If I paint what I see will it be a sea?

You wait and see!

Today it will be!

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Hello!

Today we're in Buck's world-- the ocean!

I live one block from the ocean.

Let me tell you first about the project, and then I'll come back to that close living.

Here we have the original, "The Unveiling," and it's almost-- is it going to be a stormy day?

Is it going to be a sunsetty day or a sunrisie day?

There must be some other-- sun-middle of the day-sie.

Anyway, there we have the finished project, and here we have a canvas that has been primed with one of my favorites.

Six White, one part Payne's Gray, one part Permanent Green Light, and that is put on with acrylic and dried.

And then I have a tracing on, a drawing, and it's ready to go to work.

So how do we do this?

We do it with energy.

I want to start at the bottom first, because I want that to set up just a little bit before I come back to it.

I want to say one thing, and I have it written down here, so I want to read it to you.

I live one block from the ocean.

What do I take with me?

My imagination, because it isn't always just like that.

What do I come back with?

I come back with memories, and you kind of combine the two of them.

So, I don't know if that made sense to you, but it makes sense to me.

Okay, I have a large fan brush, and I'm taking Ultramarine Blue straight, and I'm coming up to the canvas with the idea of putting in the darks.

So that's the bottom of the wave.

Over here, generally what I'll do, and I'll do it right away here so it doesn't dry, is to put that across what we call the eye of the wave, and then we wipe a little bit so it's less paint, and then we can make it much lighter.

Okay, continuing with this; this is kind of interesting.

We have a large wave coming into shore, splashing, but it does not meet any resistance.

No rocks to splash against.

Our rocks, in contrast, is a little bit on the back.

You don't see anything hitting against them other than the sun peeking around, but the drama of the lower part is definitely there, because of the darkness of the waves.

I keep dipping into the water.

I hope that doesn't go too fast for you.

And down here we have a second wave.

So I'll spot that on, just maybe wipe a little bit where the top of that is.

Well, I don't really need to wipe, because I can see it right there.

I'll wipe maybe down just a little bit to see it come around there, like that.

Okay, now we have a second wave.

You know, in ocean terms, they often call it, they say the seventh wave is the real dramatic one, and you wonder well, when do you start counting?

From the first one I guess.

Okay, now just a little bit behind there gives me some distant water.

But we don't really establish the horizon too much, which is kind of unique this time, because we don't have any strong light on the water back there, which I sometimes do it this way so it's not confusing, competing that light against this light, back and forth.

Okay, let's do the foam on top of this, and then we'll do a little bit of the eye there.

The foam on top, what color are you?

You're a blue.

Which blue do I want?

You're Phthalo Blue, and you're Ultramarine Blue.

Let's go with the Ultramarine Blue, but with the idea that we'll have a little bit of Payne's Gray in it, And there's a lot of White.

So it looks like it's about two Ultramarine Blue and one Payne's Gray and White.

Oh, you're too blue.

I can't use you.

Well, let's do this then.

Let's take some Alizarin Crimson and put into it.

So it just grays it a little bit.

It's so nice to have the model right next to it, and I can check it.

I'll use that, because I can feel a little bit in there, and then when we put the light on top, you'll still feel the edge of the foam.

So, cleaning the brush.

Oh, I love to watch the bowl of water after you clean it for the first time.

It's just beautiful.

Okay, here is the mixture.

I may have wet the brush to have cleaned it, but I don't have any quantity of water on this.

What I want to watch a little bit here as it comes down into the dark, that I watch the edge.

It isn't too sharp, and it makes it feel like foam, because foam, as it comes against you, you don't want to feel like it'd break your leg, and that's what I find with a lot of seascape attempts that people get just a little hard on the edges, which could be the bottom or even the top.

And the top is when you start putting lights on.

Okay, we have a distant wave right in here.

A little bit there, and what I like to do is, about in here you just break it down a little bit so some of the foam's coming down earlier rather than just a big strong wave all the way.

Same way here.

Let this come down in just a little bit, and eventually we will splash some of this up.

So for right now, I'm going to take some of this color and go just a little bit softly above.

And the reason I'm doing that so when I put on the cliff colors it has something to blend into so it won't be real sharp against this, and after we get the cliff on is when we would start thinking about putting a highlight on there.

Well, let's go ahead.

Let's stay down where we are for one reason, and that's that this, what I'm going to put on now, will have a little chance to dry.

I'm going to put some foam patterns on, and as you can see they're quite light, but if I start with this color, which is the same as the foam color, then I can kind of build to the lights, and some of that bluish gray will still show through.

So the direction is so important.

This is the direction of the foam patterns, and see I-- just kinda little dots there, and then I'll just kind of circle around a little bit to get a variety of widths of the shapes.

I used to do these just with a small, little brush, but the idea is make them look casual.

Oh, I think that's good.

I'll come down and touch against that other front wave.

See that was put in very simply, and it looks adequate Of course, when we put the colors on with oils that we'll enhance those.

Okay, this one comes over, and as I watch it, you know, it'd be kind of easy to say well just connect up to there.

Well, it does, but part of it goes over here and then part of it's here.

You find with the fan brush when I do it this way, I'm doing a lot of moving of the brush rather than just drawing a straight line.

Here it's a little different.

I just want to have a straight line so I get some paint on, and then I can push that around.

Okay, the back one, less paint on the brush, and just a small, little beginning.

That's enough there, and a little bit over in here.

Oh, what about the big wave?

Well, that, I mean the middle wave.

Here I want to watch the edge so it has just a little bit of a sway, a little curve on it, and you still have that feeling of movement.

It's so important to use the foam patterns to look like the previous wave has been there.

That should be enough.

This one has a little bit of a line coming there.

Okay, now I'm going to put a little bit of the light in, and when I say that, I'm looking here, a little bit there, and even here can have a little bit.

The first light that I put on will be about this value, and then we'll come back and go lighter.

I'm not totally sure that I'm convinced on that eye.

We might enlarge it.

We might make it just a little more off yellow.

We'll see.

Okay, so what do we have?

You're Viridian Green.

Don't ever change your mind.

You're Viridian Green.

Do we need anything else?

Just a little-- let's take this.

I was going to say a little blue and white, but this happens to be the color we used for foam.

Maybe a little Yellow Ochre into it too.

Yeah, there we are.

We have it.

Okay, so this goes at the top here, and I'll very quickly brush that into a less sharpness at the bottom of it.

It has one more right in here.

Oops, I think you're a little low.

So we'll just take you away.

I hope you'll try this painting, and I would love to see your results, because that's important to me, and it should be to you, because if possible, and most cases it is, somebody will send a picture of what they've done, and then I just make an observation.

I know one guy had a painting, I guess it was going the other way, and he had all the foam, the rocks, the sky on that half, and I said you need to kind of balance it a little bit.

Sometimes the balance can be the smallest thing, but it would help it.

So he was very happy with that.

Okay this is the large eye, and initially, we're just putting in the same green.

I'll go a little touch lighter, and see what we have, and this touch lighter is Yellow Ochre and White, and it has just a little green left on the brush.

The idea there is, you want to feel like it has an oval shape on the lower part so it has a nice blend.

That gives good form.

Perfect!

It's very good.

Now let's go up to the sky.

I kind of feel a general color in the sky, kind of a bluish tone, and yet I want some Payne's Gray in it.

So I'm taking the same thing we used down for the foam.

Just see what the Payne's Gray in that does.

I see maybe now, maybe later, but I'll take a little Alizarin Crimson.

That's going to work.

I wouldn't have held it up there if it wasn't going to work!

It's so fun to work on a new canvas, and that's what this is; it hasn't been used before.

I'm putting this on as a general color knowing that I'll come back in and go darker and lighter.

[soft scraping] Can you hear the brush move on the canvas?

That's energizing.

[soft scraping] Okay, I'm going to add a little more blue and do the same thing as far as the beginning of the cliffs.

[soft scraping] Boy, this big fan brush, you're a buddy.

Seems like last series, we kind of left you home, but boy I'm glad you came this time.

That's great.

All right, up in the upper right, let's start with a little Viridian Green and White, and I'm sort of brush-mixing it.

So that shouldn't confuse you because it ends up being equal Green and White.

Well, you're sort of light, but we'll use you.

[soft scraping] Then over in the upper right corner, we're back to some of the same color that we used over here.

[soft scraping] Good, okay, now let's take and put on some orangy tone.

You are orange... you're Alizarin Crimson.

How'd you happen to get into the mix?

I guess Alizarin is one of my favorites.

I got one gal in an art class in Santa Barbara.

You just don't say Alizarin Crimson in her presence.

[laughs] But she picked up a color once, and if it wasn't Alizarin Crimson I want to know what it was.

It had some funny name, but I love Alizarin Crimson.

So this is orange, Alizarin Crimson.

[soft scraping] And you notice as I put it on, I'm placing it on, and then I'm kind of just pushing it around.

So I don't have any special space reserved for it.

It's like going to the airlines and hoping you have a reserved seat even though you don't have a seat assigned yet.

[soft scraping] Now, we'll go ahead with some lights, and I'm looking at the clouds.

The White, and let's see what we want.

This is a little blue, there's not much of that.

I'm going to pick up a little orange.

That's good.

I like that.

So it's white, a little bit of our grayish blue, a little bit of the orange, and when I place this on, you're looking at, you know, areas and separate little shapes.

This goes on.

I always think kind of like ice cream in a dish.

You love to have those little mounds.

Softer as I come down low so it will blend a little bit.

More of it, and we'll make some of these sort of angle that way.

And then there's one that's even up in there.

So I'll blend these, when I'm doing this, I'm pulling them a little closer together to each other, more of a unit.

Now as I look at the original, I feel just a little bit of green being at the lower edge of those too, and this one kind of goes into the cliffs a little bit, and that's very helpful.

Okay let's do this.

Let's take and put some light in the sky, in our sun area.

So I have orange and White.

You may be a little light; let's take some more White.

Okay, that'll be fine.

Oh, I think you're still going to be plenty bright.

Oh, wow!

So what would suggest doing is, some of this orangish tone that we've used, take that formula and add just a little extra light to it.

Now this may be a little more powerful than you see in the original, but as we glaze with the oils, we can make any adjustments we want.

[soft scraping/tapping] I'll just flatten this a little bit.

I flattened you!

One, two!

You better get up before I say ten!

All right, now what do we do?

Oh, I see!

I see.

We'll take a little bit of the color to put on the shore.

So we have just a little bit of the sky color we put on, we'll put down in here, and then at the edge of it, we have a reflection of the sun.

Now this, you know, light travels in a straight line, but if I come straight down like that, you can see how that's over on the side a little bit because it's wet over there.

And here, you're going to be picking up the foam color anyway.

Okay, what I need to do is to take just a little bit of this-- where are you Raw Sienna?

Weren't you here the other day?

Well, you missed your chance.

So we're going to take Yellow Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Umber and a little White.

And I use sort of the side of the brush, just putting on.

It'll represent some character on that cliff.

As I look at the impact of the sky against there, I'm very pleased with that.

Now let's see, we have just a little time left.

So what would be helpful if I take a little bit of an early bird schedule here.

This is orange, and excuse me, you're Viridian Green and White.

And we'll start putting this on as the first highlights on the wave, and I'll kind of stay in one area and do it beforehand.

When we do oils, I'll often just place it on all the places and then come back and blend it, but with the acrylics, it necessitates doing this procedure, And you might ask is there anytime when you do an acrylic painting, do you decide oh, I like it the way it is.

We won't do oils?

That's a possibility.

I have seen some fine acrylic artists, and they do both stages in acrylics and come out with fine work, but I like it so I can glaze on it.

So we have just a little light down in here.

And these, when I put that on, then if I can just push it up just gently into the path of the foam.

Oh, this back wave needs a little bit of a highlight on him too.

I'm so pleased to have you there as a viewing audience, and you know what's so neat when you go various places, and people say oh, I've seen you!

And once and a while, there will be people who say, I don't like your show.

No, I can't remember anybody saying that, but there are suggestions.

Some would say I wish you'd do this or this.

Well, you know in 24 minutes per show, you're a little limited, but I hope it gives you what you can use as you do your work.

Okay, let's put a little bit of that down on the front, on the foam that's coming in.

Okay now, as I look at this, I see one spot that I want to correct and that would be right above the eye.

See that, and see how parallel it looks across there?

I'm going to put some blue in there so that is a very narrow space.

Gosh, I think we're going to be all right.

If we have any time left, I guess we got a minute or two.

Let's make this kind of watery.

I have a little Alizarin with it, and just to kind of push around slightly.

It'll make it just a little more powerful.

So I'm going to keep painting the sky.

I say good-bye from the sky!

Isn't there somebody that does that?

Isn't there one of the superheroes that says good-bye from the sky?

I don't want to reveal my Superman shirt, but... Yeah, this helps, it spreads it out just a little bit more, even down here, next to that.

It's had a chance to set a little bit.

I like very much what we have for stage one, and you be sure and come back next week, because we'll be putting oils on it, and we'll refine it.

This is the first time I've painted this painting, you know.

I haven't practiced or anything.

It's a go!

So I'm learning with you.

Bye-bye.

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