What's the best time to paint fruit?

Before you eat the prop!

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Welcome to a 3-part series, "And an Apple."

That's going to be so much fun.

We'll start with acrylics.

We'll go to oil; we'll go to oil.

Let me show you the project.

First let's show you the finished one, down here.

Isn't this attractive?

I really like that.

Then up above we have the acrylic stage, and I may go a little further with that, with acrylics.

Then we have the line drawing on, and this is a priming.

It's Burnt Umber, Payne's Gray.

Start over-- Burnt Umber, Payne's Gray, and white.

It looks like it's about 2 parts Umber, 1 part Payne's Gray and then add in white, about one part white.

So we'll start with just a little bit of the background so we can isolate the objects, and then we'll go further with the background.

So let's try this.

This is Burnt Umber and you're ivory.

Oh, you're not ivory, [laughs] you're purple!

This is Payne's Gray.

Okay so we'll take this out.

Now this is not the priming of the canvas.

This is the background, the dark background.

So I'll mix this together.

It looks like it's about 2 umber and 1 black.

Let's put a little white in that... a little bit more Payne's Gray.

Let's see what this looks like.

Looks good!

I could tell that before I even came up, but it's very surprising.

I really think it's very important that you hold it up and test it because it can fool you.

All right, I'm going to dip in.

Let's see, I have a fan brush.

The thing I like this fan brush and then into the paint, is that I can, on its edge, I can almost draw a single line and then wider when I need more, so it's very versatile.

And it works for a lot of things too.

That's what versatile is, Buck!

So remember what I said, what I'm doing is I'm sort of outlining the objects so that I can come near them and I think the way I'll do this is, we'll go sort of fast.

That's fast?

That's fast.

Dip down.

Oh, I need to tell you one other thing.

Oh, did I already tell you that?

Yeah, the priming of the canvas, which is quite different.

Often we use a light green or pink or so on.

The reason I chose this is, you can see it's very close to down here with maybe just a little glaze on it.

So it's quite helpful.

You could do this on green, you could do this on pink.

This one may even had been on green because I can see a little green in there.

There's no rule.

It's just what appeals to you at the time.

Okay, still rushing down with this.

It almost feels like, hey Buck you need to get back so we can see this thing.

You need to go faster.

I put a little light in there, I mean a little dark.

This shouldn't be dark, that should be light.

So you have a shadow from this area down there, then you have a little light that leads into the unpeeled orange.

You know this, in making the little prop.

Gosh I was so impressed!

That actually came out just the way I wanted it to!

Doesn't that look delicious?

I recall once a student of mine she was painting a lobster in, I guess it was a red one so it had been cooked, into a still life.

So she'd bring it and we'd be together for 3 hours and then she'd come back.

She'd take it home and put it in the freezer, come back and do it again, then she threw it away out in the garbage can at my studio.

And I thought after she left in the afternoon, I thought, gosh I would love to do that lobster!

So I went and dug it out of the garbage can and painted on it, with it as a subject.

[laughs] I don't remember it smelling too bad, but maybe I had grown so used to it with her doing it.

Okay, that looks good.

There is some on the inside of the basket, that's right along here.

What I like quite a bit about this painting.

Let me show down at the original.

See the little light that comes through there.

That's very attractive.

You get a feeling like there's little cracks in the basket.

Now, I've used a basket like that many days when I was on the farm, and we'd have to go take the washing outside and hang it on the clothesline, and we'd carry it in the clothes basket.

I guess that's what we'd call it, a clothes basket.

If you're doing fruit, it's a fruit basket!

If you're doing basketball, back in my day it was a basketball hoop!

You get a ladder, climb up and take the ball out.

Me and the Doc!

Doc Naismith, we were pretty good friends.

It's like my daughter one day at the supper table, she says "Daddy, in the olden days, what did you use for plates?"

And I said, "Dondi, we'd find a nice flat stone."

Jeez!

She's such a sweet gal.

Now she's got little Dondi's of her own, asking her what she ate on in the olden days.

All right, that sort of takes care of what I want to have done at this point, which is sort of isolating the objects in the picture.

Now, the minute I do that as I went around, I need to come against this side of this leaf, and then over here a little bit by that leaf.

Okay, so let's go ahead then with the basket.

Let's take some Raw Sienna.

I want to hold this up to the original, or not the original, but to the middle stage.

Yeah, that Raw Sienna will work fine.

So that's just straight Raw Sienna and with water.

The water thins it out a little bit.

And when I say that, that's on purpose.

You want this to be a little bit of thickness right up on the rim, and where I want it thinned out will be down inside here.

[soft scraping] So that's the same color but one is allowing the underneath to show through more than it does at the top.

Love that golden feeling, and against a sort of a neutral-- the gray I'm calling neutral is quite attractive.

Colors look good when they're against a neutral.

It's a good way to judge colors.

And just a little bit of this on the corner of the brush that will cut through on these openings.

All right, now I'll do the outside of the basket.

Get a clean paper towel, very soft, nice paper towel.

Water.

The putting the line drawing on and outlining it you can see on this one we have a dark color on there.

This is a dark color as well.

I could have used something like Burnt Umber so it's very close to what it will end up being.

But it's always nice to have several colors.

One on top of the other, because some of the underneath does show through, and you get a relationship between the two.

Wipe the brush a little bit so it's a little more dry brush as I come up on the handle.

Oh I so thank you for watching these shows.

PBS-- what a great place to learn.

Isn't it neat?

I mean, no commercials.

You just go right through and do your thing.

No pausing and say "Be sure and eat tweeties!"

What's tweeties?

My wife's nickname is Tweet!

She's a sweetheart, a sweet morsel.

Okay now let's go with the oranges and an apple.

However at this stage you can't tell where the apple is, but I will probably put a little color on it as well.

Let's put on darks on each object.

Let's take, this is Umber, you're Alizarin Crimson.

You're Cadmium Red Light.

Let's try the mixture like this.

Maybe, maybe just right.

Good Buck.

You did it again!

Okay, this is the dark on each of the objects.

On each of the round objects!

When you put on the highlight you would hope that this is just a little wet so that when you put the highlight in the middle, it will blend.

I wonder if I should do it that way?

I think I will, so I'll be cleaning the brush a lot.

I'll put on some dark and then I'll work the lights in.

These lights, it's yellow I'm putting just a small amount of red in it, so it has just a little bit of the flavor of the orange early.

Now I'm using the side of the brush just to kind of roll it around and blend it.

See I like that better than what I have there.

You learn by doing!

Now this time let's try it this way, let's put the light on first, and I think they'll be wet enough.

I'll put this on a couple of them and then we'll put the dark on.

And the prima donna is saying, "What about me?"

We'll be there in just a minute.

I know you're appealing, but we need to take care of your supernumeraries first.

Now I don't like doing it that way quite as well as the first one, and I'll tell you the reason.

The reason is, when you put the light on second, then it's very pure and you don't cut into it so you spread it out.

and it's a little bit better.

Okay, dark on this one.

And I'll, instead of trying to push it into the lights I'll take right away and take that light, that orangey color, and redo it and then just come out wider.

Oh, it's so neat to have a painting where we can show you just a little further development by doing it in 3 times.

Now, the interesting thing is, to start with is, the one that has the peeling or the unpeeled look then we do it just about the same as far as color and form, and then later we work into it.

So we do you just as if you were one of the gang.

Now there's one little difference.

I won't blend these two together because one's a peeling and one's the orange, but over here-- what happens there?

Just a little bit of softness.

Okay, we have 2 more oranges to do.

The one in the basket way back here.

I need to have a little more Umber in you.

Oh, I like that.

Like that.

Ah, very good.

And then orange.

We'll take some orange on that, orangey yellow.

Just a small bit because it's back in the shadows.

I use that good brush.

Oo, good brush.

One more to do, and that's the one down here.

First the darks-- this is the umber and red.

Cadmium Red Light.

It ends up being I would say about 3 Umber and 1 Red Light.

I have at times used just Burnt Sienna, which is very similar to this, so either way-- you can use Burnt Sienna or you could use what we have.

Okay now the orangey color.

Zigzag a little bit-- it is kind of a zigzag.

Like that-- doesn't that go quickly?

You can go very carefully on that.

I'm rushing just a little bit although I feel relaxed, we got a lot of time.

But putting some of those on with the acrylics, you rush just a little bit.

Okay, on the apple you can see in the inside of that one it looks very much like the oranges.

I'm going to change that and I'm going to use Alizarin Crimson-- be closer to its true color.

It's so nice to be able just to think along with it and make decisions as you go.

I love that-- the freedom that that gives.

What goes inside there?

Well, there's going to be a little green.

Let's take a little green while we have the opportunity.

This Permanent Green Light and just a touch of white.

I push this up just a little bit.

So on that object, the apple, I need to have a little highlight too.

So I'll take-- let's-- what should we do?

Let's take this red Light.

Red Light straight.

I like the way that comes right against the orange there.

You can see these, even though they're dull look at the difference between these and these and those.

I think we're making progress.

I would like to work a little bit on the orange that has the unpeeling, unpeeled.

So I'm taking white, and I'll take yellow.

And I know where the middle is-- right there.

So then I just add a little bit.

Let me see, would you turn your head just a little bit so I can see you?

Thank you.

Okay.

Come around here and around this side.

You're always conscious of the direction of the light.

So the light's coming from the left, which means there would be more light here than there is down there.

And I'm tapping these on so it looks a little like... what do you call that?

P-I-T-H?

Pith?

Is that what that is?

I think so.

It would be helpful if my floor director would say I'll go check the encyclopedia.

Let's take a little bit of that same color, and we'll do that little ring.

Oo, you're not very good.

I didn't mean that, I don't mean to offend you, brush.

You just needed to have a little more togetherness.

Okay, just making that little ledge around there.

And then over here it'll separate where the peeling is and where the meat starts.

This comes right down in here too.

So I'll bring this just a little closer to that opening that we have there.

This is the opening.

And I'll make the opening a little smaller.

All right, now let's do a little bit of work.

I think would be helpful to have the little rim on.

So I have Ultramarine Blue, white.

Make sure we get just this right.

This is our handle color.

And the handle-- it's kind of hard to see but that's going to be right down in here.

Then it goes around.

Oh, it's so neat.

It's so neat to do that carefully.

Carefully, we say.

And when this comes around down here, then there's, let's see this is right close to the leaf, so we have a little hook.

And where are you?

Oh, right along there.

Right along here.

It's kind of hard to see, we'll gives this as a little guide, and we'll build that up as we go.

Now I'm going to do quickly some leaves and that seems to be just a nice plain color.

What color do I want on that?

Let's try green.

[laughs] Very good choice-- green leaf!

Boy Buck, you are so sharp!

Sometimes you thrill even me.

Okay this is green.

I put just a little Raw Sienna in it.

Ah!

Having a little bit wet makes it flow quite nicely.

You have a nice point.

I like the way these sort of embrace the movement of the picture, the composition.

And you see that, and then this one is kind of a lead-in one.

And look up above.

This one is saying hello to that one and watch how these-- they point over to the main subject.

Okay, we still have a few more of these to do.

What color did I put in there as well?

I don't remember-- was it Yellow Ochre?

It sure looks good.

Okay, here it goes.

Buck you mean you're painting this without any notes?

That's what it appears to be.

Ah... it's fun to watch it develop.

In some respects I like this better than the one we're working from because the colors are so rich.

The Raw Sienna is richer.

The oranges naturally are richer because we chose to do it that way instead of the yellow and white.

And then the leaves, just the vitality of them against the other subject is very delightful.

I ran kind of fast, sorry.

I'm picking up the same thing each time I do it.

Okay, let's go over to the far side, and this is about where we'll be.

This one, I really like that little point because it's right near the hook.

See how you can do little things-- turn the basket slightly so you make use of that.

Okay, and then we have one coming down here.

And this one has just the smallest stem.

So we'll put this on, and we'll catch ya next week.

Just a little bit down in there like that.

Huh!

Now we can eat the fruit!

Um.

See you next time.

Bye-bye!

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