Autumn Palette

[Music] Hi, I'm certainly glad you could join us today.

I thought today we'd paint the little painting that you see in the opening.

So, I'll tell you what, let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint the little painting with me.

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

The way that little painting was made, we started with a plain, ordinary canvas.

Just a pre-stretched, double primed canvas.

I took a little bit of white gesso and mixed yellow acrylic with it, Cadmium Yellow acrylic with it, and painted the entire canvas.

Allowed that to dry completely.

Then I took a sponge and some black gesso and just dobbed all this, just everywhere.

Just use a sponge, I like a natural sponge because it has more shape to it that a man-made sponge.

After that was completely dry, then we've covered the entire canvas with just a very thin, thin coat of Liquid Clear.

And down here on the bottom, I took a little Indian Yellow, which is a transparent yellow, and put it down here.

Because that particular painting has some sort of a yellow cast throughout the entire painting.

So, I've put the Indian Yellow down here at the base just so that yellow cast in that painting continues throughout.

So, let's get started, let me show you how we did that.

I'm going to start out with the old two inch brush and a very, very small amount of the Phthalo Blue.

Just a little bit of blue.

When you're using clear with nothing in the background, it takes very, very little color.

Okay, let's go right up here to the canvas.

And we'll just take a little bit of that blue color, and just, just begin dropping it right on here.

Now, it'll sort of have a little greenish tint to it because there's yellow underneath.

But if you had wet yellow underneath, you would have brilliant, bright green and we don't want that.

Don't want that.

We'll just let that bounce around here and play.

Like so.

As I mentioned in one of the earlier shows, we've had so many people write and say, "Show us some things that you can do with this, this Liquid Clear."

We devoted a lot of the paintings in this particular series to Liquid Clear.

There we go, see, that easy.

I don't want to kill all these nice areas in here.

I'm going to allow some of that yellow gesso to show through when the painting is complete.

I'm going to go into a small, small amount of the Alizarin Crimson.

And we'll just dance a little of that in here.

Just using little X's.

Once again, there is very, very little paint on the brush.

About as close to no paint as you can be.

Just enough to, just enough to sort of stain the canvas.

And the colors that we're using here are very, very transparent so it allows that, that acrylic color underneath to show through.

And acrylic paint blends very well with white gesso.

You can make any color background you want.

It doesn't have to be yellow or red or, it can be any color your mind can imagine.

So, practice a little bit, and just experiment and play and you'll find wonderful things that happen doing this.

Alright.

Something about like that.

Maybe a little touch more of that blue.

I like that blue color in there.

We'll just bring it right on down in here somewhere.

Okay.

Now then.

I'll just go right into a very small amount of the Titanium White, don't need much.

Now, the Titanium White, let's go right up here, is very opaque.

In other words, you can't see through it.

But if you put it on thin enough, you can still make out all these little details through it.

But this will be our light area in this painting.

This is where our light's just zinging from.

There, and it'll give a nice soft, almost a misty appearance.

Very, very pleasant.

And this works so easy, even if you've never painted before.

This, again, is one of those effects that you can make very easy.

And I'm just going to put a little bit here and there so it looks like little misty areas that are playing in the woods when we're all done.

This is a soft painting, very soft.

And maybe we'll go on the other side and put just a wee bit over here too.

We don't want that left out.

There we go.

Something about like that.

And really and truly, that's basically about all that we have in this background.

That's really about all we have.

It's that simple.

But you can see there's areas here, that's the pure acrylic, that are showing right through.

And there's areas that have more opaque color on them, and they look very misty and very soft.

Isn't that a fantastic way of making a background that, whew, ooh.

If you're out selling paintings, and of course none of us are interested in that happy buck, but if you're out selling paintings, these son of a gun's here will sell like hotcakes.

Mm.

Alright.

Now then, let's have some little sparkly bushes that live way back here in the distance.

For that, I'll just, I'll just keep using the same old dirty brush.

Take a little Cad Yellow, a little bit of Yellow Ochre.

A little Indian Yellow here and there.

Just tapping a little into the bristles.

There, that's some gorgeous close-ups we're getting there, isn't it?

You can really see how that brush is being loaded.

Let's go back up here.

Now then, we'll come right down here.

And I just want some indications of some pretty little sparklers that live back here in the background.

There, just some little sparklers.

Maybe there's another one that lives right about there.

Not looking for a great deal of detail.

Not looking for a lot of detail, just a little.

And when this is done, it'll look like the light's just zinging right through there and, and creating some gorgeous effects on some of these little bushes.

There's a nice bright one, it'll really show up.

Of course, we get carried away sometime and cover up a lot of them.

So it may disappear or it may not, we don't know.

We don't care.

Let me go onto the other side here and maybe we'll put one or two over here.

Something about like that.

Now, since in this particular instance, I have an idea of exactly where this painting's going, I know most of that's going to be covered up.

So, I'm not going to put a lot of effort into it.

Okay, now the fun part of this whole technique.

[chuckles] Let's wash the old brush.

Shake it off.

[laughs] And just beat the devil out of it.

That really is a fun part of this.

Now then, let's start with some nice background things.

I'm going to make a brown color by using about equal amounts of Alizarin Crimson and Sap Green.

These two colors mixed together make a gorgeous, gorgeous brown.

And you can take it to the red side or the green side just depending on your mood, or, or how you feel about the painting or whatever.

Either way, you make the big decision.

Let me clean the old knife off here.

We just wipe the knife on a paper towel, no big deal.

Take a little bit of that color, and I'll load it the same way.

Just tap right into it, see there, just tap.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, we'll have a few happy little bushes that live back in here.

Isn't that a gorgeous brown color?

But we're going to play dark against light, light against dark... continually, continually throughout this painting.

That's really what makes it work.

Ooh, there's an area that has a little more crimson than green.

Isn't it gorgeous?

Right in there.

I hope that shows up on your set.

There.

Okay, see?

But it's nice just to use this old two inch brush.

Sometimes we're afraid of this brush because it's so big.

But it'll do wonderful things for you.

Just, just allow it to do it.

Allow it to work for you.

Okay, a little bit more of that color and maybe, yep, we'll have one that lives right there.

See how you can create all those little illusions?

There, and these are far away.

They're way in the background.

So, we're not worried about a lot of detail yet.

As we get closer in the painting, then we'll be concerned about detail and being able to count every leave on the tree.

But back here, back here, we just want indications.

Now then, I want to create the illusion of another layer.

Let me grab another brush.

I have several of them going here.

We'll take a little white, with just the least little touch of Yellow Ochre in it.

And I'm just going to tap a little color.

I want to create a light area at the base of this.

Something like so.

Knock off the excess paint.

And then we'll blend that right in.

All I'm looking for is this misty area.

The rest of it, we're not concerned with at this point.

That light area will be your separator when we put another layer in here.

So take care of that little light area.

It's your good friend.

It'll do wonderful things for you in the painting.

There we go.

Okay.

See, if you can tap a brush, you can do this.

That's all there is to it.

Going back to my old dirty brush.

We'll gp right into, we'll just use some Midnight Black.

Load it the same way, just tap.

Just tap it.

Like so.

You can see up close there.

We get a lot of comments about what the brush is.

Why does it look like that?

We tape the brush ferrules, to keep them from shining when the, when the studio lights, but other than that, they're the same identical brushes that you're using.

This is just black.

It's just, just a little bit of duct tape we put around there.

Otherwise, they would shine and cause big glares and... You know, it wouldn't look good on your TV.

That's the only reason we do that.

Okay, see there, now we have another layer.

But you see how that little light area is your separator?

Without that it would have a tendency to blend together more.

And we don't want that, we want it to separate so you can tell there's different planes in your painting.

There we go, maybe, shoot, why not?

Just wherever.

Maybe this one goes all the way up here, I don't know.

Just sort of let your imagination take you wherever you want to be.

Because this piece of canvas, [chuckles] as you've heard me say a million times, truly is your world.

I'm going to grab a little liner brush.

Let's take a little bit of that nice brown color we made.

We're going to put a little paint thinner in it.

We're going to thin that paint down until it's, well, it's not quite ink consistency, but it's very thin.

Okay, let's go up here.

With that, let's put in the indication here and there and there and here of some little sticks and twigs.

And all the little things that live in the woods.

And they're all out in here.

There, because you always have these out in the woods.

Just gobs of them sometime, lots of them.

Lots and lots of them.

There we go.

And one of the questions I hear, is it better to pull down and make little sticks and twigs, or go up?

It really is up to you, try both ways.

See which works the best for you.

And that's the way that's exactly right.

Because painting is a very individual pastime.

Everybody does it different.

And everybody enjoys it for different reasons.

There.

I enjoy it, I think it's my escape from reality.

I can go in here and I can really, literally, create any kind of world that I want.

There's tranquility and peace in my world.

There's never any violence.

I have all my little animal friends.

They all live right here with me.

Alright.

Now then, that's coming along pretty good.

Let's just take a little white.

A little bit of that brown that we made.

Ooh, that's pretty.

There, maybe a little bit darker.

Yeah, that's nice.

Very nice.

Cut off a little roll of paint.

See there?

Let's go up here.

Now you have to start making some decisions.

Where does your land live?

Maybe, maybe right along in here.

So just take the knife, decide where it lives, lay it in.

Lay it in wherever you want it to be.

There we go.

As I say, I think these kind of little paintings with the Liquid Clear are so much fun.

And they're so, so effective.

So effective.

And they're easy to do.

Now let's go take a clean knife and just sort of fuzz up the edges here a little bit.

Just, I don't know exactly what you would call it other than just fuzzing it up.

I just want a soft edge here, I don't want that hard edge.

And you can just take the knife and just sort of rub it.

And it'll, it'll create that illusion.

Sometimes it comes out looking like little, little bushes and stuff that are far away and you haven't hardly done a thing.

There.

See there?

And by not over mixing the paint, you get these variations.

Don't over mix your color.

Most of the time we leave it sort of marbled.

Sort of marbled.

And that way these happy accidents happen continually.

Continually.

And then you learn to use these accidents to create beautiful, beautiful paintings.

Because as you know, we don't make mistakes.

We just have happy accidents every once in awhile.

Maybe it comes on back up in here.

Now, this will not be an exact duplicate of, of the little painting you see at the beginning of the show.

But it'll show you how it was made.

I like that little opening where you sneak behind the tree.

Isn't that fantastic?

That was created by a very good friend of mine that works here at the station by the name of Jerry Morton.

Him and a lot of the other engineers put a lot of time into making that little rascal.

So, I hope you enjoy it.

There.

Okay.

[chuckles] Well, you know me.

I big trees, so I think it's time to make our big tree.

I think I'll use the filbert today, because I want paint that's very thick on the canvas.

We'll go into the Van Dyke Brown and Dark Sienna.

I'm just sort of going to gob a lot of it right on the bristles.

Let's go up in here.

Major decision time.

Where does your tree live?

I think our tree does now, it lives right along here.

And just, I'm putting the paint on very thick.

Very, very thick.

Because I'm going to put highlights on there.

And I'm going to depend on this thickness to catch the highlights.

So, don't be afraid to use a lot of color.

There, see there?

That's a lot of paint there.

So, we have areas in this particular painting that are so thin there's nothing there hardly, except Liquid Clear over acrylic color.

We'll have a limb right here that [Bob makes "tchoo" sound].

And then we have other areas that could be up to like 1/8 of an inch thick.

And I like that in a painting.

Very much, very much.

Let's give him another big old arm over here.

And you can make him crookedy and have all kinds of character.

Don't just make a old straight tree, shoot.

If you do that the, the lumberjacks will come along and whack him down and make a telephone pole out of him.

We want a tree here that has character.

Gnarly old tree, he's had a hard life.

Things weren't always good out here in the woods.

There were some years that they didn't get much water, and maybe when he was little, a big old creature came along and gnawed on him a little bit.

Just make up little stories, so it makes sense why you tree looks the way it does.

There.

See, we'll put a big old foot out here for him to stand on.

There we go.

And we'll give him another arm or two.

Maybe he's got another arm out here.

Now, I'm just going to put a few on here.

When you're doing this at home, you can put as many arms on your tree as you want.

I just want to show you how they're made.

This little filbert brush still works very good for doing things like this.

There we go.

See there?

Now...

But that paint is so thick on there.

As I say, in some areas, it's probably a good 1/8 of an inch thick.

It has, it has bumps and ridges on it, and when it dries you can actually feel the bark.

Alright.

Now, I'm going to take, I'm going to take, I'm going to take...

The little script liner brush.

Put a little, a little brown color over there.

Whew, ooh.

I want some variation.

Script liner brush, and a paint thinner.

Going to get quite a bit of thinner, because I know I'm going to use several different strokes here.

But we want to fill the bristles full of color.

Fill them full of color and that paint is very thin.

But see, there's a lot of color in those bristles.

And this is a, a liner brush has very little bristles, so it holds a lot.

Let's go up here.

Now then, delicate touch.

All we're going to do is just barely touch the edge of this and allow the paint to be picked up on those areas that are very thick.

That's why we used the filbert brush rather than a fan brush or something to do this.

I want it to be very thick so that just those ridges of paint pick it up.

You can make some of the most gorgeous looking bark like this on trees.

See there?

See how these little areas, now, we'll push that limb into the back by just coming distinctly through with that one.

Now see, he's behind.

Didn't know you had that kind of power, did you?

Alright.

It's just barely touching, just let the bristles graze it.

Graze it.

I really do think this is one of the neatest ways I've ever seen of putting all kinds of gorgeous little things in there.

Like that.

Okay, and over here on this side, we'll just put a few little things.

A little more paint thinner, a little more color.

If you have trouble making it come off your brush, just add a little more paint thinner, that's all.

If you don't get all these ridges and bumps, it means that your under-color was not thick enough and you don't have all those variations under there.

Now, you can sit and try to draw these.

It'll take you forever.

Or you can just do it this way and it just works.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Like that.

Isn't that neat?

And as I say, when this thing is dry you can feel this and it'll feel like real bark on a real tree.

Maybe an old tree that you used to know, might have lived in your yard one time.

It might have been your good friend.

There's nothing wrong with having a tree for a friend.

There we go.

Coming right on out, wherever you want it.

Something like so.

Maybe a little bit right in here.

Okay.

And if you really want to sparkle it on the edges, just here and there, don't over, don't over do, you could just take a little bit of light color.

See there?

Look at that, look at that.

Ooh.

I'm sorry, I get excited sometime.

I've painted thousands and thousands of paintings, and I still get excited when this works.

It's so fantastic.

Alright.

That'll show you how it's done.

Okay.

Now then, while I've got the old paint thinner going, we'll go right into a little bit of this nice brown color we made from crimson and Sap Green.

And let's just put some little arms here and there on this.

See, just let it flow.

There.

As I say, I like these woodsy scenes, because this is a fantastic place for all of my little creatures to live.

I've got to show you one of my little creatures.

[chuckles] Here recently I had the privilege of going out and seeing a fantastic lady named Carmen Shaw and she had a little baby fox.

And she told me if you look in the dictionary under cute, it would say baby fox.

Isn't this the most precious thing you've ever seen?

I'm just putting limbs on while you're watching that.

Not doing anything that you won't see.

But I love these little animals, and Carmen, there she is, she brought a little raccoon over to visit the little fox.

This is just a baby raccoon.

Of course, he's a little older than the fox.

Whoops, hey.

[laughs] I think maybe there's a little personality conflict there.

But aren't those precious little things?

I have to agree with Carmen.

When, when they made the word cute, they had that little fox in mind.

There is no doubt, bcause they are absolutely precious.

I think that one's six or eight weeks old.

Carmen's a super lady.

She lives right outside of Orlando, Florida.

And she's a rehab specialist.

She takes care of all these little animals that are injured and orphaned, and she nurses them back to health or raises them up.

Whatever they need.

And then she turns them loose.

Let's them go back, back to nature.

Okay.

Now then, let's take, I want a little tree in the background, I'm going to take the old two inch brush.

A little bit of brown.

A little bit of Bright Red.

A little more Bright Red, a little Yellow Ochre.

Mix them together.

A little more Bright Red, I like that.

Let's go right up here.

Now, over this dark area, in our world, we're going to put us a nice tree.

But we're going to let some of that show through.

There.

Just a big tree that lives up here and has a good time.

There we go.

We'll take the little liner brush.

Some of that brown color.

Let's put the indication of a trunk and a stick and twig that live in there.

There, just however many, doesn't matter.

Now then, use that same old dirty brush.

It's working pretty good.

We'll go back in with some light color.

This is Cad Yellow.

Just to give it a little highlight.

Maybe I'll get a little white, put that in there with it.

There, okay.

Now then, let's go right up in here.

And let's drop a few little highlights on there.

There we go.

And that easy, we got us a pretty nice little tree that lives back here.

There, he watches my little fox back there.

Let's take some white, a little bit of that brown we made.

And just come right along in here.

Maybe we'll put in some, some more little land area.

Notice I'm not covering all of this up.

I want some of that dark to show through.

I'll tell you what, let's take a little bit of our brown we made from the crimson and the green.

Let's put some more little bushes that live right here.

Just a few little happy bushes that live right in there.

There.

Alright.

Big old bush lives right there.

Go right into the black, so we have a little separator in there.

See there?

That's all there is to it.

Now then, while I have it going I'm going to touch just a little bit of the color.

A little bit, just to put some indications.

Don't want much.

A few indications of a highlight here and there.

Going to take my old filbert, put a little brown on it.

Light brown on one side, dark on the other.

Maybe there's an old fence, lives, [Bob makes "ssoop" sound] yep, right there.

Yep.

Now, this guy, he, he took care of his fence about like I do.

He didn't do too good.

It's falling down on him.

And it just comes right on down.

Maybe like that, maybe like that.

Maybe there's one old rail that's still trying to hang on there.

[Bob makes "zoop" sound] Like so.

Put a little bit more the color right in here to indicate some of soil, dirt, land, whatever you want to call it.

There.

Oh, I know, I know while we got that going.

Shoot.

Let's put a little more right in there.

Just helps give it a little more depth.

Back into our black.

That was just the brown we made from crimson and green.

There we go.

There.

Take a little more of that, and we can sort of bring that together.

It looks sort of like a little road now.

It goes back in there.

We don't know where it goes.

I don't know that we even care.

It's just a nice little place back in there.

Take our liner brush, a little bit of light brown.

We can flip up a few little weeds and sticks and things that live all in there.

Something about like that.

Wherever you want them.

This is one painting that I really hope you'll give it a try.

Because I think you'll find it to be one of the most enjoyable little things using this Liquid Clear that you've ever done.

And it works, and maybe, that may be one of the greatest parts of it.

A little highlight right here.

It works so easy, the clear and the black gesso will just make your, it will just make your painting world [chuckles] so much easier.

Well, I think we about have a finished painting.

I want to take a little bit of the Bright Red.

A little paint thinner.

And I'm going to sign this one.

I have a short name, so it's very easy to sign it.

As I say, I hope try this one.

If you have time, send me a photograph of your attempt.

I'd love to see it.

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

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