I do not claim to be the best seascape artist around, but I'm trying to be the best I can be.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ My favorite subject is the painting that is on the easel at the time.

This time it happens to be a seascape, and I love seascapes, I love doing them.

I want to show you the finished picture first.

And I want to say a couple things about it.

One is, I had this all painted, but I did not have this back rock or that wave.

It was just another wave coming down here, and I thought, I need something, because it's strong interest down here, powerful up there, and I need to have a step, a step down, or a step up-- either way you look at it.

So think about this in your painting, and another thing is, when you have a strong light in the sky, and then you put a strong light down here, you have it in the correct position.

It affects everything in its path, therefore the light on this wave is such a helpful step before you come down.

And this has a nice rhythm, it comes over here splashes there and against the rock.

But this, by its size and its position on the canvas really is our first view of the big sea.

I want you to look at the canvas and it has been primed with Alizarin Crimson and White with a little bit of Phthalo Blue in it.

And that is very helpful, very nice.

You can see some of those warm colors in the sky on this canvas.

And that's going to be reflected over here.

On putting that on, I found a brush, and it says "magic brush"-- Alexander's magic brush-- That's Bill's!

Do your work!

So we'll take water with it, and here's what I have-- I have Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue-- no, you're Phthalo Blue, and a little bit of Red in it.

That's Naphthol Red.

So this will be the first color I'll push in the sky.

I have a little water on it as I suggested.

I almost jumped over and put it on there.

And as I first put it on you think, oh, that's kind of stark.

But the more that you see done on the painting, the more you will realize-- I've allowed some of the underneath to show through.

Let's go over to the right.

Always do the right!

Am I standing back far enough so you can see the right?

Some up-- it's very helpful.

Okay, I don't want to get too much up in the middle there.

But this looks fairly good.

I'll go across there just to make sure we have the edge of the canvas covered.

And this comes down pretty close to the rock.

Alright then, I'll clean the brush.

Bill, I didn't expect to use your brush so much.

But we'll take now some Raw Sienna, and I'll take it straight-- what are you guys doing?

Get back in your position-- get back on the bus.

Here's Raw Sienna.

It gives me a golden look.

I'll push right up there, push a little bit into the edge of the dark.

When you're doing that, it's almost best if you fill in the area here, so if you blend a little bit you may pick some of that up that you don't want in the middle of the canvas.

Then again, do it-- whatever inspires you.

These are acrylics-- did I tell you that?

These are acrylics, this is the acrylic stage.

Next week we go on with the oil.

Could you do it all in oil?

Absolutely, whatever works for you, but I sure like what the acrylics do.

And I want you to notice here, the Raw Sienna, if you put Raw Sienna on a white canvas and so on, it would kind of jump.

Here it's almost the same value as that pinkish tone.

It really allows it to interplay with that so the pink shows through a little bit.

[soft scraping] Under these lights, even the acrylic dries quickly.

I know the first time that I did acrylics with the lights I thought my gosh, it dries so fast.

And now you depend upon it doing so.

Okay, I think what would be helpful is, we stay in the sky with the idea of making the first light.

So I'm changing brushes, I come over here to a fan brush.

And I'm taking Cad Yellow and white.

This will be a building process too, so when I first put it on it won't be quite as light as the lightest light.

However, that possibly would be put on with oils next week.

So where am I?

Well, the relationship to the rock, you go straight up, it's to the left of that.

So I go straight up and to the left of that, which is right here.

I was thinking about over there, but we need to have it correct; close to being correct.

I'm going to change brushes.

You came out a little tired, I think you need to have some rest.

Oh, much better.

It's always nice when you have the athletic teams that you have, somebody that you can sub in like a pitcher not being his best.

I used to jokingly say that I studied clouds when I was pitching.

I'd pitch the ball and then watch the sky as the ball went out.

Oo, that was neat.

Oh, I love talking about baseball anytime, I love talking about art all the time, and seascapes right on time.

Now I'm taking some of this, which as you know, if it mixes in a little bit with the Raw Sienna which is still a little moist, you get all of the little kind of a greenish tone.

So I'll put some of this in-- this will be a perfect time to do that.

Flatten that just a little bit-- that got rid of the brush marks.

How about just a teeny little bit higher?

Okay, I think that's enough in the sky right now.

Do you want to come back, Bill?

Yes.

Okay, coming down, I think what would be helpful, if I put the water in next, and when I say water, I'm saying minus the foam, so we're talking about the dark water.

There's not a lot of it.

It's going to be kind of in the blue shade.

Let's see what we have.

We've got Phthalo Blue.

I have Viridian Green.

And let's try a little White.

Oo, gee, that Blue is powerful.

How about a little bit of Umber with that?

That's coming.

See, I would've said that even if it wasn't because timewise I need to move on.

That's coming!

This looks great.

Oh yes, yes, yes.

The stroke, they have a little bit of a sway, which means they're coming down rather than just going horizontally.

It will give a little feeling of movement.

Small things like that are so important.

Now I'll come right under that line.

And when we put on the foam itself we'll want to come down a little bit so you don't have just a hard edge.

But for now it will be best if the dark is against that area.

So in this area, and what I'm doing, you make sure that you can see the brushstrokes, you can see the brushstrokes, the direction they're going.

There's just the smallest foam over here, and I left a little opening for it.

Okay, so that comes across there.

We do have some that's in the middle of the wave, of this big wave.

Here again, if I look at this, just if I want to make a copy of this, it doesn't always have to be that way, But if I come down there, that shows where I want to start my water within the wave.

And they truly represent movement, so we need to make sure that they have a sway or a slant, whatever you want to call it-- a curve!

All right, then down below-- these are quite dark so I'm going to put just a little more Phthalo Blue in that, and a little bit of the Umber.

Never a mistake... left as a mistake-- you correct it.

What I enjoy doing is coming to a painting like the one that we're making a copy of and say, what would make it better?

If you approach it that way, you separate yourself from being too personal and saying, oh, I like it, I don't want to touch it, I don't dare touch it, What would make it better?

Then do it, but you think about that for a while so you don't jump in there and do something wild.

Over here, it's such a large area, I'm doing like that and then might have a little bit of directional pull on them.

Okay, I think what would be the next step is to put on some rocks.

If I use the Burnt Umber, my thought is, for instance, on the left one, when I put it on there there's some extra dark on it.

We'll see if we do it now or we do it in the final stages.

I'm going to go over on the side.

I really like the drawing of this, it feels good at this stage.

There's little lines in there, so if I allow for those, that will give me the edge of the rock by saving that.

On the upper one, I can go right out on it and touch that line.

And same way here-- I can touch that on the edge.

It's on the interior ones I would like to save.

How does it look from this angle?

Say over there, huh, can you see me?

I'm painting the back of the rock!

Get back on stage, Buck.

On stage?

You mean there's people watching?

Thank goodness.

I know when I first started painting landscapes out-of-doors with my teacher Claude Buck, we'd go down, set up our easels, and we'd be painting, and there'd be people around, when I say around, they weren't real close, and I'd be almost scared for them to look at my painting, particularly when they'd look at mine first, and then go look at Claude's and then kind of glance back at me.

But after a while, after weeks of painting out-of-doors, then somebody would come, and I'd think, why aren't you coming to look at mine?

Why aren't you coming to look at mine?

So it's interesting how you grow with experience.

I'm sort of knocking down the textures a little bit.

Textures will come later.

Do I need-- oh, here's more Burnt Umber.

Let's get this rock on.

Its edge, as I look at the original, is more pinkish, so I'm not going to let the Umber go over at this time.

That was my new addition, and I really like that.

Okay, taking the same color, Umber, on this one, I did a kind of a hesitancy there.

Is it here?

No, that's the foam behind it.

So be careful you don't do that.

I'm adding just a little water, so it goes just a little faster, and just a touch of Blue in on it.

I couldn't delay on that.

I was telling about doing it all Umber, I changed my mind, added a little blue on it.

This goes out-- it has a nice little point there.

And what's nice about that, it gives a little variety so it's not just a smooth rock.

And also notice how it points-- it has a little point going up towards the sun.

All little things add to the big picture.

Oh, I love doing these shows!

Got a great staff-- too bad you can't see them.

In the booth, on the floor, floor director, cameraman... [sighs] and me!

Okay, that's good there.

We have one more rock to put in the lower left corner.

There is a little separation between the two rocks.

I haven't allowed for that, but I will do so now.

That will give me enough room so when I put the foam in, it'll come in there.

And in here.

This is one ocean that you don't really see what you call foam patterns.

There is a suggestion of some in here, But not significantly-- I know that word!

So they're not emphasized-- just enough so you feel there is movement there.

Okay, now let's go ahead with the foam color.

So I have White.

And I'm going to start with some Viridian Green and Alizarin.

I wonder what color that will be?

I need to go darker.

Okay, let's take some Umber and Blue.

We'll make you darker... darker.

Oo, boy, are you blue!

♪ You are so blue.

♪ I love you blue.

But not that much-- I put more Umber and White in it.

Let's see if we're closer on that.

Oh, I like that even though it's not quite the same-- just a little more white The main objective is to have 2 different values on the foam, the light and the dark.

So I have a brush now, and I'm going to wet this just a little bit.

This is the foam that will be there before we put the highlights on it.

I like the relationship of this color to the priming of the canvas.

[Buck laughs] Wait for the rest of the wave before you come to shore.

Huh?

Just hold your horses.

Hold your horses.

That was fun, I'd like to do it again, but I better not.

My floor director is going like that.

I don't know-- does that mean no more?

On this, I want to point out one thing that I find in a lot of oceans.

They might do it like that; and we'll come over here, like that.

Now that isn't real wrong, really wrong, but I want to show you one thing that will help a little bit.

If you take the edge of what I've just placed on-- and I want to point out in the original-- this is what I want.

I want some lucent behind there, so I wiped the brush, it still has some of that gray on it-- push it just a little bit so that when I put the highlight in there, it's not such a hard ridge.

You've got the little mist behind.

That is the thing that I find most bothersome on some of the seascapes that I look at-- that it's just a hard ridge-- you could almost say it's a cookie-cutter technique.

Okay, on this side, I'll go down here first, and then as I splash up I'll do the same thing I just did over on the left one, and that is this-- wiping the brush and just making that a little more misty.

If you gain nothing else from this painting other than this fact, it will have been with your viewing.

I put softness there too.

When we put the highlight on, the highlight will go where it's supposed to, but you have mist behind it.

And I can have just a little bit along in here at the same time.

All right, let's put in a big wave.

Boom boom boom boom!

Oh, you've got power.

Power!

Once you start putting this on, and what I'm really saying is, you're kind of completing the fill of the canvas.

That's when you sort of analyze and see how much of the priming color is showing through.

[Buck hums] ♪ I'll see you.

Okay now, let's hurry on this because I want to do one other aspect of this.

[soft scraping] Right above that dark you have a little bit of this.

Okay so, what I want to make sure we do is-- you see the bottom of that?

I want to bring down some of this that is reaching the foam-- the wave is moving on top of the water And it kind of just moves its feet.

The same way out here-- you can see there's foam there, and then these, you have again the little kind of legs coming down, reaching out.

There's going to be times when it's sort of definitely across there, but this is better.

It sort of points, it shows you moving into the rock.

And a little bit down here.

This is going to finish the acrylic stage, and then we'll see you next time when we'll put oils on this sweetheart.

I hope you've enjoyed that.

And I sure want you to come back next week.

The finish of twilight-- what was the rest of the name?

"Twilight Memories!"

There you go.

See you next time.

Bye-bye.

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