Wilson Bickford: It's time to go to the great north and visit the Emperor, the Emperor Penguin that is.

Join me next on Painting with Wilson Bickford and I'll show you how to paint these feathered friends.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Hey, welcome to Painting with Wilson Bickford.

I'm glad you could join me today.

As you know I love to paint animals, especially birds, but I like doing deer, bear, all kinds of critters.

Today we're going to do an Emperor penguin and his little son or daughter, whatever the case might be.

These are the largest of the penguin species and an interesting fact on these, I read online that they can hold their breath for twenty two minutes, up to twenty two minutes underwater, they're excellent swimmers and divers.

I thought that was pretty fascinating.

We're going to try to capture these little guys on canvas today.

I'm going to show you what I did to get up to this point.

Now if you go to the WPBSTV website you'll be able to download a material list of all the supplies that I'm using, as well as a sketch that you can transfer, the image to do that.

I simply take some graphite transfer paper that I get at a craft store, I lay this down, I lay the sketch on top, I trace the design with a red pen.

I like to use a red pen because the red shows up on the dark lines so you know which lines you've already done, so you're not going over, over, and over it.

Once you get the image on there, I took some black acrylic gesso.

And I use my round brush, but you can use any brush that you have, a flat brush would be fine.

You're probably going to want to use a smaller brush like a liner to get into some of the details like up in the corners.

Notice I left a little slight rim on white around the eye which separates the eye, the dark eye from the dark feathers behind it.

Then I carefully filled that in with black acrylic, this was acrylic so I did add a couple drops of water as I was doing that.

Make sure you put your brushes in water and rinse them out while you're letting this dry before you move on to the oil stage.

Next thing I did was I took tape, now once this was completely dry, let that dry.

I took just good ole masking tape and I put some layers on here.

Now overlap your layers just enough where you're not going to get bleed in between, you only want to cut through a single layer if you can help it.

Notice the design shows right through there, see I'm overlapping them just a little bit.

I covered the whole thing, the little chick there too, I guess they call a penguin baby a chick like other birds, I'm not sure.

See then I take a craft knife, this is a number eleven blade, very sharp.

You want to make sure you use a nice brand new blade, my shop teacher in school always told me, 'boys, use a sharp blade, you'll have less chance for an accident to happen.'

Make sure you use a nice blade and you'll see that if you carefully trim that away, just trim out the whole section.

Safety first, always put your cap back on.

That brought me up to this point, so now I've got everything masked out, that is the prep work, that's probably going to take you thirty minutes maybe, maybe longer.

It's not a race take your time, the prep work is the important part of this.

I forgot to mention too, you'll also have this as a reference that you can download from the PBS site when you do your black markings so you get everything just precise the way you want it, makes it pretty easy.

From there we're ready to move into the oil zone, this was acrylic, it's under painting.

I masked this out and it still looks like an oil painting, when you're all said and done.

It just makes it easy to get from point A to point B and get a nice completed painting without having to let all the various stages dry.

Now that we're moving into the oil zone, I'm going to run through the brushes that I'll be using.

I'm going to use a two inch scenery brush, a number four fan brush, a number six round brush, a number ten flat brush, my number two detail script liner, my number two liner, and my small painting knife.

On my palette today for oil colors I have some white oil based medium, I'm going to use it for background on the canvas to blend my colors.

I have some clear glazing medium which I'll be using on the penguins later on in the progression of this painting.

For actual oil colors I have red rose deep, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, ivory black, cadmium red light hue, cadmium yellow pale hue, and titanium white.

With my two inch brush I'm going to start putting base coat on this, which the white will give me blend-ability so I can blend and get nice soft edges where I want them in sky, and in the water, and in the snow shadows.

I'm going to take my two inch scenery brush, some of this base coat, make sure you tape, just press down firmly.

Hopefully you won't get any bleed under there.

Here's a good thing to remember, when you're using the taping method don't use that old roll of tape that's been in your desk for five years.

As tape gets older it tends to get a little bit sticky, it tends to leave a residue when you pull it away, use new tape and a new blade in that knife and you'll be much happier.

See I'm just going to scrub on a thin coat over this whole canvas, I'm working it right in to the weave of the canvas.

Don't put it on real thick and heavy.

Notice there's a gap here between them where there's actually water showing through behind, so make sure you get that little notch in there and remember to cut that out as well too.

A lot of people miss stuff like that, those little gaps.

It's no big deal if you missed it right now and you're putting this base coat on, you can still have time to go back and cut that out of there right now even.

Might get a little paint on your fingers but that's all right, no fun unless you get some on you once in a while right?

Okay.

I'm working that in, I'm looking to make sure I don't have a lot of thick heavy brush marks and I don't which is perfect.

Even it out and just that simple, we've got our background base coat on.

Okay now these poor little critters live in the Antarctic and is very, very cold, I was reading too, when I was doing some research on these that sometimes they have wind-chill factors of seventy-two below Fahrenheit, can you imagine?

I didn't want to leave these guys stuck out in the cold so I thought I'd warm it up today and put a little bit of warmth on the horizon.

Maybe the sun's coming up, maybe the sun's going down, it's hard to tell.

I wanted that little bit of warmth in there.

I'm going to take the dirty brush with the white in it, and a little bit of this red rose deep, I'm trying to find a color of pink that I like for that sky.

Obviously you can make it as intense or as pastel as you want, I'm going to go with something maybe about like that.

Notice where it intersects through their body, don't split the canvas evenly.

My distant horizon line here where the water is below dead center, so I'm going to say maybe about right in here somewhere.

Then I'm going to stretch that color upward.

Now this when it comes just above the chicks head, I could have brought it up higher if I wanted it to, that's totally your option.

There are so many variables in a painting, you have to do it the way that you see fit, there's no right or wrong with this.

Having said that I'm going to bring this up a little higher, what the heck?

Won't matter.

Smooth it out and you'll notice I'm going to let it grade back to white, it makes it easier when I bring the cerulean blue over it.

I don't leave a hard edge there.

The difference between driving up a ramp smoothly or trying to jump over a curb with your car, it's easier going up the ramp so you leave it a little bit graded like that.

I'm going to take a little bit of the cerulean blue and some of that white base coat with it to just to cut it back, I don't want it too intense.

I'm going to come over the top of this with some ultramarine blue after the fact.

See I'm going to take some of this cerulean blue and white, I'm going to start up here and I'm going to marry this into the pink.

You'll see I bring it down till it starts overlapping the pink and then I kind of do a criss-cross.

This kind of pulls the blue down and the pink back up on the upstroke so they blend together pretty seamlessly.

See that white base coat really helps a lot for that, makes it very easy to get that nice bendable smooth transition.

I'm actually going to carry this right up through the top, I'm just about out of that color so I'll just mix up a little more.

I really don't even care if I hit the exact same shade because I got different shades of blue in the sky anyway, but that's pretty close, close enough.

See how easy that sky goes in?

Now to break it up I'm going to come back with some darker tones and put some accents in there.

For that I used some of the ultramarine blue.

I take ultramarine and maybe a speck of black, I could use a little bit of the red too, the red rose deep would make it purplish, the black is very, very strong, the ivory black is very potent so I'm going to take just a couple specks.

Again, get a color you like, you don't have to have the color I've got, get a color that you like.

You could have it grayer than that, you could the red to the blue to make it purplish.

I'm going to check that and see what I think.

That looks pretty good, I'm not trying to match this painting at all by the way, I'm just doing what I feel, I'm showing you how I achieved this one.

You're going to want to do it the way that you see fit.

See this time I just roll the brush around and I scrub, I'm leaving pockets of those lighter tones in there, which opens up that sky.

See as I come down I'm just using a lighter pressure, lighter pressure, lighter pressure so it just kind of fades off.

I'm not going to drag too much of that dark down into the pink.

See how that really opens that sky up and gives it some depth and atmosphere?

From there I can take a paper towel, no need to wash the brush.

I can just wipe it off.

I usually bend this by doing a big oval, or circle I guess, I lay the brush flush, flat and now it's wiped off mind you.

Wipe it off and if I just do a circular or oval stroke like this, just kind of medium pressure, enough to move the paint but not scrubbing it too hard.

You'll see it takes all the graininess, the coarseness out of that, just softens it right out.

That was pretty easy huh?

Yeah, you guys can do this, I know you can.

Okay, from there I'm going to build this up with some of the yellow, I want to put a nice glow in the sky, so I'm going to use my painting knife, I'm going to use titanium white and cadmium yellow pale.

You'll notice this looks a little bit rough like it's bursting through clouds and atmosphere, I don't want to smooth this out necessarily.

You could if you prefer that look better.

Like I said before, it's totally up to you and what you want for your painting.

I'm going to take some white and yellow like this, notice that the sun spots maybe about a third of the way over, don't put it right dead center but you don't want it hugging the edge way over here either.

It could be higher or lower in the sky at this point, I'm going to go a little higher on this one than that, what the heck?

Don't matter.

See I just kind of rub it around.

Now what I'm doing there is I'm lightening up using less pressure on the edges because I want those to kind of fade away.

It will help if you wipe your blade off at this point, this is what I call ironing, you know the old fashioned irons where people iron their shirt?

They just lay it and they just iron, that's kind of what I'm doing, I'm laying it flat, I'm just moving it sliding the blade around, you'll see it smooths those outer edges away.

It gives me that nice burst of light coming through the atmosphere.

I want a little bit brighter right in that sun spot, so I'm going to take pretty much pure white, white and just a little bit of that previous yellow color.

I'm going to put a nice little bright spot right in there and I'm basically going to do the same thing, just to brighten that up.

Wipe the blade and iron it out a little bit.

Myself personally I don't even mind if there's a little bit of texture left in that.

I don't smooth it completely, a lot of the oil paintings you see will have texture, even of the old masters.

You look at a Rembrandt painting, there's a lot of texture in those.

You see I leave it a little bit textured, that catches the light a little bit better from across the room and it really lights that up.

That was pretty easy wasn't I?

Yeah, I know you guys can do this, that's pretty simple.

Painting isn't as hard as everybody tries to make it out to be, you just need to know some of the basics and know how to put them on your canvas.

I'm going to go back to this large two inch brush and I'm going to find my water line.

I'm going to paint the water between the snow and the sky, that strip right through there so I have to have an idea.

This might help too, you can always take a pencil and draw right through the paint, you can kind of find your snow line, just like that.

Or you could just visualize it and go with it that way, it really doesn't matter.

I just want to have some sense of a guide there where I know where it is, makes it easy.

I like to paint smart not hard.

If I'm having a hard time with something I'm doing it wrong.

There are a lot of little short cuts and tricks you can do in a painting that make it much, much simpler, and that's the route I always try to go.

Okay, I'm going to base this in like that.

I'm just going to go just a hair darker.

That color's okay, but my own personal preference I just want it a little darker.

I'm taking a little more blue and a little more of the black, there we go I like that better.

I'm going to bring it down into the snow line.

Notice I'm going right over the penguins like they're not even there, that's why I tape them out.

Just work that in, this is just a base of the water, I'm going to add a lot of color into that.

I'm trying to keep that fairly level back here.

There's nothing on this planet that's any straighter and level, as straight as a string, then the horizon at the ocean.

Okay from there I'm going to take my number ten flat brush, more of this same color but I need to darken it down just a whisker, so I'm going to build on the same color with a little more ultra- marine blue, a little more black, I'm going to chisel this brush up, this is a great brush, it's a synthetic bristle but it holds a really super sharp chiseled edge which is perfect for what I want to do right now.

I want to come in and scuff in some of these darker wave lines.

Now they're going to look very harsh as I put them on, I'm going to come back and soften them in every so slightly.

Make sure they're horizontal, they don't have to be perfectly ruler straight but you want them more horizontal then not.

I'm also going to come back in with some of the red rose deep color that's in the sky because some of that would be reflected in the water as well.

You want to put enough in to make you happy, just so it looks choppy, got some movement, some waves in that water, the water isn't frozen here.

As I was researching photos online I saw a lot of them where even though it's cold a lot of the places the water wasn't frozen for whatever reason at that given moment, so it doesn't have to be.

Okay I've got some 100% odorless mineral spirits here that I swished my brush out as I need to.

I don't do a lot of brush cleaning as a typical rule because I usually don't have to, but sometimes it's a necessity.

I'm washing that out and I'm going to take white and some of this pink that I used in the sky before.

Whatever's in that sky is going to be reflected in that water, the water acts like just a big mirror laying on the ground and reflects what's above.

I'm going to chisel this up and I'm going to incorporate some of this pink into the water here and there, randomly.

Just one of those little wave curls are turned just right and they're reflecting some of that color.

Notice that brings the water to life.

As my brush goes away from here I'm just re-chiseling it up on my palette.

Now it still looks pretty harsh, we're going to soften it.

Blending makes all the difference.

Okay, I'll lay that brush to the side and I'm going to take my number four fan brush.

A lot of people don't realize it because a lot of artists, myself included, will use a fan brush to do trees and water and all sorts of different things, but a fan brush, their original use was intended to be a blender.

You look in some of the old catalogs from the fifties and what not they call them fan brush blenders, that was their original purpose.

They work great for blending, you can see I'm using it right here for that right now.

A lot of people use them for other things and I do too, just be aware that on top of those other things, the trees and the waterfalls and everything else you can do with them they also make dandy blenders.

I'm going to soften that out a little bit like that, see all that waterizes it and just makes it so much nicer?

[MUSIC] When you're doing your under-painting, make sure you make your paint workable.

You want to thin your acrylic down with a couple of drops of water.

I have some water in a plastic cup here, I'm using my number six round, and if you add a couple of drops to that black acrylic you'll see it flows much easier, don't get it really watery, but if you thin the consistency just a little bit it makes it so much easier because it flows and it's easy to get those nice crisp edges where you want them.

This painting will only look as good as your under-painting stage.

Take care with that and do a good job on it.

For the smaller areas I use my detail script liner, but it's the same idea.

If I thin that down with a couple of drops of water, it makes it much easier to get into these tight nooks and crannies where you need to go with that black color.

I'm going to go back to my small painting knife, I'm going to take some of that yellow that I used in that sun spot, we got to put that yellow in the water too.

I want to look it a little bit sparkly, so I'm going to take the yellow and I'm going to pull it out really flat on my palette.

I'm going to wipe the blade off and I'm going to take just a little sliver, and I'm going to hold this up so you can get a close up on it, I'm going to get just a little sliver of yellow on the back on that blade.

You'll notice on the finished painting here I've got little slivers of yellow in the water, reflected little sparkles.

I just touch and drag, now keep these horizontal on the water surface, they can't be running uphill or down now.

I just thread some of these in here like this.

I like to keep these spaced together a little tighter in the distance and spaced further apart as they come lower in the canvas, that has to do with the linear perspective, anything in the distance will appear closer together.

I'm going to come back with a little bit of pure white, just to really set that off.

Remember we put white in that sun spot?

I'm going to do the same thing with the knife the same way.

I'm going to cut off that same little sliver like I did before, I really want to get some extra bright sparkle.

I need just a little more paint there, I was being a little stingy.

Get a little more paint on my blade, there we go.

I want the maximum glint and glare on that water surface.

Now you'll notice I wipe my blade off in between loading it because I pick up the yellow and the blue and the pink and everything that I'm touching on this canvas because it's still wet, so it's always nice to wipe your knife off before you reload.

Okay, that's looking pretty good already I'd say.

It's nice backdrop for our little feathered friends here.

At this point the background in my opinion is pretty much finished, but you want to scrutinize it and take a good hard look at it and see what you think.

I'm liking it, I can always make an adjustment and come back with a little bit darker tone.

It's easier to do it now rather than later.

If I scuff over my snow line, I know my snow line will cover that and it's less repair later on.

I'm going to darken this color down just a whisker.

I'll try this and see how it reads, I want it a little darker closer to the snow, closer to the viewer.

That has to do with aerial perspective, anything that's closer will be darker.

These waves will theoretically look a little darker, I want to thread a few right over here as well.

I hope you get a chance to try this painting out, when you do send me a photo of it, I would love to see it.

You can contact me through my website or my email, my contact info is on my website at wilsonbickford.com.

You can send me a Facebook message, I have a lot of people that paint along with me and then show me their results, I really like seeing what everyone is doing with these.

Don't be afraid to give this a whirl, painting is not nearly as difficult as everybody thinks it is.

I'm showing you all the steps you need to know for this right now.

You don't have to paint as fast as what I'm doing, as quickly as what I'm doing.

Take your time and enjoy the ride.

Okay, I'm going to call that a wrap for this episode.

When we come back we're going to unmask the penguins and develop them.

I hope you try this out.

Until next time stay creative and keep painting.

Announcer: All 13 episodes of Painting With Wilson Bickford, Series #300 are now available on DVD in one boxed set for $35 plus $4.95 shipping and handling.

Learn the techniques used to paint "Majestic Mountain" with this new exclusive in-depth Wilson Bickford instructional DVD.

Also available: Wilson Bickford's Rose Painting Techniques DVD with in-depth lessons on painting roses, stems, and leaves.

And Wilson Bickford's Landscapes Techniques DVD -- learn to paint skies, trees, water, and grasses.

Order online at wpbstv.org!

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