Today I'm going to do a painting I call "Island Magic."

Now, where's my apprentice?

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Boy, you're going to find this very interesting.

I should've said, boy "we" are going to find this very interesting.

Because I hadn't planned to paint that painting this way until this morning.

Just as I was ready to wake up, I had a kind of a dream, and I remember back when I called my art teacher on the phone.

This is probably after 2 month lessons.

And I said "Claude, there's a beautiful moonlight outside, how do I paint it?"

And he told me doing a monochrome, a scale down from light down to dark with blue and black and I thought, oh great!

This morning, it came to me-- do it that way.

I had planned to put color in acrylics and then put the oil on top.

I'm going to put acrylics on, so stage one will be acrylics, but it will not be in the color of the pochade; so this is new.

I guarantee you, one-and-a-half hours ago I changed my mind to do it this way.

I love that where you got the faith that you can succeed.

So you watch the road to success!

Okay coming down to the palette, I have white and yellow and Payne's Gray and Ultramarine Blue.

So I'm going to take and mix a scale from light to dark.

My lightest light will be yellow and white.

Now we'll go the other end of the scale, which this will be totally dark, Payne's Gray and Ultramarine Blue.

Okay, so then we want to have a little bit of steps in between.

So I'll mix some of this together it looks like that I'll try to get about a middle tone between those two and then I'll have a 5-tone scale.

So I'll have one between those two.

Let's do that right now.

That worked with using about two of the dark and one of the middle tone.

Okay, then we'll jump up to the other end, and we'll take some of this light, and we'll add some of this into that so we have a nice scale.

And as I recall what Claude said is that you don't use the lightest light or the darkest dark to start with.

So we'll go ahead; we'll start in the sky.

I really think it's helpful to you if we start at the top and sort of work down.

This is done all in acrylics.

I have brushes, and I have water, and I have paper towels.

Then when this is dry, next week we come with oils.

We will do it in color.

This is very nice.

You call it a monochrome, one color.

Let's start with this value right here, number two value and we'll come up to the canvas.

Now, let me tell you again, I love this priming.

I use it quite often.

Six white, one Permanent Green Light and one Payne's Gray.

The drawing has been placed on and I outlined that with Ultramarine Blue acrylic.

So that you can see it and that I can make use of it.

Okay, I'll start up in the middle of the sky.

This eventually will be much lighter than that.

And as I am working on a painting that has been outlined with Ultramarine Blue or with any with any color you outline, I kind of here or there will go over the line so I don't have the hardness of the drawing.

Okay let's, while we have that let's go ahead with the same color.

We'll go down into the water area, and eventually we'll put a strong highlight on this, but just for now, we're kind of doing a value study.

This comes down, and then down at the bottom we have a nice splash, and we have some soft water there.

Okay I'll come, and I'll clean the brush.

This is a flat sable brush.

It's sort of large so I can do a lot of work with it.

Okay, we'll come to the next color which is right here, our middle tone, and see what this looks like.

Yeah that's good.

It's not much different than what's already there, but it'll be just a nice value, and, of course, when you put color on, you'll add little subtleties to it.

[soft scraping] I so enjoy doing these shows and, you know, this is my 14th year with this company.

Years ago when the Alexander Art Company was in existence-- you remember Bill, the happy painter!

"Put on the brush!

Use your almighty Brush!"

I was with that company until they folded, so that's 6 years, then with another shoot, so 25 years Buck's been saying "This is how I paint."

Let me say one thing about what I've just done.

I'm trying to put on a value that I think should be there for this.

But at the same time it's not much different than what was there.

It turns a little bit from greenish to being gray, but what I want you to notice is, there's some of that underpriming coming through.

Which is very nice so you're making use of that, especially since the value is, I would say exactly the same.

It may be a touch different, it really isn't.

So make up your mind Buck.

It's just right.

But you do allow some of that to come through.

So you get the play of the green coming through this gray a little bit.

[soft scraping] Come down, come down.

[soft scraping] Let's see if there's any other place we should place that.

There may be, but at least for the moment we'll sort of stop.

I find as I put this on there's going to be things suggested.

As I point to the pochade, I put light in the sky, and I put light on the top of the waterfall and at the bottom.

But I'm going to use a little bit of that light and I'm going to use this right above the waterfall.

What is sort of nice is if I use the light now, I expect maybe it'll blend in a little bit with what's there.

So it won't be quite as light as that.

Either way it doesn't matter, because I'm going to go a lot lighter on the waterfall.

I'll put this on, it pretty much matches it.

And then just blend it a little bit.

The paint is wet enough that it does blend.

[soft scraping] That gives a nice mist feeling, and this is, when I say "Island Magic," I went over to Hawaii, I taught 8 years there in workshops.

I have paintings there now in a gallery.

I absolutely love the area.

It is magic!

I'll tell you that.

Although when I woke up one morning, I thought Santa Barbara.

That's like my hometown, but it was a little more humid.

But oh, they have some great tropical areas!

Now, we're going to go on the trees and I'm going to change to a fan brush.

Okay, this is the color of the trees, or the "value," I could say.

Not quite the darkest dark it's not our real darkest dark.

Making like I have a trunk.

You don't see that much of the trunk, so I don't have to be real careful about saying it's just the right width all the way, but generally you're a little more narrow at the top, then it gets a little wider at the base.

That's how you need to establish a correct anatomy of a tree.

Although I remember one time I saw a tree where it was narrow at the bottom and wider at the top and I ran over to Claude and I said "Claude!

I saw a tree that was narrow at the bottom and wider at the top!"

He says "Well, maybe you shouldn't paint it that way."

Because generally they're not, not that way, but I thought I'd discovered something.

Notice how as I put this on, I'm kind of just tapping with the corner of the fan brush.

I'll go up just a little bit so we don't quite see a top.

We won't see a top to those 3 trees on the left, then we will see one on the little one here.

Oh, we need to give you arms and legs, both sides.

And the thing to watch is that you aren't necessarily-- there's two arms here, and up here there's two across.

See, here I have one going out there, but not necessarily on that side.

Do you understand what I was trying to say or do I need to fly again?

Do I need to show you?

I think you're a smart group.

Ah!

So good to have viewers.

And I love, I love the emails that come to me.

The people that have enjoyed the show.

I had one from New Guinea.

Did you realize that?

New Guinea!

And he loved the show.

I was gonna say he speaks English.

I don't know if he speaks English, he writes English.

And Canada, oh, love those Canadians, because my wife and I were fortunate enough to spend 3 years in Canada, and we had 2 little Canadian children.

Okay, you watch, the other thing you sort of watch is, some of these come out a little further than the other ones.

They're not all the same.

Okay, and then on the one on the far left is large, so I just fill in this way.

You don't see the character on the left side because the middle of the tree is just about off canvas.

So I'll have just a little suggestion of some of this coming over.

It does touch slightly against that tree as you can see so it's not quite as open as this one.

And same thing there.

I'm finding that I can feel and see.

I guess I should say "see" the green of the priming of the canvas.

Okay let's go down with some of the same value just to go darker there.

And more.

Then we'll put this little tree in.

When I put that little tree in, I've chosen to slant it just a little bit.

What we're painting from is called a pochade.

That may not be the correct way to pronounce it to some of the French people.

but that's the way I pronouns it.

It's done, a little quick sketch.

Sometimes I'll do it on location, sometimes I'll do it from memory.

And sometimes I'll just do it from imagination, and I think this was a combination of all of the above; more from imagination and memory.

Okay, a little bit at the bottom on the left side over here.

You see how often I dip into the water.

It facilitates moving the paint around and it does go along with that idea where I have some more of the priming showing through.

Okay, now we'll go over to the left side.

On the left side, this tree is just a little bit different.

It's not so much the pine tree.

I didn't know they had those types of trees in Hawaii.

What do you want, a palm tree?

Okay.

That's a beautiful, beautiful area.

There's so many great areas in the country.

I'll come down there slightly.

We'll come to dark in here, more underneath there.

Isn't it fun to watch it develop though?

It really is.

I'll borrow just a little extra paint there.

I'm running a little short on that.

So we'll come down in here.

I have to rush just a little bit to get this all done, but you can work carefully on it.

I'm working carefully, but I'm rushing.

Down below, let's see what we have there.

Need to make sure we're going to have a little impact with the water against the rocks.

Okay now, I'm going to take some, let's see what I have.

Oh, it's such a temptation just to run to some color but I can't do that yet.

Let's take some of this.

Okay we'll take this.

Boy, would I love to do.

I would love to put some of the green on now, but I can't do that.

So we'll get this spot-- oh, this is the same painting.

Now, next week when we come we work this up, so don't panic Buck!

Just Whatever we do today will be a great help for that.

You can see the minute I put this on, then the waterfall is going to have to be quite light, so it doesn't have the same value as this.

[soft scraping] Now, let's see if there's any, maybe just a little bit just kind of wiggle it up in there slightly so it tails off.

That has a nice slant to it, doesn't it?

And often I'll do this where I have an edge, then I'll have just a little bit of dark that comes down so it will separate this from the water.

We've already done it on the other side.

Okay, same need for some bank.

Are you darker than that?

Yeah, you're a little darker, so this has just a little more gray in it on this side.

That seems to work all right.

You know, as I'm doing this, I'm tapping but I'm conscious of-- that is land.

What's the difference between land and the tree in feeling?

So I've always liked this idea where if you're painting a rock, it's hard.

If you're painting a face, it's soft.

So you try to visualize with your hands what the surface is of what you're representing.

[soft scraping] Go up just a little bit higher there.

Oh, I can hardly wait to [coughs] pardon me, to throw on that real strong lights so we get the impact.

Okay, I'm going to come down with this which is a little bit darker than what's there.

[soft scraping] And here's the thing that I find very often when I'm teaching.

When you use a primed canvas, in this case it has that greenish tone through it, and as you're doing it you say okay, that's fine we let a little bit of that show through.

Well, once you've covered the canvas, then you might find there's places that you said it's okay if it shows through but you now find, hey, I don't want to have quite as much of that paint showing through.

[soft scraping] When I say that paint I'm referring to the priming of the canvas, the green.

Let's just take a little bit of dark, and again I haven't gone to the darkest dark.

This is the same dark we have here.

And sort of make sure I can still see a little bit of divisions in the land.

Let's see, on the other side do we need to do that?

We may right down here, a little bit of separation between those two.

Buck, are you speaking loud enough?

Can we hear you?

We can't read your lips.

Oh it's so impressive.

I had a student who could read lips, and she, oh, I'd love to develop that technique-- I think.

Maybe it's best you don't always know what someone's saying on the sly.

All right, now we'll go ahead and we'll put some lightest light on the water and in the sky, then we'll see what else we have time to do.

So the lightest light at this point has been my yellow and white.

I've used this one so I want to go just a little lighter.

Okay, so we're saving this... for now.

[in high voice] Oh Buck, it worked again!

See there's quite a difference, isn't there, in value between what's been done previously.

And some of this will come down.

The thing that I find students fail the most in when they do waterfalls, they'll just take light, and just pull it all the way down.

It doesn't quite feel like it's bouncing along or it doesn't feel like it has the different value here and there.

So one of the ways to make sure you do that is, once you put the highlight on the top-- and notice how I've arched it a little bit so you get the feeling it's a tremendous amount of water.

I notice there's just a little light along here too.

I need to be sure that that's going to work.

That's good.

Then you get a feeling like the water's coming from there.

As I come down we'll take and just let some little strands of this kind of hit down, so as the water's tumbling down, it hits against some rocks and bounces up a little bit, and then you're going to have some of the light hitting it.

Down at the bottom, there's more there and then here you got a good quantity.

Don't you love the power in a monochrome?

Gosh, I think that is so exciting!

And to realize yesterday you were not going to be painted that way.

So this is the first time I've painted this painting from a pochade, and there you are.

You got to be brave, you got to be trusting.

Trust what you know, trust what's out there that's going to help you paint.

Trust what's going to help you.

You can do it!

You just have to be willing to try.

And I have piles of rejects, you know, where the paintings aren't winners... yet.

You set them aside a little bit.

Okay then down at the lower part we'll put on just some horizontal strokes... like that, then the other thing that we'll do is just a little bit of light in the sky.

That is not the sun.

That sort of represents a little cloud, cloudy area, so we'll put some clouds in there.

The other thing, when we put the oil on we'll make sure some of the trees will go up against that so it isn't just a solid V. The one thing I like to do too whether we do it now or in oil, I have just a little lighter color, it's almost like this and if you put this near some of the trees, I'll put this on, then I'll sort of blend it a little bit, it gives a feeling of space.

So it stands the tree out away from the distant cliffs.

[soft scraping] Now I'm going to use some of that on the other side, but the difference will be if I use this almost to represent some character on the distant cliffs.

I'm so tempted just to let another little waterfall come there.

Could you handle that?

I'll put it on, then if we don't like it we can change it in the original.

So I guess what I'm saying is, we're making use of that pochade, but I don't have to duplicate it.

I'm using it to help me paint a painting.

That's a real nice way to say oh, I made a mistake, but it's not really a mistake.

Let's see, a little bit more over in here in there.

Now this dries very quickly, the acrylic does, so you don't have a lot of chance to blend it.

They do have mediums that are slow drying for acrylic too that you can use.

We want this to dry quite quickly, it'll have a week to dry, so we should be okay.

I really like what's happening there.

The last thing that I'll do is just maybe put just a little light on a couple of the banks.

First Western.

Oh, that's it.

We've done "Island Magic" part one in acrylic with pure inspiration.

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

Bye-bye, thanks for watching.

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