[music] Hi.

Welcome back.

I'm Nicholas Hankins.

I'm glad you're here and I hope you're ready for a little painting adventure into the Pacific Northwest.

Come on up to the canvas and let me explain what's going on here as we talk about this fun little Bob Ross technique painting.

I've got a 12 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double primed canvas and I've prepared it with a little black gesso.

As you can see, I just took like a little natural sea sponge and plop plopped some little shapes up there.

And then I took a foam applicator, one of the inexpensive types that you'd find at a hardware store, and I just made some little indications of trees and dabbed a little foliage on them.

Once the, once the gesso was dry, which it dries very quickly, maybe ten or 15 minutes, I applied a very thin coat of liquid clear.

And then as you can see here, I'm taking off.

All of this was covered with a mixture of phthalo blue, sap green and Van Dyke brown.

And now I'm just taking a little phthalo blue up to the top here.

And when you apply a transparent color over this black gesso, as you can plainly see, you can see right through it.

So you don't lose all of that stuff in the background.

That's kind of neat.

And conversely, we can take let's take like a little one inch brush here and just pick up a tiny touch of titanium white.

Titanium white is an opaque color.

And if we take a little opaque color, we can come back here and dance a little, a little light into the background, put a little light in our lives.

And it will sort of obscure some of that foliage and some of those tree shapes so we can still see them, sort of.

But it just gives a nice variety of, you know, light streaming through there, a little catch light in the fog in the morning.

Makes it look like far away woods just bathed in sunlight.

Take a little, go back to that two inch brush.

It doesn't have much color in it, so I just kind of knocked it off on the easel leg, knock out the excess color, and we'll soften and blend this just a bit.

And now we can come a little closer.

We can come a few steps closer.

So let's take our, that little one inch brush is working, let's stick with it.

Let's take our one inch brush and some cad yellow.

Well, just all three of the yellows maybe, a touch of blue, a touch of black.

I just want a variety.

Nice little yellowy green, but a variety of it and I'm going to tap and push some of that color into the brush.

Let's come up here and just paint some little far away, little far away indications of trees, branches and limbs and things just kind of hanging out back here in the mist, peeking through.

Some are very subtle, some we can see a little better than others.

I'll change the flavor of the color each time just a little bit so it's not all exactly the same.

This one's got a little ochre and bright red in it.

There's another one hanging in here, just all sorts of little shapes.

And as you paint too, it's going to pick up a little bit of that under painting that's on there, the blue greenish brown color and, and dull it just a little bit, dull it down.

Have a little something hanging in there.

There we go.

Just, just some fun little things back there.

All right.

Let's grab a, I'll grab a little fan brush.

Come a little closer still.

Pick up some Van Dyke Brown.

Let's have some big, big evergreens that are closer, just like the ones in the background, but these are a little more well-defined.

[Nic makes "sshhoo" sound] Just bring it right down like that.

I have another one, maybe [Nic makes "rrrr" sound] right there, give him a friend.

[Nic makes "sshhoo" sound] And let's do, let's do another little one right, maybe, there.

Maybe he's not quite as tall as the others.

We want a little variety in here.

Have one right there.

All right.

Put a little sunshine on him, too, since we've got sun bathing the rest of the painting.

We'll take a little white and sienna, a little ochre and bright red.

Just kind of mix that to a marbled appearance and cut off a tiny little roll of paint on our knife.

And let's come up here and I'm just going to touch, touch, touch, touch and kind of leave a little, leave a little deposit of paint on the light side of the tree over here.

Touch, touch, touch.

A little on this one.

Just over on the light side over on the light edge.

And then as I start to run out of paint on the knife, I'll just kind of touch, touch, touch and tap out that backside so it slowly works its way back into shadow back there.

Just take a little from the edge and kind of work it, work it backward, work it up and work it backward across the tree into the shadows.

Of course, if you need to add a little more, don't be afraid to add a little more too.

That's fine.

You've got to do what your painting needs and every painting's going to be a little different.

But that's, that's the fun of it.

That's the beauty of it.

Everybody's painting's going to be a little different.

It'd be boring if everybody's was the same.

All right.

Something like so.

I'll take a little paint thinner on a liner brush and we'll take, oh, probably Van Dyke Brown, a little Sienna.

Thin it down just like ink, ink or water.

And let's come up here and add, here and there a few little branches on these trees.

Now, I'm not going to get too involved with this because we'll lose a bunch of these little branches as the painting progresses.

So just a few little things hanging off of there.

These little branches usually come down and shoot back up on little trees like this.

Maybe extend the top of that one.

Pull some little branches off of there.

A few on this one.

Need a couple on this side too.

Sometimes they come down and cross, cross over, cross over other branches or cross over the trunk itself.

Now, clean up a little spot on my palette here.

I'm already making a mess.

Doesn't take me long to make a mess.

There we go.

Let's mix up some dark color.

Let's mix up some black and blue, a little sap green, maybe some crimson.

Black, blue, green and crimson make a really dark green.

Rich, dark green.

I'll wipe off my knife.

Go back to my little fan brush here that has the brown in it.

That's all right.

That'll work.

I'll take some of that green color and come back up to our, come back up to our trees and put a little foliage on them.

I'll just take the corner of the brush, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to cover up every little branch I just made.

These are like big Douglas fir trees.

So they tend to, they tend to be a little sparser.

They have nice, healthy boughs, but they're, they're usually not totally cloaked in foliage.

It's a little more sparse looking than some other types of evergreens.

Evergreens I've seen, anyway.

There we go.

Put a little on this one.

Some on that one.

Don't want any of them get jealous.

They get mean when they're jealous.

It's bad news.

Jealous trees are bad news, let me tell you.

Let's get, let's get some liquid white on another fan brush and some of my yellows and a little bit of that green color.

Soften it with a little liquid white so it will stick to this, this thick dark color we put on there.

And I'm just going to sprinkle a little sunshine.

And I'm not trying to kill all of my dark.

It's important.

I don't want to kill all the dark, but I'm going to sprinkle a little sunshine on these branches.

Just here and there and there and here.

A few little touches, get in and out.

A few little touches.

Get in and out.

That's your mantra when you're highlighting.

Make it sing and leave it alone.

Just a few little touches like that, all right.

Wash out my little fan brush.

I might need him for something later, so we'll have it clean and ready to go.

All right, now back to my little, back to my little one inch brush.

Let's go back into the yellows.

Just all variety, maybe a little bit of that dark green again.

Tap, tap, tap, let's come up here and just just kind of lay in a little more foliage down here at the base of the trees.

You can have it vary in, vary in shades of brightness and change the color a little as you go.

I mean, that's a little more sun drenched spot right there.

It's a beautiful thing about woods like this.

And I just, the light looks so dramatic and it changes so much from place to place.

Adding a little, a little bit of brown to that, just to kind of dull it down, have a little quieter plant back here.

There's a lot of ferns in this, this part of the country in these woods.

Here we go, something like that.

Let me take a little brown.

I'll just kind of, I'm going to soften, on that same fan brush, I'm just going to kind of add a little bit of land right in there.

I've got that brown already on that brush.

Maybe, let's take some of our combination of white and browns and a little bit of that, a little bit of that red and ochre.

We'll just work a little, a little bit of highlight here and there on that in that little bare bit of land at the base of our trees.

Let me tap a few little things growing down on top of that.

Okay.

Now with our clean fan brush, one we just washed, clean off little spot to work here, I'm going to take, pick up just a little touch of liquid clear and pull it through, pull it through the white, pull it through the titanium white.

A little touch of blue in there with it too, phthalo blue.

Don't want so much that it's dark, but just a nice, brilliant, bright blue.

And let's have a little stream that just sort of creeps along right at the edge of those little banks, a little rocky shoreline.

And it's right about there that [Nic makes "shoo" sound] somebody just pulls the stopper out and it falls.

Bring it over, and then [Nic makes "shoo" sound] straight down.

Over, [Nic makes "shoo" sound] straight down.

Just let it, just let it fall.

And in my experience, it works a little better [Nic makes "shoo" sound] if you make that noise.

Don't ask me why.

[chuckles] It just does.

It just does.

Now I'll take my big two inch brush and we'll kind of soften that waterfall from the base up, like that.

And, and this, and this is a real place, by the way.

This is, this is called Silver Falls.

It's in Oregon.

It's a state park in Oregon.

There's just a tremendous number of waterfalls.

I think you can do like a little ten mile hike or something like that and see seven or eight waterfalls.

And it was beautiful.

I had the good fortune to go out there and to teach some painting classes and just have a big time and I took all kinds of pictures.

It's just, just gorgeous.

It's one of the prettiest places I've ever been.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Just taking a little brown and black and a little touch of white on a filbert here.

But where this is located, there's a lot of like volcanic rock formations and they just, they form these big natural bowls and it's like huge valleys and the waterfall, the waterfalls pour over those valleys.

And it's just, it's just breathtaking.

The rock almost doesn't even look real.

You get a lot of this cavernous look.

So I'm just kind of taking my filbert brush and hinting at it.

I'm just kind of rubbing a little bit of color in there.

It's just so dark, deep back there.

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on but that's all right.

I just need a little, a little hint of some rock and cave looking stuff going on back there.

I'm sure there probably are caves in that area.

I just didn't get to see any of those but the waterfalls impressed me enough.

[chuckles] I was impressed enough with that.

All right.

Just a little highlight here and there.

Sometimes you can take your finger and kind of blend a little bit.

Is that cheating?

That's probably cheating.

We shouldn't do that.

It's fun to finger paint once in a while, though.

All right.

Oh, take a, while I've got that Brown on the brush.

We can even use our fan brush for this, if you like.

There's, there's a little path.

And I did do this.

I walked behind that waterfall, and there's a little path that winds around behind it and it comes out the other side.

So I'm just going to kind of indicate a little, I don't want to forget to do that, I want to indicate a little path right there.

And then maybe, maybe there's a little, if I go back and pick up some of my darker greens, there's a little bit of growth that comes down from that path.

And there's a big reflecting pool that was down here.

So I'm just taking some of those greens and yellows tapping to indicate a little, a little continuation of that ground away from the path.

And as I said before, your, your color will sort of naturally pick up some of that dark that's already in the, in the painting and on the canvas and just allow it to soften.

And that's what I'm going to do here.

I'm going to tap and just diffuse that a little bit so it really disappears into the mist down there at the base of the fall.

Pretty neat.

Pretty neat.

Okay, let's take, let's keep going with that same mixture of greens and yellows on my one inch brush.

And again, I'll just sort of tap, tap, tap, tap my brush into the paint and let's come up here and paint.

Usually with a, a real humid environment like this, you have lots of plants, ivy, ferns, just all, all number of things that kind of grow over the edge of the rock and they hang down a little bit or they, or they hang down a lot just depending [chuckles], just depending on how much moisture they've had, I suppose.

I'm not sure what indicates that exactly.

I'm adding a little more light to my color now, actually taking some of that leftover waterfall paint and just adding it to the yellow, it's a little softer and brighter.

And I want these things to be sunlit, especially right out here on this little bank.

There we go.

A little more that light color, very, very bright yellow.

Let's put a little bright highlight just right on the tippy top of that.

Don't want too much, though.

If you get too much, it'll sort of lose its effect.

I want a little bit right in there.

All right.

Let's go back and find oh, that little, that little fan brush was working pretty good.

Let's go back and get some dark, real dark green.

Since this is, this is that evergreen dark green.

And let's have, speaking of evergreens, let's have a little spruce tree back here.

We'll just tuck one in.

Pretty sure there was a couple of, a couple of smaller growth evergreens, probably different types of evergreens.

Just, just a wild assortment of things at Silver Falls, even mountain lions.

When I found out about that part, though, I got a little nervous, I have to admit, especially after dark.

You know, they say they're, they're more scared of you than you are them but I don't know if I believe that.

I didn't test the theory.

[chuckles] Let's add a little, add a little trunk in there, a little indication of a trunk.

Just [Nic makes "tk, tk" sounds] in case it shows.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Go back to my light fan brush now.

Pick up a little touch of liquid white.

Let's, let's make a nice little highlight color.

Maybe add a little blue to that.

There we go.

We'll come up and just a little highlight to these little spruce trees back here.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] There we go.

Sitting out on the, sitting out on the banks out there, just like I remember it.

Just like I remember it.

I sat out and sketched.

I had a little sketchbook with me and I made some little sketches of all this stuff and it was just, just beautiful.

Just beautiful.

In fact, if I remember correctly, there's a little, I better do this before I forget, there's a little rock that lives right, right in the middle of that waterfall.

This is some Van Dyke brown.

That rock leaves right there.

Maybe take some of my, some of my highlight color, just put a little touch highlight on him.

Just, just a little.

That small edge of the knife.

And maybe, I'll take a fan brush here with some titanium white.

Watch what we'll do, watch what we'll do here, I'll just take a little titanium white and we'll push, we'll push that little rock further back.

We'll just come in here, kind of cut him off, [Nic makes "shoo" sound] put a little highlight right at the top of the fall and just sort of push that little rock back farther.

Nice to have a little, little touch of highlight up at the tippy top of your waterfall anyway.

Now, back to my big brush and soften that a little.

There we go.

All right.

Now, down in front, this was, this was one of the interesting features of the park, one of the many interesting features of the part, of the park out there.

I'm going to take a little, a little bit of dark and we're just going to make it.

They have all these walkways that just sort of wrap around.

The trail is really well kept so it kind of wraps around in some of the most opportune areas.

You can walk in front of these big cavernous areas, see all of this stuff going on.

I'm going to dip my little brush into some liquid white and pull it through my yellows in one direction only.

One direction only.

Get some nice highlight color in here and we'll brighten up these little bushes just a bit.

Just a bit.

I don't want them so bright that it doesn't feel like it's down in the valley anymore but this is a little farther away from the sunlight.

But if you come far enough back, it'll, it'll bathe some of this stuff into the, in the sunlight and make it look beautiful.

Something kind of like that.

And then we need that little path so we can go out there and walk up and see ... just taking a little Van Dyke Brown on my knife.

We want to be able to walk out there and see all of this stuff going on.

It's the most marvelous thing about painting is it lets you take a little vacation sometimes just in your mind.

I'd love to go back and visit, but haven't had time to do that in a long time.

But painting allows me to go back and kind of sit out at the, sit out at the head of the trail and see the Big South Falls and takes me right back.

I can almost smell it.

All that clean mountain air, so nice.

One day, one day I'll get back out there.

Vary our color just a little bit.

Let me grab a little more, a little more liquid white.

I may add some ochre here and there.

A little touch of bright red, too.

And as I recall, we don't want anybody to, it's pretty steep [chuckles] off the edge of the path so let's fence it in, make sure nobody falls off here.

Just take some brown, put in some little fence posts.

[Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] Like that.

Use a little white, dark sienna, and brown and put in a little touch of highlight on them.

[Nic makes "tk, tk, tk" sounds] That's my fence post making noise there.

[Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] It's working pretty good.

Working pretty good.

Put a little cross brace on them.

Got to have the railings or they just, they just would be pretty fence posts and they wouldn't serve any purpose.

Got to keep the people on the path and the mountain lions away from the people.

Although if there's a mountain lion, I don't know that a fence would be much protection, but I'd take all I could get.

Don't stop to question, you know.

[chuckles] Don't stop the question it.

Then we'll set our little fence posts down into the ground just a little bit, cover up their little, their little foots there.

And I'll take our liner brush, we've got just minute or two left here, we'll add some, add some little growth, little grassy growth down here too.

Up over the path.

Maybe some little things hanging, little tendrils and vines hanging from the that can look delicate just here and there.

And finally, I'd say that just about takes care of this painting.

As I look at it, that, that's a fun memory of the South Fall.

So I'll take a little bright red and we got just a minute.

Let's come down here and sign this one.

And as I do, allow me to thank you for joining me.

I hope you're enjoying this, this little journey into the Pacific Northwest, and I hope you'll paint your own version and share it with us.

If you do tag it, paint like Bob Ross so we can see what you're doing.

On behalf of everybody here at the station, wishing you a super day.

Happy painting and we'll see you next time.

Bye bye.

[Music]