I was at the harbor, and I saw this beautiful clipper ship sailing on the water.

No one else saw it!

Now who are you going to believe?

[piano plays, bright in tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The one thing about painting for you folks is I use acrylics, which has a water medium, and I'll use oils, which I have walnut oil.

Sometimes you get confused.

So you have to say um, we're doing acrylics first.

We're using the water!

Is that fair?

I want to show you how we have prepared for you the clipper ship.

"Harbor View."

This is on a gray canvas.

Payne's Gray and white.

I've put on the drawing.

I've outlined it, so it's very easy to see it.

I'll put some splashes of color in.

Remember when we do the acrylic stage, I'm putting the spirit in first.

I want to draw your attention to the pochade.

this is the scene that I saw at the beach.

It's a beautiful little clipper ship out in the ocean.

Then you have all the drama of the sunset, and you have some people waiting.

There's probably a loved one on there.

We assume that the ship is coming in, right?

The ship is coming in, that's why they're so happy.

So now we'll go on this.

It's a nice neutral color.

We use just the Payne's Gray and white.

I like that, because you can put any colors on it and it will accept it well.

But we'll go ahead and splash some colors on.

The way I want to do this is, I'll mix a little color that I'll use.

Two Yellow Ochre.

I'll take a quantity over and that represents 2.

2 white, so that'll be the same amount.

Then 1 Cadmium Yellow Light, so that will be half as much.

That's how I arrive at my formula.

If I'm going to paint a wall, this would be large amounts.

If I'm going to paint a postage stamp, then the 2, 2, 1 is going to be small amounts.

So it's all relative.

Here we go!

Water in the fan brush.

Pick up that paint, and look at the amount of paint I'm picking up.

It takes two hands!

We'll splash this around.

I have a drawing I will be able to see through.

You say, "Wow, I don't see through."

Yet!

As I come across there, I can wipe a little bit if I don't feel like I'm seeing enough.

We'll let this come down in the water too.

I'll take a little bit of water without any extra paint.

Just kind of wiping off so it's moist.

I can thin it out just a little bit on the edges.

Once it's moist I can do it that way or I can even roll the paper towel a little bit.

Sometimes you'll moisten the paper towel so it comes off more easily.

Here I can still see my clipper ship outline, and that's the main thing I want to save.

This is going to be very strong right next to the sails.

Don't leave the room just because I said "sails."

Let's go over on the far side, which is the left side of this and put this on.

I love that gray!

I'm try to think of some artist that used it.

I know John Singer Sergeant, a famous portrait artist, used the gray a lot.

You find it's very nice when you put a thin wash on, a glaze you call it, and work it.

It really has a nice feeling, overall feeling.

When you look at the pochade, even though you don't see a lot of gray through it, you get the feeling that it has set the stage for what goes on top.

It's very related with each other.

Now I want to come some front water.

Let's take a little green, Permanent Green Light.

I'm going to bring this down and touch into the yellow and white mixture of the sun so it softens that way.

Just for a comparison-- stay right there for just a minute, will you please?

I'm using a knife and the green, see, this is green and white.

Where I choose to mix it with the yellowish mixture.

See the difference?

It's just a little warmer.

I'm going to put this down in front of the water.

Although this doesn't have much doing in the final painting, it does have a little influence.

Because when you look down in the pochade, down low, you feel some green.

I'll also put this up in the sky a little bit.

It's surprising the different colors, the hues, the tints, whatever you want to call it, that happen at sunset time.

I like the way it softens against the yellow.

This time I'll take a paper towel and moisten it with water.

Then I can use that as just a little bit of a blend, a blender.

You do it quite early because the acrylics dry quite quickly.

Especially under a studio light.

Always the question, could you use oils instead of acrylics?

Yes.

Sometime we'll show you that.

I do like putting the spirit in early, with the acrylics.

I don't think there is much that beats the power of pure acrylics.

It's dry, and you make use of that.

When I say that-- I'm going to jump over to yellow and orange.

This'll be kind of a little secondary color in the sky.

Ah, beautiful!

Thank you.

Over in here.

Let's even push a little bit through on the trees.

We'd better come with a little bit of that greenish sky color right through here.

So we have one trunk of the tree that is standing out a little more as a silhouette, and that's nice.

Come down near the figures.

Gee, that's such a nice relationship, where they're looking.

You feel their feelings.

At least this is what you think they are feeling.

It almost recalls when you've had to say good-bye to somebody.

Whether they're leaving in a car or on an airplane or so one.

It brings back all those memories.

Or even if they have graduated to the next life.

There is fond farewells.

Although, this one is a greeting.

A greeting.

They're coming back.

Now let's go down stronger, still with the yellow and white, maybe a touch of orange in it for the path of the sun.

We want this to be very close to the boat... ship.

[gasps] There was a navy man in the studio, on the camera, and he says, "ship!"

I think that's what he said!

Ok, there and a little bit more over here.

Ok, that's good.

Now I'll come with a clean brush and we'll use some Alizarin Crimson.

In case you're keeping score, when I throw these paper towels away, I am now 6 for 6!

Well, 5 for 6.

Alright, let's take Alizarin Crimson.

Alizarin Crimson, and I'm making this quite wet.

I'll start it over on the tree area.

Just to get a feeling of how it's going to flow on the canvas, then I'll come over to the sails.

You say, "Buck, that's not a red tree!"

I know, but it is going to look so good underneath the green.

I like especially what happens when you do this, then you put oil over top to put on the correct color.

But there's still a little influence of reds maybe on the edges or just peeking through a bit here and there.

It gives so much vitality.

So we're establishing the mood, the color, the spirit, the insides.

I'm picking up again, ran down, picked a little water.

I had the same brush.

I'm using the edge of it to give a little chiseled look to it.

I'm not worried about that being unevenly painted.

This is like blood going through your body.

It goes everywhere and so on.

Then the skin that goes on top is what makes you beautiful.

On the sails, since I have the same color... just make a touch here as we go by.

Then out here I want to put this on...

I think I'll change brushes.

Whew, you think the same thing.

You think, "boy I didn't know how he was going to do that."

I'm basically staying within the sail.

Notice how I went right over on top of some of the golden tone that is through there.

That's the nice thing about acrylics.

If you are working without any extender, so you're not extending the drying time, it dries very quickly, then you can do it where you go over it quite quickly.

There's always the hair dryer if you need to use it.

Just a little-- I forget what that is called.

It's not called a topsail, it has a name.

It would be nice if you knew these things.

You have a mast coming through here.

This, of course, is seen only on the far left one.

The others are covered by the second sails.

This will have, whether you see them or not, three tiers of sails.

The top mast, or the 3rd one, is very short.

I'm staying in the lines and at the same time, I'm not.

When you look at pochade, part of the charm in it is the mystery of the sails.

It's not hard cut or definite.

It's very mysterious looking.

We'll put on the boat, the bow, the stern.

I'll use some of the same Alizarin Crimson as being some of the colors that'll come down into the water.

This is all very early with painting on the picture.

Now I'm going to come-- what color are you?

Oh, you're blue.

That's good.

What kind of blue are you?

Thalo Blue, excellent.

Thank you for coming.

And this is just a little Umber.

We'll use the two of those.

I want the blue just grayed a little bit.

The umber will do that.

This will give me my base color for my water.

Oh, that's so much fun to do!

It's so exciting, because you feel like, well I am, I'm a spectator to a painting being made.

I haven't painted an original.

This is my first go at completing a painting from the little pochade.

It's exciting.

I have sort of plans the way I want to do it, but if there's a reason or need to make it different, in case I say, "make it better," we'll do it.

That's why, I'm maybe repeating myself, when I teach workshops across the country, many artists will give notes of the subject.

I'll have a photograph so they see what's done.

But I don't like being tied to a technique.

If there is a way we can make it better-- the students will say, "Don't we get any notes?"

And I'll say, the reason-- let's decide if there's something that will make it better, let's do it.

Wouldn't you like that more than sticking to notes?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

I wonder if a little bit of that, when I say "that," that blueish tone I'll lighten it a little bit with white.

And I'll put just a little wash up in the sky, Particularly over in the corner, the left corner.

All the darkening this will do and will eventually need, will just further focus in on our dramatic sunset.

When I talk to people, when I do a demonstration, I love the response, the studio response.

You almost go out of the studio thinking, oh, no one liked it.

The camera people don't laugh, they don't applaud.

[laughs] They better not, huh?

With the dark sails, they're just a little bit dry, so I can do this.

This being taking some umber let's see, what do we want to use.

I think a little bit of orange.

That looks good.

Umber and orange.

I'll come on this.

This is an early setting of the silhouette feeling.

Notice, because I don't have to be real within the boundaries, this is again kind of the spirit.

Although the spirit really is when you splash those colors around.

Now, as we suggested, and I'll use a small brush to do this, you do have the second set of sails.

It's automatically when you come here that you are going to see some of that distant sail through there.

That's also silhouette.

I can still see where they separate.

Where the one is front and the one is the back.

I'll take a little bit of light.

I don' have to use much, but this is that orangish tone that we have near the sun.

If I place this on, it shows where you do indeed see through to see the sky.

Just a little bit more dark there.

The boat itself, the ship, can have dark.

So I have the umber.

That works rather well.

Here what I want to do then, is take the same brush which I had the paint on and I haven't added any extra to it.

So I'm combining a little bit coming off this, a little bit which is there already is a little wet.

So I'm just brushing... To kind of melt it together slightly.

It all adds to the mystery, the dignity, of that ship coming in.

We'll leave that.

We'll come over to the right side.

I want to put on some darks on that.

This is umber and Alizarin Crimson, and what are you?

You're green.

Let me see what kind of green you are.

You're a Sap Green.

So I have umber, Alizarin, and Sap Green.

I have a large fan brush.

Somebody once said, like I said, this, whether I saw it or not doesn't matter.

it says "If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep."

You figure out if a person is 60 years old, maybe they don't spend a 3rd of the day in bed, 8 hours.

But there's still between 15 and 20 years in bed, at 60.

Boy, there's so much you can do if you get up and go forth with making those dreams a reality.

This will be put in as sort of a flat mass.

That's often what they refer to, an area when you put on just a flat color.

They'll call it a "mass."

A mass.

Not a mast!

This is a mast, this is a mass.

If you get a lot of wealth, you amassed a lot of wealth.

You learn so much on these shows.

The thing that I like, and the way I approach doing these shows is-- everyone of you out there is not a artist.

So I want you to feel comfortable being in my studio.

To be present at this completion, wether you paint or not.

And for you that do paint, some of you are going to say, oh, I can paint better than that!

I recall this great friend of mine, Bill Alexander.

He was a fine artist.

I went down in Florida, I was teaching, and somebody said, "Bill Alexander.

I can paint better than him."

I said, you missed the point.

He's not saying not saying I can make you the best artist in the world, he's saying I can teach you how to paint.

And that's what he did, he introduced so many people to art.

There's so many people out there that have done so.

You have Bob Ross, who's passed away.

You had Helen Van Wyck, who's passed away, and Bill Alexander.

I called up the television man once and I said, gosh, Van Wyck died, Alexander died, Ross died.

There must be something in those cameras!

But not true.

They've gone on to paint higher things.

And Jerry Yarnell, fine, fine artist.

I've never met him, but I love his work, and I love the quality that he brings forth, as a person, as an artist.

There's others, you don't need to slight anybody.

Whoops.

This is kind of a flying branch, so with the acrylics, with it being recently placed on, I just dampen this a little bit.

Kind of roll it so you're gentle, because if you push too hard you might be lifting up the orange below.

Let's put just a little work on those figures.

The one lowest one, I have some pure, what are you?

Pure Alizarin Crimson.

The second one, you can hardly see it, but what you do see is very intense, quite light.

I guess it's just the sun shining upon it there.

Let's go just a little darker on the hair on this one.

Then the last one.

I'm just taking the color that I used over here.

So we put on the head and we'll put on the shoulders.

Just a little bit of dark.

We'll come down a little lower, because a lot of this is shadow.

The hair and the shadow run right together.

Oh, gee, I like that!

I'm going to do just a couple small glints of light as we sail into the sunset.

Let's take our orange and white.

When I say orange and white I'm going to take some of this light from the sky.

I'll place this down.

We did place some light there, a little path, but we'll come down a little lower.

A little lower on this side.

Let's come with some of the light from the sky.

We're coming over on this side.

Not quite as direct sunlight, but you do get reflections from the sky too.

Then you have just a little bit of action in the water down there.

I'll put just a little white and blue with it.

Because it's close to the shore and you get just a little feeling of a wave there.

I'll put some blue under that, I don't want that quite so large.

Oh, gee, it's so enjoyable to look at this stage.

And that's what you want.

If you were to die here, you'd say, "Oh, he did everything he wanted to do there."

Just a couple more flicks in the sky.

We don't have a lot of time to do this.

As I'm sailing away, you just know that I'll return.

I'll be back again next week.

Who was it that said, "I shall return?"

Ah, Mac, Mac.

Just a little sparkle insides.

I think we're getting pretty close on that.

You find just a little bit at the horizon.

If you just soften a little bit.

See, then that makes this light even lighter.

So we will sign off on this, then we'll come back next time.

We'll make "Harbor View" a beautiful view.

You be sure that you're here for part 2 with the oils.

Ok?

See you then!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (woman) Funding for "Painting With Paulson" is made possible by the members of Prairie Public.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪