[music] Hi.

Welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm Nicholas Hankins, and as you can see on the easel today, I've, I've already got a little something planned so come on up here and let's get started.

I'll tell you what I've got going on.

This is an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas and I've used a little, little gray gesso and I took a foam applicator, a little inexpensive thing, and just kind of dabbled on a few little tree shapes.

Nothing too descript, nothing too distinct.

Then I took a little natural sea sponge and some white gesso, and blocked out the bottom and made it a little foggy and misty kind of a look.

And then at the bottom, took a, took a little black gesso on a natural sea sponge and blocked around and that brings you to where we are now.

Once all that was dry, of course, your gessos are water based and they'll dry very quickly, and I applied a very thin, even coat of the liquid clear so we can take our colors and spread them out like this.

This is a little Indian yellow I picked up on my two inch brush and by using Indian yellow, it's a transparent yellow and we can put it on right over the top of all this stuff and it won't disappear.

You can see right through it.

That's why we want a transparent color here.

And I'm just going to let this wander up.

Wander up a little taller, a little higher in the sky so we get a nice warm glow.

We'll paint kind of a, I don't know if this is evening or morning, and I don't know that it matters, but I just want a bright, colorful sky.

I've kind of got an autumn sort of scene in mind today.

Out in the woods in the autumn.

Put a little, I want to have some water in this painting, I know, so I'll go ahead and put a little bit of that yellowy color down there in the water.

That won't look like much right now, but it will, I promise.

We'll make something out of that.

Now let's mix up a little color.

Let's take a little, take a little alizarin crimson.

Just a touch, small touch of the phthalo blue.

I want kind of a, almost like a plum color.

Like a, like a lavender to the red side just a little bit.

So more, more alizarin crimson than blue.

Because the blue is many, many, many times stronger than that alizarin crimson.

All right.

Now we can just, we can probably take that same old brush.

I'm just going to wipe it out a little bit.

I'm not going to worry about washing it just yet.

And we'll pick up some of that, some of that pretty sort of plum color, plum lavender, reddish grape, [chuckles] whatever, whatever you like, whatever your favorite flavor is.

And we'll come up to the top now and just begin adding some of that beautiful purpley color to the upper sky.

And because I have liquid clear on here as a base, it's not going to lose its, its intensity and its darkness.

It's going to stay very saturated and rich.

And I'm just going to slowly kind of let that meander down and mix with the yellow a little bit.

So, like I this could be a dawn sky and that's the dawn breaking in the last bit of night or could be an evening scene and night's coming on.

Just depends on what kind of mood you're in.

We'll come down here with some of that lavender as well.

Purple, pretty purpley color and put it into our water a little bit from this side too.

Again, that's hard to see.

You won't be able to tell there's really anything there right now because it's so dark.

But that'll all, that'll all wash when we're finished.

You'll see, you'll see what I mean.

It's all going to make sense.

We'll put a little bit of that purpley, misty color right in there.

That's sort of neat.

Now, let's watch the brush.

We'll have some real fun.

We'll wash our brush out, as we always do, in some odorless thinner, shake out the excess real good.

We'll pick the devil out of it.

Now, to really create sort of an atmospheric look here, I'm going to grab a clean, dry two inch brush and pick up some titanium white.

Now we can come back up here, I'm going to go right into, right into this lightest area where I feel like the sunlight would be the brightest.

And we'll begin to work some of that titanium white in here and really light up this yellow, make it glow.

And we're going to push those little trees kind of back into the background.

See that?

That gives us a little foggy, atmospheric feeling.

A little more white.

And we'll start to carry that upward so we have, we have control over where our brightest points are.

Now we're turning the light on.

And we're going to carry that up and up and up.

Just let that all kind of blend together real pretty up there.

Down here I'll even, I'll even invite a little bit of that foggy, atmospheric effect to just sort of drift down into our, into our middle ground area there.

See, everything looks like it's bathed in sunlight, and I think it's a great little effect.

One that was, one that used to be really hard to do, especially in traditional methods of oil painting.

Difficult to figure out how to do that but oh man, now that we've got this fantastic technique, we can just do all sorts of crazy stuff and, and it's beautiful.

Taking a little one inch brush now and I'm picking up some yellow ochre.

[chuckles] This is going to sound strange.

A little yellow ochre and some of that lavender color and I'm just tapping it right into the top of that brush and let's come up here.

Now that we've got this sort of in the background, I'm just going to take the top corner of that little one inch brush and start to, start to build some little closer trees.

And they've got a little bit of a, almost a brownish sort of flavor to the under painting here.

Because remember I want, I'm looking for kind of an autumn scene so we, we might not have super green, really dark green trees.

They're starting to, they're starting to turn some colors.

They're starting to feel a certain way with that cooler weather coming in.

There we go.

And I'm just tapping with that top corner of the brush.

I'm kind of turning as I go around to form these little, these little shapes.

And I'm just bouncing between the ochre and the, the ochre and the lavender color, depending on how strong or soft I want it.

There's a good little bunch of trees.

I take my little two inch brush, and I'm just going to kind of tap firmly around the base, add a little more, little more foggy, misty effect down here so they get a little obscured.

There we go.

Grab my little liner brush and oh, we'll take a little Van Dyke brown, dark sienna, a little bit of both of those colors and just, just soften them down with some paint thinner like that.

All right, let's hop up here and we'll, I don't know if these are going to show when everything's all said and done and we've, we've placed on the highlights and little leaves and details but just in case they peek through, I want at least an indication of a little stick and a twig up here to just kind of hold all this stuff up.

Maybe there's a little, maybe there's a little bare one there that died so we can see a few little arms on it.

There we go.

Just, just a little indication of something back there.

Like I say, in case it shows.

It may not, but it only takes a second to paint it in so we're not really out anything there, are we.

Now, let's take that same, that same little one inch brush.

I'm going to tap it into some cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, a little bit of the Indian yellow.

Just all those good colors.

And we'll come back and start thinking about some little autumn highlights on these trees.

There we go.

Leaves are starting to change.

Beautiful stuff.

Maybe some of them are still hanging on.

I'm tapping into a little sap green here.

Maybe there's a little sap green, greenish sort of flavor still hanging on in a few of these trees.

They, they don't all turn at the same time.

Especially depending on what kind of tree it is.

A little highlight on this one.

And I'm trying to save a little dark as well.

I don't want to cover up all these darks.

They're very important, too.

Put these kind of soft little subtle colors back here in the background.

I'm going to work our way up to some stronger stuff.

Maybe, how about a little yellow ochre and bright red?

That's always a nice combination for autumn.

Get a little orangey flavor.

Maybe this one's got some, got some bursts of orange on its leaves.

Yeah, something like that.

Now, every little brush load can vary just a little bit.

That's okay.

Variety's wonderful thing in these little scenes.

Now, if I just take some of that same color as a starting point, I'm going to add a little more blue and some sap green to that, maybe a little of the Van Dyke brown.

We'll make a few little evergreens to sprinkle among our, our little trees back here.

That way they're not all just leafy deciduous trees.

Let's grab some of that good dark color.

There we go.

And then I want to, I want a little tree that lives, oh, about right there.

He's pretty tall.

We'll kind of make this one the granddaddy tree, and then we'll, we'll work the rest of them off of this.

There we go.

I like that dark kind of contrast in there with those, those more subtle trees.

You get a little taste of everything back here in the forest.

All right, this one's got a little buddy lives right there beside him.

Sometimes I go through and name the little trees just to, just to make sure I don't get in a hurry while I'm painting them.

And if you have to do that, too, that's fine.

Let's see where else we're going.

I'm going to go ahead and plan out a few of them here.

Have one here maybe.

Get an idea of my evergreen distribution here before I [chuckles] before I get committed to exactly where all these little things live.

There we go.

I think this last one... Let's, let's get a little crazy with him.

Let's pick up a bunch of dark sienna.

I'm going to change the flavor.

Maybe this one's on the verge of expiring.

He's got a little more brownish tone to him.

Maybe the little pine beetle got a hold of him and he's seen better days.

[chuckles] Now, we'll take our little knife and just, just extend these little tops.

Maybe carve in a few, few impressions of little evergreen trunks back there from trees that have previously reached their expiration date.

I'm going to add a little highlight to these two.

I'm going to grab just a little touch of the liquid white, some of the yellows and maybe a little green.

Got a little phthalo green on the brush there.

That's always pretty.

And we'll pop a little, pop a little highlight on these trees just using the corner of the brush, bending it a little harder as you work your way down.

Right along these.

Not much, though, I don't want them to lose... There's such a nice natural dark in your paintings, and I don't want to lose that nice dark contrast.

That's an important little role those trees play.

Maybe for my brown one here, I'm going to kind of move into more of an orangey flavored highlight.

Some of that yellow ochre, Indian yellow, a little touch of the bright red.

Ooh yeah.

Like that.

Just so he feels a little different.

[chuckles] Now we'll kind of plant those down into the scene a little bit.

In fact, why don't we, why don't we jump back over to our... I don't know, that two inch brush was working pretty good.

Let's just grab some, some more sap green, a little Van Dyke brown, maybe even a little touch of the blue and black in there with.

And then we're going to have some trees that are living a little closer here.

So they're a little darker.

They're a little more in shadow.

A little more the browns in there.

A little sienna and Van Dyke every so often.

This is just a, a layer of foliage closer.

And we'll kind of cover up the base of the evergreens that way.

A little something over here on this side popping up.

A few little branches hanging in.

There we go.

Now, once more, go back to my little one inch brush I was using earlier.

Just touch it into a little bit of that liquid white in case we need a little help.

And then we're going to pop through our yellows once more.

All the yellows, maybe a little touch of sap green.

And we'll pop some highlights in on, on these little closer, on these little closer bushes and trees and stuff.

Just layers and layers.

This is a lush little area.

It must have had a lot of rain this fall.

Everything's still kind of hanging on and it's nice and lush and pretty.

It's usually when the colors look the best, when there's plenty of rain, everything's nourished.

There we go.

Just trying to, like I say, I'm trying to vary those, those colors a little bit in every brush load.

I even want a few that are going to kind of sparkle like a firecracker.

I'm going, I'm going to pick up a new brush I think for this one, get a fresh one.

We're going to kind of pop into some of that bright red and yellow ochre.

Make it really strong.

This one's going to be like a little firecracker, too.

Yeah, that'll give us some nice variety.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Just trying to save a few of those darks in there though.

Don't cover up all your darks.

Those are important.

They serve an important purpose.

Ooh, down here in the water, before I forget, I almost did.

Ohh, that had been bad.

Let's take a little titanium white and just down here, down here, let's pull a little, a little light into our water.

Because that light would reflect in our, in our little pond here.

Pick up some of all those beautiful colors.

Grab a big brush and we'll soften it a little bit.

Just pull straight down.

Kind of like that.

Brush across.

Might even see - since I've got some of that on the brush handy - might even see some of these little autumn colors just reflecting into your, into your little autumn showcase here.

[chuckles] a few of the greens and the yellows in, in a spot or two.

And we'll pull those down.

Just put them straight down [Nic makes "whhht" sound] and brush across.

Something like that.

Maybe in the midst of all this stuff back here, we might see... I'll take a little dark sienna and some liquid white, a little paint thinner.

Might be a little stick in a twig or two, just kind of sticking up out of, out of this closer stuff.

We might be able to peek through a few branches and see a little bit of structure to these things back here but I'm not going to be too worried about it.

That got a little big so I'm going to kind of rub him back and sharpen him.

There we go.

You ever finger paint?

I do.

That's the funnest way to paint, I think.

All right.

Wipe out our little fan brush.

Might actually have to wash it.

I'm going to go ahead wash some of that brownish color out of there.

And I'm going to come back with a little, little bit of sap green, Van Dyke brown, a little touch of the yellows in there.

And down here low, I'm just going to crunch in a little, little grassy stuff living right there.

Maybe, maybe, maybe we'll even take ... watch this.

Let me move some of this color out of the way.

Let me take a little, a little Van Dyke brown, cut off a nice little roll of paint on your knife like that.

And we'll come up here and just, just add a little, little land.

A little soil or some rocks.

Rocky shoreline.

There we go.

Take a little bit of our dark sienna, Van Dyke brown and mix in a little titanium white.

I'm just going to mix this to a marbled appearance.

I'm not going to over mix it.

Cut off a little roll of that and we'll come back and just very gently, we'll add a little, little highlight to our, our rocky shoreline.

[Nic makes "sssoop" sound] I've even picked up a little bit of that purpley color off the palette and that's beautiful.

One of those little happy painting accidents that you get every so often.

Those things are like gold.

Treat them like gold.

That's what makes your painting special when you get little things like that that you couldn't duplicate again, even if you tried.

A little bit of grass grows down over that rocky shoreline.

Got too many brushes stacked up here.

I'm having trouble finding what I wanted.

Catch a little bit of that shoreline, pull it into the water, kind of anchors it, helps it feel like it's really part of the scene.

I tell you what'd be fun, let's do this.

Just, just had me an idea.

Let's take a little liquid white, a little titanium white, mix that together.

A little bit of black.

There we go.

Get kind of a nice grayish color going on.

It's got a little liquid white in there to make it softer.

I'm going to grab a, grab an old filbert brush here.

I'm going to fill it full of Van Dyke brown, a little midnight black, a little bit of the dark sienna.

Just get all the darks together on the brush there.

Nice and full.

And then I'm going to take one side only [Nic makes "whhht sound] right through that light.

So I got dark on one side, light on the other side.

And let's come up here and we'll just, we'll have a few little rocks laying along the shore.

Little individual rocks like that.

Maybe, maybe some of them are up here on the bank.

Some of them are scooting down close to the water.

Some of them are all the way down there taking a drink.

So we've just got a little, little variety of rocks in our painting.

I never turn down a little rock in the painting.

I think they're cute.

But it's your world and you get to do what you want to do.

It's a little liquid white and titanium white.

Just touch a blue in it.

Give ourselves a little water ripple.

Kind of help separate our land and our water.

Separates those dark areas.

Something like that.

I'm not done with rocks, I don't think.

Just had me another thought.

I want a little, little rock or two out here in the water too.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] Some of them got away.

They made an escape.

They made a break for it.

And they swam that far away and they got stuck.

That's silliness, isn't it.

You've got to make up little stories or it's just not as much fun.

All right, you ready to get brave?

Let's get brave and do something crazy.

Let's take another fan brush and I'm going to, I've got to decide here where I want to, where I want a big, tall tree.

I'm going to mix together first a little black and a little phthalo green.

I'm, I'm double brushing here.

I've got a brush in both hands.

Just you wait though.

A couple of browns, black, phthalo green.

All those get dark colors.

I'm going to kind of plan out first where I, where I want some of these branches to kind of hang out.

Looks a little out of order, I know, but you stick with me.

I've got a plan here.

I won't let you down.

I've got a plan.

I'm going to pop in a few little branches like that first.

Get him established.

Then I'm going to grab my other fan brush and fill it full of Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna, both the browns, maybe even a little black.

Anything that's good and dark.

There we go.

Just fill both sides to chiseled edge, and then we're going to have a big old tree trunk that lives riiiiight there, all the way down that side of the painting.

And maybe it's a couple.

[Nic makes "ssshhhoo" sound] No, no, it's one.

It's one big one.

That's what it is.

It's one big doozy, like that.

[chuckles] I told you we were going to get brave.

Man, he goes almost all the way out of the painting.

Now, let's take that same brush and pick up a little titanium white on it.

Just took the dirty brush, right into some titanium white.

I know that sounds wild, doesn't it?

Now, let's come up here and we're going to highlight that whole tree just by, just by tapping like this.

Get that nice gray color.

It's sort of grayish brownish fuzzy old bark that shows up on these big old evergreens.

It's real textured.

And you can just kind of shape your tree and tree trunk textures.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] And just let it get darker and darker and darker as it works away from the light area.

Something like that.

Something like that.

I've got to have something down here for this oak tree to stand on.

I'll take a little bit of my sap green, browns, and blacks.

Just pick those up on the two inch brush, and I'm going to establish a little, little plot of land here for this old tree to hang out, put down some roots.

Eventually you've got to settle down and put down some roots.

He found a nice spot to do it, too.

Let's take our little liner brush, a little paint thinner, a little Van Dyke brown.

Now, see, by putting those little branches on, those little boughs in there first they're on the other side of the trunk.

Growing away from us.

And then we're going to have a few that hang out here and they're going to be in front.

So I'm going to put a little arm or two in here to give this old tree something to hold up some more, some more boughs with.

There we go.

All right.

Now we can go back to our brush that has the, has the good old dark color in it.

And we'll come back and just punch in some, some more little, little pine boughs that live right out in the front there.

That cuts a pretty silhouette against that sky.

I like that.

Maybe those go up and out the top up there.

Now, if I just take that brush and kind of wipe it out, pick up a little bit of my liquid white because I want some of that, that influence, that green influence in there.

And I'm going to load it up with some yellow and we'll come back and just pop a little highlight on our, our little evergreen branches here.

Get those in behind ones first, and then we're going to get the ones that are in front.

Kind of like that like that.

Ooh, like that.

I like that.

A little bit of light on our grass down here.

I think we've just got a finished painting.

I hope you've enjoyed this one.

I hope you've enjoyed a little autumn scene and we'll see you next time.

Bye bye.

[Music] [Announcer] To order Nic's 68 page all color book with 13 painting projects or the 3 disk set of DVDs for this series, call 1-800-BOB-ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [Music] [Music]