"Surf's Up!"

The title of the painting.

And I have discovered the very best place to surf-- in the water.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So when doing "Surf's Up," we have 3 weeks to do it.

Stage 1, stage 2, and the finished picture.

I will show you the finished painting.

And this is inspired a lot by my trips to Hawaii where I taught for 8 years.

And that's a great surf.

My son Tim and my son David.

Anticipation.

I'll hand this down, then I want to show you today's canvas.

And what it is, it's been primed with 6 white, 1 Payne's Gray, 1 Permanent Green Light.

That's a beautiful tone, then a drawing placed on it so we can see, and you can see where were working.

Over to the left is our model for the day.

This is stage 1, so we're putting in some large shapes, then we'll work in some, not much detail, just a little suggestion of detail on the bodies, The next time we'll carry them up, we'll put some highlights on the big foam, and character in the rocks and some foam patterns etc.

Then the final touch, we have 3 weeks-- that is so great.

So coming down to the palette, I'm going to take a knife in one hand and the fan brush in the other So I'm bringing out some White, and we'll take some Phthalo Blue.

I'll put it over to the side so I can kind of watch.

It's a bully-- it's good, but you need to be cautious.

This is Van Dyke Brown.

I like the Van Dyke brown, it gives a little warmth to it and at the same time, you get the value that you want.

I'm going to hold this up to the canvas to see how it matches.

That's close enough.

Maybe just a touch more Blue.

It really was okay.

Then why did you do a touch more?

I don't know.

Don't talk to yourself Buck.

They want to see what you're doing.

Okay.

I dipped in with a little Walnut Oil, I come over and pick up the color that I've just made.

You can see the value is pretty close to what is already there When I point out on the copy that we're doing today, you can feel the slightest amount of green coming through.

So I like that aspect of, not exactly broken color, but it has a little bit towards that.

These lines, I wouldn't be able to see them at this stage because I want to know where to put the clouds.

There's some small clouds there.

There is wonderful surf in Santa Barbara as well.

The the big island, Kona, I love that place.

You know what I did accidentally?

And I like it, where I picked up just a little bit of the pure Blue through like that.

Wow!

You guys know what to do more than I do.

You are a good brush I am going on with that idea, just a little darker blue at the bottom, blend a little bit, and then I'll come to the other side.

As I look at that, I'm thinking right away let's go a little extra Blue in it right now.

And then it'll act a little bit as a foil on the big wave, coming against that.

And same thing there-- you have a little bit of the green playing through-- I like that aspect.

[coughs] Pardon me.

What I'd like to do now is take just a little bit of light and when I say that, for the clouds.

You think okay, I'll make it a little Blue and White but that's too plain, too bland.

So will put a touch of Raw Sienna in it.

Can you see that on the palette?

This will be more vital than the one on the left.

And when you're doing something the second time like this it's fun to experiment a little bit.

The greatest success I have had in my painting is through trial and error, overcoming accidents, but being unafraid to step out and see if it'll work.

That really adds to it.

Doesn't it?

We'll take some of the same light and come over into this area.

Notice the shape of that.

It kind of meets against the big wave coming up.

You almost feel like that's part of the wind coming against that.

Then these sort of languidly move the sky, the wave along there.

Now I'm going to come down with the water-- what happened here?

You're a wave.

Oh, there's a little ocean back there.

We'll have to be sure and include that.

Right.

So for the water you're looking at not much difference than the sky, And then there's dark clipped under it.

So we'll go with that same idea of the Blue and White with a little bit of the Van Dyke Brown in it.

This may be just a little darker.

No, that will work.

I'll use the same fan brush.

Hey, why not me?

You just wait, we'll use you somewhere too.

We'll use a little bit of this, and I'll sort of draw with it, which means I'm using the edge of it, the corner.

Push that on it.

I'm using a little bit of Walnut Oil, but not a lot, it's not runny, just enough to make it flow.

Oh, I see what happened, you're going to come down here then you will see the ocean up there.

That's good.

And we'll come over on the other side.

And what about the big water?

Let's do the same thing in there, let's do the same thing for now, which will be great.

And come carefully against the body.

That would be a good place to be very careful, and I am.

When I almost said was, it would be a good place to use a smaller brush.

But if I just wiggle against it, when I come on to the other person, when I come on to Tim, then I will be working as a right-hander against Tim, so I'll have to change it.

Here it's very easy to be right-handed coming against that edge.

Let's go to the left side, and that's down low.

What kind of brush do you want?

I want you, a flat sable.

I'm going to go like this, so I can see it.

I'm coming up this way.

If I were at home, what would I do?

I would turn it upside down, but we don't have that opportunity here.

You're maybe shaded a little bit by my arm for 15 seconds.

A little bit between there, and just a little bit more by the foot.

Alright, now that I have that close to there then I can use a larger brush against-- geesh, nice going.

All that careful work, and you whack into the arm.

I can still see it.

[Buck laughs] It's like, it reminds me, once I painted a beautiful sunset, and I had it sitting up on my easel down in the kitchen, I showed my wife and she said, oh that's great, and she touched the sun with her finger, I thought, what are you doing?

She's never done that since.

[laughs] I don't know she did it before or not.

I get a kick out of that.

She's the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world.

But that was funny.

I can say it without getting in trouble for a few months, then when it comes out for viewing, I'll say, oh I don't remember saying that.

Okay, let's go to the big foam, and the big foam, my first thought is, why don't I just add some white to it we've been using in the sky?

And see if that will work.

I want to hold this up-- oops, I need to have more Blue.

"Oops" is in the vocabulary of artists.

That'll work.

And what I want to do on that is, I'll take this small sable brush again and just go carefully, a little oil, carefully against the figures.

I hope you can see that all right, I'll try to get out of the way.

And if you do hit a line, then just wipe a little bit, and it comes back enough.

So I think what I better do is-- see, I've filled this all in.

I can give you kind of a semblance of it being filled in.

But I want to get to the people before we forget them.

And this is Burnt, yeah, you're Burnt Umber.

And Orange and White-- Burnt Umber, Orange, and White.

Good job Buck!

Okay, flat sable brush.

Boy, you have a nice suntan there.

Put a little more Umber in it.

Yeah, that's-- I think it's better!

Don't you?

Yes.

Thank goodness there's 3 shows to do this project.

There's some artist I remember used to do one painting in 5 shows.

I think oh, gee, lucky.

I'm lucky to be able to do the shows in two compared to when we first started, we had to do them all in one, so we had 13 different shows.

Let's do the same color over on the brother.

♪ You are brothers.

There you go brother.

Oh, now let's see where else.

You've got some legs too, haven't you?

Your light comes down on this leg... and on this foot.

Now we'll go a little bit darker, just with the Umber... for a change in value in the shadows.

Same on him.

And his under leg, which is in the shadows a little bit.

A little bit of shadow right along his body there.

We'll, when we get to form, we'll put more on them, stage 2.

Okay, a little darker for the hair.

And on the side of the face, the same thing.

And what about you?

A little bit on the side of the face?

Yes.

And on the arm... yes.

Down on the hand.

I like that curve of the arm just coming around.

It just kind of offsets this big splash-- that curve.

Then just slightly where they meet.

And he has a little bit of form on this side, which is the same flesh color with just a little extra Umber in it.

A little bit down there.

Okay, now let's give him just pure Umber hair.

I don't think you need a haircut, Tim.

Do you?

Maybe, maybe daddy.

And when we come down, we have a little flesh color to put on his leg.

Then the darker color with the more Umber in the flesh color.

Like that, and like that, oh, you have an under leg.

Yes.

You know what?

So you guys don't get in trouble we better give you some suits!

Quinacridone Rose.

Oh, good-looking suit.

Doesn't look like it's been in the water yet.

And for David, he gets a little Blue.

What kind of blue?

I've got Ultramarine Blue.

This will be such a great painting, you watch it develop from stage 1 that were on now to the next one.

I want to take some of that same Ultramarine Blue that I just put on his suit, and I want to work it in a little bit as the dark in the wave.

And you have some of that out back and also at the horizon.

Coming over... [with British accent] Coming over [normal voice] to this side for the shadows the same Ultramarine Blue.

And the distant wave, we have one here.

We have one behind it.

And then we have the smallest blue-- the smallest amount of blue in the distance.

So let's measure this down.

There's the horizon.

And the horizon on that side.

Okay, I'm going to take just a little bit quickly here, this is White and Burnt Umber.

And the medium, Walnut Oil.

Splash in some sand.

Gee, there's nice blue in that sand-- I like that.

You're all right brush, you know what to do.

This has a nice little curve on that top edge.

That kind of moves the painting along.

So those little tricks, if you want to call them tricks, are very helpful composition wise.

How do you want the eye to go through the painting?

Oh, I was going to put some sand behind Tim's back, but it's not, it's water.

Then let's take a little bit of umberish tone.

Are you umberish tone?

You remember that I didn't finish filling in the foam.

Because I wanted to make sure that I have the time to do the rest of this.

We'll work that rock up in the coming weeks.

These guys look like they have pretty good tans.

Oops, that does go over, that goes over right there, touches against the body.

Right there, tickle, tickle.

Got you.

Okay, we don't have a lot of time left, but let's go ahead and take some of that foam color so that we get just a little more idea of how it will look.

[soft scraping] The little line on the wave here is good because it separates the front wave from the back wave.

I'm going to skip up and make sure I do it on here too.

A little bit there, a little bit here, this line, just a little bit there.

That's kind of nice as it comes down.

You watch when you put those on that you don't get too much of a parallel line.

And that was a little parallel, now it isn't.

Okay, going back, oh, this is so much fun!

I like the way we started in the sky.

I think it gave some extra vitality right away.

The rest of this, it's just sort of blocked in, not real fancy detailed or techniques on this.

But you come back, and we'll make it sing for you.

Huh, I think we got you.

I think we got you.

"Surf's up!"

Just the smallest touch of light there.

And over here-- oh, we ran out of sand, we ran out of sand over there, and that's all right.

You come back, and we'll sand it up.

We'll see you next time.

Thank you for watching!

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