The Joy of Painting 23x5

1. Hi, certainly glad to see you today.

2. You ready to do a fantastic little painting?

3. Tell you what, let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen

4. that you need to paint along with us.

5. While they're doing that, let me show you what I've got done up here today.

6. I have my standard old canvas up here.

7. This is a pre-stretched, double-primed canvas, and I've covered it with just a

8. thin, even coat of liquid white from top to bottom,

9. And it's ready to go.

10. So let's just do a fantastic little painting together and just have a good

11. time.

12. Today let's start with a very small amount.

13. Oh, let's use a little bit, a little bit of the Indian yellow.

14. Not much, just a little.

15. On the two inch brush, there we go.

16. Just tap a little into the bristles.

17. All right, let's go right up here.

18. Let's just start right along in here.

19. I think the horizon's gonna be somewhere in this area.

20. And it doesn't really matter.

21. and we'll just blend it upward using little criss-cross strokes and that way

22. it's mixing with the liquid white that's on the canvas and automatically it'll

23. blend and get lighter and very smooth and there.

24. A little bit more of the Indian yellow and let's have a little bit down this

25. direction.

26. Shoot, maybe we'll have a little water in here.

27. You know me, I love water.

28. So we'll just put a little bit of this right down to where we know there's gonna

29. be some water.

30. About like that.

31. This is a very simple little painting.

32. I think you'll like it. I think you'll like this one.

33. All right, let me wash the old brush.

34. And we wash our brush in odorless paint thinner.

35. As I've mentioned before, I really, really suggest you use odorless thinner.

36. Just beat the devil out of it.

37. If you don't use odorless thinner, you're gonna be working by yourself.

38. And your popularity around the home front's gonna go down about 15 points.

39. Here we go, I'm gonna take a little bit of the midnight black.

40. Just midnight black on the two inch brush.

41. And let's go up in here and very gently, still using our little criss-cross strokes, let's

42. just put a little bit of that right up in here.

43. It too will mix with the liquid white and you get those beautiful, beautiful values

44. there.

45. It just begins blending.

46. Something about like that.

47. And we'll just put it down to about that area and then we'll come back with a clean

48. brush and blend it in a second.

49. Okay, now then, a little bit into the water.

50. And if we're gonna have water, let's just do this.

51. Pull from the outside in.

52. I'm still using nothing but just black.

53. Right about there.

54. And anything that we don't want to be water, we'll just put land right over it.

55. As you know, if you've painted with us before, we don't make mistakes.

56. We have happy accidents.

57. And by that, I just mean that after a while, you begin to learn to work with

58. anything that happens.

59. We really don't make mistakes.

60. You learn to use what happens.

61. And it's when you truly, truly experience the joy of painting.

62. Because there's no fear of this canvas.

63. And with this style of painting, that will happen very rapidly.

64. There.

65. Little bit of practice, just sort of a dream in your mind of what you want to

66. paint.

67. And off you go.

68. Okay, let's wash the old brush again.

69. Just wash the brush, shake off the excess.

70. Then we're in trouble again.

71. Now, when you do this at home, they make such a little thing, it's called a

72. brush beater rack, and it goes down to the bottom of a waste basket, and you can

73. shake the brush inside of the basket, then beat that rack, and it contains all this, because

74. you certainly want to do that in your living room.

75. As I say, you'll change your decor in a second.

76. Now then, clean, dry brush, and it needs to be very dry.

77. We just begin blending where these two colors come together.

78. And you want to blend it until you can't tell where one color starts and the next

79. color stops.

80. And sometimes to do that, you need to sort of step back and take a look-see at your

81. painting.

82. When you're right up against it, it's very, very difficult to tell what

83. you're doing.

84. Step back across the room, get your glass of iced tea, sit down maybe and look at

85. your painting for a minute or two.

86. And then you can tell what you have.

87. A lot of times people write and they ask me how I develop all these paintings

88. because when this series is over, there'll be nearly 300 paintings.

89. There will be 300 paintings.

90. Then one of the ways, as crazy as it sounds, a lot of times I'll start with

91. just a blank canvas and sit and stare at it and begin visualizing things, and as

92. you put each little thing on there, step back and look at it and think about it, and

93. you learn to compose that way.

94. There, tell you what, let's have some fun.

95. I'm gonna take some black, some black alizarin crimson mixed together, just

96. black and alizarin.

97. And that'll make a nice lavender-like color.

98. Pull it out very flat, flat as you can get it.

99. Cut across and get that little roll of paint and it should live right at the

100. edge of your blade.

101. I mean it's right out on the very edge, okay?

102. Maybe in our world, come right up in here.

103. Maybe there's a little, way back in there, there's a little hill or a little

104. mountain that lives way back right there.

105. And all we're looking for is a nice shape on top.

106. There, we're really not concerned with the bottom of it at this point.

107. Something maybe like that.

108. This one's gonna be far, far away.

109. So we're not looking for a lot of detail.

110. We're looking for a basic shape, and that's all.

111. And underneath it, since this is water, there's gonna be some reflection, so you

112. can just reflect it right into the water while you have that color on your knife.

113. Okay.

114. And I'm really, as you can probably hear, I'm rubbing quite hard with a knife.

115. I want to literally push this paint right into the fabric.

116. Just as my son Steve says, just sort of mush it in there.

117. That's probably not a word, but everybody understands what he means when he says

118. that.

119. Just mush it in there.

120. All right.

121. Now then, with the old two inch brush here, just sort of blend that out.

122. Just blend it out.

123. And you can actually make it look like highlights and shadows just by using brush

124. strokes in here.

125. There we go.

126. There, brush strokes, that's the name of our newsletter.

127. There.

128. We do a lot of interesting articles in that.

129. I really enjoy writing for it.

130. Now then, where our reflections are, just pull that straight down.

131. Straight down.

132. See there? And instantly, we have reflections go across

133. And that's all there is to it.

134. Reflections used to drive me crazy when I was a traditional painter.

135. And in this style of painting, it may very well be one of the easiest things that

136. we do.

137. And you can take a little of the dark paint

138. And here and there, maybe just put in the indication of some little shadows and

139. highlights without really doing a great deal.

140. If you put too much detail in here, it's gonna destroy that illusion of distance

141. in your painting.

142. And we want it to look like it's far, far away back here.

143. But just rub it with a knife.

144. There.

145. See, and you can just let that just blend anywhere that you want it.

146. It gives the indication without a lot of detail.

147. Sometimes it's neat to take just a little touch of the dark sienna, white, not much

148. white, and right down here at the bottom, just really scrub in a little bit of that.

149. Make it look like there's a little dirt down at the bottom of it.

150. But that's up to you. You may not want to put that in.

151. Strictly up to you. I sort of like it.

152. It changes the flavor a little bit.

153. There.

154. All right.

155. Now we can take a little bit of the liquid

156. pull it out very flat, just as flat as we can get it, and then cut across, just like

157. that.

158. And we can go up in here, and just begin cutting in the indication of a little

159. water line.

160. There we go.

161. Now, if you make these and they're too thick, or you don't like them, if you

162. just take the knife and rub them, just rub them very hard, they'll just basically

163. disappear right into the color that's on the canvas.

164. And I tell you little things like that in case you ever make it.

165. A lot of people get worried that they've made a mistake.

166. That's not a mistake.

167. All you do is just rub it a little more.

168. Don't worry about it.

169. There's nothing to fear on this piece of canvas.

170. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that you enjoy it.

171. It's fun. Painting should be fun.

172. If painting doesn't make you happy, then you're doing the wrong thing.

173. And if you're fortunate enough, as I have been, to take something that you

174. love as much as this, and learn how to do it for a living, and be fortunate enough

175. to be successful at it, my God, the world's a great place then.

176. Tell you what, we'll just use this old two inch brush that's dirty here.

177. Let's take a little black,

178. Little Van Dyke brown, little touch of the Prussian blue.

179. We need some crimson, too.

180. Shoot, might as well put a little sap green in there.

181. Just all the dark colors, basically.

182. Tap a little bit of that color into the brush.

183. We're just pushing and tapping the old two - inch.

184. Let's go up here.

185. Maybe in our world, there lives, yep, does now.

186. Maybe there's some nice little things that live right along in here.

187. And all we're looking for at this point are some very, very basic little shapes.

188. Maybe there's a tree that lives right here.

189. Just a happy little tree, hangs out here and looks back at the mountain that's

190. in the distance.

191. Well, maybe this is a big tree, seems to be growing on us.

192. That's all right.

193. That's all right.

194. We can have any size tree in our world that we want.

195. Okay, now while we have this dark color on here, let's just pop in a little

196. reflection.

197. We can do that, we're just pulling straight down.

198. But it's important that these lines go straight down.

199. And then very lightly, two hairs and some air, just go across.

200. And sometimes, sometimes, let me see here, we had black and blue, little brown, crimson,

201. little sap green I think, something like that.

202. Let me wipe off the old knife here.

203. I just wipe the knife on a paper towel just to clean it.

204. We use a fan brush.

205. Maybe we'll put a little evergreen tree in there.

206. I like little evergreens and they're a lot of fun to do.

207. And they work so nice.

208. Okay, load both sides of the brush with a lot of paint.

209. Okay, let's go up in here.

210. And maybe, big decision time, maybe our little evergreen lives right there.

211. Take the corner of the brush and just touch.

212. And as you work down the tree,

213. touch harder, and you're pushing the bristles downward.

214. Make them bend downward.

215. And as you go down the tree, push harder and harder, and that makes the tree

216. get wider and wider.

217. And it almost happens automatically.

218. With a little practice, you'd be surprised how easy it is to make something like an

219. evergreen tree.

220. All there is to it.

221. Now we can take that same color, go into a little bit of the cad yellow, and we

222. have instant green, because there's blue in there, and black, and both of them, when

223. mixed with yellow, make green.

224. And we can highlight that little tree with the same old brush, no problem.

225. There. And then a cute little tree, and you can do that.

226. All right, let's have a tree trunk in there.

227. We'll take some paint thinner, some paint thinner, a little bit of the Van Dyke

228. brown, or whatever color you would like for your trunk to be.

229. I thought today brown would be nice.

230. And let's come right along here and choo, choo, choo, choo.

231. This old tree seems to be leaning over, so we'll make its trunk lean over too.

232. Looks funny if you got a straight trunk and a crooked tree, so we'll have them

233. both crookedy.

234. and put a few little arms and limbs on it.

235. We're gonna put some leaves out here, so most of this will be covered up, but a

236. little of it will show.

237. There.

238. And you can take the brush and pull it through a little bit of white or liquid

239. white, just some light color, and run right down his edge like that, and give

240. him a highlight, that easy.

241. And just sort of blend him back.

242. Now you got a light side and a dark side of your tree.

243. Well, I tell you what, we're into using old dirty brushes.

244. We'll use that same old brush today.

245. Go right into a little bit of the yellow, a little yellow ochre.

246. Here and there, we're gonna touch a little bit of the bright red.

247. And the bright red is used as a duller.

248. It dulls the green down.

249. Okay, see that little bit of paint there?

250. That's what we're looking for, just push it, okay?

251. Now then, using just the corner of the brush, or you could do this with one of

252. the round brushes, or the oval brush works very well for this too, beautifully.

253. Now then, let's just tap in some nice little highlights on this tree.

254. I sort of like this old two inch brush.

255. I like it, and if you're demonstrating for people, and that's really a lot of fun, to

256. demonstrate for people.

257. Use this old big brush because they're just not used to seeing this much

258. detail done with a brush the size of something you probably painted the barn

259. with last week.

260. It really grabs people's attention.

261. There.

262. Maybe, while I got that going, maybe, yeah, we'll have another little tree that

263. lives right there.

264. You just sort of pick them out.

265. They live right in there.

266. All you gotta do is just find them.

267. There.

268. Okay.

269. Maybe there's a little touch back in here, I don't want much back here.

270. Just a little, just to indicate.

271. Now another way of making a lot of beautiful little bushes, we'll use the one

272. inch brush, put some liquid white on it, and the liquid white is only to thin the other

273. color.

274. Be right back, let me get a little green here.

275. Pull this in one direction, one direction.

276. Look at the end of it, a lot of paint in there.

277. A lot of paint.

278. But by pulling it in one direction, you round one corner.

279. Turn it over and that rounded corner goes to the top.

280. Let's go right up here.

281. Now, with a rounded corner up, touch and just push.

282. Gently upward, it's a very gentle push.

283. You do not have to push hard.

284. There we go. And that's all there is to it.

285. You can make some of the most gorgeous, lacy - looking little bushes.

286. Do one at a time.

287. Don't get greedy.

288. One at a time.

289. One at a time, and that way they will look layered.

290. One's on top of the other.

291. There. Okay, something about like so for right now.

292. And then we can...

293. Take our liquid white and I'll put a least little touch of, we'll use a little blue, not

294. much blue, tiniest little bit of Prussian blue and black.

295. I want a gray color.

296. Maybe, tell you what, a little dark sand in there too.

297. Oh, that's nice, that's what I'm looking for.

298. Tiniest little bit of color on there.

299. And we'll just make the indication of land using nothing

300. that's already on the canvas and just let them blend together.

301. And it's a very simple way of making a nice little area that looks like land

302. without doing a whole bunch.

303. And with a clean knife, you can just take and scrape in some little trunks and

304. sticks and stems and just all kinds of little things that live in the woods.

305. There they are.

306. Something like so, wherever you want them.

307. Tell you what, I'm gonna take a little bit of the liquid clear.

308. Get a little liquid clear to that.

309. I'm gonna add titanium white and midnight black.

310. I wanna make a nice thin, that's the key word, thin gray color.

311. But it's very thin. Okay, let me lay that up there.

312. Clean off the old knife.

313. Now, today let's use, let's use a filbert brush.

314. Okay, I'm gonna go right through the midnight black, load both sides full of

315. color, just like so.

316. Now we walk right over in here, and I'm gonna take and pull one side through

317. that thin light color we made.

318. So we have dark on one side, light on the other.

319. Now watch.

320. We come up in here, and with one stroke, we can put the indication of a lot of little

321. stones and rocks and things that are happening right back in here.

322. But that way it'll make the highlight and the shadow in one stroke.

323. Then you need to come back with a color used and just sort of go around the edges

324. and clean the edges of all that up.

325. There.

326. All right.

327. Let's get crazy today.

328. Let's go back into our dark color.

329. Yeah, let's do this. What the heck.

330. See, as I say, anything that you don't want in here in the way of water, we'll

331. just cover it up.

332. Maybe this comes, let's go all the way across.

333. Now this we can just fill in any old way.

334. You could fill this in with a paint roller.

335. It doesn't make any difference.

336. We're just putting color on the canvas.

337. If you're into using the black gesso like I am, I love that stuff, you could

338. actually have done all this with the black gesso and it'd been that much easier.

339. There. Okay, I really like that black gesso.

340. We use it so much.

341. I could just about do a whole series with nothing but black gesso.

342. You know what we need? You know me and my big trees.

343. Yep.

344. Let's have another big old tree lives right here.

345. All right.

346. There.

347. Maybe this big old tree just keeps climbing right on up.

348. And this is your world, so you decide where your tree lives.

349. Sometimes they just keep growing until they get clean on out of sight.

350. Maybe we'll do that, what the heck.

351. Let's just have one that goes right on off the canvas.

352. And all we're doing here is just putting in some dark color so our highlights

353. will show when we drop them on.

354. Just lay in a basic shape, and all I'm using is the corner of the brush, just

355. the corner of the brush.

356. A little black, run out of color.

357. Crimson, sap green, little blue, little brown.

358. Maybe right there, yep, you're right.

359. We'll just have a happy little bush.

360. He lives there.

361. I want one over here, too. I don't want this side left out.

362. He lives right there.

363. But didn't that need how you can just close that in?

364. That easy.

365. Now then, we need a tree trunk over here.

366. Let's take a little Van Dyke brown, and just using the side of the knife, you

367. can drop in a nice little trunk, that easy.

368. That easy.

369. Firm up the other side.

370. He needs a friend.

371. You know me.

372. I'm fanatical about people having friends, and even trees need a friend.

373. And painting has allowed me to meet so many people and make so many friends.

374. That's probably the most rewarding part of this whole thing, is all the friends

375. that we've made traveling all over the country and people watching the shows.

376. All right, let's take a little white, a little dark sienna, not much, pull it

377. out flat, and cut off a little roll of paint.

378. And I'm gonna touch and just give it a little round pull.

379. And let me exaggerate, I'm going but very, very gently.

380. There, we'll do the other one.

381. Something like that.

382. And just let it go right on up.

383. Okay, let me go back to our brush that has the, yeah, has some nice grassy colors

384. on it.

385. We were working on the other side

386. Let's put some highlights on this tree.

387. This would be a fantastic tree for one of my little creatures to live in.

388. I gotta show you one of my creatures.

389. Here recently, my son Steve, who I'm sure you've seen on some of the other series, came

390. to Florida to visit me.

391. And I had the opportunity to introduce him to a couple of my little squirrels.

392. And Steve had never had a squirrel set on him before.

393. So it was, he's a little nervous about having this little

394. tree urchin run all over his body.

395. But he sat and watched for a little while and pretty soon Steve was sure that he

396. could handle it.

397. But aren't these the cutest little devils?

398. Now you saw these in earlier series, this little squirrel here, when he was just a

399. tiny, tiny little baby.

400. And now he's grown up and we've turned him loose and he moved far away.

401. In fact, when I open my back door, I can look right up into his nest.

402. There's a tree limb that comes right over my back door and these two little brothers

403. built a nest literally right over the back door so they can tell anytime anybody

404. comes out and hopefully they'll have a nut with them when they come out to feed them.

405. I'm just putting some leaves on this tree while you're watching Steve there.

406. Okay, now then, we go back into the liquid white and through some color.

407. Maybe we'll get a little yellow ochre.

408. Sometimes it's fun to tip it.

409. There, I'll do it this way.

410. Tip it with a little red.

411. And then we can make a bush here that has red flowers in one stroke.

412. There we go. A little bit more over in here.

413. See, and just let those little rascals, they just live right here in your brush.

414. Let's go on the other side and give it a few.

415. Don't want that side left out.

416. There.

417. But just push and turn the brush to shape your individual bush or tree.

418. Don't just hit them all in one direction because the leaves and limbs hang every

419. which way.

420. And change the flavor of the paint, the color, every so often.

421. Then you can just put all kinds of little things in there.

422. And put as many or as few as you want in your world.

423. Sometimes, it's fun.

424. Watch here, we'll take a little brown, little Van Dyke, little dark sienna, mix together.

425. Do something like this.

426. Then we'll come back with a little touch of the brown and white.

427. Barely grazing, just let it graze.

428. See, and you can just turn it into a nice little path that comes through there.

429. Back to our brush, it has the greens and stuff on it.

430. We come back and we tap in some little grassy areas that live right down here at

431. the bottom of these bushes.

432. Just tapping.

433. Once again, change your flavor every so often.

434. You can add a least little touch of titanium white.

435. That'll brighten it up.

436. If you have trouble making this thick, add the least little touch of liquid white or

437. paint thinner.

438. If you don't want to change the color, use paint thinner, but very, very little of it.

439. I can't say that enough. Very little of it.

440. Work in layers, just like you did with the bushes.

441. Other side, we'll put some over here.

442. There we go.

443. All kinds of little things.

444. So I say every once in a while just sort of change the flavor and it'll stand out

445. and look like a whole little different hill there.

446. And that easy you can make all kinds of little things.

447. We'll put a few little quick stones in there using that black with a thin

448. black on top, that thin gray.

449. And you can just go in here and pop in the indication.

450. That's some little stones that live right along the bank.

451. That easy. Maybe we'll put a big one right there.

452. And there's one.

453. Cover up his little foots.

454. Take a knife, clean up the edges, and shoot, you about have a finished painting.

455. Something like that.

456. I really hope you've enjoyed this one.

457. It's a lot of fun.

458. Give it a try.

459. And from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my

460. friend.