[Music] Hi, I'm certainly glad to see you again today.

And let's do a fantastic little painting together.

You know, in each series you gotta have a day that's a little crazy and this is my crazy day.

And I've got something a little different up here today.

I've got a black canvas here, as you can see, but I found some tape laying around the studio here and I've just run some tape around the edges.

And then I've covered the whole entire part of this canvas with a mixture of phthalo blue and sap green, and just a thin, even coat all the way over it.

And we make these black canvases by painting them with black gesso, which is designed specifically to make these canvases this way.

The gesso's allowed to dry completely and then onto that we put a transparent paint and we don't let that dry.

We start painting on it while the transparent paint is still wet.

So I tell you what, let's have them all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with me.

And as they start that, let's go on up here and get started on this old canvas.

This is a fun painting.

I think you'll really like this one; a lot of fun.

I'm going to start today, old fan brush and titanium white.

Just load a little color into the brush, both sides, like so, like so.

Let's go up here.

Now then, as I say, this is our crazy day, so just take the brush and just let it spin.

Just have fun with it.

Spin, let it go anywhere it wants to go, wherever.

Just all make all kinds of little things.

And see, it's beginning to pick up that color that's on the canvas, the transparent color, it's still wet.

Keep the brush moving so you get all kinds of different little designs.

See, I told you this would be fun.

And you can't make a mistake here.

This is, this is enjoyable.

Load the brush as it needs paint, and there's not a great deal of paint on the canvas.

You really don't need a lot of paint.

Push that brush in there and bend it.

Just get all those little actions.

All kinds of nice little things.

We'll put one right up there, too, what the heck.

See, and you have to sort of make a decision here.

Maybe it'll come down about that far.

Now then, we can wash our little fan brush.

And we'll just wash it with odorless thinner, and wipe it on a paper towel.

That's all you have to do.

Okay, now then, let me find a big brush.

Make sure it's good and dry, and I'm very gently here, just gently, I'm going to blend this, watch here.

Just blend it, just sort of paint up and down on it.

Like so, that's all there is to it.

And right now, [chuckles] right now you're saying, "Bob, you have really done it this time."

Maybe so, maybe so.

There, look how color shows up on these black canvases, though.

It's really fantastic.

All right, now then, we go back and get the fan brush.

I'm going to go right into midnight black, just straight old midnight black.

Same old fan brush, load a lot of color into it.

Okay, let's go back up here.

Now then, I want to make the indication of some little, distant trees that are far back in the woods.

So we just take the fan brush and just tap.

Just tap, and it makes those edges nice and fuzzy.

Evergreen trees have sort of fuzzy edges.

And you decide how many trees you want back here.

Wherever you want them, just drop them in.

Maybe there's one right there.

Shoot, let's go over here.

There's one.

And let some of them have little crooks in them.

Don't make them all exactly straight because trees grow every which way.

However it makes them happy.

Maybe, yep, you're right.

Let's have another one right there.

Wherever, wherever.

Maybe, maybe there's one over here.

Like so.

See, and you can really put just as many or as few as you want.

Maybe they're crowded here.

Maybe this is a condominium for trees here, they got a whole bunch of them.

There.

Okay, now we'll take our little number two script liner brush.

I'm going to dip it into paint thinner to get the get paint very thin, almost the consistency of ink.

Turn that brush, bring it to sharp point.

Okay, now then, let's go up here and just put the indication here and there of a few little branches hanging off these distant trees.

Just a few, just a few.

Just sort of decide where you think they should be, and drop them in.

Now if your paint doesn't flow, chances are you need more paint thinner on it.

This paint, when it's good and thin, will literally flow right off your brush.

Will literally flow.

There.

At home, you can put as many little limbs on here as you want.

I'm just going to put a few on to show you how they're done.

They only give me about 30 minutes here to do this, and if I don't get it done in that amount of time Sally comes out here and yells at me.

She's the director.

Picks on me.

There.

There we go.

They have no sense of humor around here if you don't get it done in half an hour.

There.

Okay, and we'll put a few over here.

Wherever, just to show.

But that quick and that easy you can make the indication of a whole forest.

See there, looks like all kinds of little trees way back in the woods.

Way back here.

I like these kinds of little scenes.

They're a lot of fun to do.

Extremely easy, extremely.

And they work for you.

There.

And we have our little forest, that quick.

Okay, now then.

Let me find a good dry, two-inch brush and let's begin putting some little grassy areas in here.

I'm going to start, tell you what, let's use a little bit of cad yellow and some Indian yellow, some yellow ochre.

I'll be right back, let me reach up here and get a little sap green, too.

So now we get all the yellows and sap green and just tap the brush, like so.

There's not a great deal of paint on the brush.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, you have to make some big decisions.

Maybe there's a little bit of land back here, so you decide how the land, the lay of the land.

See, just touch, and it comes right down.

See there, how easy that is?

All you're doing is just touching, and it makes this beautiful, soft, looks like velvet grass out here, it's just so nice.

Be a super place just to run bare-footed.

There we go.

I was born and raised in Florida and you run bare-footed a lot there.

When I was a kid, everybody was bare-footed.

Had to watch out for the sand spurs, though.

That's a little plant that grows, it has little, ooh, they'll hurt your foots.

There.

People in Florida will know what that is.

Over here we'll come like this.

Just however.

Okay, and we'll just keep working down, down, down.

And when I was kid growing up in Florida I had all kinds of pets.

I've always been a creature nut.

I love all the little creatures, and I had every kind of pet from alligators to lizards, snakes.

Maybe the [chuckles] weirdest pet I ever had, in school, I grew up in the country and I took, I think it was called 4-H and Future Farmers of America, and in there you had to have a project.

You had a garden or some kind of something and you kept records of it, showed how you made money.

It was like having a small business and it taught kids how to do things.

A super program.

But anyway, I picked chickens.

I decided [chuckles] I was going to raise chickens.

Well, the thing was, you had to go get some little chicks and you raised them up until they were full grown.

Then you had to knock them in the head and sell them.

Well, I think you know what happened already.

The chickens grew up and they became my friends.

And I was doing real good, had good grades boy, had good grades until it come time to knock them in the head.

And I couldn't do that, so I didn't do too good in that class.

I talk too much, let me keep going here.

There, all we're doing here is putting in all these little soft, grassy areas, wherever you want them.

But my chickens lived to be a ripe old age.

There.

Okay.

So I didn't make a good chicken farmer, I failed it.

Got a E in Chicken Farm.

[chuckles] Tell you what, let's take a little bit of titanium white on the fan brush here.

A little bit of titanium white.

And I have several fan brushes going so I don't have to continually clean them.

Let's go right up here.

And this is just a beautiful place to have a bubbling little stream, so decide where you want your little stream to live.

Maybe he lives right here, let's start right here.

And there he comes [Bob makes "bloop" sound] See, look how color stands out, though, on this black canvas.

Give a little push here and there, and it comes on out.

Maybe, bloop, there's little stones and stuff all underneath here.

And little places where the water splashes and hits and crashes and comes down.

Make up little stories.

There you go.

There, see?

Look at that, see how that little stream just meanders around down there?

I think that's a word.

If it's not, you know what I mean.

There we go.

See, the rest of that story about the chickens, I had to go on with this.

To this day, though, I don't eat chicken.

These things became my friends, and to this day I won't eat anything that ever had feathers on it.

There.

Okay, look at that little stream.

See how it just grows right there in your fan brush.

It lives there, hides there.

Just wherever you want it to go.

There.

And we do a lot of shows around the country for charity groups and PBS stations and et cetera.

And the thing that most people say when I finally get to meet them in person, the first thing they always say is, "Son of a gun, you're a lot taller than you look on TV.

And you don't have red hair."

I don't have red hair and I'm almost six foot two.

And if you've seen Steve, my son, on the show, that little son of a gun is almost six-five now, so he calls me "Shorty."

I'm going to take a little bit of van dyke brown, a little dark sienna mixed together, and here and there, here and there.

Let's go right up here, and let's just put the indication of some land, little stones and stuff up through here, wherever you think they should be.

Wherever, wherever.

You sort of decide where you want them, put them in.

Maybe, tell you what, let's do, maybe right here.

We got some right there.

I'm just putting in a little color, maybe right over here.

Okay, now then, we take some white, a little bit of dark sienna.

Just the least little bit of the dark sienna, just a tiny bit.

Now then, find out if you've got a delicate touch.

Just let this barely, [Bob makes "tchoo" sound] just graze, just barely touch.

Do you see how that color stands out on these black canvases?

It's fantastic, just jumps right out at you.

All kinds of beautiful little things, that easy.

And back here, where we had these little stones, we'll put a little touch of highlight on them.

Wherever, wherever, wherever.

Okay.

And in your painting, you put this wherever you want it.

Wherever you want it.

And we can take a fan brush, a little bit of that green and yellow on it.

Just load it back and forth like that.

Okay, now then we can come here, and very carefully, we can just drop in some little grassy things around the individual rocks in the water.

See, just give it a little upward push, a little upward push.

Wherever.

Now I'm going to get the small knife.

Maybe right out here lives a big rock that projects up right there.

Big old son of a gun.

And we'll put a touch of highlight on him.

Just a touch, like so.

Big, old strong rock.

All right.

I'm going to put the least little touch of the liquid white in with my titanium white.

The liquid white will just make it a little thinner so it flows a little easier.

Liquid white, titanium white.

Now maybe, now you gotta think like water.

Maybe the water just comes right around here and it comes here and, son of a gun, somebody has pulled the stopper out, [Bob makes "pshoom" sound] and it falls right off there.

So come over and down.

See there how easy it is?

This water here, it splashes along, and it comes out here, and [Bob makes "pshoom" sound].

And maybe under here there's a stone that hits and [Bob makes "tchoom" sound].

If you don't make those little noises, though, it don't work.

Gotta make those little noises, like so.

Isn't that neat?

It's a super easy way to make a beautiful little waterfall.

And down here it hits and splashes and churns, and, ah, look at all that.

Push upward with the brush, making little splashes happen, here it comes.

The water's rough down here.

It fell all the way down.

[Bob makes "psheeew" sound] There.

See there, isn't that neat?

Now then, we need something in here.

So I'm going back to my old two-inch brush that had all the yellows on it, and a little touch of the bright red every now and then, not much.

Just tap the brush.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, we want to bring some of these grassy areas right down over the stones.

Need a little more green in that.

A little more of the sap green.

There it comes, see?

Let these little things just hang right off like that.

You don't want to cover up all your little rocks here that are showing.

Leave some of them.

Leave a few of them.

There, a little bit more of the color.

There it comes, just follow the angles that you put in here.

Follow those angles.

There.

Did you ever believe you could paint such delicate, little grassy areas using a great big brush?

You really can.

You really can.

There.

See, looks like all that all that old moss and grassy stuff that always hang around the waterfall because the humidity's so high you get all kinds of little hangy-down plants.

Little hangy-down plants.

This is a nice place.

My mother would like a place like this.

She likes these quiet, little places where the water plays.

There we go.

See there, just layer after layer.

Tell you what, let's do, there it is, I lost my brush.

Let's have some fun.

I'm going to right into the van dyke brown with the fan brush.

Just load it full of paint, load it full.

Reach over here and get some black, too.

So we got black, midnight black and van dyke brown.

Want it very dark.

Let's go right up here.

Maybe...

I like old big trees.

[Bob makes "sssoom" sound] so we'll put one right there, big old tree.

Big old tree.

Big old tree, and he's got a friend.

We'll just cover that one right up.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Boy, we just killed that tree back here, didn't we?

That's all right, that's all right.

If you learn how to make him then the effort wasn't wasted.

It wasn't wasted.

Put a little more paint on the brush.

We need another one.

We need a big tree and he lives, [bob makes "shhhoo" sound] boy, this is a big tree.

Put some crooks in him, we don't want him too straight.

Let him just flow right off your brush.

He sets out here and watches the little waterfall.

Put a root coming out down there.

Yeah, his job's to watch the waterfall.

Okay.

Now then, I'm going to take some titanium white and get a little bit of the bright red, just a little bit.

It's very strong.

Be careful, it's easy to get too much.

Pull it out very flat.

Let me wipe the knife off here.

Then cut across and we get our little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife here.

Okay, now then, let's put some highlights on these big trees.

Just touch, give it a little, tiny pull.

Not much, just barely pull.

Then just let it sort of blend back.

There we go.

Just wherever, wherever, wherever.

There, see?

Darker, darker, darker as it works its way around the tree.

If you start on that outside edge and just keep working around that'll happen automatically.

You don't have to worry about it or anything else.

It'll happen, just let it go.

Let's put some on these other trees back here, too.

We don't want them left out.

Touch, just touch, follow the tree, right on up, [Bob makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] like so.

Like so.

You know, ever since we've introduced these canvases, I think the first one I did in the series was an oval, and that has become one of the most popular things we've ever done.

All the different shapes and designs that can be made here, they're almost.. there's no limit to them.

There's absolutely no limit to them.

My friend Nat in Canada, you ought to see some of the things he's making.

All kinds of octagons, it just goes on and on.

Let's just let your imagination go.

The contact paper works very good, and just cut out a design, stick it right on there, paint your picture and pull it off.

You can't believe some of the effects.

I'm mixing a little phthalo blue and white here, and I'm going to get just a small amount, and just put a little touch on the back of the tree, just to indicate a little reflected light.

There, like so.

A little bit on these other trees.

There we go.

There.

Okay, now then.

We go back and we can pick up a little bit of van dyke brown and go right back in the middle and just tap a little.

All you're doing is tapping.

Let the canvas pull off what it wants, give you back what's left.

Just like my tax man does.

Only there's nothing left hardly when he gets finished.

There, like so.

Now, when these, when these trees dry, they'll have texture, they'll feel like, they'll feel like real bark.

Okay, take our liner brush, paint thinner, paint thinner.

I'm going to use some black and brown, good dark color.

We want this to be thin like ink.

See there, it's running, you can see it running.

Okay, load some paint on there, let's go up here.

Now then, let's come right down in here and put some nice, big strong arms on these trees.

Tree needs an arm, too.

Got to hold up the weight of the forest.

Little bird has to have a place to sit there.

There he goes.

There he goes, and this old tree here, mm, big old branch that comes out here.

One out here, across.

See, just however many you want.

Okay.

Okay, and get a little more thinner, and let's do this old, big tree here.

Maybe there's a big old limb.

There it is, mm, comes right down like that.

Right on down.

One right here, wherever you want them.

Just sort of look at your tree and your painting and decide where you think limbs would be right.

There we go.

There's one that goes on across the tree.

Wherever.

And if these are evergreen trees, there's always a lot of old, dead-looking limbs that hang out wherever.

Always a lot of them.

Okay, tell you what, let's use the, let's use the oval brush.

I'm going to go right into black, reach over here and I'll grab a little sap green.

Just mix them on the brush, shoot, black, sap green.

Tap some color into the bristles.

I'll go right up in here and we'll just put the indication.

See, that oval brush makes all those beautiful, little, little leafy effects very easy, all you do is just tap downward.

Put as many or as few as you want in there.

This is green and black, green and black, very dark.

There, all those little hangy downs.

Okay, let's go to the other tree over here.

Put some right here, like so, like so.

Okay, wherever, wherever.

Right on up.

Okay.

Now I have another little oval brush going here, two of them, and on that one I'm going to right into some cad yellow and I'll reach up here and grab a little black and make a nice green.

Load the brush full of paint, full of paint.

Okay.

And after you pull it, watch here, pull it and then give a little push.

That loads paint right on the tip.

Okay?

Now then, all you have to do is just go here and lay some highlights on these trees.

Some bright colors.

Don't overdo.

Don't overdo, it's too dark.

There, isn't that super?

It's a nice way of making some very effective little evergreen trees.

This one here, give him a few.

Just however many you want.

Just sort of look at the basic patterns here.

Don't just throw them on at random.

We talk about that over and over.

Tree's got a personality.

Don't want to hurt his feelings.

Okay, this big old tree out here.

But isn't that a super nice, easy way to make some very effective little evergreens?

There we are.

Okay, a few right up in here.

Shoot, look at that, all kinds of little things happening.

There.

All right, time to have some fun.

Now I'm going to pull the tape off here.

Let's see what we have.

Okay, let's bring the camera right up here and watch here.

Watch right here, here it comes.

There, just take it right off.

And what do they say, "Ooh la," or whatever it is.

Got a fantastic little painting right there.

But I like, I like these kind of paintings because you can run outside of the borders.

Now let's take our stream here and let's just let this little stream just wander right on out of the borders.

Let it go for a ways, let it go for a ways.

I don't want it captured in there.

Just sort of let it go.

See, push up, make little foamies, and they're just wandering right on off the canvas, right on off.

Okay, then we can go back to our big old two-inch brush and maybe, lookie there, we can bring this land area right on down, just sort of let it wander right on out.

And I love the way these little pictures look, and if you're into selling paintings, these son of a guns will sell like hot cakes.

You can certainly make a happy buck with them.

Tell you what, I think we about have a completed painting.

Take a little thinner, a little bit of paint, and let's sign this one right here, call it finished.

Hope you've enjoyed this, it's a little different.

It'll really [chuckles] it'll give you some excitement.

It'll light up your life.

From all of us here, happy painting, and God bless.