Today I'd like to paint a masterpiece for you.

You be the judge, but first, listen to all the evidence.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I feel like I should belt out an aria!

You know he's King of the High Seas my wife is such an opera aficionado.

That she thought I was painting Pavarotti!

She loved Pavarotti.

But we're going to paint a little boy walking along the shore and he's acting like he owns the whole area.

This is the original.

We're going to do this in two parts.

The first part today is the acrylic stage.

And you can see I've primed the canvas which has 6 white, 1 Payne's Gray, and 1 Permanent Green light.

Did you get that?

Okay, and then after that's on, then the outline is put on with Ultramarine Blue; it's acrylic.

You can use any color you want, but I quite like that as a drawing so that when you paint thinly you're not losing your drawing.

The easiest way to start on the sky would be to take a small flat brush and just go around his head.

So I'll dip into this color which is Payne's Gray and Ultramarine Blue, and a lot of white and just a little bit of rose with it.

Can you see that-- just that little pinkish color there?

It just warms it up slightly.

So I'm going to come around the hat, the hat and the head.

This is the acrylics stage; I just absolutely love this technique, and isn't just for a speed thing.

I love it because you can let the acrylics play through a little bit in the oils.

They become part of the color scheme.

I do this way when I do my own paintings, whether they're for teaching a class or whether they're for a gallery piece.

All right, I'll change brushes.

I'll use the same color, I'll change to a fan brush.

And little water with it will give this the opportunity to spread on a little faster.

Let's use more paint and more water.

You know, as we suggested, those little lines are helpful, Buck!

Where did they go?

Well, we can kind of use that one.

Up here, I'll go a little bit on each side of it so I can still make use of it.

And here's the other thing.

When I come to a horizon, I often will go down across it just to make sure that when I put in the, in this case the ocean, that there's a softness back there, because I usually want to achieve a softness at the horizon.

Okay, coming over to the right.

[soft scraping] You can feel just a little bit of the green showing through, and that's a nice effect, the interplay of the underneath there.

Now when you look at the original, you don't feel any just one color.

You kind of feel a little bit towards the greenish coming through, don't you?

And it really enhances the color luminosity, or vibration, which I guess vibration would be more the word, because it certainly comes through with the several colors being there.

What if I did this left-handed?

Oh okay, we'll go back to right.

There was one time when I broke my wrist.

I was cranking a tractor, and it backfired.

Oh my goodness!

My wrist was at a right angle.

So I had to learn to write left-handed.

It was true, it wasn't just that I'm saying it to be funny, but the teacher said we like your writing now better than when you were right-handed!

And I ended up, I was throwing some baseball left-handed too with the cast on the right hand.

Didn't throw any better!

Okay let's come down to the water.

Now in the water, it's already sort of green, but what I will take, let's take just a little bit, and I'm kind of brush-mixing this I have Ultramarine Blue.

I want to make sure that I don't get too much of that yellow in there.

Is this going to be all right?

I believe it is.

I'm asking the listener at home.

Is it all right?

That's not quite as green as I want.

Let's see.

Let's just try some of the blue and white.

Then when we put the oils on, we'll use a little bit of Viridian Green.

Yeah, this will be better, I'll push right into there.

Main thing is, that we have it covering just a little bit so the green of the priming isn't too strong.

You can look over, let's just glance at the original again.

See that softness?

And then the indication of green is more where you have a little shadows, and we'll get that with Viridian Green when the time comes.

But we do want to use this as we suggested where you soften a little bit into the horizon so it's no longer sharp.

We better use a small brush as we come around the back side not so much on him, but as we come over to the little people over here.

This was taken down at-- and I call it my beach-- other people claim it's there's.

But this is one block away in Santa Barbara, and I came down, and I took a photograph of these people.

I wonder where they are now.

I wonder if they'll see the show.

I wonder if they'll recognize themselves.

Okay a little bit more of that same color down in the front of the water.

I think what I'll do is stop there on that for now, because I want to get a little bit of work starting on the flesh.

So this is Raw Sienna and Umber.

2 Raw Sienna, 1 Umber and just a little touch of Naphthol Red.

This is the time where it's very helpful to have a tracing and hang onto it.

Of course, I'll have to move out just a little bit on that so my dark line isn't too dark.

Thank goodness he's going sideways.

I'll take a smaller brush.

Which one are you?

I'll take you, and we'll put this on the hand.

Now, notice the hand, we'll just do it without a lot of value change here.

You have a little finger sticking right down there and then leaving those little lines to save for-- it shows where the knuckles are, then there's the smallest little touch underneath there.

Okay we'll take the same flesh color and go over and put it on the little boy's arm.

And on his other arm.

And on his legs.

And on his bent leg.

Thank goodness they're standing in the water so there's no feet to do!

We have this lady, you see a little bit of her neckline and we see a little bit of the arm hanging down on that side a little bit on this side.

I have taught this painting a couple times, and in each case the people got kind of clever and made a pretty attractive gal over there.

This one might look a little matronly, but we'll see what happens before we finish.

Then on her legs, and you save that little line between so it separates those two legs like that.

Okay let's go just a little further back with the flesh color on the neck.

All right, that takes care of the flesh color, so we can kind of fill in other things.

Let's do this let's get some sand on.

And I'm looking at Raw Sienna and Raw Umber.

I'll start out equal parts with those and then see what happens when we put the white on.

I'll hold this up to the original I'm sure it'll need just a little bit of red with it too.

I'll put some more white out.

Okay, as I hold this up, see, that's not too bad as far as value, but if I put just a little more of the Naphthol Red in it that'll give me the better use of it.

Okay so we'll take and we'll go around the slacks.

And then I need to be very careful as I go around the the fingers so I can still see them.

Can you see all right?

See that little finger sticking down there?

And then just a little bit in here, little bit in there.

My feeling is, if I take and put this around the little figures then we'll see, you know, we'll work on other things.

But if we don't have a lot of time, then you would just assume that this is going to spread all the way across.

Okay let's go up by the peoples!

What do we need on them?

Well, let's put a little blue.

This is Ultramarine Blue, a little white.

We'll give her just a little bit of color on the swim-- it's not a swimsuit is it?

I don't think it is, I think it's more of a sun suit.

And then I'll go darker along there.

Oops... just a little bit of chest there.

Okay on the boy, let's take the Ultramarine Blue, and just a little Payne's Gray and white so it isn't totally blue.

You see it looking blue, but that's the addition that will come with the oil paint.

Oh I was gonna say that I missed a little flesh color between the jacket and the pants, but that's not flesh color.

That is T-shirt color.

Get a little water with that.

It's so nice to have the two stages to do the acrylic stage and then to do the oil painting on it.

As I was talking to one of the producer directors today and talking about how we used to start.

We'd do 13 shows and 13 subjects.

Boy, did you have to rush, and you always felt a little hesitant afterwards.

I had one company-- let's keep going with this Raw Sienna.

I had one company, when I was doing it with the Alexander Company, made an agreement that whenever I finished a painting on the air, I could destroy it.

So it looked pretty good on television, but it wasn't great.

Everybody rushing back to see did I have one of those shows?

No they looked good, but they didn't have the quality in the finished one.

Here I've used the Raw Sienna and Umber.

It's about 2 Raw Sienna, 1 Umber... for his slacks.

This is the one that we will be putting the oil on.

So you can see when you go back to the original, there's quite a bit of work that has to be done on the oil, but we'll take care of that.

Okay now, at the bottom of his foot, there's just-- what color are you?

Let's take Payne's Gray and Umber.

This will give us just a little bit of a feeling for the bottom of the shoe.

And you realize the far edge of the shoe, I'll use umber and black and there's just a little bit of darkness in here because it's in the shadow.

On the-- you see a small bit there and then a little bit of that pants color comes down there too.

Okay, so let's see, we have a lot more to do in general.

Let's take the flat brush, and we'll go around these pants.

If I were doing this at home, I would say okay, you're right-handed, so turn the picture upside down so you're always coming against the line, but we can do it.

We'll do it carefully for you.

We'll come over to this part.

This part being the area near the peoples over there.

[soft scraping] You wonder when you do this, do you ever splatter on the other painting?

No.

Never do.

And I guess you say "yet."

[soft scraping] Okay, as I suggested earlier I might have to fill that in a little later.

What I want to do now is I want to come up with the blue and Payne's Gray and white.

This has to be quite light.

Let me just see what happens.

Yeah, that'll work.

This shows what will happen when the sand is wet... has a little bit of the blue cast to it.

Both sides, ♪ Both sides of the river.

And then what will be very strong and nice, and I'll take a small flat brush to start with this.

Or will you?

Maybe the fan brush and both.

We want to be quite light, so I'm having Yellow Ochre and white.

A lot of white, not much ochre in it and this will give me-- as I said two brushes.

This will give me a chance to put that edge of the foam that's right down there.

That is so pretty.

It really is kind of a little bit of a bridge.

And we come over with this same color next to the peoples, so behind him.

Oh, let's go right through here first.

Behind him, now it goes right at that line.

So that doesn't have to be quite straight across.

It has the feeling of movement as it comes in.

You know, it used to be when I'd do these shows, I'd watch them afterwards, and I'd think gee, you're spending so much time talking to the people you're not getting any painting done!

Now I think gosh I haven't even looked at you long time.

Are you still there?

Oh yeah, okay thanks!

A little hard to see in the dark.

Let's come over here, just widen this up a little bit.

Then we want to have just a little foam there that's on the top of the waves.

This will be a good movement here.

Notice how the front of this wave.

It's fuller there, so you're eye automatically goes along that way.

And then what will be especially nice is when we have some clouds.

Ooh, speaking of clouds makes me realize we better put a little light on that sailor cap.

This is the same as the foam color and I'll come out far enough that I cover that little line, that dark outline.

Stop like that, put a little bit on the edge of this.

This is such a nice little trait.

It has a little curve down just a little wedge there, and then up here.

So we'll put some gray on that.

This is the sky gray that's up there.

So I'm putting a little of that in, it works just gently into that, then for there, I'll go just a little darker so it's still your black and blue and white, but it's a little darker because it shows form on the hat.

We'll put a small amount of umber with just a little white in it-- just a slight feeling of some hair there.

Hair there.

Boy if we could make hair that easy, we'd be rich!

We'd be rich!

A little bit under for kind of like a chin, then just a little indentation where the eye is going to be.

Now let's give her a little hair, and this, as I say, as we've taught this across the country, some of them get a little fancier.

So I'm going to get a little fancier, give her just a little more hair.

Not quite that bun look.

For him, for the little boy, he's going to have some fancy little red swimming trunks.

And you say well, that doesn't look like the original.

Yes it does!

What do you mean it doesn't look like the original?

It looks like the original.

Okay on his shirt, the boy's shirt is white and I have just the smallest spot of red still on the brush so it gives a little bit of pink.

That's a great little shirt!

Oh, we need to put a little foam showing between those legs and then it's easier to see the legs.

This is a little towhead, so we'll get some Raw Sienna okay, and white.

And that's his hair.

The shadow side can be a little umber.

I'm going to just strengthen her hair a little bit.

This is umber and black; you want some red.

I don't know why not.

Oh yes, you're going to be a beautiful brunette, like Mrs. Buck.

Okay, let's do just a little bit on the sky.

And when we start this, it would be easiest to use a small brush to again come close to the-- in this case close to the head.

So I have Yellow Ochre and white.

And I'm going to put this up here.

I don't have to go too far with this, because it would be so helpful when I come with the oils up there.

I added just a little gray to it so it's not quite as strong, but this is very nice.

It comes right against the hat, then it comes against the head, and I'm slicing that in just a little bit.

You sure you want to do that Buck?

Mmm, we'll see.

Okay, what I think will be helpful just the remaining time is run some of this sand on so you have that.

This is a lot of water with the big sand color.

♪ Movin' it, movin' it, movin' it along.

♪ Isn't it surprising when you first put it on it's quite light, then it dries a lot.

Then maybe just a little darker over there, but just a little bit down in the corner here.

And we'll come behind him.

Well, we already did come behind him.

We'll come down lower.

[soft scraping] That's such a nice little touch.

On the pants themselves, we've got time to do this.

Let's take Raw Sienna with just a little white.

Raw Sienna and little white, and we can just establish a highlight on there.

You know what?

I think that pure Raw Sienna would do better.

Yes, pure Raw Sienna.

Okay a little bit there, a little bit over here, then a little bit on the anklebone to the calf up there.

Ah!

I like that.

You're kind of the king of the high B's.

So if you want to be the seas, you're going to have to come back next time.

So you guys, you watch next time we'll take this to this stage.

It's been so good being with you, and I think I feel happy about where we're at and where we'll be.

We'll see you then.

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