- Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join me today.

This is the last show of the 18th series, so I thought today we'd just do a fantastic little painting, and I think it'll make you happy.

I tell you what, let's start out, have 'em run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with me.

While they're doing that, let me show you what I was doing when I got caught here.

Today I have my ol' standard 18 by 24 inch canvas up here.

I've covered the top of it with liquid white, 'bout down to so.

And now the bottom I'm just putting a little of liquid black on.

Just using the two inch brush, just to assure that we have a nice, even distribution of color all the way across.

Now I thought today maybe we'll do some, well, let's see, maybe we'll just do a beautiful, little painting that has maybe some little woodsy things here, and I don't know, let's just have some fun, and see what happens.

Now while we have this brush with the liquid black on it, let's just go up in here and just tap in some very basic little shapes.

Maybe some little bushes and stuff that live far back here in the distance.

Just some very basic shapes.

And these, they will sort of show through, after we get everything done.

And it'll make it look like there's trees far, far away, that you can't hardly see.

Very distant little trees.

And you can just use the side of the brush like this, and make some very nice little shapes.

Or you can use it like this, and just turn it to create all kinds of little illusions.

Whatever works the easiest for ya.

Try 'em both, and see which one you like.

There we go.

Mm-kay.

We'll wash the ol' brush.

Just get it cleaned out here.

Shake it off.

(thwacking) (chuckles) I just beat the devil out of it.

Now then, I thought today, let's have some, let's have some fun.

Let's start off with a little bit of yellow ochre, right on the ol' two inch brush here.

Just a little bit of yellow ochre.

We don't need a great deal.

There.

Mm-kay.

Tap the bristles in there.

That assures a nice, even distribution of color all the way through the bristles.

See how even that is?

'Kay, let's go up here.

Maybe today let's put a little sun up here.

I like to do little suns.

The first advice I would give you is don't put it right dead in the center of the canvas, put it to one side or the other.

But not right in the center.

'Kay, we'll just start off here and lay in a little color just using little criss-cross strokes.

Something about like so.

And just work that around and around.

Maybe out to about there.

Wherever.

'Kay.

Now then.

Now then, let's take and wash the ol' brush off again.

(thwacking) (chuckles) All right, there we go.

Now then, let's take a little alizarin crimson, nice reddish color, and tap a little of that right on the two inch brush, 'kay.

Now right around the yellow here, I'm gonna put a little bit of this alizarin crimson.

Like so.

But I'm still using little criss-cross strokes.

And by using those little criss-cross strokes, you'll find that it is much, much easier to blend this together when we start blending.

Rather than just drawing a big circle around there.

All these little loose lines here, are much easier to blend together than one big solid line.

There.

'Kay, now.

Somethin' like so.

Looks like a big smiley face already.

So that makes us happy.

So this is gonna be a happy painting.

All right, we like things that are happy here.

Tell you what let's do, let's take alizarin crimson and a little touch of the phthalo blue.

But mostly alizarin crimson, the blue is much, much stronger.

Much stronger.

And we just mix these on the brush.

What the heck, it doesn't matter.

Any way that makes you happy.

Let's go back up here.

Now right around the crimson, we'll take a little bit of this phthalo blue and alizarin crimson mixture, and just bring it right around.

There.

Like so.

I'n't that fantastic?

There we go.

I'm just gonna let it blend right down into these little liquid black shapes that we made.

And believe it or not, some of them will show through.

If you don't rub 'em too hard some of them will still show way back in the background.

And if you do rub 'em away, you can go back and just tap in a few more, right over the top of the color.

Either way, doesn't matter.

Or you can just leave 'em out.

Now then.

Tell you what, let's clean the brush, one more time.

And we can begin blending all those colors together.

Shake it off.

(thwacking) (chuckles) And just beat the devil out of it.

Now then, I wanna take this clean, dry brush, and be sure it's dry.

Be sure it's dry and just begin blending this all together.

Start from the yellow area and work outward, because that's the weakest color.

There.

And try not to take this dirty, contaminated brush back up here into the center.

If you do, you're gonna lose your nice color up here.

But we're still using all those little criss-cross strokes.

And that'll just blend it right together.

There.

You know we've got so many letters, in some of the earlier shows I showed my little squirrel (thwacking) that lives with me.

And we've got literally hundreds of letters and calls about the little rascal.

So I thought I'd show him one more time, since this is the last show.

And just let you see this little rascal and see if you like him half as much as we do.

This is what he looked like when Annette and I first got him.

He looked (chuckles) like a little, drowned rat.

And this is what he looks like today.

He is one of the most precious little creatures to me.

And he lives in the house with me.

Sort of runs around, tears everything up, But he's right on the verge of being at the age where I have to turn him loose.

'Cause it's, he's ready to go free now.

Go live with his own kind.

He just puts up with ol' bushy-haired guy so long, and then he's ready to go back.

But he's very special to me.

Very special.

And I hope you, hope you enjoyed seein' that little devil.

All I been doin' here is just blending this, so it's very soft.

Now then.

(thwacking) We'll clean that brush one more time.

I wanna brighten this guy, just a little bit more.

(thwacking) 'Cause I really want this guy to stand out really strong.

Want it to be an eye grabber.

So I'm gonna take and go right into titanium white.

Just plain ol' titanium white.

And I'll go right back up here, and start working it around.

Just plain titanium white.

Now it's gonna pick up all the colors that we have on the canvas, and it's gonna brighten everything.

Now you can do this over, and over, and over, and make it as bright as you want.

There we go.

But now you can spend quite a bit of time here just blending this.

You cannot believe how smooth, beautiful you can make this.

It just, it's unreal what you can do.

And you wanna blend it, 'til where you step back from the canvas, you can't see where one color stops and the next color starts.

There we go.

Now we just take out the brush marks.

Like so.

Now then, maybe we wanna put a sun up here.

So I'll just take my finger.

Shoot, we'll do finger painting today.

Decide where you want the sun to live.

Maybe it's gonna live right here.

And just make a little round circle.

Preferably a circle.

Huh, those square suns, people sort of look at 'em funny.

So, I suggest you make a little round one here.

(thwacking) Then, very lightly, very lightly, you can just blend it all together.

There.

And the more you blend it, the softer it'll become, until it literally just disappears, if you want it to.

There, very lightly.

We'll go over the entire canvas, just to remove brush strokes and get it ready.

Mm-kay.

Let's wash the ol' brush.

Wash the ol' brush, that's the, that's the most fun part of this whole procedure, is washing the brush.

Because as I've mentioned to you, (chuckles) my camera people don't think much of this procedure.

Sometimes they get a little upset with me.

In fact, I tell you what, I'm gonna ask them to turn the camera around and let you see.

This is Richard.

And Richard's been with me (thwacking) (chuckles) since the first series.

And as you can see, Richard has finally got smart, and he now wears a raincoat.

He got tired of all of his clothes bein' painted.

So, we appreciate his, all of his work, though, that he's done with us and the fact that he stays with us even though he's got splashed.

There.

Now.

I'm wanna go back with a little bit of this liquid black and maybe just put in a few indications.

I wipe most of mine out, too.

Believe it or not, a few of 'em would still show through.

But for the purposes of television here, we'll make 'em a little more distinct, so you can see 'em.

Now maybe.

Let's take a little, little bit of the phthalo blue, little touch of crimson.

And, let's just go right in here, and we'll put a little color down here.

Right over the liquid black.

Just a little bit of color.

Let it blend right up into basically nothing.

There.

Maybe back in here we're beginning to see some trees and bushes that are a little more distinct.

There they are.

Get a little more color.

Just begin putting in some very basic little shapes.

We're not looking for a lot of detail yet.

Just very basic shapes.

And all we're using is just the corner of the brush.

Nothing else.

There's a nice big one standin' right up here.

See there?

Little more paint.

And this is just alizarin crimson, phthalo blue.

There.

A little touch more maybe over in here.

Let's just have another happy little bush that lives here.

But I don't want to kill all those ones that we made with the liquid black.

We want to leave those back there.

And they'll show through, and they'll look like things that are very, very distant and sort of hidden in the mist back here.

Now liquid black is excellent when you want to do paintings that you want to look very misty and very, very soft.

Because the black will mix with everything that you put on here now, and it creates that illusion of softness.

And sometimes, sometimes that's extremely desirable.

I like paintings that are very soft.

For television purposes, a lot of times, we paint the paintings quite bright, because everybody's set is adjusted just a little different, so we want the color to look well.

But when I'm at home painting, I paint paintings that are extremely, extremely soft.

Almost look like watercolors.

And this is an excellent way to do that using the liquid black.

I've taken a little paint thinner on the brush here.

Little bit of the lavender color.

We just put the indication here and there of some little tree trunks that live back here.

We're not lookin' for a lot of detail.

We're gonna highlight these, most of it will be covered up.

There.

But you always have little sticks and twigs that are hangin' around out here and playin'.

The little squirrel has to have a place to come and sit.

I really hope you've enjoyed seein' the little squirrel in this series.

He's very special to me.

There.

As I say Annette and I raised him from a little, tiny thing.

His eyes weren't even open when we got him.

Couple of my neighbors, Terry and Marie, brought him over when he was the tiniest, little thing.

He had fell out of a tree and a kitty cat had got him.

And they rescued him, brought him over.

And we raised him.

By the time you see this, he'll probably be long gone.

Back to nature.

He'll probably have a family.

Couple of kids of his own.

Car payments.

All those things that we all have.

There we go.

Now we got a few little sticks and twigs in there.

We'll just use the same ol' dirty brush, it doesn't matter.

Go right into yellow, get a little sap green.

Maybe even a little brown to dull it down.

Oh, there we go, that's nice.

That's nice.

Tap a little bit into the bristle.

I'm gonna get a little yellow ochre, too.

There.

Little bit of yellow ochre.

'Kay and let's go right up here.

Now then, begin picking out little individual things here.

There's a happy little tree that lives right there.

See him?

There he is.

'Kay.

Maybe right here's another one.

Absolutely, you knew that.

You knew there was gonna be a tree there.

There.

Mm-kay, maybe right over here on this one.

Then we'll just put all kinds of little leaves and just foliage everywhere.

Everywhere.

Get a little more of the sap green, come right in here.

There's a nice one.

He was hidin' back here in the background.

We had to pull him out.

Every once in awhile maybe a little touch of the Indian yellow and little touch of bright red.

We'll sparkle it up.

Oh, that's pretty.

That's pretty.

These kind of colors just make you feel good.

They make you feel good.

And that's what painting's all about.

Should make you feel good inside when you paint.

There.

And the most pleasure of all in painting, is sharing your painting with other people, you know?

The fact, do a painting, and give it to a friend.

It's the most fantastic feeling that somebody, and when they go, "Ooh" and "Ah" and they say, "You didn't paint this."

That's, huh, because they won't believe you painted it.

They will not believe it.

And that maybe the nicest thing, of this whole thing is just sharing what you can do with other people.

There we go.

Now, maybe.

Maybe back in here.

Let's begin making maybe some little grassy areas that live back in here.

Wherever.

And all we're doing is tapping down with the greens and yellows.

But see how subdued and soft this looks?

That's because of the liquid black on the canvas.

This will look very, very soft.

Now if you use the black gesso, you could get the same idea but it'll look totally and completely different.

Don't get black gesso and liquid black confused.

Black gesso is a acrylic paint.

It's a primer that goes on the canvas.

Liquid black is an oil based paint.

It's very slow drying.

Where as gesso dries very quickly.

There.

Mm-kay.

You can put the gesso on it and probably in about 30 minutes you're ready to go.

The liquid black is designed to stay wet through the entire painting.

Mm-kay, maybe.

Maybe right in there.

Wherever, wherever.

We can just put all kinds of happy, little things in there.

Tell you what, that just looks like a perfect place to me, but let's do it, let's do it.

In my mind, I see a happy little stream lives back here.

I'm gonna dip the brush into a little bit, a little bit of the liquid white, and go right into titanium white.

Just pull the brush through.

Maybe the least, least little touch of phthalo blue in there.

Least little touch.

Just enough to give it a little hint of color.

Okay, let's go back up here.

Now then maybe our little stream, it comes from back here.

So we don't know where it comes from.

Comes around the corner there.

Maybe there's a little waterfall right there.

Bloop.

Push upward with the brush.

Just push is upward.

Like so, there.

'Kay.

There it comes.

Streams are so much fun to make with this.

And it comes right here, bloop, and falls over.

And there's all kinds of little rocks and stuff underneath here that we can't see.

So just use your imagination and decide where you think there might be a rock living underneath and it causes the water to do all kinds of beautiful things.

Sometimes just for no reason it looks like on top there'll be a little bloop like that.

And there's just a rock under there.

Or a big stone.

And sometimes when your little stream's just meandering along there and having fun and playing, it'll come along, and somewhere somebody pulled out pew, there it went, pulled out all the stops.

And it slid right off.

Maybe there's big one or something right there.

Now watch here, watch here.

Take a little bit of the liquid white, we'll put it up here, maybe a little more.

To that I'm gonna add the least, little touch of dark sienna.

Maybe a little more.

And we just want to make a pile of very thin paint that's light brown.

I'm just gonna make a pile and just pile it up like that.

Now then.

Let's take, we'll use the ol' filbert brush today.

We'll go right into brown, put it on both sides.

Then we'll go down to this very thin paint, with the light brown in it, and just wipe through.

So, on one side, there's light, and the other side is dark.

See there?

'Kay, let's go right up here.

Now there maybe back here in our world, there lives some little stones.

But this way you can make the highlight and the shadow of the stones both, in one stroke.

That easy.

Maybe, maybe there's stones all over the place.

We don't know.

Wherever you want 'em.

This is a super way of making a lot of little stones very rapidly.

Little more of the color.

Maybe down in here, shoot.

Maybe there's a big stone here.

That's why there's a waterfall.

Maybe it comes around and all the way over.

We don't know where it is.

Just make up your mind where you want it, and drop it in.

In fact, sometimes, there's even stones in the waterfall.

And we can do that, too.

That easy.

We can put a happy, little stone right in the waterfall.

Then we'll go back to our fan brush, and bring some water, ploop, right over on this side.

See there?

And we let this water come right in front of the rock, pew.

But you see how now there's a little water goin' behind the rock and some goin' in front.

And when it hits down here, needless to say, it's gonna splash.

Push upward with the brush and get that nice splash and the foam and all the churning and carrying on that goes on down here.

There it goes (makes splashing noise) over here.

Gotta make those little noises, though.

Course, people look at you a little weird when you're painting and you make all these funny little noises but that's all right.

Painters are expected to be a little different.

So use your artist's license.

Your artist's license comes with your first tube of paint.

And it says you're a painter.

You can do weird things and you can paint anything that you want on canvas.

You can create your own world.

Now maybe, let's grab another brush.

Maybe over here on this side, let's go over here.

Let's take a little, a little black, a little crimson, little brown, what the heck.

All on the two inch brush.

Just tap a little color into it.

Maybe, maybe over here.

Maybe right here.

We don't care.

Maybe there's some big bushes that live over here.

Somewhere, right there, there they are.

And we'll bring 'em all the way out.

Maybe that's what holds the waterfall in here.

Comes way out like that.

But, see, this creates another plane and pushes that waterfall way back in the distance.

There.

All we're doing now is putting down some dark, so our light color will show when we put it on here.

It's the only reason we're using this dark, is to cover up over the waterfall so it pushes it back.

There.

Mm-kay then I'll go back to my other two inch brush that we had our greens and yellows and all that on.

There.

Tap in a little bit of color.

But, push that paint.

You can see that little ridge right there.

That's most important.

Let's go right up here.

Now then, make some big decisions here.

Where do you, where do you want the highlights on this?

Maybe it comes right about here.

And just begin dropping in all these little things.

And you can vary the colors a little bit.

Maybe there's a little yellow ochre, right there.

Little yellow ochre.

There we go.

Little bit more.

And let the light, or the highlights, come out a little bit past the dark area.

That keeps the shadows inside the bush.

You don't want the shadows on the outside, doesn't look just right.

Shadows are normally inside the bush.

There we go.

Here's another one.

Wherever you want 'em.

As many or as few.

Just sort of look at the basic shape that you dropped in.

And from that, then you can create all kinds of things.

Maybe it just, shoot, look right there.

Gotta have a rock here.

Looks like a rock place.

Right here.

Aaroomp, there's a big ol' rock that lives right there.

Shoot, there might even be a, maybe there's a flat rock down here at the bottom.

We don't know.

Doesn't matter.

Whatever.

Whatever.

There.

Tap in a few little bushes around here.

All right.

Then we just take the knife, scrape in the indication here and there of a stick and a twig.

On the other side over here, maybe we'll put somethin' over here, too.

Maybe there's a happy little bush that lives right here.

And it grows right down to about there.

Wherever.

Back to our brush with the highlight color.

Throw some happy little leaves up here on this one.

Little bit right in there.

See?

They just live right here in your brush.

All you gotta do is sort of shake 'em out.

Let some of these bushes hang right over almost into the water.

There, back to our fan brush.

Put a little water around the bottom of these.

Shoot, we got it made there.

Tell you what, (chuckles) we got a minute or so left here, let's have some fun.

Maybe in our world, you know me and my big trees, maybe, yep, (chuckles) maybe there's a big tree that lives right up here.

And all we're doin' is droppin' in some dark here.

Just like so.

That's all we're doin'.

Just droppin' in some base color.

We don't want to cover up our sun.

We'll come, maybe we'll just come close to it and let it go at that.

There.

There we go.

Maybe some on the other side, too.

We don't want it left out.

It's just sort of a nice way just to bring it all together here.

There we go.

With the ol' two inch brush it doesn't take long to drop in a whole bunch of stuff.

There we are.

See there?

There's another one.

Shoot, who knows.

Maybe there's a, maybe there's a little tree that lives right out here.

We'll put some leaves in.

Then we'll come back and put a trunk right there.

We'll make a tree right there.

We can do anything that we want here.

Any old thing.

There.

'Kay.

That sort of just brings the whole thing together.

Let's take a liner brush.

Lot of paint thinner on it.

There we go.

Go into a little bit of brown, and let's make a little tree trunk.

Right here.

We promised this tree we'd make him a nice trunk.

Right down in there.

There he is.

Maybe we'll, maybe we'll give him, maybe there's two little trees here, who knows.

You put as many or as few as you want in your world.

Indication here and there of a trunk, or limb or two on it.

There we are.

There we are.

Little bit more paint thinner.

Into our color.

And you can see the indication here and there of a few little limbs and stuff that grow out through there.

And over here.

Shoomp.

There we are.

Great big one.

There.

We'll put a few highlights on those branches.

And we'll 'bout have a finished painting.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the last show of the 18th series.

And it's very, very special that you've allowed me to come back into your home again for another series of painting shows and, and we share this time together.

And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to be part of your, of your activities, and your family.

It's very special to me.

And we already have the next series under production.

So if you'll keep watching us, we'll keep right on painting.

So I'll tell you what.

Throw a few things on here, and we're gonna call this painting all finished.

And until the next series, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

(smooth jazz music) - [Voiceover] This program is brought to you by North Light Books, publisher of over 200 how-to books and videos for fine artists and graphic designers.

And by Langnickel, manufacturers of selected artist's brushes.