[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Wilson Bickford: Hi.

Thanks for joining me on Painting with Wilson Bickford.

As you recall, in the last episode we started the bluebird on the picket fence painting, and we've gotten it to this point.

We've put in the background.

We had everything drawn on.

Everything taped out.

We were just starting to put the wood grain on the old weathered pickets.

I had started on the cross brace by using my number 10 flat brush to a chiseled edge with this cool blue gray which was titanium white, a little cobalt blue, and a touch of black.

I was putting the little slivery creases and wood-grain in that slat.

I'm going to start working with the same thing on the pickets.

Now, remember this had a white base coat on it so it is wet, which makes it blendable so we can soften these in a little bit.

I'm going to come in and just kind of rough these up.

Put some splits and cracks in these little pickets.

Don't lose all the white.

We want them to be white pickets.

The happy, little, white picket fence, but we want to rough it up and make it look a little old and weathered.

Give it a little character.

See, when I use this brush I chisel it very sharp, and then I go in right flush with the end of the brush.

Don't tilt it back and use just the corner because it's going to blob out like that.

You want to hold it flush right against your canvas, and you can get nice thin lines.

It's pretty easy because I'm just dragging vertically to get the feeling of the grain.

Notice I don't have to line them up specifically or anything.

Don't make them too rhythmic, too much the same.

Randomness is a good thing.

If I do too much of this, if I did overdo this and I did too much, I could actually just come in and put a little bit of white back into this.

It would be very easy.

See, it doesn't take much to get that feel of the boards.

Pretty simple.

Usually I like to alternate that.

I'll do this first tone, and then I come back with something a little bit darker just to make it look like you got some deeper crevices and creases in there.

I'll take this color I've just used.

I'm going to put just a touch more of the cobalt blue, a little more black, and I'm going to make it a little bit darker.

Again, I chisel the brush up.

This will look like deeper splits.

You'll notice on this one, some of them aren't quite as defined.

Some of them are a little darker, a little sharply defined, and it just gives it more of an overall character.

Some of these little splits are a little deeper into the wood.

It's just where the wood dried out and it split.

See how that really sets that off?

If they look like they're too much of a line you can soften them in a little bit just by taking this brush and wiping it off.

I don't want them to be smudgy, but sometimes they look a little harsh, and a little bit too line-y.

If you wipe the brush off you can very lightly just drag through them.

It takes the harshness out of them.

Just ever so slightly.

Just enough to say so.

See how that softens them down quite a bit?

Then we're going to move on to those rusty nails.

That gives this so much character.

That's my favorite part is doing the rusty nails on this one.

For that I'm going to use my detail script liner.

This is the cousin to the number two liner.

This is a little bit bigger brush.

A little fluffier.

We're going to use this a lot when we start rendering the bird.

This holds more paint because it's an overall bigger brush than the actual just liner.

I'm going to take some burnt sienna, maybe a little bit of the white base coat here.

I could use the titanium white on my pallet too.

Any white will suffice at this point.

I don't want to start in with a really bright, bright burnt sienna color yet.

I'm muting this down a little bit.

I'm going to put a little bit of paint thinner.

I'm using odorless paint thinner over here to thin my paint, and to thin this down, and to clean my brushes.

I'm not going to start in by putting the nails, I'm going to put the rust first, and then put the nail heads through those.

I'm just going to kind of say where I think ... you can mark them like this just where you think the nail heads would be.

Who knows?

Maybe there's only one nail in the middle of each board.

It depends on who made the fence.

There's no clear cut must do for that.

Just do it the way you see fit.

I'm going to take a little bit of this.

This is pretty wet.

I've got it pretty thinned down with the paint thinner.

Now see, I'm just going to dab this on.

It's pretty runny, but I want it to look like rust running down the boards.

That looks pretty awful right there, but what's going to happen is I'm going to take this brush and I'm going to wipe it out.

If I fuzz it out manually like this, like a little rake, it makes it perfect for blending, and you'll see me do that when I start rendering the bird to do some of the blending on the bird.

Then if I just drag through that.

See the paint, I thinned it down quite generously so it's very runny, and see it just smears right in.

It looks just like a rust stain soaked into the wood.

It doesn't take much.

As far as the actual nail heads themselves I am going to use some more burnt sienna on that so it's darker, and a little rustier looking.

I'll roll the brush to a point.

I'm going to come in and steady my hand.

I'm just going to paint a little round nail head.

Now, I don't elaborate on it too much and try to get a perfect circle.

You think about a nail, you drive it below the surface, and you see the wood hanging over where it goes below the surface.

It's not always just a perfect, round, little circle.

You want circular, but it can be kind of irregular.

It's going to look more realistic if you don't just put little, round, perfect dots on there.

So, I just put the darker nail heads in over the top of the rust.

See, this isn't so hard is it?

By taping that fence off it made it so easy.

Everybody thinks you got to go in there, and freehand that and paint it.

You can, obviously, but you don't have to.

Like I said, I always look for ways that whatever is the easiest way to get me to the end result that I'm looking for.

Sometimes a little pre-planning goes a long, long ways, and makes your life a whole lot easier.

All right.

I think that looks pretty good.

That will give you the idea of how to do the fence anyway.

Like I said, make sure that everything stands out as far as your values and your contrasts.

This edge here is a little lost, so if I go back with a little bit of white I can bring that out against that cross brace and touch the edges up.

You can go back and make all these little final adjustments that you think you might need.

Every situation is going to be different.

You might need more of that.

You might need less or none.

I think that looks pretty good.

Okay, now we're going to move on to Mr. Bluebird.

I'm still using the detail script liner.

Now, if this is too much brush for you, this is bigger than the liner.

I have the two brushes here, the liner and the detail script liner.

They look very similar.

This detail script liner is a much bigger brush.

It has more girth.

Holds more paint.

The liner by contrast will come to a finer point, and is much better for doing real, real small things like maybe his eye, and his toes wrapped around the post.

I'm going to take ivory black on my detail script liner.

I'm going to use my little steady stick.

I have a little dowel here I get from the hardware store which makes it really handy to lay my hand on, because I can't touch the canvas because it's wet.

I'm going to come in and paint his black beak.

I'm going to be very careful.

I'm going to leave just a little sliver of white canvas right in the middle of that.

Now, there's two schools of thought on that.

I can go back and fill that in with white paint, or I can literally just leave it.

It's going to be very small.

Nobody's going to know the difference.

If I just leave it like that it's a built in highlight.

It kind of separates the upper and lower halves of the beak.

If I roll this to a point I can still use this one for the eye.

I know I mentioned the other brush, and that would work too.

If this is too much brush for you to handle you can use the smaller one.

I'm going to carefully paint in that eye.

Notice the paint releases off my brush very easily.

That's because I've got it thinned enough to where it's going to come off the brush.

If it's too thick is going to drag.

It's going to feel like it doesn't want to come off your brush.

Getting your paint consistency right is crucial.

Okay, I'm going to bring that to just a little bit more of a tip right there and more of a point.

All right.

There.

Now he can see and he can eat.

He's got a beak and an eye.

All right.

I'm going to swish that out, and I'm going to switch over to my number six round brush.

Not sure I need my steady stick for this just yet, so I'll hang that back over there.

I'm going to take some of the white base coat, and on his belly, notice it's predominately white down in here.

The blue is white also, but it's white that's in shadow, so I call that white as well.

I'm going to fill in the bottom half of his belly.

I'm going to go around the post.

Notice it comes back to his little rumpus right in through there by the tail.

I'll bring it in like that.

I know this is hard to see, but I'm just feeling in this area right here on his lower belly, and I'm painting around that picket.

That picket will show up much better once I put the blue shading on the birds belly.

I'm not putting it up here because I want that to stay kind of dark, so I'm purposely avoiding that area.

Okay.

Underneath by his belly I'm going to take cerulean blue right into the same dirty brush.

Don't get it too dark, but you want it dark enough.

I'm going to see how that reads.

That looks pretty bright, so I'm going to temper that back by putting a little speck of black with it.

Just a minute speck.

That'll gray that down just ever so slightly.

There.

That looks pretty good.

Now, when I do the actual feathers, notice how he looks feathery, it's because I'm tapping the brush when I apply the paint.

I'm not smoothing it out.

You'll see that I'm going to work around that picket first and foremost to get that shape established.

See how that brings that picket forward?

Then I'm going to tap, and if it feels like there's too much paint on your brush there probably is.

If you wipe that off a little bit.

I'm letting the tooth of the canvas do some of the work.

It's showing the texture so everything looks feathery.

I'm just looking at this one as a guide.

I don't have a photo in front of me.

I'm just using the painting that I did from a photo.

Although I dreamt this up.

It wasn't a bluebird on a post.

I found a couple bluebird pictures, and I kind of dreamt up the post when I composed this.

It didn't come all together like this.

I made up my own idea from a couple of reference photos which is what I quite often do.

I'm just darkening down that shadow just a little bit more down near the very bottom.

I'm thinking if I give him a little extra shading right here it's going to bring that picket out a little more, and give him a little more depth overall.

Then I need to, no pun intended, feather it up into the top.

I'm wiping the brush off.

Remember if there's paint on your brush your painting, and if there's not you're blending, and right now I want to be blending.

See, I just tap that.

Notice I'm using the back of the brush, and not always using the end of the brush.

I paint with the back sides of brushes as much as I do the tips.

Sometimes more so.

All right.

See how that's starting to give his body some shape?

Okay, from there I'm going to take, just wipe the brush, you don't need to wash it.

I'm going to take burnt sienna, and right along here underneath his throat I'm going to carefully just fill in around the outline on the outside of his throat where it meets the sky there.

Be careful right there.

That's a touchy spot.

Notice he's a little darker overall down this side and lighter on this side.

The light's coming from this direction.

Same on his head.

His head is darker on the right.

Our right as we're looking at him.

See, this area's dry, there's no base coat there, so it goes on a little harder, but see the nice texture it leaves?

It leaves more of a texture.

By doing the tapping, that's where I get that feathery look.

Eventually, once I get all the colors on, I'm going to wipe this brushoff, and I'm really going to melt the orange into the white and the blue, and marry everything together, but there's no sense in doing that until I get them all on there.

Okay, I'm going to switch colors.

I'm going to take some titanium white with a little bit of the cad red light that we used in the sky in the last episode.

I want to brighten that up, so I'm taking cad red light, a little speck of the sienna that was in my brush still, I really want to brighten this side up.

More orangey.

With the same little tapping application I'm going to put this on.

I'm bringing it right over to the edge of that wing because I'm going to pull that tight edge of that blue wing up against that.

Notice how this is kind of an A shape in there more or less.

It's kind of a high point in the middle of the white, so I'm carving that out.

Again, you want to have a good reference photo to look from.

I've wiped the brush off, and now I'm just going to bring everything together.

I want these two orange colors to melt together, but I want this orange overall, all of this down here on the bottom to just kind of melt away into his belly.

Now see, just by tapping everything just melts right together, but if you look at it closely it's still got a texture like feathers.

I'm not smoothing it out.

That's the key.

Certain things you want smooth.

You want to skin on an apple to be smooth if you're doing a still life, but if you're doing something like this you don't want it so smooth.

I'm going to make a little bit extra dark value right here.

I'm taking more sienna just like I did, and put just a speck of black with it.

I don't want to overdo it, but I want to make sure I get enough distinction from light to dark so his little throat and chest area looks rounded.

See, that's just an adjustment.

It's one of those adjustments you have to make when you're painting.

You're balancing light against dark, and hard edges against soft edges, and you just need to know where everything goes.

There.

I think that looks pretty good.

He's going to look a lot nicer when I put the blue on.

I would like a little more white in his chest.

I lost some of that so I've swished the brush out, and I'll take some more white.

This is just titanium white.

I could use the base coat here too as long as I got it.

Any white will work in this situation.

I'm going to brighten that up just a little bit more, and then lose the edges into the surrounding color, so it doesn't look like I added it in after the fact.

All right.

I think he's coming along pretty well.

[MUSIC] This might seem like a very minor adjustment, but if you take a little extra burnt sienna and black, and you darken your nails down a little bit further you'll see that it makes them look like they're driven further into the wood, and deeper below the surface.

Notice how much extra depth that gives them.

Okay.

I'm going to go back to the detail script liner.

I'm going to start putting the blue on his head.

This is going to be cobalt blue, kind of dark on this side, and I'm going to add white to it for a little bit of highlight on that back side of his head.

Sometimes I like to take a rag, and just fold it over like this and lay it right here, and then when I clean I can just blot, and I don't have to keep a rag in my hand all the time.

It's a pretty handy little tip to know.

I'm going to take cobalt blue, and I'm going to thin it down just a little bit, enough to get it off the brush.

I probably will need my steady stick for this.

I'm going to try to keep my arm out of the way here if I can.

These are pretty bright blue, this bird.

Cobalt blue makes a pretty good blue for these.

Blue Jays are blue, but they're a different shade of blue.

They are more of a muted ultramarine, gray ultramarine color.

At least the ones I see at my feeder.

That's how I paint them.

That tends to work a little nicer.

This is where all the details are, guys, so take your time with this.

You got to cut in around these edges.

I'm going to leave just the slightest, smallest, little sliver of white around his eye if I can.

Just to separate that eye from the background, all the blue.

This is where you want to take your time.

Slow down.

See how he's coming to life now?

Slide my stick over here.

This wing is folded around behind him, so there's not really a lot of detail.

We don't have to show any feather lines, or anything like that on it really.

Let it kind of taper down to infinity as it wraps around him.

I hope you give this painting a shot.

It's not nearly as complicated as you think.

Like I showed you, by taping out the fence it makes it really easy.

I didn't even have to draw the fence.

I let the tape do the work for me.

Now, obviously, if you're working on a bigger canvas with a bigger bird, and you want a bigger fence you just use a wider tape.

You can get tape in all different sizes and widths, so I just use what works.

If worse comes to worse, you could always trim it.

Now, this wing over here, it's going to get a little bit of color on it as well.

My paint feels a little sticky which tells me it's getting dry, so I'm going to add another drop of thinner.

Orange and blue are complementary colors on a color wheel so that's why this little guy looks so vivid.

They say that complementary colors will look very nice when they're used in conjunction with each other, and that's why this really snaps.

I'm going to come underneath here.

Be careful of the picket.

I'm outlining around the picket where his tail comes behind.

It's just a matter of filling this in.

From here basically all I need to do is highlight the back of From here basically all I need to do is highlight the back of his head, and put his little toes curled over the front of that picket that he's sitting on.

Just that easy he falls together.

All right.

This is the tedious part, just filling in all around the outline.

Okay.

Not too bad.

Notice that I was tapping that on there.

I want that feathery look.

Don't make everything too smooth.

You want this outline of the blue a little rough against that orange.

Not like he's wearing a mask, but make it a little jittery.

It's orange feathers against blue feathers, so you want a rougher outline right there.

Not so much on the wings, but on that area of the neck and throat.

Okay.

I'm going to take that cobalt blue, and I'm going to add a little bit of white to it.

I say a little bit, but it's going to be enough to make a difference.

Notice there's a distinct value change right there.

I'm going to flatten this out like a little chisel on two sides, and on the left as we're looking at it, be the right of his head on the back of his neck, but on this side I'm going to put on a little bit of a highlight, and I'm going to make it just a tad lighter.

I'm going to take a little more white because as you work it into the blue it picks up the blue, and that blue's pretty strong so it darkens your color down, your value.

I'm going to tap that on there, and give a little bit of light on there.

Still want just a tad more.

Get it light enough to make a difference.

There we go.

That's just one of those adjustments.

It's like making soup.

You got to dip the ladle in and taste it every now and then, but wipe some of the paint off the brush so I can get a smoother transition from the light to dark as it wraps around.

All right.

He's looking pretty good.

On his tail, I'm going to put just a little sliver of that same color right down this side because that is turned at different angles.

It's folded in the middle, and I'm just going to do that down through the middle.

I'm going to take cobalt blue and a speck of black.

I'm going to thin that, and I'm going to put a little dividing line right down through the middle of the tail.

Something a little darker.

That's not quite dark enough.

All right.

Then we're going to wrap his little toes around that.

I'm going to take my liner.

This is just my number two liner with thinned down black.

You want to look at this one as a reference because those aren't on the sketch, and he's a typical bird which means they have three little toes that curl around the front, and a little thumb on the back.

If birds have thumbs.

I'll call it a thumb.

Just so he's hanging on.

I'm going to swish this out really quickly.

I'm going to take one little dot of base coat, or you could use thin titanium white, and right in his eye I'm going to put a little, small, white dot to give him a spark of life.

Okay, that brings us to a wrap on this project.

I'm going to pull this tape off like I promised earlier, and I'm going to show you these edges.

It gives it a really nice finished off look.

When you put it in a frame that will show through.

It's almost like a poor man's matting.

It looks great, and you'll have that.

I'm so glad you were able to join me for this project.

I'd love to see your version of it.

Send me a copy to my email or on Facebook.

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.

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