Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

Thought today we'd do a little painting.

It's very easy and I think you'll enjoy it.

Let's start out and have 'em run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us.

While they're doing that, let me show you what I've got done up here.

Today I have my regular old 18 by 24 inch double-prime, pre-stretched canvas, and I've just covered it with a very, very thin coat of liquid white, so it's all wet and slick, and it's ready to go.

So I thought we'd do a, let's just do a painting that's nice, and wanted to make you feel good.

Take a little pthalo blue to start with on the old two-inch brush.

There we go.

Just tap a little color right into the bristles.

And we'll go right up in here... And let's just begin dancing in just a happy little sky.

And because the liquid white's on the canvas, the blue is mixing with it and automatically it'll blend together.

If this was a dry canvas, hoo.

It'd be difficult to do this.

But since it's wet, this happens almost automatically.

Maybe we'll just come right down like so.

I'm sort of leaving a spot open.

I think I'll have a happy little cloud up in there.

One that just floats around and has a good time all day.

So we'll just leave a little place for him to live.

All right.

Something about like that.

Maybe a little more of the blue.

Yeah, what the heck, we'll have another one in here.

Just sort of make a decision and drop it in.

Drop it in.

This is probably one of the freest forms of painting that I've ever seen.

There.

'Cuz we don't do any drawing, no sketching, we just sort of start out with an idea in our mind, and off we go.

And you can do this.

Just the same.

All right, maybe I'll have a little water in this one.

I like water.

So while I have that blue on the brush, let's just go right down here and put in a little bit of water.

This'll be still water today.

Still water is always level.

Always level.

So try to keep your strokes as straight as possible.

'Cuz if they're not straight, it'll look like your water's running up or downhill.

It'll sort of disturb your eye.

And we don't want that.

We want it to look right.

There we go.

Now then, I'm gonna take the same brush... And go into a little bit of the midnight black.

I just want it here and there.

Just darken it a little bit, like right there.

Just a little.

Little tiny bit.

And maybe, maybe, maybe right in here.

Just a little.

Just to change the flavor in a couple of places.

All right.

Little bit more in the water and we'll be in business.

Okay.

Notice we've left a little light area in here.

If everything works just right, it'll look like a sheen of light coming across the water.

A little shimmer.

Okay.

Now then, let's wash the brush.

Let's wash the old brush.

There's a screen in the bottom of the bucket that we scrub the brush against.

That screen allows the solid material to settle to the bottom.

(whipping) And that way your paint thinner remains relatively clean.

And you can use it over and over, you just let it settle and off you go.

We're right into titanium white with the old two-inch brush.

We'll just use it, it doesn't matter.

Okay.

But notice mainly one corner's got a lot of paint.

The other corner's just about naked.

Let's go right up in here.

I take that corner that has a lot of paint in it and I'm just gonna tap in a basic little cloud shape.

We're really not too concerned.

Just a little basic shape, happy little cloud that floats around here in the sky.

There we are.

Now then.

Now I've got several of each brush goin' here.

So I'mma get a nice dry two-inch brush, and I wanna tap the base, the back of the cloud there, til it disappears.

And then very lightly.

Very lightly.

Three hairs and some air.

Just very lightly blend over that.

And that quick, we've got a happy little cloud just floating around there.

We'll do the same thing one more time.

And in our world, maybe... Maybe there's a little cloud that hangs around here.

Clouds just sorta, they sorta hang out.

Have a good time.

Now, you see the reason I put the dark in is so that light looks brighter.

That little bit of black that we added darkened the color enough so the white now looks much brighter than it would have.

In order to show light you need dark.

Dark is what makes, it's what makes white show.

Or light color period.

It doesn't have to be white, it could be any color that's light.

But you need that dark contrast to make it jump out and sing for you.

Otherwise it'll just sorta of go away.

Leave you standin' there by yourself.

(whipping) Once again, good dry two-inch brush, clean.

Well, relatively clean.

And then we'll fluff this up.

Just fluff it, fluff it, fluff it.

There.

Sort of the way I take care of my hair.

I just grab it and lift it.

Tease it a little bit.

Off we go.

There, there you are.

See, now we have another layer of clouds.

That's easy.

Anybody can paint clouds.

Shoot.

It's workin' so well, maybe there's a... Maybe there's another little duder right in there.

I don't know.

It just starts working, you start getting carried away.

You just start playing with these little rascals.

Which is great, because it gives you a lot of practice.

Back to my clean brush.

(whipping) And if your brush has just a little bit of paint on it, you can just beat the devil out of it like that, and it'll clean it off without going through that entire cleaning procedure.

'Cuz I'm noted for being lazy, and I look for ways to do these things that are easy.

There we are.

Something like that.

Yes, absolutely.

Now we have another layer of clouds.

So we have of depth in the sky.

(whipping) Already.

This one I've gotta wash.

It's got too much paint on it.

So we'll just wash it off.

There, shake off the excess.

(whipping) (chuckling) And just beat the devil out of it.

All right.

Let's make a little happy mountain today.

For that, I'm gonna use some some black, Prussian blue, we'll put some alizarin crimson, and some brown in it.

What the heck.

Good, dark color.

With quite a bit of crimson in there with the blue, it'll give it sort of a lavender cast.

Pull the paint up very flat.

Cut off a little roll of paint and let's go right up in here.

And with that little bit... We can go in here, decide where out mountian lives, and let's just drop it in.

There it comes.

(whistling) It really doesn't matter.

Just, just make a mountain.

Unless you're trying to paint a particular mountain, just do one that you like.

Now sometimes you want to paint a particular mountain, and then you should follow the basic shape and form of that mountain.

But a lot of times I just make 'em up.

Most of the time I just make them up.

In our world, we can do anything that we wanna do.

There.

So we just make up this kind of mountain that we want.

There, see, here comes another one.

All right, that easy.

Scrape off the excess paint.

Just scrape it off.

You can probably hear it's getting pretty strong there.

Get in there and really pull it.

And I wanna take the big brush and pull that.

I want it to just disappear in the mist down at the base.

There we are, grab that.

See?

Pull it.

And then just blend it until it blends away.

It'll look just like this is setting back here and floating.

That easy.

All right.

Now, just using brush strokes, you're beginning to be able to see 'em, you can create the illusion of highlights and shadows in your mountain.

Just by using brush strokes.

See there?

And it's a beautiful, beautiful way of laying your whole mountain range out without being committed.

'Cuz see, you can go back and change it again now.

That easy.

It is a super way, though, of giving you total freedom... 'Cuz you're not committed.

Let's take, let's see, what do we use here?

Let's throw some white.

Let's put some black in it, make a grey color.

We'll just make a grey, maybe a little darker.

What the heck, yeah.

Just some grey like that.

And once again cut off our little roll of paint.

Lives right out there on the edge of the knife.

And with that, we can begin putting the indication of a few little highlights on here.

Just a few little, few little things that live out in here.

Something about like that.

Just pick 'em out.

Think about where the light's coming from.

And then begin working with 'em.

Just begin working with 'em.

Most right handed people will find it's easier and more natural to have the light coming from the right.

Left handed people, because they've been forced to do right-handed things their entire life...

They may be able to do it either way, or they may have a preference.

There is a theory that only left-handed people are true artists.

Since I'm right handed, I don't know if I adhere to that theory.

(chuckles) But it sounds good.

All right.

Now sometimes you don't even want to bother to put shadows in there.

You can just take something like this.

Pull it, allow it to grab a little bit of that color, and just blend it with a knife.

In fact, you can literally paint the entire mountain with just a knife.

We don't ever have to use a brush on it at all.

And it makes some of the most interesting effects... That you've ever seen.

You paint the entire painting...

Using nothing but the knife.

There, it's a little hard to do in the time frame that we have here.

But at home where you have unlimited time, you literally can go back in there and just paint the entire panting with nothing more than this old knife.

You can put all kind of deep ridges and things.

You decide.

You decide.

Wherever you want 'em.

Wherever.

It's okay.

Take that right around like that.

Just to change the basic shape a little bit.

There.

We actually have just used the same color on the back of the mountain here for the shadow.

There is no shadow color.

It is the basic mountain color, is all we're using.

All we're using.

All right.

No pressure.

Absolutely no pressure.

I think I've mentioned in other shows, when I was teaching my son Steve to paint, I used to tell him just to pretend that he was a whisper that was floating across the mountain.

His touch, he had to be that gentle to make it work.

Okay.

(whipping) We'll clean the old brush.

And we'll take a little touch of titanium white on the two-inch brush.

Just a little bit on the bottom.

And let's just tap in an indication here and there, and there and here of some misty areas right down at the base here.

Nice misty area.

Maybe a cloud just fell out of the sky and is layin' down here.

Well, it could happen.

Maybe.

(chuckling) But just a, I want a very soft, little misty area here.

Very, very soft.

Quiet little misty area.

See how easy that is to do that?

Little titanium white, just barely touching... And you can create that illusion.

There.

Okay, let me grab a clean brush.

(whipping) Make sure it's dry.

There, and I wanna really beat the bottom to death.

Just beat it up.

That's where you take out all your frustrations and hostilities.

It's better than goin' home and kickin' the dog around.

Yeah.

'Cuz you'll probably get bit if you do that, anyway.

There we are.

All right.

Now maybe, let's see here.

Let's take some of that mountain color, a little bit of white in it.

Put a little sap green in it.

Ooh, I like that color.

Nice color.

It's got sort of a greenish tint to it, but not a lot.

Little roll of paint.

And maybe up in here, maybe there's some little mountains, little foothills that're right here.

You decide where they are.

Okay.

Right there.

You just drop 'em in.

Wherever you think they should live.

There we go.

I like to paint mountains.

Lived in Alaska for over a dozen years... And there's so many gorgeous, gorgeous mountains there.

You can't help but just become captivated by 'em.

There.

I'm just rubbing the base there, very firmly.

There we go.

Just somethin' like so.

Okay.

There.

And that's about all we need to make the indication of some little footy hills that live there.

Take some of the mountain color.

We'll tap it a little bit right down here at the base.

Right down here at the base.

Maybe...

This little area, maybe there's a little plain out here.

A little meadow or something.

Something out there.

We'll take a little... Sap green, a little bit of yellow, mix 'em together.

Make a nice green color.

Tap a little bit into the bristles.

Go right up in here.

And just barely tapping.

Like so.

We'll just put the indication of some little green things that live back here.

As I say, this might be a little meadow or something.

Way back, right at the foothills.

Up to you.

You decide.

You decide.

Oh I see some, okay, okay.

It's coming to me.

As you paint, you'll see these things.

You'll get, you do get excited.

There.

Let's see, let me grab a number three fan brush, a little bit of brown on it.

Watch it right here, right here.

There it is.

Maybe there's a little path, a little road or something.

It goes way back up in there.

A little dark sienna on it, too.

Van Dyke and dark sienna mixed together.

Here it comes.

See?

All right, take a little... Little touch of white right on the same brush.

And you go right back and highlight a little of that.

Don't want much, just enough to make it sparkle here.

There.

All right.

Oh, a little blue, a little mountain color, a little sap green.

All those nice colors that we have.

Let's have water.

We'll make some, make some reflections.

There we go, just pull straight down to make reflections.

Reflections are one of the easiest things that happen in this technique.

One of the easiest.

Shoot, when I was a traditional painter, reflections used to drive me crazy.

Hard to do.

Sometimes I'd even turn the canvas upside down and try to repaint things.

This, all you do is pull it down, go across, and you instantly have it.

That easy.

Already looks like water, we haven't even done anything.

Okay.

Let's take Prussian blue, black, brown, crimson, sap, mix 'em together.

All right, let me wipe the old knife.

I just wipe the knife on a paper towel.

Fan brush, number six.

A lot of color.

And maybe, maybe there's some little distant trees back in here.

Here they are.

There they are.

See 'em?

Just some little indications.

There they come.

Maybe they come right on down.

If they're real small, you can just do it like that, and lift up, see?

That easy.

That'll give us the indication of some little background trees far away.

Of course, I've messed the bottom of the grass up there.

Very hard to correct.

We'll have to do all of that.

(chuckles) We don't make mistakes.

Shoot.

We can do it easy.

I tell you what, I want a big tree.

You know me, I like big trees.

I think I'll put a big tree...

Right there.

One of the ways of making a big tree, you can just use the knife.

We'll just use the knife today.

I like to make these trees with a knife, because when they get dry, they're very thick, and they literally, they stand off of the canvas.

Very neat.

Very neat.

If you tried to do this with a brush, I just don't think it would work right.

But you can take that knife and make these beautiful trees.

That easy.

They live right there in the knife.

All you got to do is just sort of shake 'em out.

Okay, see?

Maybe back to my fan brush.

Maybe I want a few more little trees right here.

You decide.

And you can change your mind at any time that you desire.

Any old time that you desire.

Maybe down in here, take a little brown.

Maybe there's, maybe there's all kinds of little things livin' in there.

Oops.

Got a little duder hangin' off there.

There we go.

All kinds of things.

Now then.

Maybe over in here... Yeah, why not?

We'll put a tree right there.

We showed you how to make one with a knife, now you can make 'em with a fan brush.

One-inch brush, two-inch, it doesn't matter.

You can really make trees with just about any old thing.

Shoot, we'll put a, we'll put several trees right here.

There they come.

Try picking those trees with a knife, though.

You'd be shocked at what you end up with.

You could make some gorgeous, gorgeous effects.

And once again, you could paint the entire painting using nothing but the painting knife, if you want to.

If you want to, it's just a way of giving you more options to paint.

And the more ways that you can find to paint, the happier it'll make you.

Maybe that comes right on down in there, we don't know.

And take a little more of that brown.

So you can just put all kinds of little duders in there.

Isn't that neat, though?

You really can do that.

Okay, now, let's have a little fun here for just a second.

The tree that's made with a knife.

I'll show you how you can highlight it with a knife.

We'll take a little green.

And just touch and barely go over it, so that it just picks up on those high points.

See there?

That's all there is to it.

And then on the other side there wouldn't be as much light.

It'll be a darker green.

So you can put a few little indications, not as many, though.

You want that side to remain darker.

But just like that, you could make a tree.

Or you can do it the normal way that we do it.

We'll take a little sap green, some of the yellows, mix them together.

And we can make a nice green.

Come back and highlight it.

Either way.

Just wanna show you a couple different ways you can make very effective little trees.

There he is.

There he is.

Just a few little duders there.

Then we'll bring this one...

Right down in front.

There we go.

Darker, darker, darker as it works down.

All right.

We'll take some of that yellow and green that we had there on the knife.

And you can put the indication of just little grassy things, just using the knife.

There.

Just let some of these little things just work your way right through there.

There we are.

Wherever you want 'em to be.

Let's take a little dark sienna, a little liquid white, mix 'em together.

And with that we come in here, put the indication of a water line there.

Little bit of dirt right at the edge.

Something about like so.

There we go.

Whever you want 'em to live.

All right.

Then we take this plain liquid white... And just a little of it.

I want to put the indication, just a small amount, a little watery line lives right down at the bottom.

There.

Shoot, maybe there's a little stone right there.

Put a little brown in.

Take a little brown and white.

You can highlight that rascall a little bit, and you're in business.

That easy.

You can make a happy little rock that lives there.

In your world, you decide.

There we go.

And with that, I think we about got a finished painting.

We'll sign this little rascal, call it done.

Take a little bit of red, little paint thinner... And we'll sign it.

Really hope you've enjoyed this little painting.

Would love to hear from you if you have time to drop us a line.

Until then, from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

(mellow soft rock music)