- Hi, welcome back, certainly glad you could join us today because today is a very special day.

Every once in a while when we get him off the road from teaching classes, I bring my son Steve in here and let him give you a demonstration.

Steve's been painting since he was about 12 years old, and I think you'll find he's absolutely fantastic.

Steve, welcome to the show today.

- Thanks, Dad.

- Tell you what, I'm gonna turn it over to Steve, and I'll see you later.

Son, do a nice painting for everyone.

- Okay.

We're gonna start off today by running your colors across the screen.

We're using just about everything.

As you can see, we've got, I think, about 13 colors.

So if you wanna go ahead and get those out on your palette if you're gonna paint along with me or whatever.

I'm gonna start of today maybe just with a little bit of prussian blue.

And we're gonna drag that out, pound it into that brush real good.

Get tough with it right from the beginning.

And we'll go up here and start in.

I'm gonna try to make some sorta cloudy shapes up here to start with.

And maybe on this one side over here I'll add just a touch of crimson to my color, alizarin crimson and prussian blue.

Give it sort of a purplish glow over here.

You know, try to use x's and leave a little bit of light area showing through.

Something like that.

Now leave your sky with lots of movement in it here because you don't wanna destroy that look, like the sky's weaving in and out and all that stuff, that helps a lot.

A little more prussian blue and a little more alizarin crimson on your brush.

And we'll go down here and put some straight horizontal strokes in.

This'll be where our water's at, down at the bottom of the canvas.

(brush scraping) Be real rough on it.

You're not gonna hurt that canvas.

Okay, and then we'll wash that brush out real quick.

(liquid swishing) (banging) When you're doing a large painting like this, it's a really good idea to have a sturdy easel like this one.

And Dad invented this easel just for that purpose 'cause it doesn't move all over the floor when you're painting on it.

(brush swishing) There we go, just a little bit of blending down here.

Always start down in the liquid white and work your way up.

(brush swishing) That way your brush doesn't get all full of blue immediately.

(brush swishing) Okay, and then down in the water.

The same thing, just use your big brush on the side like this.

Push nice and hard.

You know if your wrist is wore out by the time you get done doing this, you did something right.

(brush swishing) And maybe with a clean brush we'll just go across the center a few times.

Want a nice little light reflection in the water.

There we go.

Okay, maybe we'll do a real quick cloud.

Little bit of liquid white and some titanium white.

Maybe just a touch of that alizarin crimson in there.

Just a little bit.

That's a little too much, isn't it, gee whiz.

There we go.

Now just drop in a few little cloudy shapes.

A real light touch and a lot of paint on the brush.

Think about what a cloud looks like.

Real light and fluffy on the top.

And the bottom of it's basically flat.

If you wanna make maybe a little straight cloud down here, do it just like that.

And there's a possibility that there's one coming in over here, too.

Turn your brush on the side and spin it, just little circles, that's what clouds are.

As long as you're making little circles, you can't go wrong.

If you're a beginner just starting out for the first time, you might wanna try this painting because it's real simple, real basic.

It's one of the ones I teach in class most often.

Lift up on those clouds and go across 'em.

Like Dad tells you, it's just three hairs and some air.

Just a light touch.

(brush swishing) There we go.

Okay, maybe we'll put a little mountain back here in the distance.

We'll start off with a little white, a little prussian blue, and a little alizarin crimson.

White, prussian blue, and alizarin crimson.

(tapping) There we go, mix that up good.

And maybe this one'll be back off in here in the distance.

Very far away.

Just make kind of a triangular shape and then change it a little bit, you know?

(knife scraping) Put a little bump here, a little bump there.

There we go.

You guys wouldn't believe what I did the other day.

I went into New York City and helped Dad work on the Donahue show.

He went on there and did some paintings, and we took five people from the studio audience and taught them how to paint, too.

And then they came out on the stage and unveiled their paintings.

And they looked almost as good as Bob Ross', if you can believe that.

It was the first time they'd ever picked up a brush.

It just goes to show you what you can do with it.

Even Donahue did a painting, can you believe that?

I thought, man, Phil Donahue.

Never picked up a brush in his life, and he just learned from one of the videos and went on and did a beautiful painting.

It was amazing.

If you wanna take a little bit of titanium white, and of course I had some of that crimson left over in that.

You don't really wanna use pure white, not in this particular mountain.

A little roll of paint on the knife, and just go up there and pull down real gently.

Just lay some snow in there.

Try not to get too much paint on, just a little bit.

Always better to have just a tiny bit of paint on the knife.

As you can see, you can get a really nice effect with not a whole lot of effort right here.

Okay, and then if we just go in and take a little bit of prussian blue and a little bit of white, it can be dirty white, it doesn't have to be clean.

We can make a nice shadow color, a nice light blue, there we go.

And then pull down.

Pull down with those angles.

Like I said, a super light touch.

But you know, it's true.

You don't have to have any previous experience to paint like this.

I know you're probably saying, "Oh, yeah, right, sure, tell me more."

But no, I'm serious.

The first time I ever did a painting, I was halfway happy with the results, I mean, and I got compliments like you wouldn't believe.

It made me feel real good inside.

You know, so if you feel like giving it a try, you oughta get one of our certified instructors to teach you a class or something.

They travel all over the country.

There we go, just a little bit more snow.

You know how mountains are, they have those little snow caps.

Okay, and then let's take a big brush and tap out the bottom of that.

(brush tapping) Lift up into it real gently once again.

If you're real brave, you can even do a little bit right there.

(whistles) (brush swishing) Maybe just a touch more snow right here.

Just making decisions as I go.

I don't have any painting that I'm looking at or anything like that, I'm just making it up.

That's the funnest way to do it.

There we go.

Maybe there's a nice big foothill coming under there.

A little prussian blue, a little black.

A little crimson.

And a touch of white with that.

Watch how I push this brush up.

Just like that, push it into the paint.

Okay, and maybe that foothill goes right across in front of that mountain just like that.

Now remember, you're using a squared off brush here, so turn it to get a nice rounded effect on top of your hills.

Okay, and then maybe we'll lift up a little to give it the distant pine tree look.

Thousands of little pine trees just appearing right before your eyes.

I've been doing this now since I was 12 years old, and I'm 27 now, and it never cease to amaze me the results I can get with these huge brushes.

I mean, if somebody would come to me and tell me that and I didn't paint at all, I'd tell 'em they were nuts.

But since you're watching it happen right before your eyes, it proves it.

And like I said, anyone can do it.

You don't have to be a Leonardo da Vinci or a Michelangelo to do this.

And I'm not gonna tell you that this is art that is gonna hang in the Smithsonian or anything like that.

But I will tell you that your friends will probably buy paintings from you if you do a couple.

So you can actually make money off of it.

I probably shouldn't mention that, but I know some of you might be interested in monetary gain from your paintings, I know I am.

You gotta make a living somehow.

And even if you don't wanna make a living from it, it's real nice, you know, when somebody comes up and says, "I'd love to pay you $100 for that."

And you're thinking, wow, am I really that good?

There we go.

Some nice distant foothills.

Now this side over here looks kinda barren, so maybe we oughta put a couple trees over there.

How about, let's see.

Let's make this a little bit of sap green.

At the beginning of this show, they were running your colors across the screen for you, so you should have those all out and ready.

(brush tapping) I'll mix up some green, some brown, and some blue.

Oh, it's really dark, so we oughta put quite a little bit of white with it.

That'll work.

And maybe a little more green.

There we go.

And we'll go through that with the fan brush.

Pull through like this, real long and flat strokes, okay?

Maybe there's one right here.

And we'll push up, push up on that brush.

Go back and forth like a Z pushing up, pushing up.

Okay, maybe a taller one right here.

Gotta have a tall buddy right beside him.

That's who gives him advice on those really cold days.

Choo, choo, choo, there we go.

You'll catch me making sound effects here and there.

That's really good, you know.

Sometimes if you make a little sound effect to go along with something, it helps you remember that, then you can just go, you know, doot da doot or whatever, and it pops right out.

It's easier to remember things that way.

Then down in here, I'm just gonna draw a line so I know where I'm going to.

I'm gonna have my land coming around like that.

And then rather than wasting time with the fan brush, why not fill it in with a larger brush?

When I say large, I mean it, don't I?

Two inch, right in there.

Just like a foothill.

If you wanna make it look more like grass, just turn the brush over and push up on it, look at that.

Smashing it right there.

Right there into the canvas, look at that.

Gee whiz, that'll wear your arm out.

Okay, little bit more on there, and maybe we'll reflect this down.

Say you accidentally made this piece of land too wide.

Well, just go up in there a little bit higher when you're pulling.

But keep that curve down to the left on it 'cause that's what makes it look like it's further away here than it is over here.

That's the effect we're trying to get.

And remember, when you're pulling a reflection down, pull it down as low as the things above it are high.

So if this tree is this high, that reflection would have to go all the way to the bottom.

Okay.

And why don't we just take a clean, dry brush and go across that real quick.

And, well, let's use that same one and go through a little bit of cadmium yellow.

Cad yellow oughta work good.

Little bit of thinner maybe in that.

About one drop of thinner, that's all it takes.

And we know yellow and blue make green, so just push up into that yellow and blue combination and come in here, maybe we'll highlight a little bit.

Leave some of that green grass sticking up in back.

This is a nice bright color, I really like it.

Look at that, you can make one come in front of another or whatever you wanna do.

People come up to me while I'm doing demonstrations and they say, "Where are those numbers at?

"Where you got those numbers hidden?"

And I say, "What numbers you talking about?"

They say, "Isn't this paint-by-number?"

No way, no way, we don't even draw a picture on the canvas before we start, not even a guideline.

You know, once in a while when I'm doing a black gesso type thing I'll do that, but on white canvas, I'll usually just wing it.

People are impressed by that.

And you know, after you take a painting class and you come back home and people see your painting and they say, "Oh, my goodness, I never knew "they had it in 'em."

They really think you're talented suddenly, you know?

And you are.

But I'll tell you what's so fun about that is there's a prestige that goes along with being an artist.

And I'll tell you what, the first painting you do and you bring it home and it looks nice like that, they'll say that this person is an artist.

Gladys is definitely an artist.

Suddenly people change the way they think of you, too.

For the good.

And that makes you feel good inside.

Always go across that reflection with a clean, dry brush.

'Cause you have to make it look like water down there.

(brush swishing) Okay, and maybe a little land under that.

(knife scraping) Little bit of van dyke brown.

A touch right here, and then just pull down, that simple.

Look at that.

With the greatest of ease, you have shale.

Looks even better after you put a little bit of highlight on it.

Just dark sienna and white for that.

Real simple color mix.

This gives it that clay look.

Clay and rock.

There we go, just like that.

Now maybe with a one-inch brush and that same yellow color, we'll drop in a little grass on top of that.

And remember, whenever you're putting thin paint on top of thick paint, you wanna put quite a bit on the brush like this, maybe a little blue with that, and use a real light touch.

Wow, that turned that into a super color.

See, I just guessed, and it came out like that.

I know you probably don't believe that, but that's really how I do it.

If I see two colors that look like they'd make a nice color, I just put 'em together.

People ask me all the time, "Steve, how do you know "what colors to mix, how do you know how to do it?"

Well, I just played with it, I just played with the brushes and the paints and everything, all of it, you know, and suddenly things just start to happen for you.

Like I can remember that fan brush.

I had the hardest time learning how to paint with that fan brush, and then after I made like 100 pine trees on cardboard, I could make one just as good as anybody else could.

I've been doing it a long time, you know?

There we go, how about some highlights?

Highlights on the pine trees.

Little bit of the blue and the yellow together.

Mix it up on the brush.

And we'll come in and just smash a little bit of that in on the right-hand side of those trees.

If you get a little bit too much highlight here or there, just go back with a little bit of the dark paint and cover it up.

And if you really don't like something, you can just scrape it off and start over.

And don't think of it as, oh my gosh, I had to scrape something off my canvas and start over.

Don't think of it like that, that's depressing.

Think of it like I just got two canvasses worth of practice for the price of one.

There we go, they're sitting right down in that grass.

Let's see, maybe a little shoreline underneath this.

With liquid white, spin that liquid white around like that.

Go through it.

Straight across, straight across.

Still water lies flat, so don't let that water line get all bent up and stuff.

Just zigzag it.

And maybe a couple little water lines out here.

(knife scraping) Let's go ahead an go through our dark green color and add a little bit more blue and green to it, make it super dark.

And then maybe right here we'll just have a little tree.

It's getting bigger all the time.

Oh, no, it's huge, look at that.

It's a monster.

You can tell I knew I was gonna do that, didn't you?

Look at that, huge.

But you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna put another tree in front of this one.

This'll be like a background type thing.

So I'm just doing it real quick.

I'm not spending a lot of time on the highlighting of it either because like I said, there'll be a nice birch tree right over in front of there.

Well heck, that doesn't look too bad like it is.

You know, you gotta keep your confidence up.

Tell yourself you're good.

Even if I'm not happy with the way my painting's going, I always try to keep in good spirits about it, you know?

'Cause it's just a painting, it's not that big of a deal.

Okay, for that birch tree, get some van dyke brown out there, get a roll on your knife, and then nice big one, there we go.

All the way down to the bottom.

Maybe it'll have two trunks on it.

Like I said, always give it a friend.

Come in from the other side, fatten him up a little bit, feed him some more lasagna.

And then a little bit of titanium white for highlight on those.

Smash that titanium white out like that.

And just pull in, pull in.

Don't wanna cover the whole trunk with white.

You wanna leave half of it brown.

And maybe underneath there, you know that same old green color you were using before, add a little bit more blue and brown and green to that, make it even darker, just make it a little bit darker with the same color.

You can call that the base color.

Just smash right over the bottom of that tree and put some bushes in there.

You could do that part with a paint roller and get away with it.

Pull through your cad yellow like this.

And maybe a little bit of highlight on a couple of these bushes.

Just turn that brush, just like you're going around a clock.

See here, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, two, three.

Change your color, put a little red in there, a little yellow ochre or indian yellow, it's up to you.

Wow, it just became a fall scene that quick, didn't it?

That's what's nice, you're not committed or anything with this.

You can do anything you want, and it's always gonna look nice 'cause you did it and you're wonderful, and you have to believe that.

I heard somebody say one time, "Never try anything, just do it."

That's probably the best saying I've ever heard.

A little grass with the brush sideways like that.

And maybe to finish her up, we'll have a couple branches.

That's just van dyke brown and paint thinner together.

You need quite a bit of thinner in that.

You want an Indian ink consistency if possible.

Extend the tops of your trees and do a few little trunks coming out.

Keep on putting that thinner in there.

You're gonna need a lot.

When you make a branch come out, make it kinda like a guy with his arm sticking out.

You know, go out and then up.

Little y's and little v's.

And try to stay away from that pitchfork look.

Okay.

Now she's getting pretty close now.

Look at that, couple more branches.

And maybe a quick signature down here.

There we go, and we're all done.

Thanks for watching me today.

I hope you enjoyed it.

And if you're a beginner, try this painting.

It's really a nice one to start off with.

Good luck.

(light music)