Ten minutes after I painted this scene, I cleaned my brushes, I cleaned my palette.

Ten minutes later I raked the leaves.

[piano plays; bright in tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We have a painting for you today that will bring color forth, that will bring energy forth, and you will enjoy the instructions.

So you look at what I have in preparation.

First the pochade.

This is a small painting which is almost a masterpiece in its own.

But It is done quickly, full of energy, while either looking at the scene on location or doing it from memory.

Or a little bit of each.

You know what's a surprising thing?

Just let me tell you this: I have heard it said, even when you paint on location you're painting from memory.

What I mean by that is, you have the scene changing quickly, so you have to remember it like it was when you first were approached with the thought.

Also the memory of principles.

Even though you're doing something very quickly you have all the principles that you've learned, such as composition, the balance, the contrast, the center of interest.

All those things are part of your memory.

Let's go and look at the canvas that has been prepared.

This has sort of an orange and white base, I guess there's a little Raw Sienna in there too.

So it's a little cooler.

This is put over the whole canvas.

I've outlined, so I can see the drawing, as I place on some acrylics, and later when I put on the oils.

We are doing stage one in acrylics.

We'll come down to the palette.

Remember what we've been doing so far this series, is putting energy into the various parts of the canvas.

Along with that we'll take, this is Pure Yellow.

You'll find when I do the further painting I will have a different color there, but this is the energy underneath.

Just splashing that on.

It's a very close value to what's there, so I don't have to worry about any sharp edges.

Next, I'll come down with orange.

I love what this is going to do.

Not just necessarily what it's going to do, but what is going to happen over it that is going to make it such a foundation.

I'll put this orange in, and this will go all along the base.

Once in a while if you just see the pochade, the bottom of the pochade, you can see that's very dark, but the orange playing through that is what I like.

Push this over, then we do have a little bit of that showing up higher.

We have a clump of trees that's about in this position.

Don't you like that when you say, "about, about in this position?!"

The foundation is there as far as the composition, the placement of everything.

I'm going to have a strong tree here against that light.

That is your center of interest.

Then you follow the path down and you'll have a nice gleam on the distant water and on the little stream down below.

Let's go ahead and continue with this.

Even thought a lot of this will be covered, it'll be felt coming through some of the next colors.

Then we'll take one other color.

Let's take Sap Green, and that's right here.

This is all put on as pure color.

Pure color meaning that there is no white mixed with it.

I was going to say I sometimes call it pure color even if I mix orange and green together.

I guess that's not truly pure.

"Pure"-- just right out of the tube.

Like that-- I do use the water as a means of making this flow a little freer.

I will be coming more with acrylics and completing this.

This is all stage one, which will be done with acrylics.

Then we'll have our oil next week.

So you have to come back next week!

No way can you stay away, even though you say, "Buck I like what you did, that was good enough for me."

Ok, but you'll miss something if you don't come back.

Alright, that is enough of that, as far as blocking in some splashes.

It has nothing more than vitality, that's all I want in this stage.

Now we'll put a little character in.

I feel that if I use a couple of smaller brushes, this is a round one and this is a flat one, I'll use Alizarin Crimson.

I'm pushing this over.

This will be a time when I will make a little mix with it.

This is Burnt Umber.

I had two Alizarin and one Umber, but I need another one.

So this becomes equal parts, Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson.

When I take these, this color, will go right in the drawing.

I'll come right down with that.

I did wet it just a little bit.

This will have just a little bit of a transparency.

I can see slightly through that.

Otherwise you'd say, "why do you put the paint under it if you're going to not want it?"

Make sure when you do these that you let some of the foundation be felt.

Oh, I like you!

I didn't expect you to do that, but it made a little curve on that.

Gee, that's pretty!

This guy, what I'd find a little with a fault-- I'll take a little water and a paper towel-- is, this is too wide there.

I'll tell you what I'm saying.

As you put on a tree, you have so it tapers as it goes up.

Not a carrot, but it's wider at the base and less wide as you get up.

You might have little divisions or a strange looking branch here and there, but to make a sound tree you have that principle of letting it taper.

We're not talking about branches yet, but when we get to them, I'll say something about them too.

Now I'm turning this brush a little sideways.

I hope my hand position allows you to see that.

That flows all the way down.

A lot of this will be lost below, so you don't have to worry about what the bottom of that looks like, yet.

It'll be be quite dark there.

The next tree, this is another wide one.

You want to feel like they can blow when the wind is up and rising.

This one, just a little more narrow.

Then on the left side, you have a couple nice trees.

They look like newlyweds.

This one's leaning towards this one.

That's my Heidi tree.

Next one!

Over to the left.

Now I'll go ahead and put a little bit of the branches on.

On the branches, you still have that idea that they taper, but make sure that they feel like they can move with the wind.

They're so flexible and need to be represented that way.

I'll put in these branches, then when I get to the oil stage, and we put a lot of foliage in, we'll add some more small little branches.

You don't have to be tied to each individual little branch yet.

For instance, if this were the final stage, I'd say, those are nice, but let's add another little part to this guy.

That's what I mean by adding little extra ones.

None extra on the far right.

On the middle one we'll add just a little bit.

you have...

This one has some at the lower level as well as the upper level.

Put one a little across there.

These all help look normal or natural, but they do free up the big one.

The big one has a definite branch that has a lot of help in the composition, because it is right next to the highlight.

Notice what I just did, and I'm going to correct it, that is taking a smaller brush.

See, this has nice width, that tapers almost too quickly.

I'll just widen this a little bit in a few places.

Foliage is going to cover some of these, so that covers some of the errors too.

That's a nice brush too.

I like this round brush, because you can put on a very small little line or you can put on a small line then flatten it, then it comes larger.

Let's see about the two lovebirds over here.

Well this one has just a little help as it points out back there.

If I had that tree here, that'd be my floor director, because she'd say, "ok, 3 minutes, 4 minutes."

Isn't that great.

Let's put this one too.

This is kind of a second one.

Over one the left side, you can see on the pochade, there are a couple that you see without going clear the top, so you're just seeing some of the trunks without where are they going.

Now let's do this, let's start in the sky, it's already dry, um, thank you, then we'll come down and put a little wash in here.

Like I said, which takes care of the bottom of the trees and we'll put a little in here and we'll see about some little suggestion of leaves and foliage.

I'll clean the knife.

You'll find when you use acrylics you must have your equipment always clean.

We're going to mix up.

This will be white...

I want to move the green out of the way there.

Mix white and some yellow and a little touch of blue.

Now you are what kind of blue?

You're Ultramarine Blue and you're Thalo Blue.

I think I'll go with the Ultramarine.

It's not quite as strong.

I want this to be a grayish, light, little greenish almost.

Let's hold that up.

Perfect-- I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been perfect down here.

All the time I'm mixing it I watch how it looks on the white palette.

It's a little darker, but it's still going to be light, because what it's going against is less than white.

This is my next stroke.

My next stroke.

You're finding even though I'm covering it quite completely there here and there, you see a little bit of the yellow.

This guy, just slice off.

That one had just a little width there that I didn't care for.

Now I once saw a tree, I once saw a tree and it was narrow and it got wider.

I went to my great teacher Claude Buck and I said, Claude, "I saw a tree, it was narrow and it got wider."

He said, "if you have to send a note along explaining it, maybe you shouldn't paint it that way."

However, if somebody had one in the front yard and they wanted it painted, then you paint it that way.

Otherwise you follow things that won't befuddle the public, the viewer.

I'm going to stay up with the idea of the sky.

But notice on the pochade.

What do you see?

You don't see that light color coming through there.

You see a little bit of a blueish tone, so I'll just add some more blue to this.

I'm sticking with the Ultramarine Blue.

The real relationship is: how does it look next to what's there?

It needs to be a little lighter.

When I place this on, it'll be just kinda blotchy, because we can do the refinement after we get with the oil.

Because the foliage is going to go kind of freely over this.

I'll just tap in, with the corner of the fan brush, little touches like this.

There was a great saying, it says, "The greatest step of faith is when artist realizes he is not God."

So we step out--we have such a dependence upon the maker, the one who did the trees.

There, and we'll come down a little closer here.

I find that when I put in the openings for the sky, that I might be just a little more generous than not, because when you put the foliage over, you can always be a little more discerning there and decide what you want.

This color will work quite well-- let's finish this.

There's not too much more to put on, as far as the openings.

That's about enough.

A little bit lower there.

Now what I want to do is take a little darker blue, because we want to have that distant cliff showing.

That distant cliff.

There are just little hills over there.

These become such a nice foil, when you put that strong light on some water.

So it has a little dark above it and it has the nice accent.

This peeks through the trees a little on the side there too.

This has a little bank, so you won't see any more than that.

The sharpness there is kind of okay now.

When we put glazes and things over, we'll watch that soften.

Let's put a little bit of that same color into the water edge down there.

I'm going to clean the brush then I'll show you what I was talking about when we put this-- this is Umber and this is Alizarin Crimson.

Let's see, let's take just a little more Alizarin.

So that's about two Alizarin and one Burnt Umber.

This will go right along here.

No character, it's just a patch of dark.

I'll brush slightly at the top, so it's not too sharp.

Come across here.

We'll go ahead and put in a little bit more-- this will represent, we'll have some rocks down around this little eddy.

I think an eddy is at the beach, so this is just at the edge of the stream.

I want to have the sky showing both in the water, then we'll put a strong reflection on.

First we'll use the initial sky color.

Initial is after we had the yellow on.

Right down in here.

Then I'll use that same color.

I'll use it, just a little horizontal feeling right in here, so you get the distant water as being evident.

Ooo, that's pretty.

Now let's come with some Sap Green.

We put Sap Green on earlier.

I wonder if we should change anything on that?

Let me put some more Sap Green on, because we want quite a bit.

Sap Green and... what are you out there?

I don't know what you are.

Why are you there?

I don't know, maybe it's there for the next picture.

Let's take Burnt Umber and Sap Green.

Ah, I wouldn't leave you out.

So here's a little bit of Payne's Gray.

Come on in.

So I have 3 Sap Green, 3 Burnt Umber, and 1 neighbor, Payne's Gray.

See now, when I'm doing this.

Like I told you, that when we put the sky holes in, we make them a little generous, so when we come with the foliage we might touch into them a little, then you can still see them.

This is all stage one.

You have to return next week and we'll do stage two.

My poor mom, she has this old television.

No cable, no nothing, but she gets this great channel from Fargo, and it's kind of snowy.

She doesn't know what stage I'm in, stage one or two.

She says, "well, you wore the same shirt!

How can I tell what's different?"

I hope some of the things I'm telling are different.

"Get a new TV service."

[higher voice] "I like what I have."

You can tell when I was imitating her, can't you?

I'll push this out just slightly so it'll touch into the sky.

We eventually will go lighter in the sky with the oil, but you need to be aware that it's going to be kind of a hazy sun with little clouds over it.

I'm over on the left side, I'm sure you can see this.

"Why would you be sure?"

Notice how some of this goes right across some of the dark base of the tree too.

This still would be a time where I'd hold back from putting the little twigs in.

We'll do that when we get to the oils.

Just a little bit of foliage there.

Then I want to have just a little bit, let's see, a little stronger on some of the orangy feeling.

We're aware that we are going to be putting some good foliage on here.

That is nice, because we have things a little balanced.

This has a curve.

This has a nice feeling; flows into that.

That's kind of what I mean by composition too.

You say, you have things placed to balance.

Also, you want the rhythm through the painting.

So here you have the nice grace of the orange, the foliage, following right along there, then you have this coming up and across there.

So everything kind of gives you a feeling of movement.

That's such an important part of a painting.

It doesn't just happen in a landscape or an ocean.

It happens also in portraits.

It happens in still life.

You want to feel there's a flow, a reason, for one object being where it is.

They're all complimentary to the grand scene before us.

I just absolutely love that scene!

I like the way the little tan color shows through.

The green very thinly on it, it doesn't look weak, and you find this color.

It really goes on quite well.

Let's bring just a little more foliage.

This is back to the green and umber and a touch of the neighbor.

I want to put this down just a little bit lower, because I want my center of interest to be below this branch.

Right now you have contrast on both sides, so if I come a little bit below it, then it will feature that which is in front.

The nice thing about acrylics too, and I'll show you with this.

If I want to come with just a little bit of the sky color, the light color-- I want to erase just a little bit of this.

This is coming over a little too far.

You newlyweds get back where you belong and let the others come on stage.

See the amount of yellow there?

That's too much, so I'll let this come down so we don't have that.

Be humble before nature.

Oh, it's such a glorious subject!

I remember my teacher, we were out painting, he said, "why do we need to do anything else?"

I had no answer.

It's such a great feeling.

However, when you have a beautiful person in front of you be it a child, an elderly person, or a beautiful lady, or a handsome man; that's the greatest creation!

Same thing, why paint anything else?

So you paint each subject as if it were the most important thing.

My teacher Claude Buck too, he would say when he was painting, and he'd come around on the student's work, when he is working on my painting, it became his painting while he was doing it.

Then he'd go to the next one, that's his painting!

So he always did his best work on the painting that was before him, and if you have that attitude, don't worry about somebody else learning a little bit from you.

It's a marvelous thing to be able to share and give.

In doing so, you'd be surprised how many times you discover new things.

I think we're getting very close the end of stage one.

Once in a while I'll take, for instance here, we might want to have a little more in the sky showing through and so on, but we can do that with oil too.

We can do that with oil.

So you come back next time, and I'll guarantee you we're gonna make you a winner!

Bye bye.

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