If you want to paint a seascape you're not alone-- I'm here too!

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You know there's always a question.

Do you want your dessert first, umm!

or do you want it last?

We're going to give it to you last, but I want you to see it.

Here is a finished product.

We're going to work up towards that with the middle stage.

But I want you to see that, so you'd stay in the room and say, oh, oh, oh, that's what I want!

Let me show you something else.

You see this?

Water.

Not drinking water, and not painting water, because this series will feature paintings that are all done with oil, not halfway acrylics and then oil.

So these have been started, and they are dry.

The halfway point is dry, and that's what we're working towards today.

I have over on this canvas a prime of 6 White, 1 Payne's Gray, 1 Permanent Green Light.

Now you might have just a little less White so that it comes out to this nice middle value, then there's a tracing on that will be very helpful for you.

So to facilitate this, I think it would be most helpful if I take a large brush, I have a blender brush, and we'll put Walnut Oil on the whole canvas because we'll be covering the whole canvas with oil paint this session and then the next week we'll refine it.

We'll put the detail into it.

I'll put just a little bit more, then I'll also wipe just a little bit, which the wiping will even it out and will make sure that it's all covered.

[soft scraping] Very good.

Now, I like to start--you know, it used to be that you'd say we'll start in the sky so we can see you just kind of work down.

I'll go ahead and do that so it'll be easier for you to follow.

I hadn't intended to, but you talked me into it.

So we'll take some Orange, Cadmium Orange.

Oo, White, you need to come out here.

Oh, I need to be sure.

One time I was out painting and the day before I went out to paint a landscape just sit on location, and I went down there, and I had acrylic and I thought, no, I don't want acrylic.

Oh, no.

The first time I went down, I had no White.

So I walked back up, and got some White, came on down, and it was acrylic and I was working with oils.

Oh, that was devastating.

So anyway, we'll get rid of the acrylic, and this is oil paint.

I have White, and I have Cadmium Orange, and just a little Raw Sienna.

It sort of softens the Orange slightly.

I will hold this up and see how we match, and you know right away I'm going to say, oh, that's good... that's good!

Okay, so we'll take a fan brush, and I'll use it dryly.

Why?

Because I already put the oil on the canvas, the beautiful Walnut Oil.

Oh, you know, I notice one thing out there and I notice even in my drawing I have it.

I don't have it in the halfway point, but I saw it in the finished, and that is, there's just the smallest sailboat out there.

Oh, this is very helpful, and the more you thin this out, it'll change the value slightly.

Look at the difference between this and this.

So it shows you can get several values with one, and I love the effect of that little green showing through, so that makes such a help having the canvas primed, so that green can come through.

And we'll come over here.

I think what I'll do is just maybe borrow a little bit of you, so you're not too bright and I'll come up in here, then we see that we have a cloud, but it's not quite the right color.

So what should we do?

Should we change it?

No let's just thin this out.

A little like that, and like that, and I like where this just dribbles over the horizon just slightly, and then you have the effect of the light, which is upper left, coming down.

I'll blend across.

This would be one reason, when I put on the Walnut Oil, that I'm not too generous with it.

So I wiped a little bit.

That helped.

You'll find out very quickly what works best for you.

Less is almost best.

Is there anything over on the side?

There isn't.

So we're going to leave-- oh I need to come up a little higher there.

We're going to leave the sky now.

I think the next thing I would like to do would be to come down to the water.

We did the sky, now where else could you go?

Well, we could go to the rocks, but we're going to go to the water, and when I say that, I'm going to go with the dark water first.

So let's see what we mix up.

We have some Viridian Green, and we have some Burnt Umber.

I'll try those two, and I'll start out with half and half and see.

That needs to have a little White, so let's try this.

We've got 1 Umber, 1 Viridian Green, and 1 White.

Now, when I put the White in, then I realize that I need to have a little more of the green.

So your formula would be just probably, I would say, about 3 Viridian Green, 1 Burnt Umber, and 1 White.

We'll hold that up.

Yeah, that may be just a little dark, but I think it's going to be beautiful.

I'll use the same brush.

Oo, maybe I better get that water out of the way!

[laughs] Almost dipped into the water.

No I didn't.

It's ok.

Okay, so I dipped into the Walnut Oil to clean the brush, and then I come down to the paint, and where should we go first?

Often you think of where's your most dramatic energy on this painting?

And it's going to be that big wave, so rather than say put the dark in back there, I'll start on this wave, under this wave.

I'm going to sneak in just a little bit of Phthalo Blue.

Did you see that?

I took just a little brush mix and put a little Phthalo Blue in with it.

That's better, because that turns it more green than it was.

What do you have over here?

Oh, this is a dark.

Right.

Gee, you're going to have to start putting numbers on these!

Number 1, number 2.

A little bit over in here, and where I don't have much paint on the brush, then I'm going to come over here, over here being the distant wave... like that.

Okay now, let's come back down.

Here we have some.

We need to have a good chunk right under here.

I'm diving down kind of quickly, but I'm getting the same mixture that I told you about so I don't feel like I'm running away from you.

You may feel I am, but I don't feel like I am.

Okay, here, and we have a little wave right in here... and under there.

You find in each case there is an influence of the underneath priming that is helping the color that goes on.

So this dark green that I've placed on, it still would look different on the green canvas than if it had the white canvas, and you might ask could I paint it on the white canvas?

You could, but I sure recommend priming the canvas.

In the olden days when they would be doing kind of impressionistic work, they'd make use of a lot of the white canvas showing through the colors so they wouldn't cover it just as much, so there certainly is a reason for doing that.

We need some over there.

And we have here, and then we have a good one down here.

♪ Only five minutes more!

Three times!

♪ Only five minutes more!

So we're going along here pretty good in our first stage.

So how carefully should you paint stage 1?

Anything you do is a help towards the next stages.

So that's do your best work, and I remember painting for this one fellow, and this is years ago when I started with the Alexander company and I'd do the shows, and I'd write, you know, if I didn't like the painting very well I'd put "Paulson."

If I liked it a little better, I'd put "B.

Paulson."

If I liked it real well, "Buck Paulson," and he kind of chewed me out and said "Hey listen.

Every time you paint, you paint the best you can whether it's 30 minutes or 30 days.

They all have Buck Paulson."

So I like that attitude.

Do the best you can in the time allotted.

Okay now, let's go ahead with taking some foam color.

The foam color I'm going to take-- what are you?

You're Payne's Gray, no you're not Payne's Gray.

You're Van Dyke Brown, and we have some blue.

Let's see, you're Ultramarine Blue.

Ultramarine Blue and Van Dyke Brown equal parts, and here comes the White.

Ah!

Good for you.

You came out real close.

And you find when you do this, and you do by formula, you might be just a little off, and sometimes that gives you discovery for something else.

The next time you mix, you may say, oh, I'll use a little extra of the blue this time.

Okay, so I have a fan brush.

Gee, is that all you brought with you?

I have a fan brush!

So I'll put a little oil in that.

This is kind of a soft white; it's not real soft white.

It's called kind of a quick- drying white, but it's soft.

All right, here we come.

You might be just a little, little light, but I like you.

I like you, but change it so the people at home know what you're doing, Buck!

That's not much darker, but it's a little darker.

Okay.

Could you tell any difference in that?

I couldn't... ah, strong.

It just makes it when you put on the highlights, they'll just pop out.

And we'll go over to the neighborhood.

I'm taking just a little extra dark-- darker dark, not much.

And let's see.

Where do you originate from?

Right in here.

It's so helpful to have that tracing, and I hope you make good use of it.

It's a good idea while you're in this stage-- see, I'm going to work on that one, but if I were to work on this one I would say okay, it'd sure be helpful if you get rid of the sharp edges.

You're dealing with foam.

The top won't matter so much, because we'll be putting a highlight on it.

Okay, coming down a little bit of foam in here.

And I see a small amount of that down in the left corner.

Your left corner.

[soft scraping] So I've kind of pushed it on pretty good.

So I'll blend just a little bit, I'll come down.

This has a little continuation down there.

It has the smallest amount over on the side.

We've been painting for you, and I thank you for staying in the room.

You know, I get a lot of email from people who say I don't paint, but I sure enjoy your show!

So I hope you're one of those that can say that, that you enjoy the show.

And a little over here.

Let's go just a little higher.

I'll take and push this down just a little bit.

When I say push down, I softened it, and this is just a dry paper towel, and I like that.

I like that, because you are working with kind of a dry paint, and you have control on it.

That first wash, that glaze that you put on, it's truly, truly working.

Okay, now what do we do?

Oh, I know what we're going to do.

We're going to put in the green, which will be the eye of the wave, and it's kind of what you call the trough of the wave and the eye of the wave.

You see through the eye and the trough is the little flat area.

So let's take some-- you have Permanent Green Light and White, and I think we'll push a little Van Dyke Brown in that too.

So that's about 2 Green, 1 Van Dyke Brown and White.

White, often it's best not to say how much, because it varies.

Of course, even your color pigments will vary unless you get the same kind I have.

Okay, let's clean the brush, dip in, pull out.

Let's see, I guess I want that same brush.

Boy, fan brush, you've done a lot of work.

Okay here comes the color; first in this eye.

See, you can see a difference between it and the green that's already there.

So when you put this on, I'll spread this out a little bit so we have a large enough eye, and I keep wiping so I'm just painting with what's there.

You want a nice blend where the light goes into the dark.

It was pretty close, but if it needs to be better, then just zigzag a little bit while they're both wet, and blend out the zigzags.

I'm going to take my large blender brush.

Like that, and we'll put just the smallest eye on the distant wave, right in here, and you notice I keep wiping a lot.

So I'm working with what's there rather than adding new paint.

Okay, let's come down over in here.

There's just a little bit.

This is a nice addition, same green into, it's sort of an eye, but it's not as dominant as that one, but what it does suggest is you're seeing water in the wave, and it has that gradation, so the blend is definitely a part of it and its neighbor.

Sometimes when you do this, you'll find that those are so close in value.

Just for your benefit, I'll take this flat sable brush, and I have a little bit of the dark paint on it, and just slightly giving you the edge.

All right, now the next area.

A little down in here.

So this becomes the trough.

Almost the kind of flat water, and when I put that on, I can expect and desire to have a little bit of strokes so that it feels like it's moving water rather than the eye, which is a perfect blend.

This comes-- oh I need to come right through you.

Down into this area.

This is so exciting; I love starting.

In this case it's not a new painting because I've done it before, but each painting I do, it's new.

It's new.

Give it that sort of dignity, and it will respond.

I want to see what you can do.

Okay, down in here.

We need to come above this a little bit and over in here, just above that little swell.

There's a little sort of an eye right in here.

It's so nice when things respond to what you're saying, they're doing.

Now down below.

[soft scraping] It must be high tide, I think I just went over a rock down below.

So we'll have to wait till the tide goes out to capture the top of it.

Is there any over here?

There isn't.

Behind there is.

Okay, so let's take an overall blend.

Your drawing-- see, mine is still showing a little bit.

Make sure you cover that.

Watch what you draw with, because you don't want the paint to come through.

I taught one place, I guess, up in Sacramento, and we used, I don't know.

It was a marker pen.

Oh, it was great!

But the next time I came up there was about 8 paintings that came back we had to cover, because the marker came through.

India ink's a good one, but boy, be careful.

All right, let's come down to the rocks, and I'm going to take Burnt Umber.

There's really not much character on them now.

I'm going to jump over and take some Van Dyke Brown and the Burnt Umber, so it's about half and half.

You'll still have some of the warmth and you have some of the darkness.

It used to be when I'd do these shows, I would have all the mixtures lined up and just exactly what they are, but this way you watch me, and it's more interesting for you, I hope, and more interesting for me.

Now, here's where we said we have a small, little rock that kind of the high tide took away.

So we put that back.

That has a nice position, because it isn't just all straight across.

Okay, more of the same.

I wrote B.P.

down there.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

It's gone.

Okay, just a little bit of start on the light on the rocks.

I'll use this brush.

We'll probably end up using a knife eventually, but this is the sky color, and I want to use very little of it, so that it isn't too bright, it kind of blends in.

And I need to show you one other thing before we leave and that would be to take a little of the foam color.

See, this is the foam color we used up there, and there's going to be a little bit that will come through the rocks.

So we rushed.

We rushed, kind of fast, but you get the idea.

All I would suggest, what would I do differently?

I would be a little more careful.

We give you the formula, that's what I do, and I put it in the right places, but it certainly helps if you take care in doing it.

Okay, we'll blend a little bit, and see what we have.

We'll see that we don't have much time.

That's one thing we don't have.

There can be just kind of as a going-away present a little bit of this dark green that we have here and if we put just a little bit in here.

See how I pull that up slightly?

So you feel like it really helps the water move, the wave move, when you have that dark in.

Okay,I think we have to say see you next time, And next time we'll be putting color on this to match the original.

Thank you for watching!

I'm Buck Paulson!

Who are you??

Let me know!

See you next time.

Bye.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (woman) Funding for "Painting With Paulson" is made possible by...