Ebb Tide

- Hello, welcome back.

Well, here we are on the last show of the ninth television series, and I'm certainly glad you joined me today.

So for this show, I thought we'd do something a little bit different, a nice, happy little painting.

And I've already started out here.

And I've taken liquid black, as you can see, and went right around here.

And then right in the center, just liquid white, and sort of let them blend together right here where they come together.

Liquid black is exceptionally good for areas where you're gonna have a lot of dark shadows, very dark colors.

You can put that in, saves you a lot of work.

So let's have 'em graphically run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint this painting along with me, and we'll come on up here and get started.

All righty, let's start off today with a touch of phthalo blue, and we'll just tap a little of that into the brush.

And we can add a little black to that too just to dull it down.

There we go.

Small amount of color.

Let's go right up here.

Start right at the top, and as usual, make our little criss-cross strokes just like so.

Just like so, very nice, easy to do.

And we'll bring it down to about like that.

Okay, and very gently go across to take out the brush strokes.

And that quick, we get a happy little sky.

I'm gonna wash our brush.

Shake off the excess.

(chuckles) And we'll get the cameraman again.

He has caught the devil.

I'm gonna go right into titanium white and just pull that brush through it, just tap a little color right into it.

Okay, let's go right up here.

Maybe there's a happy little cloud that lives up here in the sky.

It just sort of floats around, see?

Just sort of pull it around like that.

This is just straight titanium white, and we just want the indication of a little something happening in there.

We're not looking for a lot of detail.

Far away.

There we are.

Okay, and that quick, we have a happy little cloud.

In this series, we've made a lot of different clouds.

We've made some great big stormy clouds, some with a lot of color in it.

And we've made some beautiful seascapes.

I really, really hope you've enjoyed those also.

Let's build us a little mountain back here.

Let's take some black and some van dyke brown, a little touch of blue.

Shoot, let's throw some crimson in there, too.

So we got blue, brown, alizarin crimson, and black.

Pull it out very flat.

Now cut across and get our little roll of paint.

We always use that little roll of paint, okay?

Now then, we're gonna have a nice little mountain that lives way back here.

Push that paint right into the fabric.

Just really push hard, work it in there.

Just push it in, there we go.

There he is.

The only thing you're worried about is this nice outside edge.

Okay, we'll take a large brush.

Grab it and pull, let it blend with the liquid white.

There.

See?

And it just disappears right into nothing.

Just nice, misty effect.

Okay, we'll take some, let's take a little titanium white, cut us off a small little roll of paint, just a tiny bit.

And let's go up here and just let the knife float, just let it float.

And we'll put in some nice highlights.

And you could do this in colors.

You might want a mountain that's brown with all kinds of beautiful rocks and stones.

Works the same way.

Same way.

So in your world, you decide and you make it any way that you want it.

Let's take some white, some phthalo blue, add a little bit of van dyke brown to that.

There we go.

The brown is just used to dull that blue down a little bit so it's not quite so bright.

Cut off that little roll of paint, okay?

Now then, come right back in here.

See there, that easy, easy.

Just put in some nice little shadows.

And just sorta let those work right together.

Right together.

And you wander back in here and pick up some of the whites, and boy, you can just make all kinds of things happen in your mountain.

All kinds, you're limited only by your imagination.

Only by that, nothing else.

What you can see in your mind, you can put on canvas.

There we are.

To an artist, maybe imagination is one of the most important things that you can possess.

So develop your imagination.

It's like any other muscle in the body, use it.

Use it, exercise it, practice with it.

You'll be amazed at what you can imagine.

Pretty soon, if you paint, you become very aware of nature.

You become aware of color.

And you're riding down the street and you'll see a beautiful tree and you'll say, "Oh, look at the sap green in that tree," or, "The white in that cloud, that's made with a fan brush."

You have to be careful though.

You'll get so interested in all the beautiful things that nature has, you could drive right off the road.

I always carry a camera with me, and I take pictures all over the country of the different areas.

Okay, I'll go right back into that mountain color.

And to that I'll add a little more blue, a little white.

There, I'm looking for a bluish color, but I like it.

That's a nice color.

Okay, let's go right back up here.

Maybe there's a happy little foothill that lives right there, see it, see it?

There it is, it lives right there in that brush.

Just tap it out, tap it out.

There.

You know, I think I've mentioned in some of the other shows, most of the ideas that we use to do paintings come from people all over the country.

If you have something you'd like to have painted, drop me a line, I love to hear from you.

And some people send postcards or photographs.

Tell me what interests you.

If it's something I can't do, shoot, we'll go out and get us a guest artist.

We'll bring him in, and we'll get him to show you how to do it.

There we go.

And with the completion of this series, there are, gosh, 117 shows now.

If you haven't seen 'em all in your area, give your station a call.

Let 'em know that you wanna see 'em.

(brush banging) (chuckles) There you go, there you go.

Okay, let's have some fun.

I am gonna take... we'll take black, we'll put some brown in there and sap green.

Looking for a very, very dark color.

And throw some blue in there, too, it doesn't matter.

Okay, let me clean my knife off.

Let's grab us a fan brush.

Load that fan brush full of color.

Lot of paint on the brush.

A lot of paint, okay?

Good, let's go up here.

Now then, I wanna do some happy little evergreens.

I like evergreens.

Just use a corner of the brush and go back and forth.

There, see?

Let's give him a friend.

Trees get lonely, too.

We all need a friend.

There we go.

Now that may be, tell you what, there's another one.

Let's just put a bunch of 'em in here.

I like to do these.

And in some parts of the country, evergreens are real skinny.

In other parts, they're sort of fat.

So either way you want it.

They're made basically the same way.

And trees are like people, they have personalities.

Each one is different.

Each one's an individual, it's unique and different, it's really different.

So don't worry about it.

If your tree doesn't look just like the one you see here, that means they're probably better.

We really are not trying to teach you to copy with these.

We're trying to show you how to make effects and turn you loose on the world.

'Cause you can own the world.

There, let's see, I'll tell you what, I'm just going tree crazy.

But the more of these little trees you do, the more practice you'll get and the easier they'll become.

Good way to practice is just take old canvases or something and just do a whole canvas full of trees or mountains or skies or whatever it is that you're having problems with.

The best way to overcome a problem area is to do it over and over until you learn.

Maybe there's another happy little tree.

Another happy little tree.

There.

Okay, well, we got a mess of trees going in there.

Almost have us a little forest.

So I'm gonna take some of the dark sienna, a little white, cut through, have a tiniest little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife.

Let's go up here.

Now with that, I'm gonna sneak back in here and just here and there put the indication of a little trunk.

We don't want these trees to fall over.

These are strong trees, happy trees back here.

Everything we paint is happy.

Your paintings reflect your mood.

If you're in a bad mood, you'll paint a angry old painting.

That's when you do big storm clouds.

And when you're happy, your paintings will reflect that.

They'll be bright and cheery and the colors will be super.

All right, tell you what let's do, let's go right into this dark color.

This was the old tree color.

And I'm just gonna tap this brush right in there.

And we need something for all these evergreens to set on.

Right now they're just sorta floating around.

So let's begin creating the lay of the land.

See, if this was a white background here, if you had liquid white, this color would be, oh, it would be a lot more difficult to apply.

Because the dark's already in there, it just drops in real easy.

I don't know if you could even see it, but it's there.

Now watch what happens.

Let me grab another brush.

Now let's go right into some yellow.

Yellow, and I'm gonna reach up here and get some sap green.

So we have yellow and sap green.

And tap this brush firmly into the color.

All right, now then, this will really show up against the dark.

And this is where we want to create once again the lay of the land.

So you'll begin making big decisions here.

How does this go?

I see little hills, so I'll paint little hills.

And whatever you see in your painting and your world, that's what you wanna paint.

Look at that, see?

Just hill after hill.

As many as you want or as few as you want.

Let's go right over here.

Don't want this side to be left out.

There we go.

And if you want it darker, all you have to do is continually tap.

If you just tap on it, then it's gonna pick up the liquid black and automatically it's gonna get darker.

You don't have to worry about it, it just happens.

Okay, I want a stone.

Maybe we'll do a bunch of rocks in this one.

There's a stone, it lives right about there.

There's a nice stone.

See?

Now how do you make a round stone with a square knife?

That's your project for today.

They just go right around, see?

Put some highlight on him.

Look how that stands out.

That's just some dark sienna with a little white in it.

And that easy, we have a nice little stone.

Now you can take and pull a tiny bit of that color down and make it look rougher.

That's what my dog says, "ruff."

There.

Okay.

Now we'll take a little more of our green and yellow mixture right on the brush.

And let's take, and we come right down here at the foot of this rock, see there?

And that lays him right in the painting.

Isn't that super?

Layer after layer.

Okay, maybe... maybe, maybe there's another stone lives right here, let's put a bunch of stones in this one.

They're a lot of fun, lot of fun.

There's another one.

Wherever you want 'em.

Tell you what, maybe this is a big stone.

Let's have a big old stone.

(grunts) We just get carried away here.

These stones, if you're not careful, they'll grow on you.

They'll eat up your whole world.

So what started out as a little stone turned into a big one.

And we'll use those same colors.

This is a little bit of dark sienna, touch of white.

And you just let this graze a tad.

Just barely touch, graze.

The most delicate, delicate touch imaginable.

Pretend you're just a whisper.

You're just floating across there.

You're just barely touching, caress it.

And then we'll come back and just tap in some color, see, and that'll bring all that together.

Look at all the stones, here comes one.

Right there, oh, I see something here.

Let's have some fun, let's get crazy.

Let me find the fan brush.

See, when you're painting, you see things in here, they happen.

Don't fight 'em, learn to use 'em.

Learn to use 'em.

Watch here, this would just, in my mind, be a super place for a happy little stream.

So I'm gonna take a little of the liquid white and go right into titanium white.

Liquid white and titanium white.

Now back here I see a little stream.

Watch, here it comes from behind that rock.

Maybe it falls over a little bit there.

Some little splashing, it wanders right through.

Maybe it just falls every which way right there.

And it runs behind that rock, right behind, see there?

Now then, and it disappears behind that rock, comes out... there, and since it's closer to us here, here it's going to look a little bigger.

That easy, you can make a little stream.

See, I wanna go back and firm up the edge on this rock so it'll push that stream back.

That easy.

You can change your mind and create all kinds of fantastic effects.

I want to add a least little touch of blue.

A little touch of blue right underneath this water.

We'll have a little pool here.

A little pool.

Back into the brown.

Let's bring some happy rocks right down through here.

There's another rock.

Gotta have something to contain this little waterfall.

Maybe comes right down like that.

There is another stone right there, see?

All these different stones will help push everything back.

We'll put another one right here.

Just sort of look and make sure that it's logical.

There, something has to hold that water in, otherwise it run over the top of the rock.

(scraping) There we go.

Now then, put a bit of highlight on this rock where the light's striking in.

Delicate touch.

Delicate touch.

There, see, kinda follow the angle of the rock.

And rocks are just like making little mountains.

They'll grow up to be big, strong mountains.

Take some green and some yellow, some yellow ochre.

Let's grab some indian yellow, too.

Just mix 'em together here on the fan brush.

Go right up here.

And there's some areas here where maybe you wanna put some happy, shiny little bushes to help cover up the foot on the rocks, there's some things that are growing right here next to the waterfall.

Look at there, maybe some big bushes live in here.

Big bushes.

Right in here we'll put some, and they live right out on that stone.

See how that helps push everything back?

Fantastic.

Knew you could do it.

There we go.

I'm gonna come right down through here.

See, curve that, follow the land.

Let it bend.

And if we're gonna have a little pool down here, we need to contain it somehow.

Don't want it to get loose on us.

Darker, darker, darker back up in here in the shadows.

Okay, let's come over on this side.

This looks like the kind of place my mother would like.

Her and I used to go walking in the woods.

She's crazy as I am, we'd talk to little squirrels.

We hunt with a camera.

I used to be a hunter, but in my old age, I got to where I'd rather take pictures of the creatures than shoot 'em.

There we go.

There we go.

All right, now then, let's play right in here.

I'm gonna take some white on the fan brush.

A little bit of a touch of phthalo blue.

Load the brush full.

And let's come right in here, and this water is gonna hit down here and splash.

All kinds of little, this water's gonna be rough down here.

See, right up to the little grassy areas, and maybe the water just sort of sneaks under there, we don't know.

Mm, now see, we had put blue with the liquid black under there, so now it's picking up, and all these beautiful little colors just happen.

Just happen.

There we go.

That gives us a nice little pool for that water to run into.

I tell you what now, we've got these big dark sides here.

Let's play a little bit over here.

Back into my van dyke brown, and we'll pull it out very flat.

Tell you what, we'll add some dark sienna with that.

Pull it out flat, cut across.

Once again, our little roll of paint.

Boy, I know you get tired of seeing that, but it's important how you load this knife.

And let's put a tree trunk right there.

Right there.

Maybe this old trunk.

There it is, look, see, see?

Just let that trunk come right down there.

We'll give him a big foots.

Nah, let's see, Bigfoots wasn't a tree.

There, but we'll call this one, we'll call this tree Bigfoots.

And let's give that tree an arm.

It needs a little arm out there.

And one over here, wherever, wherever.

It's your tree, so you put arms where you want 'em.

Wherever you want 'em.

Take a little bit of the brown and white, and let's just drop in a touch of highlight.

Look at that, see, against that dark, boy, that just sparkles, jumps out at you.

There we go.

Now my brush has got the dark color on it.

This was that original dark mixture.

We just had everything in it, sap green, black, brown, blue.

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

And I just wanna create little leaves that come off this tree.

And as always, we put the dark in so the light will show.

And because we had the liquid black on there, a lot of this dark is already done.

We don't have to worry about it at all.

Tell you what, it's so much fun, let's do that on the other side.

Maybe over here there's another tree.

This just sort of brings the whole composition together.

Fantastic.

I like doing these kind of paintings, they're so striking.

So striking, they're fun.

They're fun, they make you happy, and that's what painting's all about, it should make you happy.

There we go, use some sap green.

Pick up some of that yellow ochre.

Now when you're doing this, if your paint won't stick, add a little touch of paint thinner or the liquid white.

Now just using the corner of the brush, begin tapping in basic shapes here.

We don't wanna just hit it random.

Tap in some very basic shapes.

You know, when I'm finishing this tree up, I'd like to just take a second and thank a lot of fantastic people for making these programs possible.

All the people behind the scenes that you don't see, they're super, we have some of the best people in PBS here.

And absolutely the best director.

She yells at me a lot, but she's a good director.

And she makes these shows happen.

And there's just so many people that you never get a chance to meet, and they're special.

There we go.

Takes a lot of people to put these shows together.

And even the fantastic lady who makes all of these beautiful shirts for me.

That's Annette.

And I thank each and every one of them from the bottom of my heart.

And most of all, I thank you for turning on the TV every week and allowing us in.

You make a lot of hard work worthwhile.

There we go, I just have some yellow and some green here.

Pull that brush in one direction.

Let's go right up here and maybe let's put a little sparkler here and there.

Maybe he lives right here in front of this tree.

See, you can push that tree right back.

Bet that work right down... See, and that little bright son of a gun, boy, he shines against that dark.

Really, really just is striking.

Okay, add a little bit of liquid white, a little more of the sap green, yellow, and we don't want this side to be left out.

Let's put a, oh, boy, that's a nice one there.

That is a nice one.

Okay, and sort of look around it, there it is.

See, there's a happy little bush that lives right down here.

He lives right on the edge of the water, so he can get a drink any time he wants it.

There we go.

Maybe here and there behind the rocks.

Now then, let's take a knife.

Now we can just scrape through, put a few little sticks here and there.

And we just about have a completed painting.

I think we'll call that one finished.

I really wanna thank you for being with me during this, the ninth Joy of Painting series.

I look forward to seeing you again.

From all of us here, happy painting.

God bless.

(light music)