- Bring your fishing pole and we'll see if they're biting today in this stony stream.

Join me next on Painting with Wilson Bickford.

(calm music) Hi, thanks for joining me today on Painting with Wilson Bickford.

I've got a little project here entitled stony stream that I wanna share with you today.

This is underpainted with some black acrylic and then it consists mostly of glazes.

If you're not familiar with what a glaze is, I'm gonna show you today.

Before I talk about the prep work, I'll show you what we have for utensils and paints here.

If you go to the WPBS TV website you'll be able to download this supply list.

Tells all the paints and brushes that we're using.

And there's also a reference here for you to paint your canvas up to this point.

I'll talk about that in a minute once I review these brushes for you.

For brushes I'm gonna be using a two inch scenery brush, a number three fan brush, a number two detailed scriptliner, a number four filbert brush, and a one inch small texture brush.

For oil colors, we're using cadmium yellow pale, cadmium red light, ultramarine blue, ivory black, and titanium white.

And I also have some clear glazing medium here that I'm gonna use to cover the whole canvas to make it nice and slippery and blendable, to really flow my colors on.

So how I got to this point, I used black acrylic gesso.

And I actually took a pencil first, I'll just use my brush handle here.

But I took a pencil and I kind of found my creek and the edges and how that's kind of boxed in.

I just drew a light line just until I was happy with it, 'cause if I wasn't I could've erased it and changed it at that point.

Get it the way you want it.

Once I know where that was, I kind of found this edge a little bit in here just so I had some sort of an idea where I was going, how much gap I had in here.

From there, I took my number four filbert brush with the black acrylic, and I came in and I just carefully painted around my edge.

I want interesting edges out here.

These are gonna be somewhat lost anyway because we're gonna put stones over them, but I kind of found my edges here with the black acrylic.

Once I got up to this point, I used my one inch small texture brush, and I put the black acrylic, again I just kinda tapped.

Put some indications of trees.

Notice I didn't fill it in solid.

You see daylight through there.

Our colors will show right through that from our sky.

You want that to remain open and breathable.

Leave your foliage nice and open.

But I kinda put on the indication of some of the tree's limbs and the leaves, I should say.

And then I used my detail scriptliner, and with thinned down black acrylic I put some trunks in there, some limbs sticking out.

Just get it the way you want it so it looks like a photograph of the scene with the sky, the trees, and the water.

That was acrylic, so you wanna make sure you take all of your brushes that you used for the acrylic, put them in soap and water.

Just dish soap would be fine, anything you have.

Wash them out with soap and water, dry them off really well, and then you can use them with your oil.

So here we go, off and running.

I'm gonna use my two inch scenery brush, I'm gonna put a thin coat.

Now this is dry, by the way, this is acrylic.

Make sure this is dry at this stage.

You can paint it and let it dry on its own, it'll be dry in 10 minutes or you can hit it with a hair dryer and have it dry in a minute.

Doesn't matter, just make sure it's dry.

I'm gonna use my two inch scenery brush with some of this clear glazing medium.

I'm gonna put a thin coat over the whole canvas.

Now this is clear, so you're probably thinking well I'm not even gonna be able to see where I'm putting it.

You'll see it actually makes the black look a little darker and you can actually track your progress and kinda see where you're going with it.

If not, if you get off to the side and get the shine the light on it, it shows up really well.

At home right now on your screen it might not show too well, but I can see it here enough to know that I'm putting a nice thin coat over the whole section.

This painting from this point on falls together pretty easily.

We're just simply gonna take our primaries and put the colors in there and they're gonna be clear and transparent, which is what a glaze is.

We talked about glazing at the intro.

And you'll see that it falls together pretty easily.

I'm gonna take some of this cadmium yellow pale.

No white in it.

And if I go right through here, see I can do right over the trees, I can get the yellow in those gaps in the trees.

It might look slightly greenish because the yellow over the top of the black will make green, but we're gonna put green on the trees anyway, so it really won't matter.

And you can make your glaze stronger just by, if I use more yellow, see it's more intense.

So it depends on how light or how dark you want it.

I'm gonna do the same thing in the water in the corresponding area.

Right in this area.

It would be reflected.

About like that.

See, it's already starting to look like something.

It's magic.

It's actually very simple.

From there I'm gonna add a little bit of this cadmium red light.

Now it I mix it into some of the yellow it's gonna be more of a yellowy-orange.

If I use it might full strength like this it's gonna be much stronger.

Depends on what you want, it's all good.

That's pretty strong right there, I'm going pretty rich with that color, but that's my preference.

Same as you'll have, you'll have a preference, and how strong you wanna go with that color.

I'm gonna leave some room here at the top for my blue, so I'm not gonna go all the way to the top.

That would be a corresponding reflection down here as well.

If you wanna talk about an easy painting, this is the one guys, this is the one right here.

Pretty easy and straight forward.

Now between these two I wanna blend those together.

So I'm gonna wipe the brush off and just lightly kinda do a light criss-cross like this.

Essentially I'm kinda pulling the orange down and the yellow back up on the up stroke.

See it kinda blends them together pretty seamlessly.

Same thing down here.

I'm gonna wipe the brush off thoroughly, 'cause I'm gonna come back with blue.

I'm gonna start with just a little bit of that medium on my brush, the clear glaze.

'Cause it was pretty dry.

And I'm gonna take some of the blue.

Don't want a lot of color on the brush, as far as a lot of paint.

So if I get too much on I'll wipe some off.

Gonna put this up here.

And down here.

I'm gonna come back and blend that.

See I just brush this right on.

It'll show up in the white canvas areas, but it'll kinda get lost in the black areas.

So I'm gonna wipe it off and just do a little bit of a criss-cross, try to get 'em to hold hands and play together nicely and kinda lose the edge.

Same thing here.

This is a lot different than working with the white base coat that I normally use a lot of times.

Because it's transparent.

I can paint over stuff.

You can imagine trying to use that white base coat on here, wouldn't work very well.

Right here we got a little greenish.

I'm gonna put green on the trees anyway, but if any of that bugs you, just take a rag, nothing on the rag, this is dry paper towel, so you can blot some of that back a little bit.

And that easy we have the sky.

And the water.

I'm gonna use the number four filbert brush here.

I want a little extra added brightness.

Right above those bushes in the middle.

I'm gonna actually take white.

I'm not painting a sun, a round sun in there but I'm putting a bright sense of light that we know the sun's kinda in behind there.

And I feather it away on the top so it's not contained, it's just a glow.

See if I put it on a little heavier it's a little brighter, a little whiter.

And I'll hem that in with some of my green later.

So I'll have a raggedy edge against it.

Here's the cool part, watch this.

I'm gonna take a fair amount of titanium white on this filbert brush, and right underneath, right in the corresponding area below that sun spot, I'm gonna lay this on kinda thick.

See I'm scooping it right up right on the backside of that brush.

I'm putting it on kind of thick and chunky and heavy.

If I don't get enough on there to work with it won't give me the effect I want.

And then I'm gonna take my number three fan brush.

I'm gonna hold it vertically this way and just lightly drag across through that and you'll see it kinda stretches it out.

It's great for putting a sheen on the water.

Pretty cool, huh?

You can do this, can't ya?

Yeah I think so.

I got faith in you, I know you can.

Okay, from there I'm gonna take my one inch small texture brush.

I'm gonna start adding some of the greenery to the trees.

I don't have a green so I'm gonna mix up a green.

I'm gonna take ultramarine blue, some of this yellow, which will give me green obviously.

Blue and yellow will give me green, everybody knows that.

To mute that down, I'm gonna put a little bit of this red with it.

And red is the complimentary color to the green on the color wheel.

They're directly opposed across from each other.

If you think of it as a clock dial, red is at 12 o'clock and the green is at six o'clock.

They're directly across from each other, which means I can gray that down.

I want it green but not vibrant green, so I'm kinda muting it a little bit with the red and I'm gonna try this color.

I'm not sure, and I am gonna come back and highlight a little brighter, so I'm not starting out of the gate with the brightest color I can possibly get.

So I'm gonna toy with this color a little.

I'm gonna try this and see.

This might be too dark.

I'm gonna try it and see what I think.

Yeah, it's a little too dark.

I'm gonna put just a trifle of white with that.

A little bit of white makes a big difference.

Tread lightly with the white.

Okay, let's try this.

Now notice how generously I'm loading this brush.

I've got the bristles tapped right open and spread out.

Quite a bit of paint.

When you come to your canvas you wanna use a lighter touch.

If you have a lot of paint on your brush, use a light touch.

See I just wanna incorporate a little bit of color in here.

It's brightest in this area, so I keeping it little more subdued and darker up here anyway.

See I randomly just kind of bounce around.

Let your leaves breathe a little bit.

Notice how I'm letting some of that dark permeate through there.

That's why I underpainted it with the dark.

Want some of that to show.

Over on this side it's kinda the same thing.

Notice I'm turning the brush to and fro as I do it.

That way I don't get a footprint of the same exact shape.

I don't get the same lie on the brush.

See I want this to be kinda shadowy, so it's just subdued enough.

All right, that's looking pretty good.

All right, I can live with that.

How about you?

Looking pretty good?

I think so.

Okay, from there I'm gonna wipe the brush off.

I'm going to use white.

I'll mix it right nextdoor to this color on my palette so I can tell how much of a difference I made.

How far I've come with the tonal value.

I want it to be more yellowy, not yellow yellow, but a yellow-green, so I'm gonna put just a touch of the ultramarine blue back in it.

Something brighter, yellowy-green.

Again, quite a bit of paint on the brush.

Keep those bristles spread open.

Use a light touch, and right in this area is where it's gonna have the biggest glow of the light kinda coming through there.

So that's the area that I'm going to target.

See I'm mostly using the corner of the brush just to get into that little area.

As it comes away, I want it to get less and less so I just use a lighter touch and literally let the brush kinda run out of paint.

I can take a little up in here too where it looks like the light might hit.

I can do the insides of these branches a little bit.

Don't wanna get too carried away.

See this is making a focal point in here.

It's gonna draw the viewer into your canvas, into the middle of the canvas.

Okay, I'm gonna wipe this off and go back to some of that dark color I had, 'cause I wanna bring this down a little lower here.

I'm using less paint so it's gonna overall stay a little bit darker.

Which will really emphasize this area as being lighter.

All right.

All right, that's looking pretty good I'd say.

(calm music) If you want to add a spark of life to your stony stream, you could add some birds or maybe a duck in the water.

I've got my liner brush, and if I thin down some black, I can use black because it's just a silhouette because the light is so bright.

This is the dry painting.

You could do it on the wet one as well.

Let's see, if I wanted to put a bird in the sky, it's as simple as this.

If you make a mistake and he looks like that, simply take a paper towel, just slightly damp with a little thinner, and it comes right off, no harm done, you get to try it again.

For a duck or a loon, some sort of water fowl in the water, it's the same idea.

I'll do a loon.

Their backside kinda tapers off into the water like this.

They have a long body.

See it doesn't take much.

If he's in the water he's gonna have a little bit of a reflection.

So underneath, I can just do a few little dash lines like this to make it look like he's anchored, and it doesn't take much to put a spark of life in there.

And then we have stones.

I'm gonna use my filbert brush.

I got a lot of white on that from doing my glare on my water so I am gonna wash this out.

I have just a pail of mineral spirits here.

To scrub that brush out.

The stones are actually pretty simple.

And I've got this really hard edge here but I, my intention is to kind of eliminate most of that and just get a softer edge here of individual rocks on there.

This was just the underpainting to get it started to provide some of the darks in behind it.

So, I'm gonna mix up kind of a warmer color.

If I take some of this red that I had earlier with a little bit of yellow, gives me more of an orange, think maybe a pumpkin orange color.

And I put just a little bit of black with it.

Not much.

And some white.

That might be too bright, or too orange.

So I'll put a little more black with it.

I want something kinda warm, a warm value that's gonna look like sunlight on those rocks.

This one's much more pale, but it depends on your mood.

I want it lighter like this, I can just put more white with it.

I am gonna come back and rehighlight some of these.

Get a color that you like.

And here's the gist of doing the rocks.

They're actually pretty simple.

I'm gonna load the brush to a chiseled edge.

Let me set this right up here.

I'm gonna load the brush like this.

Fair amount of paint to a nice chiseled edge.

To do the rocks, I'm holding it horizontally and I just give a twist and turn with my fingers.

Where I want a smaller rock, I just do a tighter little circle so it's a smaller shape.

If I want a bigger rock I drag across a little bit longer.

I can do a bigger stone.

And it's just a matter, I can do it to the left or the right, doesn't matter.

Quite a simple process, very effective no less.

So I'm going to load this up.

It doesn't really matter where you start, but I am gonna start in the background and work forward.

But it doesn't matter if you start on this side or this side.

Those are a little too orange for my taste.

So I'm gonna take a little more white, and believe it or not I'm gonna add a little bit of blue.

Blue is the compliment, it will gray that down so it's not so orangey.

I'm just changing my flavor.

There we go, that's not quite so orangey.

I like that a little better.

Orange you glad we used that color?

(laughs) A little artistic humor there, very little, I know, but nonetheless.

So see, I'm just going to do that little flick of the wrist and I'm gonna put some of these rocks in here.

This is called stony stream so we want it stony.

When you see my brush disappear I'm just chiseling it up, putting more paint on it.

Now generally speaking as we get lower on the canvas, that means you're getting closer to the viewer.

So in the interest of linear perspective, it's a good idea to make some of these a little larger.

On this one I didn't quite so much, but for the sake of the lesson I'm gonna do it the right way today.

So see as I get lower, I'm gonna start elongating those out and making some of them overall a little larger, which will make more sense as they're getting closer, they're gonna appear bigger.

Notice I am leaving some black showing between them.

If you just much rock on top of rock on top of rock, you don't have any distinction of individual rocks in there.

So I try to leave some of that dark showing in between.

See it doesn't take much.

This is a nice technique to know about, 'cause if you're painting any type of landscape and you need to take up some room this is a good way to do it.

You just have an open area and you wanna make rocks in there this is how you do it, one way to do it at least.

One of the easier ways.

Quite effective, but not complicated.

Okay, come down here.

Now I am going to take a little bit of white and add to my color and I'm gonna give a little kiss of light on some of these.

But before I do that, I'm gonna put some out in the water.

Notice I'm not just handcuffed to those.

I can actually put some more out in the water.

To do that I wanna go darker, so I'm gonna use some of this orangey-red that I used before with a little bit of black.

I'm gonna base them in dark first, just like it was underneath with the acrylic.

And I'll put a few out here in the water on their own.

They could basically kinda go anywhere.

So you are the artist, so put them where you think you want them.

It's no big deal.

Don't try to make everything so slick and perfect.

All right, that's looking pretty good.

Okay, now I'm gonna wipe the brush off.

I'm gonna come back and put a little kiss of light on some of these.

So if I take white, a little yellow, make it lighter than what you've had previously.

Load it up pretty much the same way, and as I'm thinking that the light's coming down through here, it's just gonna hit certain tops of rocks more so than others.

They're all at different angles.

If it feels like it's not coming off your brush and doesn't wanna adhere to your canvas you can add a little bit of thinner or a little bit of this medium on the palette to it.

Give these a little touch of light.

That's a good way to give them a little more dimension and shape.

Just pick them at random.

I'm actually highlighting some of the rocks I've already established.

I'm not creating new ones now, 'cause that's gonna take up all of my dark space, so I'm actually just singling out some of the ones that are already there.

And putting a little extra light on them.

And then I can wipe the brush off if they need to be softened a little tad.

I can wipe the brush off and just, especially on the bottom, if they look like they have a hard edge, I wanna soften that edge away a little bit and it gives it the feeling that it's kinda falling down into the shadow and it belongs there and it's anchored.

And just that easy we've got a stony stream.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson, it's a good one to start out with, if you've never painted much, this will be a good lesson to get your feet wet, no pun intended, as you step into that stream.

If you give this a try, send me a photo.

I'd love to see it.

Until next time, stay creative and keep painting.

(calm music) - [Narrator] All 13 episodes of Painting with Wilson Bickford series six are now available on DVD or Blu-Ray in one box set for $35 plus $4.96 shipping and handling.

Or learn the techniques used to paint stand of birches.

With the in depth paint smart not hard series of Wilson Bickford instructional DVDs.

Additional titles available.

Order online or watch or download directly to your computer or mobile device.

More information at wpbstv.org/painting.

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