May we be different... in order to make a difference!

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What's going to be different on this show?

What's different?

One of the differences is: we will start with oils instead of acrylics.

It is a 2-part series, so we'll let the oils dry before we go to part 2.

Many of you will contact me and say, "Buck, what if we don't want to use acrylics?"

That's fine.

You don't have to.

I use it here in the studio to quickly dry things so I can work on it.

And I use acrylics at home, when I'm doing my own paintings too, in preparation for gallery paintings.

So it's up to you.

Just remember, there is a drying time.

Alright, we have a canvas which has been primed with: 1 black, 1 Permanent Green Light, and 6 white.

That is acrylic, and that is put on.

And when that was dry, I would suggest, and what I did was use chalk.

I think you can even... no, you can't see it.

It looked like there was a little chalk showing.

Get your drawing on, and then I outlined it with Ultramarine Blue acrylics, so whether I put acrylic on or oils, I can see through it.

Alright, we'll start buy putting some walnut oil over the whole canvas, and I'm dipping in with my bunny brush.

I've had people all across the country say, "Buck, your bunny brush: are you using it anymore?"

And there were several shows were I didn't, and now I'm back to using it.

I love it, because it does very smooth work.

You can do large work, you can do blending with it, and it just gives a quality that I like when I blend.

Now, there are certain spots that are a little dry, or not covered yet, so I'll push this around with a paper towel.

I do that most often, so that I can control the amount of medium on the canvas.

The walnut oil is used as my medium.

It's nontoxic, and I can clean my brushes with it.

Let me read something that I wrote once, and this is in regards to landscape paintings.

"The vitality and emotion accumulated while viewing the scene, is transformed into magic on the canvas."

It may only be a semblance of what I actually saw, but the camera cannot duplicate my feelings.

So I'm putting feelings in, and the feelings means: maybe I'll leave something out, maybe I'll change it a little bit.

I'm not putting down a camera.

Make use of the camera, but use it.

Ok, let's go ahead and start with some color.

What I often will do is block in my trees, even though I know I'll loose a lot of this when I start coming with the colors, pushing around, because I'll bump into them.

This is Burnt Umber and I have a small... you're a filbert, filbert sable.

Oo, isn't that pretty.

But like I say, this will eventually have to have some foliage behind it, and when I put it behind it, I will bang into it, it'll lose a little bit, and then I'll put it on later, again.

I just like this, where it gives me a little positioning of the trees.

You're going to find that the distant tree will have just a little bit different handling.

That is right close to the center of the interest of the painting.

And what you have over to the left, that is not a finished painting.

That is stage 1.

We don't have a finished painting.

We'll make a finished painting on part 2.

So you're going to be discovering, at the very same time that I am, how it works.

And I know it will work.

You have to have to have faith in yourself, that's the important thing.

Regardless of what others say, they'll say, "you can't do that.

You shouldn't do that."

I would jokingly tell my father, when I wanted to play professional baseball at the age of 17-1/2, "we'll I don't know if you should do that."

But after I did it, and made it, he says, "yeah, I told you all the time to go ahead and do that!"

He really did, in his whole life, give that optimism and influence that made me feel like I could do it.

So he said yes, even while he might have been saying no.

Alright, now what about the middle one?

I don't really need anything on that yet, because when I put my color back in here, I'll be able to see that tree through the acrylics.

And that's the main objective, so this isn't that necessarily.

Let's go ahead then and take, I think the bunny brush.

You've done a good job, we'll keep you.

So, here's what I'm going to mix up.

I'll take some Sap Green, and let's see how much umber we'll put in it.

I'll start with 2 Sap Green and 1 Burnt Umber.

Yes, because I want it to stay in the green family, and if I made them equal, it wouldn't quite work.

Alright, this is, again, the bunny brush.

Now it's very dry, because we have a medium up on the canvas, and I did wipe that.

So now we're pushing this around, and very quickly, watch what happens.

See I go right across that branch, and I can still say, ok, that would connect through there, if I want to connect through there in the final stage.

And if I don't want to, then the foliage will cover some of it.

You'll notice as I'm doing this, I know as I look at the painting, there's a lot of orangy golden tones there, but let's have this as just a little base to it.

Dipping down, same color, coming over to the right.

This tree, on the far right, I'll come across a little bit.

I can still see it, and I'm sure with the hi-definition, you can as well.

Isn't that a marvelous ingredient?

I'm feeling--and I'm just jumping back and forth, getting a little more paint.

I feel, that with hi-def, what's going to happen, artists are either going to be better, because of the clarity of seeing something.

If they want to take a video and then project it on something and can see on the television.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, high definition will make artists either very clear, they'll have to improve, or they'll go the other way and say, hi-def can't compete with my jump-jump-jump-jump-jump.

So either way, it will be a different approach.

Not too much in the water.

Let's come over on the left side.

This is so much fun.

Bunny brush, I'm so glad you came back from my paint box.

You want to make sure that these bunny brushes stay clean though when you're using them.

All your brushes, but the bunny brush in particular, because it has such soft hair, and if you're not careful it dries and then it makes it a little hard to use.

Let's come over on the far right side, lower right side, and I'll pick up the same deal, same color.

I didn't know I was going to do it this way, but this is the way it is.

We decided to do something different, while we're doing something different.

Ok, here's another aspect of having a nice soft blender, is we'll go ahead and just blend this down a little bit.

It doesn't change it too much.

But you're kind of able to assess how much paint you have in each area.

If it's real thick, well then you might say, ok, well that's good, or we can blend a little bit away.

Come right down to the bottom of the canvas, come over here.

Alright, normally what I would do, and being normally, I'm going to do it, and that's to go into the middle.

But here's going to be a little different approach.

Instead of just putting some soft paint in there with a brush, I will take the knife.

So we'll come over here, to the left side to me, on the palette, and I'm going to use... let's see, what are you?

Oh, that's Sap Green.

Let's take a little of your cousin, Viridian Green.

The Viridian Green will be just a little bit more cool.

That's what my grandkids would say, "grandpa, you're being cool!"

Just a touch of yellow in that.

I'll hold this up, and where I'm going to place it, but I'm going to go over here.

It's just a little cool, so I'll go--too cool.

So we'll add a little more yellow to it, which warms it.

I hope you understand what I'm saying: "warm" and "cool."

Ok, now look at the knife-- loaded with paint!

Now I'll go ahead and put this on.

I know there's a tree there, so I'll be a little cautious of it.

Come close to it.

And what I want to do next is do what I do so often when I use the knife work, is how do we go?

What kind of neighborhood we in?

And we want to have something that will give us a little transition from this color over to this.

This is dry, so we can't just blend them together.

I will take some Manganese Blue... and if I look on the palette while I'm doing this, then you kind of get the relationship, what it's going to look like up on the canvas.

Oo, that's good: Manganese Blue.

Manganese Blue hue.

[soft tapping] Real nice.

And you'll notice, again, I'll hit a little branch as I'm doing this, but no problem.

Come down lower.

We'll come over.

And this becomes such a nice gradual change into what's near it.

Now in this case, this would almost be too light.

So I'm going to go darker with the blue, so it can kind of touch right on that green.

Ok, so here comes the blue, the Manganese Blue.

I'll come over here.

It's just about straight, maybe a touch of white in it.

Like that, and then put this on.

And after I put this on, I let it touch a little bit towards the right, so you get that same change from the dark green to a little lighter blue, to a very light blue.

Down below.

A little bit, not much, but some down in there.

I don't see any real sky holes, there might be a little bit there.

It looks like if I use some of the Manganese Blue, which is a little darker, with the white, not quite as light as the sun area, then you're going-- and I'm jumping clear over here to the right... then you can have the sky holes come through.

Remember this: that when you do the sky holes, they must be darker than the open sky.

Why?

Because when they go next to the darker, the foliage, then you have to have a little what you call "refraction."

The dark will kind of darken your opening a little bit.

If I put the same light on...

I'll just hold up without doing it... if I take some of the same light and go over there, it would pop out so bright you'd lose the feeling of going in, looking to that.

Ok, let's go ahead, staying up in the upper area, and I have some Van Dyke Brown.

Now, when I take the Van Dyke Brown, I believe I'll do the same, I'll mix it with the Sap Green, but this time, it's only the dark that I want.

So, I don't necessarily have to have it look more green, like it previously did.

This is equal parts.

And this, again, I want you to see that-- that's quantity.

Now when I put this on, I'll have to push it around a little bit, so I flatten out the textures.

But the purpose of having quantity on the knife is that you can get a lot of just incidental little strokes, like that.

See how it moves over?

It's so easy to work with it.

Then I'll take, just maybe flatten a little bit, over in this area.

Ok, now we have this area, and we want to start putting some orangy color in there.

Let's take first, let's take some Raw Sienna.

And I think what I'll do, I'll take the fan brush, and we'll just pat this on.

When I put this on, notice how I have filled the whole fan brush, and I will let it come off the side, instead of the end.

Just a very flat, like this, kind of bouncing it around.

You want to bounce it around a little bit.

Dipping down, picking up some more.

Bounce it around a little bit, so that it overlaps, then you don't find just all of the same type stroke.

This peeks out a little bit past this tree.

This tree truly is your center of interest.

That one back there, has an impact which is nice, but this is the area of your center of interest.

Both, because of its placement near the center of the canvas, and also with it being large.

And then the contrast too, that will put character on the tree itself.

Over on the right, let's take a little bit of yellow and Sap Green... using still the brush.

I wonder why I'm using the brush instead of the knife.

I don't know, but it's doing a good job, it's versatile.

It's nice when you find a brush that can do other activities.

It's different than just what you think it's about!

This whole show is about difference!

You know, the name of this painting is "I Remember Claude."

That was my great teacher, Claude Buck, and I recall going out and painting in a scene some what like this.

And while he was sitting there he says, "Why do we do anything else?"

He just loved being out in the landscape area, although he was a fine portrait artist, and great still life artist.

Western still lives and so on.

Ok, now in this area here, let's go ahead--we put it on with the fan brush and we kind of tapped it with the knife.

Now I want to go lighter.

And I'm a taking orange and yellow, looks like I have equal parts.

Maybe just a touch of white.

So I'm saying: 1 yellow, 1 orange, and about 1/2 a part of white.

So we'll put this right in there.

When you first put it on, it's pretty bright, so the more I tap it, the more it will respond to a blend.

[soft tap tap tap tap tap] Let's go a little more with that, and now when I do it, I can use a softer touch, and it will kind of... as we typically say: "You build to the lights!"

So that's what we're doing, we're building.

Going over to the right I have, this is that yellow and a little bit of Sap Green.

We put this on earlier, but now with a knife, see how it stands out just a little bit more?

Ok, let's go further with this.

Yeah, let's take this yellow and Sap Green, those are equal parts, but this time we'll add a white, so you got 3 equal parts-- white, Sap Green, and Yellow.

Oh, that's pretty!

This reminds me so much, my good friend who passed on, and I'm sure many of you have seen him on television, Bill Alexander, he'd painted with that mighty old brush.

We put this in with power!

Oh, what a neat personality.

But anyway, [laughs] he was such a good guy.

He would paint a painting in the studio before the cameras, and he didn't have anything to look at, he just had in his mind what he was going to paint.

But then he would go into the studio afterwards, where he'd have to paint the picture again, and there'd be still camera taking pictures for a book.

He could never paint the same painting twice!

It was always variated.

He had such marvelous enthusiasm, and that's going to be my excuse here.

This isn't going to look just exactly like that.

In fact, when you're doing it, I think, oh, geeh, I can make this even better, I can make this better.

It's the attitude to have-- what can you yet do.

All right, we'll come down to the rocks.

Before we do the rocks, should we put a little water in?

Yes.

This is-- do you know what you are?

You are Ultramarine Violet.

Ultramarine Violet and white.

It's not a real powerful color, but it certainly can do the work.

I'll take, oops, clean my brush, when I said "oops," I prefer that you just dip in and pull out, so I don't dirty the whole thing.

Ok, this is my Ultramarine Blue and white.

I'll get some more blue, and this, of course, we can work in some lights and darks with it too.

Just a little bit.

We have a small waterfall back there, so I'm putting on just a little bit of it, and I'm coming with the white on top.

Pull that down.

let's go ahead with some of the white, and just mix it.

Here we have a little splash, right along there.

We have a splash over there.

I'm going to put a little work on the rocks.

We'll use the same thing.

Should we add anything to that?

Let's put just a touch of umber into the violet.

It gives a little warmer gray.

Now,I'll put this on with the brush first.

Taking a little bit of the Manganese Blue.

We don't have a lot of time left, but we have enough time to get what we want for this beginning.

I'll take a little bit of Van Dyke Brown on this side.

I want to take a little Van Dyke Brown, I still have the fan brush.

I should write the name on it, then I wouldn't be fumbling.

I'd know what it was.

I know what you are, you a fan brush.

Let's put just a little light on the tree.

Here is the same color we put in the middle, but just a little extra white.

This is the--what are you?

Viridian Green and white.

Yellow.

Boy, this has been fun.

It's kind of rough, it's kind of crude, but you get the idea.

And you really have to come back.

Same light color there, down in here.

You need to come back, you need to see it go on, and you need to see it be finished.

Let's put just a little light.

I have yellow Ochre and white.

We're going to put his on just a few of these rocks.

This, again, is sort of in the path of the light area.

Right in here more.

Oo, that's good.

Ok, so over here, just a little bit like this.

I'll take just a little , this is Van Dyke Brown and white.

We don't have much time left, but we don't need much.

We're going to go further with this next time.

Ok, now what I think would be helpful: if I take just a--what are you?

[tenderly] You're a bunny brush.

[smack] Thank you for being willing to tell me what your name is.

Let's blend just a little bit.

Ah...Smooth, smooth, smooth.

I'll come closer to that tree.

I don't think I'll touch that tree at all, knowing that this is stage 1.

Could be maybe a little extra light, just on this guy, the right side there, so you can see him.

The water will get a lot of nice work.

Let some of this shadow near the rocks blend down.

Blend this over a little bit.

Who says you can't walk on water?

Ok, just a teeny little bit, again, with the knife work.

Some of this will eventually splash up, this is eventually.

Let's go a little stronger with one light: yellow and white in the path.

The light, light, light, light, light!

Very strong light right there.

A little bit there.

There.

This has been so much fun!

I just love doing something new, a little bit different.

It's been very exciting for me.

You kind of feel like, geeh, I wish I had a little more time to show them what I'm doing.

But you come back next time, and I'll guarantee you we'll make you happy.

That guarantee.

Here I have Van Dyke Brown on knife, just hitting the side like that.

I'll put just a little bit of that on the distant tree, and over on this one.

It's been so good being with you!

Boy, I'll tell you, time flies, doesn't it?

We'll see you next time for part 2 of "Remembering Claude."

See you.

Bye, bye.

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