk.

It's so tough when you don't have an audience, a speaking audience, and you think, oh gee, talking to yourself again.

I heard somebody once say, I don't know if it was a psychiatrist or what, that you should talk to yourself.

Because unless you speak out loud or let's just say this, when you do speak out loud, then it goes into your subconscious.

Like I'm going to make this tree branch a little more narrow.

Saying it rather than thinking.

It's there-- so talk to yourself!

What about over on this side?

Have a little bit of a branch coming across there.

Each of these kind of sway and move in a rhythm.

If you do like I do-- I put on a lot of classical music and because of that-- oh I feel some of the Mozart and Verde and all of these, they're there.

They're in the paintings.

Okay, now I think with just taking a little bit-- how shall we do this?

I asked you a question.

I would appreciate a little help out there.

Okay, you're purple.

I'll put out just a little more Burnt Umber.

I want to put on some of these darker areas.

Whether we do it now or later, it will happen, but I think just the more complete you are in the acrylic, the better.

I really like this one because it has a nice contrast.

You have the red against it.

You have the light against it and a little golden tone, so that's a very pivotal position to be in.

He's the captain of the defense.

Football defense.

Let's put more water on, and we'll go higher.

And when I go higher, I'll touch across some of the branches and they either will stay hidden, or we'll add them back.

I knew there was two choices there.

Now, when I scrub this around like that, I like the little effect kind of on the loose edges so it isn't just as sharp.

Look at the difference between that and this.

So on this now if I stretch this around a little bit then it too will have a little character on its edges, which is very pleasing.

Now, I'm going to put more of that color on, we'll run up to-- do I want some green in there?

Yeah, just a little added green up in here.

It's so nice to work with that, acrylics, the loose water.

The thing is with the acrylics just very quickly it's going to be dry and you don't have to wait and say what's going to happen, and so on and that.

How much closer do we need to come here?

Maybe just a little bit.

Come a little closer, but it doesn't have to be quite as dark as the one on the left.

Now, I'm going to go over to the left with this dark which is the umber and the purple, get quite dark up there.

We'll sneak over-- how close do we come to that sun area?

And I'm touching across and hitting into that little orange tone too.

It's good, but this will make it better because it's a little more blended.

You know, and here's the thing, say that I was at home.

Where's home?

Say that I was at home, and you do this and you think oh gosh, my plan was to put on the acrylics and then come back and put on oils, and you might say gee, I like it the way it is.

Now, I'm not saying that's on this, but this certainly could happen.

So that goes along with what I said to start with-- that you need to know when to stop a painting.

Didn't I say something like that?

Sure did.

Some of you were listening.

Appreciate that.

Okay, there's a pretty good green right in here.

So I'll just take and push this green around a little bit.

Push there, push into here.

At the same time I'm looking ahead as-- what else do I need to do?

We'll bring this over a little closer so some of the dark is closer to the river... on both sides.

I will take one fan brush with some red paint on it to come in here where we put this earlier.

Now I'll just kind of blend it around a little bit.

See that has a little more quality into it.

But you make such use of the palette knife work too.

Then when it's set up a little bit, then you can come and push that around.

Oh, that's pretty!

I feel the need for some of this to come right in there and I see that on the near original.

Oh that's nice.

I do have time I think, to do a little highlight on the right tree.

So this is Raw Sienna and white, and I'm looking at this area.

See, this is quite a gap away from there so we need to have something over here that gives a little strength.

Well, we're going to say that "Golden Retreat" has been finished in stage one, and you'll want to come back and see what the next step is, which is oils.

Oh, love that!

And just a few dot-dots.

Dots.

And then we'll say dot-dots, and "dot's it!"

We'll see you next week when we do the oil stage.

Be sure and return because I need to see what's going to happen and you need to see what's going to happen.

Bye.

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