[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

I thought today we'd just do a painting that's a lot of fun, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it.

So let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us.

While they're doing that let me show you what crazy thing I've got going up here today.

Today I've taken, I have plain old canvas here, double primed, pre-stretched, and I've taken a little bit of black gesso with a natural sponge, I like a natural sponge because it has a lot of irregularities in it.

And I've just taken black gesso and just sort of gobbed it all over here.

Just to make all these little things.

I, I think I want to do a little stream today that you can see down into the water and see underneath.

So that's why I've done all of that.

We let the black gesso dry completely.

It's totally dry.

Then I've went back and covered the entire canvas with a very thin, even coat of liquid clear.

And it takes very little of this clear.

Because you can't see it, you have a tendency to almost put too much.

Now, I've started here in the center with a little bit of Indian yellow.

It's very transparent, just a small amount.

Just a little Indian yellow, then sap green, and then I made a mixture of sap green and alizarin crimson which makes a gorgeous brown, and I went all the way around the edges, and that's all there is to it.

Indian yellow, sap green, sap green and alizarin crimson, around the edges.

And that's all.

Now this is a very simple painting and you can do it even if you've never painted.

So I'll tell you what, let me show you how to have a, just a good time.

We're going to start a little bit today with some, hmm, titanium white, we'll use a little touch of titanium white.

There.

Just put a little bit on the two inch brush.

I want to create the illusion of a nice misty area back in the background.

So the white is opaque against all this transparent color.

But I'm going to use it very sparingly, because I still want all these little details to show through.

And these little details, they just sort of happen automatically when you take the sponge and go, ploop, ploop, ploop.

There.

So we're just dancing in a little bit of this titanium white.

Now you won't see a whole bunch until we get the painting finished, and all of a sudden this will start becoming just gorgeous little misty areas that live all back here in the trees and bushes.

Just fun little places.

There, now you can put up too much, you can put too much of this white on, and because it's opaque it will cover this up totally.

I don't want to cover it up, I just want to make it like mist and a nice glowy area that's shining back here.

This will be our light source in this painting.

There we go.

This black gesso is one of the most fantastic things, if you've never painted with it, give it a try.

It just makes your painting life so fantastic and, and people will wonder how you got all this detail in your painting.

Shh.

There you go.

Maybe, a little more of the white, maybe, there's a little mist just floating right out of here.

See?

Just drop it in.

We're going to come back and, and put trees and stuff in there, but this little misty areas, I want some of them to, to sneak out, to show.

I like little paintings that like you're deep in the woods and, and you have all this gorgeous mist.

I'm a great hunter.

I, I take my camera and I go out in the woods and just sit and take pictures.

And, and this is, this is the way that I get a lot of these ideas, just go out and talk to a tree, make friends with it.

You don't actually have to go talk, you, you're neighbors and your friends will sort of look at you like you're a little strange, but, but that's okay, painters are expected to be a little bit different.

There.

Okay, something about like that, wherever.

Now then, I have a little bit of that mixture left that I put on the canvas that's alizarin crimson and sap green in about equal parts, about equal parts.

I'm just going to put some of that right on the same brush.

Okay, let's go back up in here.

I want a little dark area right in here.

So we'll just take that, put a little area right across there.

This is a very transparent color, and all of this will still show through.

And I'm just going to blend that up right into the mist.

Just blend it up.

Isn't that pretty?

That crimson and sap green make one of the most gorgeous browns.

And you can take it to the green side or take it to the, to the reddish side, just depends on your mood or, or what flavor you're trying to achieve for your painting.

There we go.

Alright.

But already I like the way that looks, it looks like light's just zinging through there.

Mm.

I get carried away.

Tell you what, let's have a nice tree back here.

For that I'm going to go into, we'll get some sap green, and a little bit of alizarin crimson mixed with it.

I'm making sort of a brown this time but more to the green side, I want it more to the green side.

Be right back, I'm going to get a little touch of white in there, too.

There we go.

So okay, tap a little color in there, let's go back up in here.

Now I'm going to take this tree here, let's make a tree out of that.

I don't want to kill all this, just want to put some indications of some big old limbs that live out there.

There we go.

Here they come, here they come.

There.

Let some of them show through, don't kill them all.

There we go.

Just maybe, right on down like that, and just load a little more color in the brush.

Over here I'm not too worried, because I'm going to let that disappear, I'm only worried about this side right now.

There we go.

Maybe this old limb pulls a little farther over.

There.

Okay, let me grab a little liner brush, a little script liner brush.

Go into a little bit of brown, and we'll put a little, [Bob makes "tchoo" sound] little old tree trunk right in there.

Now sometimes, sometimes it's neat when you're doing little tree trunks to take, watch here, let me get a paper towel.

Now if you take a paper towel on this wet and very gently, just touch it, you can lift that off, but it still leaves that gorgeous impression there, see there?

There.

And a little of the canvas will show through, and it looks like it's far, far away.

Just one of those little things that will give your tree limb, just gorgeous, gorgeous effects, a little bit, little bit unique in a painting.

Now then let's take, let me get a little touch of the, there it is, a little touch of the liquid white, a little bit of yellow, a little bit of sap green, maybe, be right back, get a little touch of white over here, too.

There.

Let's go back up in here, and right on here I'm going to take and just put the indication of some little highlights that live out in here.

Just some little sparklies on a tree.

See?

They're almost the color of the sky, I don't want them to be very bright, I want them to sort of just, just sort of hide back in there.

There.

But isn't that tree trunk neat?

I like all of those little spots, I hope you can see those.

There.

Okay, now while we have that old brush going, maybe back in here we can begin to make out a few little things that are just peeking out right there, maybe a little light's zinging through.

Don't want a lot of detail, a lot of shapes, too far away.

There they are.

Just happy little things that live back in there.

Add a little touch of the yellow ochre here and there, a little bit of Indian yellow, there we go.

Just all kinds of little doers.

Wherever you think they should be, that's where they should be.

Now then, a little bit of the titanium white right on the brush, and very gently I want to bring this misty area right on out.

Just let it mist right on out.

A little touch more of the white.

I want some of these little soft areas just to float right through here.

Alright.

Now then, let me wash the brush.

[chuckles] If you've painted with me before you know, this is the fun part of the whole technique, just washing the brush.

Shake it off, [chuckles] Just beat the devil out of it.

Alright.

Let's take a little bit of midnight black, some Van Dyke brown, we'll put some dark sienna and crimson in there, too, what the heck.

Get a little sap green.

Just mix them on the brush.

Once in a while get a little blue, too.

A little touch of the phthalo blue in there.

Okay, just tap the brush, let's go back up in here.

I want a tree now that's closer.

So for that I'll use a much darker color, so we put a light color on it, it'll show up better.

There we are.

About like that.

Now I don't want to lose all this misty area, its important to me.

I think it's very pretty in there.

So don't want to lose all that.

I'm going to leave some of it in there.

Alright, here it comes, maybe a big old thing in here, just let your imagination go, let it go.

Darker, darker, darker, down in here.

Maybe, maybe here we'll have, let's just push in something that'll end up being some nice big bushes right in here.

Once again, I'm trying to save that little spot.

I think that's gorgeous in a painting when you have those little misty areas.

Just putting in a little dark color here, and wherever.

Now let's take a little bit of it and begin pulling down.

We'll create the indication of a few little reflections in here.

There we go.

And gently, gently go across.

Alright.

Shoot, let's go over here on the other side and do the same basic thing, same colors.

Want to have a nice big tree that hangs out over here.

There we go.

I like these paintings with big trees that hang out over here.

Now this area up in here, there's some of that brown that we made with the crimson and the sap green, and it shows through.

I want to leave those areas in there and leave them open.

Some of them in there are gorgeous, looks like light shining through the trees.

And that black gesso will do that for you automatically.

Automatically, you don't have to even worry about it.

Now then.

Shoot, I'll tell you what, we'll have some more big old bushes that live right there.

Wherever you want them.

All we're doing right now is just blocking in some color.

We'll come back and begin fixing some of these little things up, but right now we're just blocking in color.

Pull a little bit of that brown color down.

Black, whatever it is.

There.

There we go.

But I want this, I want to put a little stream in here and I want it like you can see through the water and see all the little things that live underneath there.

Okay, back to my brush that I was using to put the leaves on the tree, let's get a little bit sap green, a little yellow ochre.

Be right back, I'm going to get a little white, a little bit of white.

Just sort of bounce back and forth until you get the flavor you're looking for in your painting.

Tap the brush.

You can see that little line of paint, there's one right on the end of the bristles here just like it.

And that's what we paint with, let's go up here.

Now then, using just the corner of the brush, just the corner, you can begin putting in some detail here.

I want to keep this darker than out here.

There we go.

So it looks like it's more in the shadows.

There.

Something about like, think about little individual shapes in there.

There comes one.

[Bob makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Got to make those little noises, it really helps.

[chuckles] About like that.

I tell you what we need in there, shoot.

Let's put a tree trunk in there.

We need a tree trunk, I'll just take a little bit of brown, a little bit of brown on the liner brush, [Bob makes "tchhooo" sound] doesn't show up very well.

Put a little white with that brown, make it a little lighter.

Because in our world we can do anything.

There it comes, [Bob makes "sssshhoo" sound] a wiggledy tree.

A wiggledy tree.

There, we'll give him an arm or two.

There, just sneaking through.

I don't know how many's in here, how ever many you want.

In your world you make the decision, you decide.

There we go.

But if you have trouble making the paint flow all you've got to do is just add a little bit more of the paint thinner.

Don't get too much, there's sort of a happy medium here.

Alright, maybe on the other side, shoot, who knows?

Maybe there's a, mm, mm, yep, you're right.

Big old tree over there, too.

There, something about like that.

Whatever.

Put a little highlight on him, blend it in.

That looks like a light zinging through there and hitting that tree.

Then we continue with our leaves.

Now, put a few more little leaves on here.

There.

Okay.

Right on out in here.

It already looks like a place where there'd be a lot of mosquitoes living, a lot of little things.

But at the same time there'd be a lot of fantastic little creatures.

My little squirrel could live in there.

There.

I still have a couple of squirrels that I maintain.

There.

In some of the earlier series one of our favorite little squirrels was Peapod the Pocket Squirrel.

He lives in my backyard now, we've turned him loose, we turned him loose quite a while back, but he won't go away.

[chuckles] He's found out that, that begging for peanuts and stuff from me is much easier than going out there and working.

So I take care of him.

In fact, he just put a new hole right through my screen on the patio.

And if I didn't, didn't like him so much it'd have upset me, but, but he's my little friend.

So he comes to the back door, literally, and begs.

And I open the door, he comes in the house, and he'll run all around the kitchen and see what I've got available, if he finds something he likes, that's his.

There we go.

As I say, you don't have to be crazy to do this, but it does help.

Something like that.

Okay.

I'm going to get a one inch brush, dip it into a little bit of the liquid white, go into a little bit of yellow, little bit of yellow, some sap green, Indian yellow, yellow ochre.

Now and then I'm going to hit a little touch of that bright red, too.

Just all those mixed together.

Okay, let's go up in here.

Now in here I want to start, yeah, putting the indication of little highlights, little highlights.

Where the light's zinging through there, touching all these things.

Don't want to kill all my dark though, I just want to put a few things going in there.

Darker, darker, darker, down here.

Just to make it look like big old bushes and small trees, whatever.

There, little rabbits got to have a place to hide down in here.

because he lives down here, it's nice and safe and dark.

Put a little black with my color, that'll dull it down, make it darker green, much darker green.

There.

Alright.

On the other side let's do, yep.

Some little things right there.

Right there.

See how easy it is to make all these gorgeous little trees and stuff?

There.

But work one bush at a time.

I know you, you get tired of hearing me say that, but it's so important, it's so important.

Sometimes it just gets working well and it's a tendency just to, to cover up everything with gorgeous little bushes, and then you have nothing.

Work it one bush at a time.

Do the one that's farthest away and come forward.

Shoot, we need to figure out what we're going to have in this painting.

Tell you what?

This is going to be a little stream here, I want some rocks in there.

Let me clean off a space to work, let me put some rocks.

Show you a nice way to make some rocks easy.

There.

Let's take a big bunch of black, put a bit of Van Dyke brown in it, maybe even a little touch of blue, mostly black though, a little crimson in it, too.

Just for flavoring.

There.

Now, I'm going to go over here and get some paint thinner and I'm going to thin this.

Make it very thin.

So I'm just taking paint thinner and just mixing it with it to make this, the color, much thinner.

Because our golden rule: a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

And so I'm making a thin paint now.

Alright, that's looking pretty thin.

Something about like that.

See, we're just, we're just adding thinner and mixing it up.

Alright, let me wipe the knife.

Now then, I want to make a highlight color.

I want to make rocks.

I'm looking for a highlight color.

Take a little bit of white, black, mix it together.

Looking for a grey, maybe even a little Van Dyke in there.

Sort of a brownish grey, a little lighter.

Ooh, that's getting pretty nice.

Like that.

Alright, I'm going to go over here now and get some paint thinner, and I'm going to thin this pile of paint down.

So all we're doing here is just making some thin paint so we can stick it right on top of that thick paint without becoming a mud mixer.

Normally you would have to wait for paint to dry so that you could put layer on top of layer.

Here, we just use thick and thin paint.

Our original paint is very, very thick, very firm.

It's not like traditional paints.

In fact that's the biggest mistake that people make when they're doing this method, is they go out and get a real soft, creamy paint, and when you try to paint, paint on paint that's the same consistency all you do is mix mud.

[chuckles] And all of us who've painted have mixed a little mud.

Alright, I'm going to take the little filbert, we'll start with the filbert.

Go right into that thin color, load both sides of the filbert with thin paint.

Over here pick up some light color on one side.

So we have dark on one side, light on one side.

Okay, let's go up here.

Back in here we have now some little stones that live back here, see there?

In one stroke though, you can put both highlight and shadow.

Look at that.

Isn't that a sneaky way?

Lookie there.

You can just put as many or as few as you want in your world.

That easy.

Now then, tell you what.

Let me get, I'm going to get the oval brush.

It's like a big filbert only it's one inch across.

Let's do the same thing.

Dark on both sides.

This is very thin paint, can't say that enough.

Back over here, pull it in one direction only.

Right through there, so you just pull it through one time and that'll give you light on top, dark on the other, let's do it.

Go up here, maybe we have big rocks.

[Bob makes "rrmm" sound] See?

Be brave.

There it comes.

[Bob makes "rr" sound] In one stroke though, you can do all these great big rocks.

See them living out here?

Look at them, look at them.

[chuckles] Rocks used to give me a fit.

Shoot, they're easy to do this way.

Let's go right in here.

Maybe we can see one back in there.

There's a big one, mm.

Big old rock.

Happy rock, he lives right out there.

And maybe, [Bob makes "whht" sound] a great [chuckles] big rock, couple of them.

But isn't that a super way of making a lot of stones?

Look at that.

And you have to decide how many stones live in your world.

There we go.

Mm.

That's one thing this brush does so wonderfully.

Now then, let me go back, get my little one inch brush that we were making the bushes with.

Now let's more on the sap green, a little bit of yellow, all the yellows.

Get a little bit black in there, I want it a little darker.

Ooh, that's nice.

Pull this brush in one direction, see how it rounds one corner?

Turn it over so that round corner is to the top.

Now let's go up in here.

With that round corner to the top that's how we make these bushes.

We'll go in here and just slide a few right in between the rocks, see?

See that?

Just sneak them in there.

Get a little yellow ochre there, I want one that's a little, ooh, little sparkler that lives right there, right there.

There.

See?

And that sort of just fills in the gaps between your rocks.

Got little old bushies that are living all out here.

Sometimes they grow almost right on the rocks.

Over on the other side same thing, let's put a few over here.

There we go.

I want a little more of the, let's try a little yellow ochre on there.

Ooh, I like that.

There.

Something right in here.

Maybe there's one that, maybe he grew right down, there.

See?

Over here there's another happy little, happy little bush, he just lives in there, has a good time.

This would be a nice place for a bush to live, right in here.

Alright.

Now then, take the knife, just scrape through here and there and let a little of the black canvas show through.

Look like dark sticks and twigs.

I'm going to take the small knife today.

A little bit of white, put the least little touch of phthalo blue in it, least little touch, least little touch.

Pull it out flat, cut across, that's all there is to it.

Least little touch though of phthalo blue, just enough to sort of flavor it.

And I'm going to start working a few little water lines all the way around these rocks.

Like that.

There they go.

And that's really about all you have to do to make this look like water, is just put a few of these little things right around the stones, see there?

This is one of the nicest, easiest ways I have ever found to make some of these gorgeous effects just like that.

There we go.

And a few on the other side, shoot, we'll have a finished painting here.

What do you think?

Is this one you'd like to try?

You know, I'd love to see some photos of your work, so if you have time, drop me a line, let me know how it's working for you and send me some pictures.

There.

With that I think we've got a finished painting.

We'll call that one done.

From all of us here I'd like to wish you happy painting and God bless, my friend.