What a joy to paint a memory and to remember who you're with!

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I can't remember what I'm supposed to do!

[laughs] We're painting Memories!

Let me show you a certain aspect of starting the painting today.

First our model, the pochade, the little sketch that I did from a great scene in Minnesota, my home state.

And then we go over to the left, and you can see stage one of doing "Memories," and it's done in acrylics, which we'll be doing today, then you come back next week, and we'll do the oil stage.

I will now show you the canvas preparation, and a lot of the canvases you'll notice that I have the same preparation, But you watch!

You wait!

On this series, later on, you're going to see some dramatic flares.

But this is my 6 White, 1 Payne's Gray and one Permanent Green Light, and that is put on.

That's acrylic, and that's dry.

Then I outlined it with Ultramarine Blue; you might ask, "Do you always outline it with Ultramarine Blue?"

For the television series, yes, so they can make a line drawing of it.

Maybe at home, I would just kind of chalk in things a little bit so that I'm not held to any certain lines, but even with this having lines, we can go over them a little bit and so on.

So we're ready to put on paint, and we'll start on the top of the sky, and we'll kind of work down.

I would assume that we might do the tree trunks last.

So we'll start with Phthalo Blue and White.

This is White, and you're Phthalo Blue.

Let's see if I can give you a proportion.

This is about 6 to 1-- 6 White, 1 Phthalo Blue.

Not dark enough, so I'll come down, and I'll make it 3 to 1.

I was a math minor in college, so if I throw these facts and figures at you, they better be right.

That works.

Okay, I'll use a large brush.

This is just a-- what kind of brush are you?

You can't be called just a house brush, you're a paint brush.

It has a certain softness to the brush, which is nice, and it holds a lot of paint so that I can move quite easily across the canvas and cover quickly.

What I've said before in doing the under priming, even though I'm going to cover it with acrylics, I definitely want some of that priming to be a part of the scheme.

What I'm saying is, the priming is this color, and we'll see certain places we'll use a little less paint.

Now, to kind of accommodate that, I'm going to pick up a paper towel and just wipe a little bit.

You know, you're almost thinking, are you adding green?

No, that's the underneath showing through a little bit.

It gives it just a little more reason for having a primed canvas on it.

Okay now, I look at the left, and I look here, it's just a little lighter.

So let's come with this one next.

That'd be Cadmium Yellow and White and some of the blue into it.

So I have 1 White.

How much yellow?

You represent about 1/5th.

We'll see if we can do that.

Yeah, that looks all right.

Hm, it doesn't look all right.

So I'm going 7 White, 1 yellow, and then what I want to add is some of the neighbor, some of the blue.

So it comes out a little bit in a greenish flavor, and this will make it so when we have the sun itself, it will be very powerful against this.

Do we want to use the same brush?

Yeah.

Oh!

Isn't that neat?

You put that in and watch the powerful clouds come up!

Okay, we'll come with this, and we'll put this one first to get the area that I want it to go.

We'll save a little spot for the brightest light, and then I'll wipe the brush and kind of float it up slightly.

And it'll represent just a little top of some clouds there, and it has just enough wetness in the blue for this to make another value, which is quite right for this.

I will take one other brush, and I'll take some more of that blue, so this is a little bit straight across.

Mama Bear, Baby Bear and Papa Bear.

Papa Bear, where are you?

You need to be a little brighter, so we'll go a little stronger right against the tree there.

And then I have the smallest, smallest amount of this over on this side.

[soft scraping] Great.

Okay, let's go ahead and put in some of the general foliage, and that's going to be Ultramarine Blue and White.

Ultramarine Blue.

So I kind of stumble a little bit.

It's like having a new class in school and you say "What is your name?"

"Zinkaloukies?"

Zinkaloukies?

I hope I can remember that."

Now this will be watery in comparison to opaque or solid.

So you'll see through this a little bit... on the acrylic stage, And notice I push out slightly.

I'm not too concerned if the outline's there now.

The oil will take care of that; the oil paint will take care of that, but I tell you one thing that I don't use is if you use a sharpie pen to make your drawing.

I had one class where there were about 20 people in the class.

Forget what we were painting.

It seemed like a sailboat and ocean.

So we used the sharpie pen.

We covered it.

Everything was fine until the next time I came back to that place.

There were about 6, 7 people that said, hey I got a painting, the pen's showing through.

So we had to go over and match and correct, and apparently it worked, but that needs to be carefully done.

In other words, if you're going to have outlines, use the acrylic which is quite coverable.

When we get to the oil stage or maybe even before, I'll watch some of the edges.

See, this looks just a little bit stiff, so I'll have some paint go up higher, but we might do it just with the oil.

We'll see.

[soft scraping] I like the grace of this.

Boy you're a nice looking tree.

You don't look that good over there, but you look good here.

Come over here, and then we'll make-- the one on the left should be the most dominant, both in size, not much difference in the height, but the width, and then this has another tree coming to its left.

[soft scraping] What I often will do is, you know, block it in like that.

Get everything on, and then you kind of decide-- do I need to come back and put a little bit extra on?

So rather than just making it all right at the time.

It's so easy to make a caricature, and what I mean by that is okay, I have to have this tree just real perfect, and then come over do this one real perfect and then this one perfect.

"Perfect" meaning they're all the same, same detail and everything, and that can be a little boring.

So some have to be the supernumeraries as we suggested, the standbys and the bit parts, but you do establish a center of interest.

Now right now, my center of interest is here, because it's the lightest light against that dark, but when we put the sun area here, we quickly shift the interest over to this side, but we'll wait on that.

That's kind of a dessert time.

So next we'll take and make the bank along there.

So I have Viridian Green.

I wonder if we can use that straight.

I'll try a little bit.

You're clean enough.

That might work.

I would prefer having just a little yellow in it.

So I'm putting out more green and a little bit of Yellow Ochre.

Yellow okra.

Yellow Ochre.

Which one are you?

One's a vegetable and one's a paint.

So that has a very small amount.

I'd say about 8 Viridian Green to 1 Yellow Ochre.

Yeah, I like that.

It might be just a little lighter than what's over to the side, but so what.

Let's try a little more green, And so now it just has a trace.

You'll say well, what difference is that?

Did you make any difference?

A little bit-- just a slight bit darker.

And I like the way this kind of rises up to the left instead of just a flat meadow.

When I saw this, it was just a little more flat.

So we rose it, we raised it on our terms.

Over on the right side.

So I probably need to do one a little higher than the other so they're not identical twins.

Let's go over; we'll go higher on that side.

Okay so coming down to the water.

We'll have... looks like a little Umber.

Oh, this is so much fun to do, to have people watching you, and you're at home, you're very important to me.

I just so appreciate people saying oh, we've seen your show there.

I have a good friend that's in prison, and he says oh I saw your show!

I go many different places.

That was great.

Okay, so this is Burnt Umber and I'm going to place it in here, and I'll thin it out just a little bit.

Just sort of softening at the edge of that, and of course, what eventually happens, you're going to have that straight path of light right down through there so it will lighten that area a bit too.

Okay, so let's see what we do about the lower water.

I'm going to take Cad Yellow, then just add a little bit of the Umber to it.

That looks like what I want.

♪ Whatever Lola wants Buck gets.

Okay, clean brush.

Boy you've really, you've done all right for yourself.

You know, as I do this, then I kind of remember saying, "Be sure you're letting some of the underneath show through."

So when I push this a little bit, it thins it out and I can feel some of that coming through, and I can, even up in here, it might be nice if some of that is coming through.

Okay, now I need to put on just straight Umber.

I'll probably have to mix some more.

How do you mix Burnt Umber?

You just open the tube!

Okay, so we'll take Burnt Umber and we'll push this on.

Nope.

See, I said straight Umber, and it's not sure.

Sure.

For sure!

What should we add with that?

Let's take some Ultramarine Blue.

That'll be darker and that will be better, because we have a very nice contrast down there.

So we don't wipe anything away, we just work with what's there.

These come up high, and of course, when you put the oil paint on top of this, we arrive at a little bit of character.

I think that stream needs to come over further.

So if I look under this tree, that's-- oh that's where I am!

Okay, well I'll push you over a little bit over anyway.

Now more with this and the blue, Umber and the blue.

It looks like it's about equal parts.

I jumped fast over to that blue and Umber back and forth.

I apologize.

So it's equal parts of the Ultramarine Blue and the Burnt Umber.

I'll go lower here, and then we come up high again on the right side.

Like that.

Now I haven't gone up to the line for the simple reason that I think it'd be easier to put the highlight in before I put that on.

So my highlight, I'm going to take yellow and white.

This is equal parts.

Several of these formulas today I tell you what they are, then I kind of say no, wait a minute, let's change that.

[Buck coughs] Pardon me.

So here we go with just a little bit of this.

I'll flatten that slightly.

That's acrylic-- it will take a little while to dry if you put it on thick like that, and often what I'll do is, it won't be quite as thick in this stage, but you get the thickness when you put on the oil on top.

The knife is not touching the canvas, it's the thumb Mommy gave me.

Oh, that's pretty!

Okay now let's go up to-- oh, we need to push this lower water up just a little bit.

I think I'll use a fan brush, because it has that kind of effect of making little single lines, narrow lines.

Come with more.

This for sure would be a place where you'd want to get rid of the blue line, that acrylic line.

But some of these can go a little higher so they're varying heights.

Now see, what I've done is allowed some of the priming of the canvas to still be in the color scheme, and I like what it does.

Okay, now let's do this.

Oh, we better put in the sun up in the sky.

I'm going to go just a little darker than the reflection.

So this has yellow, maybe with just a little bit of light in it, and here, I'm putting it on with the knife just to get quantity quickly and then we'll blend a little bit with the brush.

You haven't been out of the bus very long, let's push you up.

That should work all right.

We'll tap the knife slightly on the edge to pull this up just a little bit, to blend it slightly better.

Then I'll take the knife and just-- see I got a little pebbly surface there so this just ever so gently.

Not removing any paint, just flattening it.

I like that!

Oh, I was going to say, in the oil stage we'll put some pink down there, but I see some there.

So let's go ahead with that, and we'll take, this is Naphthol Red.

You'll be tested on the spelling.

N-A-P-H-T-H-O-L.

I like this against that yellow.

And it goes over to the left.

It goes over to the right.

♪ You put left foot in ♪ You put your left foot out, and ya shake it all about.

♪ That's how you do the "Hug A Buck."

I had somebody once made a sweatshirt for me and it said "Hug A Buck."

I like that.

That's a good one, isn't it?

Okay, now I'm going to go just a little bit different.

Let's see.

What should be the difference?

Okay, I'm going to go with the Ultramarine Blue on the edge of the trees.

So I have this, and I want to go a little bit past for character, and it also gets rid of that rigid look of the outline.

I don't remember, yeah, see that outline is still a little bit there, but when you put oil on top, it certainly takes care of it.

Okay, I'm going to come over to this side and likewise come out a little bit past what's there.

It's so easy to be mechanical on this, but you need to watch that they're not all identical strokes or shapes.

Oo, you're not identical to anybody, not even to the model!

We'll go up past that a little bit.

It's just a little tight.

Okay, now we have enough time.

So we'll take a flat sable brush with the Umber, and I think I'll do with the Blue and Umber.

Yes, Ultramarine Blue and Umber, which we put down here.

Now we'll put it on up, on for the branches of the trees.

Notice as I do this, I'm using the very chisel edge of the brush, but I also have my fingernail touching the canvas so I can see how much pressure to put on.

This is so much fun to show these to you, and I have such a joy of receiving your responses, and I receive plenty responses, and I try to answer them all.

So if you remember that and have a question and so on, then please find me.

Check my web page.

See my paintings.

Check Facebook.

See my wife!

Very thinly done.

Now on this, you know, you say where'd the little finger go?

Well, I just didn't need it once we got to flowing down there.

I didn't need you, little finger.

How many branches do you put in?

You put in enough.

I've seen-- I was almost coming over to the demo!

I've seen some artists where they have kind of maybe a winter or fall scene and they have thousands of branches, and if that's what it takes, then do it.

Don't be offended by the fact that you have a little work to do, and you need to put a lot of branches showing.

The main thing is, on the branches-- you want to feel that they taper.

In other words, they're more narrow up high and they're wider down below.

That is a must, and the other thing is that they feel like they connect.

You know, you might not see it all the way through.

You may start down there, but if you were to follow it, you would see where it continues.

Anyway, we've had a great day.

I absolutely love the quality in that, and next time the oil stage of "Meadows"... or is it "Memories?"

"Memories."

See you soon!

Bye Bye.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (woman) Funding for "Painting With Paulson" is made possible by...