If someone asks me to tell him what is wrong with his painting I'll find something to show that his trust in me was worthwhile.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm going to tell you what's right with this painting.

We have a special treat for you today, and we're going to be doing a painting from a pochade.

So I'll point to the pochade.

This is the one that gave the title "The Grand March" because when I saw it those trees were marching towards me.

then they kind of turned around and a new group would come up.

That's the type of imagination I had.

Of course, that big glow, you just knew the curtains would open and you expect the diva to arrive at any moment.

Now, down below this to break it down in how should we do that?

This is the acrylics stage which is part one today and we're going to do this for you and this is the canvas I've chosen to use.

Alizarin Crimson and white is over the whole canvas, acrylic, dry, and then outlined with Ultramarine Blue.

You can outline it with anything you want if you want to use green or brown or so on.

Probably make the outline a little bit lighter so you're not having difficulty covering it.

My making it darker is so that when you download the tracings, you have a good image to work from.

So we're ready to go, and let's go down to the palette.

I'm going to start in the middle of the canvas.

And the way I'm going to do this is, I'll mix yellow and white and I'll push around a little bit with a brush, then I'll go ahead and use some knifework as well.

The knife will give a little sparkle.

Okay so there, I'll just put this out, then we'll decide what the formula is.

So as I mix it up I say, okay don't write it down as being the answer yet, but that's 2 yellow, I mean 1 white.

Oh my goodness!

2 white and 1 yellow!

Would you please help me out?

I'm going to hold this up to this one.

See, I'm not going to match anything with the pochade at this point, except it's there to show you what we're going to eventually work towards on part 2, but you have that vitality that's there.

Okay this looks pretty good for the kind of scrub around color.

I'll take a fan brush, and somebody out there says of course you will; you always do!

Well, not always, but a lot of the time because I can get big strokes, and I can blend, I can zigzag, I can do just everything that I want with it.

When I come here, I don't see as much over there.

I'm going out a little bit further on this one just because I feel that I can get more of a golden green color when it come to stage 2.

[soft scraping] So let's make sure that this is-- we're doing it a little bit different.

Right?

I'm gonna put this on and then the knife instead of just straight knife and when we get to the finished one when we do stage 2 we're going to do almost like a pochade in that it will have a lot of textures, a lot of knife work.

Do I want to go over further?

A little lighter there, a little lighter there.

So if you look at the pochade, I'm really taking this yellow tone and spreading it over so I can have that soft green color later.

It'll be just an advantage to have it.

And the other thing that is so pleasing, and you can notice it right now, is the middle pink that is showing through.

So I'll wipe just a little bit too make that enhancing feeling.

Oh my goodness, I love that!

Even though I paint these things and I do many different subjects and many different techniques, and sometimes you repeat a technique.

You're still so pleased at the response.

It's almost like having painted it for the first time ever and you're discovering as you're doing it.

[soft scraping] Painting is a lot of fun, but it's taking risks, being willing to take a risk, being willing to try, being willing to fail if that's what it is.

I don't know what failure is, because if you try something, you certainly aren't failing to reach an objective-- you've taken steps towards learning more.

Like Edison, learning what not to do-- 450 ways not to make a light bulb.

So there's so many attitude things that are helpful.

What's the right attitude as you do this?

Now when I put the palette knife on, I will lighten it a little bit.

This is taking 1 white and 1 of the lightened yellow color.

I'm going to take that up and I'm looking in this area here.

So we'll put this on, just the fact that I have quantity on the knife as compared to what's on the canvas will make a difference.

Doesn't it?

See, I like this better than the model, because that gives me a little indication of how to go.

This one, I like having that little golden glow behind.

This one has the pink behind, and that's all right too.

That's all right too.

That's the one I'll put color on, and then I can later say okay which was the best way to go?

The idea is, and I'll show you the difference.

On the left side-- see, I got my strong gleam.

On the left side see it's a little softer, here it's still kind of sparkly.

While the sparkle may be good, but to have a feeling of a center of interest, then it keeps your eye there so there's less as you go over to the right and left.

You can still see that, but it isn't as much quantity.

I'll take a little bit of the yellow on the brush, fan brush, and just to soften that a little bit.

Then you keep the impact in the middle of the canvas.

Put just a little bit over in here, with the brush.

See, I'm sparkling a little bit there, in fact, I'm going to go over to the left here and using the same vitality of color but in a lessened amount, so I'm not using the knife there, just to kind of control that.

This one little poor tree there he just got left behind when the march came.

We'll be putting trees in so I'll find him, but I can kind of scratch where he is.

He's going to be very lightened with the fact that the sun's right in full force there.

I know that I'm going to be using some of this vitality down lower, down in here and then down below, but I think I'll wait on that.

I'll go ahead with that clean the fan brush with the water, this is acrylics, and we'll use Ultramarine Blue.

This is pure Ultramarine Blue.

I have enough room on the palette so I'm going bring it down here so I'm not too contained in the area.

More water, all right.

So we'll come over on this side and push this on.

I'm kind of placing it with the idea that I'll wipe the brush, then come back and sort of thin it out a little bit.

And as I put this up, you can see that it's not totally solid.

See how there's some looseness there?

A little bit up here, this is quite solid right in there.

[soft scraping] This dries very fast, which is nice.

There are retarders for acrylics so it dries a little more slowly, but I most often will find that if I just use the water and of course, under studio lights it dries a little faster than it would in a home studio.

But I love the lights-- It's nice to be on stage!

Okay let's come down in the-- right across there.

That's such a nice area in here, I'll put the dark in, but eventually we're going to have some sparkling lights that will come and will show you the path of the light.

[soft scraping] This is kind of an indication of what I was saying earlier.

When you have a line, you've drawn the line so you know where the drawing is.

This one is too definite, and eventually we'll have some white put on top of it, so I'm just suggesting that when you do it, you make them a little lighter-- just enough for you to see.

[soft scraping] Let's go over to the right.

The right side has really the bulk on it.

It has the weight on it as you look up in there, it makes it so it's not exactly balanced, and I like that unbalanced feeling.

To start with, I'll just go on each side of that tree, even though maybe the same color's going to be in on the shadow of the tree, because I want to save the outline of the tree, but I noticed here, my goodness, that tree should taper, so as I go up higher, that's actually too wide.

So I'll narrow that down just a little bit.

That's better.

As we come over to the edges you can have just a little bit of looseness so it's not quite as hard.

Your hardness will be more in the edges of the tree trunk-- trunks-- there was an "s" there.

Trunks, because we have several to do.

You know if you kind of hum a tune while you're doing this kind of a march tune, John Philip Sousa!

Put it on, and I find that when I paint that I'll have some music on, and mine's usually classical music.

Oh gee, it inspires you, and there's some classical music that doesn't inspire, but find what works best for you.

Okay now, I'll come down to the lower part before we go to the trees and this is still the blue of course, and I see some over in here.

I'm looking at the pochade at the same time as I'm looking at the demonstration halfway point.

This is what we're going towards, but if we can make it a little more vital, more vitality, we'll do it.

[soft scraping] And over in here.

Again I'm looking up at the pochade, and what I see-- let's go just a little further here, then I'll see what I see.

The dark that's in there, I see that, and I've probably put that on, but just down below there's almost a little shading that needs to be there too, so I'll take the Ultramarine Blue and we'll do it in kind of a horizontal pattern right in through there.

And let's go over here, for sure right in there.

You know I was kind of ignoring you.

But I was talking, I thought are they still in the room?

You are, aren't you?

You be sure and write to me and show me your "Grand March" as what you've done, and it's also nice where somebody might say I used your painting but instead of this I did this.

I had a little figure of a person coming down there.

That's fine I hope you're able to use it that way-- let it spark something else.

Then there's always somebody who'll say is it all right if we make a copy of your painting?

Absolutely!

Why would you watch the show why would you get a DVD?

Why not?

And if you want to teach it, please teach it.

I had somebody once that did one of the first paintings that I teach new students, and they took it down to a gallery and this gallery says oh yeah, we'll show that and we'll charge such and such of money.

I said the thing you might be careful of, I teach each new student how to paint through that painting.

So there are 150 around, therefore you might be a little careful about showing it in your gallery.

See that's the difference.

All right, do we need any more blue?

I think not.

Okay let's go to the trees, and we'll go with the darks.

I have a brush, and there you are brush.

I think I'll use a little bit of the fan brush just as a straight line when we come down, so I can use this like this.

But as far as the other paintings, sell them if you want, teach them if you want.

It might be nice if you say I learned this from watching Buck Paulson do it.

But if you don't want to do that, then fine, or if you want to make a little variation from it.

You know I've looked at great artists and I've used some of their ideas.

[gasps] You did?

Yup.

Now at this stage they're pretty close in values and in being so close in values the color's the same too, but when we put color on you can look at the pochade and see some green, so you can see the edge of that tree.

We have a couple more trees to do.

You're ready for the highlights-- oh, this one has the dark comes down a little further, so the light kind of peaks around in the middle.

This one, what about this?

Maybe a little less there, the light comes down quite a ways.

Maybe a little darker down there, then the next one.

See, the next one, then you're concerning what?

The light that hits this way now hits this way so the shadow is on the left side of the burst and here it's on this side.

So you have to have in mind where your light's coming from.

You often have people when they're being photographed a professional photography, the photographer will have several sources of light so you can see kind of conflicting lights spots on the hair and so on and on the cheek and that.

That's fine, but as an artist, you have to be cautious.

When you say why can't we do it if they can?

You can, but just a little cautious.

This one has the light or the dark rather, comes down through the middle.

Okay, now I'll take a small brush and we'll use still the Ultramarine Blue.

Are you clean?

I think you're going to have to take a bath.

When you're finished with the bath, let me know.

So here we have a small round brush, and we're going to put on the twigs.

This one kind of works nice as in that it goes across the one that's behind there so you get a feeling this one is closer, and you want to be consistent when you are adding in limbs.

This one is right there, and a little bit one off here.

You can add extra limbs.

One of the greatest ways to get airyness in your paintings, in your landscapes is to have branches showing through foliage and so on-- it makes them less bulky.

Here we have one.

And you can always add just a little extra ones to it.

Make it feel like it clings onto the tree.

We have one here, and sometimes on stage 2 it will come across and not necessarily clobber these guys, but if they're strong in this stage at least when you put on the finished color, it'll be different.

For instance, look at the middle one here-- see that's quite dark and yet in the pochade, which we're calling the original at this time, is lighter.

So being darker now is more of an indication of where it's at.

I'll water that a little bit, then it'll be just maybe a little softer than you see over there-- but not necessarily, is it?

It's going through thicker paint because we chose to put the paint on a little different in the middle.

So we'll come down through here and a couple branches here-- just same thing with the branches-- they need to taper, so if you're wider anyplace, then you should narrow it a little bit.

Trees grow anatomically a little smaller, a little more tapered as they go out further from the main trunk.

All right, I think what we're ready for is some highlight on the trees.

I'll go with the knife right away.

I'm taking the-- which one do I want?

Do I want the darker yellow or...?

I think I'll take the darker yellow.

Can you see that all right?

I'll back up just a little bit.

That's the edge, and once you have the edge you can come on in just slightly.

I love the gleam on that.

Next one.

A little bit there, stronger right about there, then a little bit going out on that branch.

I'll have to just cheat a little bit kind of come in the middle slightly so you can still see where the edge of that is.

This one, it's a little hard right now, we'll just sort of save it like that.

As we go to the left side, remember where the light is.

The light's going to hit on this side, on the right side instead of the left.

Strong right there.

Then on the last one, as I look at the pochade it's very strong in there.

Okay we have kind of a smash to put in down below.

Oo, that is a smash!

I love that vitality when I compare it to the one to the left-- oof, I like you both!

Okay, let's take some yellow and blue.

Let's see what that will give us.

I want to know if I have to use any white, yeah a little white too, so yellow and blue and white.

Did I give you a formula on that?

Let me try.

So the formula is 2 yellow, 1 blue, 1 white.

Now this is going to be just kind of dragged on, it just comes off the knife so nicely.

A little up there.

I like those little incidental ones, they kind of cover branches sometimes, and sometimes the tree limbs.

This gets quite a bit because it's really a nice green there.

Oh, it's so exciting, because I know the sun isn't going to last forever, so you need to do this while it's still there.

In other words the show's almost over.

[laughs] That's the setting sun!

The sun that's set is Paul"son."

We've mentioned this before-- if we have just a little green there see how you can see that edge of the tree?

[soft scraping] And a little bit down in the lower right, just enough time to do stage one.

So when you do your stage one, just enjoy what the acrylics will do.

You could do this in oil paint, you don't have to do it in acrylics.

But you'd have to have time to dry and I probably would suggest that you kind of hold off a little bit on the knife quantity until stage two if you're doing both of them with oil.

Oh gee, that is so marvelous.

Oh, it's such a joy to do these for you!

We have to say good-bye!

You come back next week because I'm going to be here and I'm going to show you how to make sort of a pochade to a larger pochade.

See you then.

Bye bye.

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