In art, you can learn from the great ones but the time will come when you must leave that path and make your own footprints.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So I told my daughter that I'm going to go to the park today and I'm going to paint with George Innis.

And she says, "I thought he was dead."

He is, but having studied him, his techniques and so on, I can take him with me to the park, and I like that aspect.

Learn from the great ones, use their techniques, and let it adapt to your talents and your interests.

Okay, we have ready to do is oil stage of "Oak Park II."

What we've done previously is all acrylics.

As you can see we have the original to the left.

I will start by dipping in with a large one-inch brush.

This is the walnut oil, we'll cover this with the walnut oil.

(soft scraping) Okay, I'll wipe a little bit with a paper towel.

You want to have enough there so that it will thin out the paint that you're going to put on, and in this case I'm putting on a Saturday night bath with Alizarin Crimson.

When I was first thinking, I was going to use a greenish color but the minute I said it I thought, no.

The Alizarin Crimson will look so good both going over the blue and over the green and so then we work into it, you'll have that nice quality of blue and Alizarin together.

Isn't that a pretty color?

I put this up sort of generous like and I'll put this on and wipe, so right now you shouldn't be too shocked.

(soft scraping) I'm shocked, but you shouldn't be!

A little bit more over here.

(soft scraping) The richness that I was talking about is right in this area.

Oh, that is so pretty!

Okay, go over the highlights; go over the greens.

You find that this Saturday night bath is really a glaze in the middle of a painting rather than at the end, so many artists use glazes, but we do a Saturday night bath, which is a glaze over the whole thing.

I know there's artists out there that do that too.

I'm not claiming to be the innovator, the inventor, that doesn't matter just so we can use it.

Okay, now I'm wiping a little bit, both to remove a little bit and to have the area that I'm going to work on to be a little more dry.

See I can still feel the textures from the acrylics and in this case-- I give this a term.

It is called "surface intensity" so that it looks and feels like it has some real surface to it and some real intensity by the colors that you have letting come through next to each other.

Okay, I think what I'll do now, I'll take a green, and I'll go ahead and do it rather than talking about it.

We have a Paynes Gray, and I have what kind of green should I use?

You can all be candidates.

I think I'll take Permanent Green Light, just because you're my neighbor.

And you know, you should love your neighbor as yourself and I was even talking to Cameraman number 3, or maybe it was 2, I don't know.

But where you say that you should, instead of just loving your enemies, you should treat your friends a little better.

So that's important, okay, here's the green and the Payne's Gray, and I'll place this in here.

Boy, isn't that a nice dark green and yet it feels green.

When you look down at the palette, you almost think, hey, do I have too much of a black look to it?

Oh that's gorgeous and further, look how nice it looks against that Saturday night bath effect on that tree.

I think I'll just sign this-- and see you next week!

I just love that aspect.

Love the aspect of signing and leaving?-- No!

Love the aspect of what's happening there.

We can put some over here and I'm comfortable with the fact, and I need to look you right in the eye when I say this, I'm comfortable with the fact this may look a little different than the original, it may look better-- that's the thing to aim for.

Equal it, go better, if you aim better, it comes down equal, fine.

If it's a little bit low, fine.

You've learned something.

Like I tell my wife, I come down from upstairs and I say well, I learned another way not to paint a landscape today.

So you're always learning.

Put a little bit across there.

I'll put some across the rocks, get a little darker there and then over on this side, just a little bit more up in the corner a little bit closer into there.

Oh, isn't that pretty?

Gee!

If you see the cameras moving that means they're saying ♪ uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

All right, now we'll take a fan brush.

When I put the knifework on there, even though I have it pretty established where I could put the knifework, I still want a lot of the little incidental colors as you can see around there.

So we have Sap Green, no you're Azo Green.

here's Sap Green, your new neighbor.

Sap green and white, maybe a touch of yellow.

A little more white.

All right, the fan brush.

I'll come onto those little clumps, but while I'm doing so, then I want to go out a little further, however, as I look at the original, when I see what goes out further, it's a cooler, it's a cooler green, so Permanent Green Light you're back in the mix, with a little bit of white.

And I need to do this so it's done quite sparingly because we don't want it to detract from the main clumps that are there.

And when you're experimenting and that's what I'm doing because I had planned to do it with the Alizarin bath, you always have the chance to learn from it.

You might say I wish I'd have left it this way and so on.

Well then you learn-- next time you do that.

Little bit more up here so we don't have quite as much dark up at the top as we do down below.

I want to read a quote to you.

Let me read it to you.

"Nature, however beautiful, is not art.

Art is natural beauty interpreted through natural temperament."

You can see why I didn't use this as an opening because we have to memorize it.

"Art is natural beauty interpreted through human temperament."

I don't know if I agree with that.

I've seen some very beautiful nature as is.

So I say one thing, then I kind of contradict it a little bit.

But you hope that the artist will interpret it in a gorgeous way, and that's why lessons are so important.

You learn composition, you learn color values and all that, so then you can go out and see nature and interpret it.

Come over to this area, I sure hesitate touching in there, but I'll have to a little bit.

It is just dark and moody.

I'll put a little bit more on, then I wanted to show you something else before we do the palette knife with textures.

This yellow and white-- we'll come up here, build this up just a little bit.

And I'm kind of relating this, rather than just to that, I look at it against itself.

You could almost put that painting down and say focus on me.

Dance with the girl you brought.

Focus on me.

Aw... it's good.

Okay now here's what I want to do with the knife, before we do what it is scheduled to do.

It came onto the shift early, so here's what I want it to do.

Take a little bit--no knife-- yes you are a knife.

No paint on the knife.

So I'm just going to swirl it around like this, and you can see right there as we go, see how it softens out and blends into the wet paint.

That's such a good reason for that Saturday night bath, that when you soften it out like that there are no hard edges.

(soft scraping) I think my president of Prairie Public Television is watching this forum, so I can just say, Hey John!

We'll see you soon.

He's a tremendous ballplayer.

Anyway, the weather is perfect and here we go.

See how that works?

You look at that, It has a little less raw feeling as over here where I haven't done it, but oh gee, that's gorgeous!

Okay so we'll push this around a little bit.

(soft scraping) I think the next thing to do rather than going on with that, let's go down to the stream, and we'll put on, let's see, You have the Ultramarine blue on?

Yes.

So we'll pick up a flat brush.

This is Yellow Ochre, this orange, this is white, and I think we better take a little Van Dyke Brown.

You can see on the palette where I put a little white next to each one, so you see what they are because those all look just the same.

This is the Van Dyke Brown into the orange and ochre.

This is only meant to get some wet paint on that we can work into.

And then when I come over here this becomes-- see, on this side it's more in the shadows, and on this side it's more in the lights.

I'm going to just come down to the palette.

Put a little bit of Alizarin Crimson in there.

What will that do?

What would purple do?

I don't have to make up my mind, do I?

Yeah a little purple instead of the Alizarin.

Um, see, it has almost a little violet look to it with the purple.

Couple rocks over there, couple in here.

I'm placing it on with the idea that I can now wipe the brush with a paper towel and just blend a little bit so it has a gradation down into the shadows.

Okay on the other side, on the far side, more white into that mixture so that we have some of these that really have strength.

And down closer to the center of interest, now, we haven't put the center of interest in.

There's different ways of doing things.

I've heard it said both ways.

Let's say for instance you were painting a portrait, do you put the eyes in first or last?

If you put the eyes in first, then you work everything up close to the eyes, using that as a guide.

If you put the eyes in last, you work everything up, and then you get dessert.

So both ways are right, and both ways are better.

And if you understand all that-- good!

[chuckles] The same approach on what we've just done with a little bit of knifework on it just moving around what's there.

Let it blend slightly in where the water will be, just blend a little bit, little bit.

Let's put some color on the water area.

And this is, first a little green.

This is what we put on up here.

The green up there.

Do you remember what that was?

It's Paynes Gray and its neighbor, Permanent Green Light.

I'm going to put just little more of the Paynes Gray in it.

So it's just a little darker right there and there.

All right now we'll take and put some white in there and when I say "white" it will, of course, have a mixture.

This is white we started white-- you changed-- then we'll mix in a little bit of Turquoise Blue.

See, I'm preparing a place for her majesty to rest.

A little bit down there.

Wipe the brush, spread it out just a little further.

Okay now into the area that we left for the lightest light, we'll come back with the knife.

This is taking just a little bit of Yellow Ochre and white.

That's quite light as you can see.

Again, you have the contrast of there and up above.

We'll put some in here too.

When I put it on, you can leave just a little bit more texture.

that doesn't have to be blended very much.

I notice one thing when I look at the original.

Let me just point it out.

See this area, between there and the rock there's a space.

I don't have a space there, so I'll make one by just taking a little bit of this dark and putting it right there.

What this does is, make sure you have a nice contrast between the light and the dark.

Okay now we'll put a little paint on the trunk of the tree.

This is Turquoise Blue and white.

I'll put some on the other trees, then I'll show you how we blend it.

I love this little branch going out there.

Now, the tree to the far right is different.

So we do have one more tree though, that's right in here.

You can hardly see it.

Okay, the blending instead of adding more color, we'll just kind of swizzle this around, and I truly can make use of that Saturday night bath color.

Push this over.

This is kind of an intermediate highlight, so we'll have some stronger highlights after we've done this.

(soft scraping) Okay, it's time for the stronger highlights.

White, you want to come down with me?

Thank you.

Let's go with Yellow Ochre again.

And this is stronger at the base of the tree.

It really is a directional sign, isn't it?

Because you go right, you follow that along.

A little bit on there a little bit on here and some on here.

I do see a need for just a little purple.

Purple, come down and do your stuff; straight purple.

You can see that do its thing.

It's just a little darker.

Okay, we better take a look at the other tree before we do some knifework.

Are you Van Dyke Brown?

Here's the Van Dyke Brown.

Let's take Van Dyke Brown and a little white-- I don't think I'll warm that up any-- and put it on here.

This is quite bright.

I might take just a little bit of this tan color that we had on the rocks and put it on there so you feel that vitality but the surface is just a little less orange looking.

And let's take some of that same thing, actually when I say same thing, this is Yellow Ochre and white maybe a touch of orange into it.

I'll go over and put a little knifework on the rocks.

See how you can keep stepping things up?

And you're not close to white, so you always have that chance to go higher.

That, I think, is one of the things that I find quite helpful as an artist that you reserve your lightest lights till you're ready to put it on, then it truly has a position of importance.

Okay we have a little bit of the same this is rock color just a little more white, but now with textures.

Oo, yes!

When I put it on with the knife, you can see I have it-- you can see that-- and then I sort of just pull it down a little bit, just gently coming off the knife.

Okay let's go stronger lights.

We'll be doing it several places.

We'll start up in the foliage.

Let's take some-- what color do I want?

Yellow and this greenish tone, and we'll put this over in here.

Oo, that's pretty strong.

I'll put a little bit of the darker green so it just softens it slightly.

(soft scraping) Then we have a little bit of the kind of orange color.

Kind of orange color-- are you kind of orange color?

Here's orange.

I'll put just a little bit with that yellowish green and a little white with it.

Just to kind of put a few of those coming down.

The same idea is, kind of after you have it on, kind of just push around the knife a little bit, soften it slightly, swizzle it a little bit.

We'll put a little bit of that over on the near one here because it's very close and they kind of relate together.

Okay, before I leave this area watch what happens here.

We'll take a little white and that kind of orange color, then on the side of the knife, I just slide it like that then you can have just a touch of little branches coming.

They look so natural, don't they.

They just loosen everything up a little bit.

There's some coming from this way.

And if you have too much, just touch a little bit out.

Let's go on the other side.

We'll have our light green, I'm putting more white in this greenish tone and now we're using a knife.

Let's pretend that I made a mistake and had too much light up there.

So I'll just take some dark and just put it right on top of it.

It's such an easy way to correct it when you're doing the palette knife work.

Need to have just a little stronger there.

I need to have a stronger light.

Boy you're a needy person!

I need, I need, I need.

We have just a couple minutes left.

Let's put just a little more of the foliage on, hanging down just a little bit.

[soft scraping] Now, you can hear the knife, but it's not from real aggressive scraping.

It's more just a gentle stroke.

(soft scraping/tapping) I do like to have just a little bit of purple as an enhancing color in all the greens.

So I'll put some of this around.

You can find that in amongst the greens.

Little more orangey color up here.

(soft scraping) Now, I'll take just kind of, we don't have much time left, but we have time to take a knife and just kind of push it around slightly.

(soft tapping) And possibly for just when it-- kind of going away things, this is a little yellow and white, just a couple stronger little lights in here.

So you really have a feeling that where the light is leading to.

It's really focusing around there.

Well, I think we've done it.

There's always a chance to go a little further and do things that would help it, but I think this gives you the idea both of surface intensity and color and use of the Saturday night bath!

Good bathing; we'll see you next time.

Bye-bye.

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