[Music] Hi, Welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm Nicholas Hankins, and we're going to take a walk through the woods today on this 18 by 24 canvas.

Come on up and let me tell you what I've got going on.

This is an 18 by 24 pre-stretched, double-primed canvas.

I've coated it with a nice thin even coat of the black gesso, which is a water based paint.

So it's already dry.

That was allowed to dry completely.

Once dry I covered it with a very thin coat of liquid clear.

And then I mixed up a little mixture of phthalo blue and alizarin crimson.

My mixture has much more alizarin crimson than phthalo blue, and I covered the entire canvas with some of that.

And that's all I've done until you showed up.

So let's get started.

So I'm going to take a little one inch brush and some titanium white.

There we go and we'll come up here and just, just kind of put a little glow in the background like this.

I'm just going to, just going to start putting a nice little light glow back here.

We're going to paint a little wooded scene, like I said, maybe a little, a little stream running through the, through the woods.

And I'm just going to let this get expansive and larger and larger, let that glow wander out.

Isn't that a pretty purple?

Nice pretty purple.

Wipe my brush out a little bit.

I'll grab just a little more color.

Come back and make sure this sort of carries on out into the background a little farther.

But it's getting darker and darker and darker as I work away from that main light spot.

Still using my little crisscross strokes.

Down here, I'm just going to kind of let the, the brush jump, jump around all which way.

I don't care too much about a specific shape or exactly where this light ends up.

I just kind of want it to bounce through the trees and bound around and do whatever it wants to.

Same thing we should be doing just whatever we want to.

[chuckles] Take a nice, clean, dry two inch brush now.

And I'll just come back and soften this a bit.

There we go.

Just, just to remove the brush strokes.

Kind of, kind of push it out of focus.

Something like that.

Now's the time to step back though.

Once you've kind of done that initial thing, step back and see if you see any, any areas that need just a little more light.

I feel like maybe, maybe there should be just a little more on this side kind of peeking through the background.

It's never too late.

Just because you smoothed it down once doesn't mean that you can't come back and add more.

You certainly can.

So always, always be willing to to change it a little bit.

As Bob used to say, it's, it's easy to add more and it's a son of a gun to take it away.

And he's right.

I'd rather, I'd rather sneak up on exactly what I want than get in there and kind of overshoot it the first time.

There we go.

The more you're willing to change a painting as you go, the better, the better your paintings are going to look and the freer you're going to feel on the canvas, the more open to just kind of being creative you'll be.

It's, it's a, it's a beautiful thing.

[chuckles] It's a beautiful thing.

Let's take, now, I still have a little bit of this purple color here that I mixed up.

That's my crimson and my blue I was telling you about.

And I'm going to take, just going to take a little bit of my white and park it over here next door.

And I'll keep going with that little one inch brush.

It was working just fine so I'm going to pick up a little bit of those two and mix them together.

And we'll just see what we've got here.

I'm not sure that's exactly right but we'll kind of taste test it and see.

Yeah.

It's enough to just barely show up.

I guess that could be a touch darker.

Oh, there we go.

Okay.

So I'm going to hang out back here and just kind of put in some little background trees.

Just kind of find my way through some little background trees like this.

And I'm not particularly concerned about these either.

I just kind of want them to, you know, have a nice leafy tree feel.

I don't care what kind of trees they are especially.

I just want them to sit back here and look pretty.

These will be kind of in the background and I want them to be a little bit quiet.

I don't want too much noise out of these.

They're just hanging out in the background, having a good time.

They're a supporting character.

[chuckles] They're just barely there.

There we go.

Something about like, so.

This is all very soft and subtle in the beginning here.

I'm going to take my little liner brush, a touch more of that purple color and I'm adding some paint thinner, just reaching away there and adding some paint thinner, sort of swirling that around.

We'll come back in here and just drop in a few little branches and trunks and sticks and twigs and etc.

I'm not going to get, I'm not going to get extremely elaborate, again, because this is background stuff, and we're going to lose so much of it.

There's no need to get too involved.

There's a little, little sticky thing sticking up right there.

This one needs a little, little something in it.

[Nic makes "rr, rr,rr" sounds] A couple little branches and sticks and twigs in there.

I don't know.

We'll just let it ride.

Put it in there and let it ride.

Okay.

We ought to wash our brush, oughten we?

Let's do that.

Next thing you know, I'll get lazy and let them stack up.

Let's shake out the excess paint thinner.

Just beat the devil out of him.

All right.

Now, let's come back.

I'm just going to grab some titanium white now.

Maybe add a little touch of the lavender this way.

Even, even a little tiny touch of bright red.

There we go.

Just load the brush nice and full.

And I'll grab the teeniest, tiniest little dose of liquid white, and add to that and then give it a little push.

Push, push, push, push, push.

Push up a little ridge paint.

Let's come back and just begin adding some little highlights to these trees back here.

My biggest concern right now is going to be making sure that I preserve some of that dark.

I don't want to cover it all up.

It's easy to get sort of enamored with how, how pretty your highlights are, and you wind up covering everything up.

It's kind of a tragedy when that happens.

There we go.

Like I say, these are just, these are just little, little background trees.

I kind of, I kind of want these guys to be quiet.

They kind of stand up and say "present" when the roll is called and then, and that's about all the contribution they make.

There we go.

And again, just, just ensuring I don't cover up all of the dark back there.

There.

Something like that.

Might even have, might even have a couple... this would be very incidental.

Take a little more of that color.

Might even be 1 or 2 just kind of hanging around back here.

I don't know that we're going to see much of this at all but just in case we do.

Let's take a minute, let's take a minute and just pop a little color back there.

I don't even need to clean the brush.

I'll just wipe it out and go back into my, my highlight mixture.

This is almost like faking a little tree in there.

Like I say just, just in case we catch a little, little hint of this one later.

He's back there.

Matter of fact, I want it so far back there that I'm even going to take my large brush and kind of fade away this edge.

I'll fade this edge back into the background just a bit.

There we go.

There we go.

That's all we need to do for that little background.

Clean up all that stuff, get it out of the way.

Always filling up my poor old palette here.

How about, let's mix up some phthalo blue, some midnight black, alizarin crimson and sap green.

That should work.

That should work.

We can even add a little Van Dyke brown to that.

If it's dark, it's fair game.

Throw it in there.

All right.

Wipe my knife off.

Come back to my, come back to my two inch brush.

I'm going to get serious now.

[chuckles] Load that brush up nice and full on both sides and then I'm going to give it that little push.

Like that, push up that little ridge of paint.

All right.

Let's come up here.

Now we're going to build some big trees up in the front.

Let's take just the corner of the brush and begin tapping with this.

And then I'm just going to pay attention to the, the shape in the form of these little individual branches.

This is where you really have to think like a tree.

Silly as that sounds, it will put you in the right frame of mind.

You just have to think of the shape that you want the branch to have, how heavy, you have to think, how heavy is that branch?

Are there a lot of leaves on it?

Is it kind of a sparse tree?

If it's a heavy branch, then it needs to kind of oop turn down and droop down like that, because those, those leaves really weigh a lot, and they'll weigh down an old tree.

A little more paint on the brush.

Maybe it comes out.

Maybe, maybe we're getting into some of the, the ground cover down here now.

See, it looks nice against all that light.

All those little background trees we painted and I, I said, they don't play a big role, but in a way they do.

They play an important role.

They make these look good.

They're back there doing the heavy lifting really.

And the foreground trees, they just kind of get all the glory.

Big old trees that are glory hogs.

Isn't that awful?

Let's have another big one right here.

Again, just with the corner of the brush.

And as I say, just think like a tree.

What kind of, what kind of shape would you like to take as a tree?

Ask yourself that and then hit the canvas.

That's about all there is to it.

Got plenty of paint on the brush, though.

That's important.

I do kind of like to watch and make sure my branches don't wind up all even.

You want some of them to kind of hang out and stick out a little farther than the others.

Looks funny if they're all cut off at exactly the same length.

It looks like the Forest Service came through and trimmed them so they could put up power lines or something.

And this is too deep in the woods to find any power lines.

I guarantee it.

There we go.

Something like that then they just kind of come right on down.

Come right on down and, and then they kind of find the ground, the grass.

Little hillside here.

We can't tell too much about it just yet because it's so dark.

But don't you worry, we're going to come back and pick that out in a minute.

Let's give these old trees a little tree trunk.

We'll take a filbert brush, maybe, and some Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna.

I'll come through and kind of, kind of figure out the shape that I want them to have first.

Again, this is going to be very dark.

You're going to think, what is he doing?

Won't you paint something we can see?

But you just wait.

You'll see it in a minute.

You'll see it in a minute, I promise.

I'm going to have a little, little bigger trunk on this one.

A couple of little branches here and there.

We'll embellish, we'll embellish that a little more in just a second.

Okay, now let's take a little titanium white, dark sienna, Van Dyke brown.

Just kind of, kind of mix it all, all messy like that.

And then we'll come back and just kind of graze that trunk.

And we'll let it take what it wants.

And it'll give you back what's left.

And just vary your mixture as you go.

Sometimes you get a little more brown.

Sometimes you get a little more white.

Sometimes you get a little more sienna.

And it gives you a nice texture on there.

Interesting look.

A little bit on this old tree.

Ooh, it's working good on that one?

The thicker the base coat on the tree, the better this works.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] There we go.

You can make some really rough, old gnarly looking trees this way.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's almost like, it's almost like having a little miniature palette knife to paint with.

It's kind of, it's kind of neat.

I do like that look.

And I like that when it dries, you can feel of it and it, and it really feels like bark on there.

That is super cool.

That's something kind of unique to oil paints.

And that's one of the reasons I like to paint with oil paints so much.

Un, unrivaled texture with these.

And you can do so many neat things with them.

And again, just in case it shows we need a little, we need a little branch and a stick and a twig or two in here.

Anything comes off too strong, you can almost just brush back over it and it'll pick up some of that dark under color and quiet down a little bit.

It'll back back down and hide.

Add a few little sticks and twigs and branches and things down here.

A couple on this one too.

I'm going to extend some of these out a little farther.

There we go.

A little back here.

A little something to hold up all of this stuff, too.

I don't know that it's going to show that much, but there it is, just in case.

All right.

That's probably good enough.

Okay.

Tell you what, since this is a bigger tree, let's take our, our bigger two inch brush.

Let me get a little taste of that base color and then come over here to our yellows.

Just get a little, little of each one and allow it to mix with the green.

And give it a little push, push, push, push push up that little ridge paint.

Let's come back and add some beautiful little highlights to these trees, too.

I really enjoy how that, how the purple and the green kind of work with one another.

I think it's a neat color scheme.

Any time you get complementary colors together, ooh, it looks good.

Recently, we did a little class at our, at our shop, and I taught a, I taught a seascape that only used red and green and white.

And everybody did so well with it.

It's amazing what you can do with a, a limited palette sometimes.

And a little imagination.

Limited palette and a little imagination.

Just wouldn't believe.

And the only thing stopping you is you.

Just have to make the decision that you want to go out and try it and do it.

Just go out and do it.

There we go.

Let's jump over here on the other side.

We'll give this one some leaves too, same way.

That white seems to be coming from, from the center so I'm going to concentrate my, my brightest lights right out here on the edges of the tree and then kind of let it, let it get softer and quieter as it works back into the inner part of the tree there.

That's neat.

That's neat.

You can always add, if you need it, just a little touch of the, the liquid white.

If you need it, you might not.

The yellows are, are formulated to be just a little bit softer so they stick a little better just right out of the tube.

There we go.

Just come right on down like that.

Let's see, I'm going to add a little phthalo blue to my color and let it get a little darker and cooler down here so we kind of start working into the ground foliage.

Just let it get a little quieter.

Some of this stuff is going to sneak right off into the, into the shadows completely.

There we go.

Let's see, a little bit on, a little bit on this side too.

All right.

And start thinking about my little stream here.

I said we were going to have a little stream that rolls through this painting.

So let's grab, let's grab a little fan brush, I'm going to take a little liquid white, We already have a little purple in that color, some of our base color.

I'm going to add a little touch of the blue to it, make it just a little, little more to the blue side.

There we go.

Just load that brush up nice and full and let's come back here.

And we have to kind of make a major decision.

Where does this stream live?

I left a little opening right here, so I kind of have an idea anyway.

But I want it to come from right [Nic makes "tchoo" sound] there.

See, you just kind of let it come over, [Nic makes "shoop" sound] pull the stopper out and let it fall.

Then just, just sort of wiggle your brush around, let it happen.

Let those little rapids kind of run around.

Maybe it comes over this way.

And then there's another little, [Nic makes "pshooo" sound] little watery fall right there.

Let that wiggle out this way.

Let's see, if it comes... yeah, right there.

It starts falling that way.

Just all over.

Just let it run all over.

You can even just take sort of squash your brush up and make it splash.

It sort of feels like it hits a rock and keeps going.

That's a neat, it's a neat look.

The biggest thing down here is just don't cover up all your dark.

You've got to have a little, a little bit of highlight and a little bit of rapids.

That's a fast moving creek, actually.

I was kind of thinking, originally, of like a little sleepy, slow moving creek, but that one's getting on with it.

Now we can take our, some of our dark color and just, just sort of cut it off in a few spots, kind of decide where the land comes down and meets it.

Same on this side.

It just kind of comes down and frames it.

There's a little, there's a little hillside right there which you can't see too much of right now, but if we take a little bit of our greens and our yellow, I've knocked it down just a touch so it doesn't get too bright.

We can lend some highlight to this.

Then you'll see it.

Then you'll see it.

See this is right there the whole time.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka, tch" sounds] And you just think of the lay of the land.

How does the land flow in here?

How does it lay?

Is it on a little hillside?

Is it level?

It's up to you.

It is up to you.

Let's take a little bit and get this one too.

Right through there.

That just winds right down to your stream.

Keeps it contained.

There we go.

Maybe just a little.

Yeah, a little touch brighter right there.

I don't want it to look, look, all samey same, you know.

It can get a little boring if it's all the same all over.

Light's going to strike differently in different places.

Let's take a little a, take a little bit of that little light color.

I'm going to add some black and a little sienna to it, a little touch of the, a little touch of the liquid white.

Make kind of a grayish, brownish, bluish color.

Is that specific enough for you?

[chuckles] Grayish.

Brownish.

Bluish.

I left my options open.

That's okay though.

I'm going to load up a little filbert brush with some dark on one side, some light paint on the other side, and I'll put some little rocks in here on the, on the edge of the stream.

Just kind of help contain it.

Yeah.

Like that.

Put some nice little edges on our stream.

Bring the water up around them just a bit there.

And take, what with just a second left.

Let's have, let's have a couple little bare trees just kind of hanging out over on this side.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] Give them a little arm or two.

There we go.

Just kind of hang out there unobtrusive.

Shoot, I think we've about got us a finished painting here.

I hope you've enjoyed this.

Come back and paint with me again.

And until next time, happy painting and take care.

[Music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankins' 68 page book with 13 painting projects or his companion DVD set, call 1-800-BOB ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]