Wintertime Blues

- Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

You got your paints and brushes out and ready to do a fantastic little painting?

Super.

Tell you what.

Let's start out, have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us.

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

I've got my normal old pre-stretched canvas up here, and I've applied a thin, even coat of the liquid white.

So it's all wet and ready to go.

So, let's just do a fantastic little painting today.

I thought today, maybe we'd do a nice little winter scene.

Something that's very cold.

Normally when I do winter scenes, I put a lot of warm colors in them.

And we've had some requests for a winter scene that's good and cold.

So let's do one of those.

Let's try out today, we'll use the old two inch brush here.

We want a small, small amount of the phthalo blue.

Just a small amount.

Pull it out, and then just tap the bristles right into the color.

That sure is a nice, even distribution of color.

All the way through the bristles.

See there?

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then.

We'll just start at the top.

Make little crisscross strokes.

Just little x's.

Work all the way across the top, and it's continually blending with the liquid white that's on the canvas, and automatically, it gets lighter and lighter toward the horizon, if you just start at the top and work down.

And that's exactly what we're looking for.

As you know, in the landscape, things should get lighter toward the horizon.

And that's what creates that illusion of distance in your painting.

All right.

Maybe, take that blue.

Maybe I'll add just a little bit more of the blue.

This is a winter scene.

I want color to be very strong and very cold today.

This is going to be a very cold painting.

You may have to get out your big winter coat just to do this one.

There we go.

All right.

Something about like so.

And very lightly, we'll go across just to take out the little brush strokes.

And maybe, maybe we'll have a little water.

For that, I'm going to use the same old phthalo blue, and the least little bit of the midnight black.

So we have blue and black, or black and blue.

Whichever your preference.

Okay, let's go up in here.

Now then.

I don't know exactly where the water's going to be, so we'll just put in a lot of water, and whatever we don't want, we'll just paint over, 'cause we can do anything on this piece of canvas.

Anything.

There we go.

Little more color on the brush.

Go on the other side, and do basically the same thing.

There we are.

And still water should always be flat.

Level.

Water's very lazy.

It's always flat level if it's still.

The only time it's not, mostly when it's excited and starts moving.

There.

Okay.

Now, the fun part.

Let's wash the old brush.

And we wash our brush with odorless thinner, shake off the excess, (chuckles) and just beat the devil out of it.

That's the most fun part of this whole technique.

And very lightly, I'll just go over the entire canvas just to take out brush strokes and bring it all together.

There.

Now then.

Tell you what, let's do.

Today, let's just have some fun and make some little clouds that float around in the sky.

And for that, I'm going to use just titanium white with the old fan brush.

And you can do this with a one inch brush or two inch brush, it doesn't matter.

Thought today we'd just do one with the old fan brush, though.

Go right up in here and decide where your little cloud's going to live, and maybe, in our world, it's going to live right here.

And using just the corner of the brush, just the corner, make all kinds of little fluffy things that live out in here.

Wherever you think they should be.

Wherever.

Okay, a little more of the titanium white.

There.

Now you could also do this with a grey color if you want to really make it look like a dreary, dreary winter day.

Okay, then we'll take the large two inch brush and very gently, just tickle the bottom of it.

Just barely blend it in.

Little tiny circular strokes, using only the top corner of the two inch brush.

And then we'll fluff it, lift it.

There.

And very lightly, just go right over.

And that easy.

We've got a happy little cloud.

Okay maybe, maybe this little cloud has a friend.

Shoot.

Why not?

But work in layers.

Do one cloud at a time.

Do the one that, in your mind, is the farthest away and then put the rest of them in front of him.

But just do it one at a time.

Don't get in a hurry, and don't get greedy.

There we are.

Good clean, dry two inch brush.

And we're going to do the same thing again.

But work in layers.

Just like when you're painting bushes.

Work in layers.

There.

Those layers are what create distance between each cloud.

There we go.

Okay, and that easy.

We got a couple of happy little clouds.

Now sometimes, it's fun just to take your brush and, well actually, here's another way.

I like to show you as many ways as I know to make things.

Just take your brush and spin in little, little floater clouds.

You can literally just spin them right into the canvas.

Try to keep the brush moving at all times, though.

These are the little wispy clouds that live way off in the distance.

They just sort of float around and just make little things in the sky.

There we are.

Wherever, wherever may be.

Little indications right over there.

Back to old big brush.

And we just gently sort of blend those right in.

And as blending, you can blend them to any degree of lightness or darkness that you want.

The more you blend them, of course, the darker they're going to get.

They'll pick up the blue that's underneath, so you have to make big decisions here.

How bright do you want them to be?

'Cause if you continue to blend, they'll just go away and leave you.

Go away and leave you.

There.

Okay.

And I think something about like it's fine for what we're trying to do today.

I just want some little wispy things that are floating around.

So they're good.

All right, maybe, in our world today, let's take a little bit of phthalo blue and alizarin crimson, and I want to make a lavender color, but I want it to the blue side.

I want to keep everything in the blue tones in this painting to keep it cold.

Blue is a very, it's a cold color.

Very cold color.

It's hard to tell what that is.

So we'll take a little white, lay it right there.

And then mix some color into it, to see if that's what we want.

And that's pretty good.

I sort of like that one.

There.

Something like so.

That's not bad.

Okay, cut off our little roll of paint, as usual.

Let's go right up in here.

Let's have, in our world maybe, right here.

Just a happy little mountain.

Show you the easy way to make some mountains today.

Why not?

Watch here, watch here.

There.

You have to decide how many little bumps there are in your mountain, and how many peaks.

Just put that on.

Scrape off the excess paint.

It has some, it's got a lot of little bumps today.

There.

Just wherever, wherever.

And let your imagination take you to anywhere that you want to be.

This really is your world here.

Okay, see there.

And the only thing that we have any concern about at this point, is just the top edge.

We could care less what's happening in here.

Have absolutely no concerns about that area at this point.

All right.

Scrape off all the excess.

You can probably hear how hard I'm scraping with a knife.

There we go.

Now back to our old two inch brush.

And I want to grab this, and pull it.

Now just with brush strokes here, we can create the illusion of beautiful mountains that are far back in the distance.

There we are.

And the brush strokes will make your highlights and your shadows all at one time.

That easy.

This is one of the easiest ways of making very effective little mountains.

Very effective.

Now, you may have to sort of step back and take a look at them.

When you're really close to the canvas, it's more difficult to see than if you step back.

So at home, just step back and get the old iced tea glass out, and take a looksie at your painting.

There.

See how those, all those brush strokes will create that illusion?

There.

Okay.

And today, that's all I'm going to do for that range of mountains.

And let's have some fun, put some prussian blue.

It's much stronger.

Prussian blue is much stronger.

We'll put it right in that same color.

So we get prussian blue, I'll add a little more alizarin crimson to it.

But this is a very dark lavender now.

Very dark.

There.

Cut off our little row of paint, once again.

Lives right on the edge of the knife.

Now, let's come right up in here.

Maybe there's another big mountain.

There is now.

Lives right there.

Wherever you want.

And maybe he comes down in front, and we can do the same thing again.

Put some little bumps in here, and all kinds of little things.

Sometimes it's nice to have little valleys like it.

And you leave them right in there.

Right in there, wherever you want them.

And we'll just let that one taper right on off into nothing here.

But notice that this mountain, this range of mountains, are much darker than the ones behind it.

That makes them stand out, makes it look closer to you.

There we are.

The other thing that's very important about pulling that paint with the two inch brush on that first range of mountains, there's a misty area between these two.

That little bit of mist is your separator.

It divides the two.

Makes them stand apart from each other.

All right, let's go back to our old two inch brush and do the same identical thing to this one.

Just grab it and pull.

But pay attention to angles here.

Avoid pulling it straight down.

Your mountains will look like huge cliffs.

Just sheer cliffs.

A billygoat couldn't live on them.

There we are.

So, pay attention to angles.

See, by pulling that brush, the little thing that happened right there?

Be careful when you're doing this, and watch.

These little things will happen.

But sometimes, it gets working well and you rub them off before you've even looked at them.

These things are, they're right in your brush.

All you have to do is sort of shake them out.

There.

Okay.

But once again, we're trying to create that mist down at the base of these mountains.

Maybe we'll have some little foothills down at the base.

I like to do little foothills.

And that misty area, once again, just like here, will be your separator.

So try to create mist here.

Most, most important.

There.

Okay.

And with that, we've got a couple of ranges of very nice mountains there.

Let's take, let's take, let's take.

Put that over out of the way.

Save it for later.

I'm going to take some phthalo blue phthalo blue and some white, and some black.

Mix them together.

There we are.

I want to have nice blue grey color, but with the phthalo blue, so it's a little more, it's a little more bright than if you did it with the prussian blue.

Wipe off the old knife here.

And let's take a fan brush.

Load it full of this color.

Just work it back and forth in the paint.

Both sides, full of color.

Now then.

Maybe now well, here we have some little footy hills that live right in here.

Right in here somewhere.

Just take the fan brush and tap downward.

Try to retain some of that little misty area in there, though.

It's most, most important.

There we go.

Put a little paint out there.

Now.

There they go, wherever.

Wherever.

You make the decision where they live.

And just drop them in.

This is one of the nicest ways we've ever come up with, just making little distant tree shapes.

Very easy.

And I'm going to add a little bit of the titanium white, here and there.

See how that sparkles?

That one makes him stand out.

That easy.

But don't overdo.

If they all look like that, then they lose the individuality that you see.

Let's see here.

We'll put in some more.

Just a few.

Then we'll come back and highlight a few of those.

Just so they stand out better.

All right.

This is a very simple painting, and if you've never painted before, this is a nice one to try.

This is a nice one.

'Cause it'll work for you, very easy.

Okay, back to little of the titanium white right on the brush, so that we get variations of the same color.

Different hues or values of the same color, whatever you want to call it.

Just make all kinds of little things.

There.

Something like so.

These trees are so pretty.

It's one of the nicest places.

My little squirrel, if you've watched some of the other shows, this would be one of the places my little squirrel would love to live, right in here.

And I want to show you a little piece of film that we made, and this is my little squirrel out on the big hunt.

And he's out doing whatever squirrels do in the deep, deep woods.

Look at this.

Isn't he the cutest little devil?

He's fighting his way through the forest there.

Uh oh.

(laughs) There's the forest.

For some reason, I don't really understand it, those little squirrels seem to like hair.

I think it reminds them of their nest.

But that's, if you haven't seen him before, that's the little squirrel we call Peapod.

The pocket squirrel, 'cause he likes to live in my pocket.

He's a character.

We've shown him several times in this series.

I hope you enjoy him.

I've just taken a two inch brush and tapped the base of this little bit to just to soften.

I want that misty area.

Okay.

Take a little more of the titanium white, and just sparkle up a few more of these little areas so they stand out.

Just a few.

I want to keep this very cold, though.

Very cold.

There.

And then very lightly, lift upward.

Just enough to, to blend the base of that all in there.

Okay.

And maybe under the little foothills back here, maybe, maybe in our world, there's a little bit of snow.

So for that, we'll take the knife.

Take a little white.

Cut off a little roll of paint.

And begin thinking about how the snow would lay out here.

There.

Just pull it.

Gently pull.

Something like this.

There.

So see, this is a very, very simple little painting.

You shouldn't have any trouble doing this one.

This is one that our instructors would teach probably, first or second day in class.

We have instructors that travel all over the country teaching people this.

You cannot believe what, what people are doing.

In one of the earlier shows this series, I showed a, several boards of paintings that people have sent in.

That's just fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

Okay.

Tell you what.

I want some reflections on the end.

So I'm going into that same old dark blue color that we had, two inch brush.

Just going to grab right underneath the snow and pull straight down.

Straight down, now.

Little more of the paint.

Straight down.

Straight down, there we go.

That quick.

We add some little reflections under our bank way back here.

Very lightly, go across.

All right.

Take a little touch of the liquid white.

We can go right back in here.

And we'll just cut in a little water line.

This sort of separates where the land and the water come together.

It's your separator.

And it also cleans up the base here.

It's a way of cleaning up the bottom of your snow and making it look really nice.

There we are.

Really hope you like seeing that little, little squirrel, little Peapod.

He lives in my house with me.

You wouldn't believe.

I have two squirrels that live in the house, and I have three that live outside.

They're about ready to be turned loose now.

But the ones that live in the house, if you've never lived with a squirrel, you haven't lived.

Because they will get into absolutely everything.

(chuckles) Every single thing in the house.

And I find, because they hide nuts all over the house too when they run around, and I'll find nuts in everything, from my pockets to my shoes.

But it's fun.

It's fun.

Let's take some prussian blue, black, alizarin crimson, if you're willing, throw some Van Dyke brown there, too.

Doesn't matter.

Good, dark, dark color.

Okay, and we clean off the old knife here.

Tell you what.

It's time for your bravery test.

Let's take the old two inch brush and go right into that pile of paint.

But today, I want to bring this brush to a nice, chiseled edge.

So to do that, bring it through the paint, wiggle it.

That pulls the paint down to the end of the bristles.

Wiggle it.

And then go through, and sharpen it, just like you would a fine knife.

Look how sharp that brush is.

But you can bring it to a very sharp chiseled edge.

Very sharp, okay?

Now then, with that, maybe in our world, you know me, I like big trees in my paintings.

Take the corner, and we just push upward.

And let's make the indication of a big evergreen that lives right here in the corner of the canvas.

Great big evergreen.

Strong, powerful.

He sits here, watches out for all the little things that live here.

And what a view that he has.

There we are.

But use just the corner and push upward.

And that's what'll create all those little leafy, fluffy looking things.

Very easy.

Tell you what, while we have that old brush going, let's just do this.

Maybe we have some things, little peninsula that comes right down like it.

Who knows.

Who knows.

Just push upward though.

Bend the bristles.

Try to avoid letting it slide like that.

See the difference when it slides?

You don't have that nice, leafy appearance.

We're going to have a bigger bush there now.

You see, if anything ever goes wrong, you can always make a bigger bush out of it.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

We don't make mistakes.

We just have happy accidents.

There we are.

I'm going to load that little brush back up same way again.

Yeah, let's go ahead.

What the heck.

Be brave.

This really is your bravery test.

Let's come in here and just put a huge tree.

Maybe, yeah, what the heck.

What the heck.

Nothing ventured, and all that.

Let's just let this old tree just live right here.

Just push him out.

There.

Maybe, okay, let's go all the way down the bottom.

Something like that.

Okay.

Now we'll take, I have several little brushes going here, we'll take another two inch.

Put titanium white on it.

Little bit of the phthalo blue.

Little phthalo blue.

So I have a blue color in the bristles.

Okay.

Now you see, then we'll take one corner and go through white paint.

All right?

So I have blue deep in the brush, and white on the tips.

All right.

Now then.

With that, you can go up here and push upward, and let's put on some beautiful little highlights.

And every once in awhile, just drag at one corner through a little bit of the titanium white.

And that's how we'll highlight this.

Think about shape and form, and all the little things that are happening out here.

There we go.

Wherever.

Okay, there's another one.

Something about like so.

And we don't want this other tree left out, so let me load it deep with the phthalo blue and white, and then just the corner, once again.

Just the corner, see, into the white.

Like that.

All right.

Just touch it.

Lift.

Let's go right in here, and just pop those in.

There.

Now don't kill all the dark in your tree, 'cause it gets working good and you, you get sort of carried away sometimes.

I find that I've covered up the whole canvas with highlights, and then I've lost my dark and all the, all the deep shadow areas.

And the little squirrels have got to have a place to go in there and hide.

Got to have a place to go and hide.

All right, I'm going to dip the brush into liquid white.

Then we'll go right through titanium white.

Pull the brush in one direction.

See there?

Load a lot of paint into it.

A lot of paint.

Biggest mistake made is not enough paint.

There.

I went through the liquid white first, only to thin the paint, because a thin paint, as you know, will stick to a thick paint.

Thin to thick.

There we are.

See, and we can just put all these little snow covered highlights on these things.

And if this works just right, these little bushes will look just like lace.

Just like lace.

When I lived in Alaska, this unbelievable Jack Frost would come through there and do his magic.

And the trees would be covered with ice, fog had frozen.

It's the most gorgeous thing you have ever seen.

It's cold in Alaska during the winter, but it may be as beautiful as the summer.

Take a little titanium white.

Maybe we can see a little snow, right in there.

Right there somewhere.

Wherever you want it.

But no pressure.

Allow that color to break.

Just graze it when you come across.

And make long strokes.

Like that.

But no pressure.

Absolutely none.

If you put a lot of pressure on it, it's going to look like you, well this is my son Steve, says look like you mushed it in there and just iced a cake.

I don't know if that's really a word or not, but you certainly know what it, what it means.

You really just mashed too hard.

And we'll put some little grass areas around the edges here.

Okay, got to sort of bring it together, make it part of the painting.

There.

Now maybe, in our world, maybe there's a little twig or two.

So we'll take, we'll take a little dark sienna and paint thinner, and we want to make this paint thin.

Very thin.

Almost, almost a consistency of ink.

Probably can see it running there.

It's that thin.

Now, when you have it, you can pull the one side of that right through a little liquid white, and maybe in our world, there's a little stick that lives right here.

And by pulling it through the liquid white on one side, you'll make the highlight and the shadow at one time.

See there?

Sort of sneaky.

But it works well.

There we go.

Wherever.

Okay.

And now we've got a little, little stick in there.

Tell you what.

All we need to do, take the knife, here and there, we can scratch in a few little sticks and twigs.

And we about have a finished painting.

This is, as I mentioned earlier, this is a very simple little painting.

If you've never painted before, it's a good one to try.

Especially if you like very cold winter scenes.

So I do hope you give it a try.

From all of us, I'd like to wish you a happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

(soft, cheerful music)