Have you ever been alone in a crowd?

If so, then I know how you feel.

[piano plays softly] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You know, I expect to have a little pause right here, because it's my 20th year of doing PBS art shows.

I want to thank my one loyal fan out there.

Thanks Mom!

Good to have you, and it's good to have the rest of you too.

I think you are going to enjoy the series, because it is just a little different than last time.

That's what I like.

Let's build.

Let's build upon what we've done before.

I'll show you when I started with, then I will talk a little bit on how I want to go forth with this.

This, by the way is a two-parter.

The first part today is done with acrylics.

Then, we'll go again next time on a dry canvas, and it will be with oils.

Let me tell you just how I've started.

I have canvas which has been primed with its kind of a cool red, I say Napthol or Cadmium Red and white.

On that I put a tracing, and I have outlined it with Alizarin Crimson.

The outlining was so we could make a better tracing for you.

So when you get that DVD and download it you've got a nice tracing.

Also, when I put color over it; I'll be able to see through it.

This is all dry.

The acrylic I've put on there is dry, and I am using acrylics now.

I will be using water, a fan brush, and some pure color.

My aim this time, instead of just putting a little acrylics-- this would go where the sun is-- I'm going to put the spirit into it.

The splash; the vitality.

Let me point out, we a e working from what you call a "pochade."

It is a small painting.

A little sketch, that was done on location, or from memory, or what have you.

I'm making a painting from it, in the studio without having an original.

We're going forth as a pioneer, a volunteer, an explorer.

We're going to pull the weeds aside and make our own path.

And I hope you enjoy it.

I know you do, because I received a letter from a fellow in Ghana, South Africa saying, "Buck, please send that last tape on pochades."

Which I did, and he says, "thank you so much."

So this is just a little different.

Ok, here it comes.

I dipped it into water and I'm picking up Cadmium Yellow.

Like I said, this is splash, this is the spirit!

Right across that, like that.

No fear!

I remember so much, my compadre at one time, Bill Alexander, and he would constantly say, "No fear!"

See how I put this on, without worrying about the outlines.

I don't have to stay within the outlines.

Let's see if that's enough.

That's enough there.

Now I'll clean the brush, then I'll come with red.

This is Napthol Red.

I did put a little water in each of these colors.

This will go over here, and when I do it, it will go right in where some of the foliage is.

I will go just a little bit staying in the lines, on this tree.

But once I get past that then I'm back to splash, instant splash.

[soft scraping of the brush on the canvas] I'll wipe the brush just a little bit.

I want to thin this paint out slightly as it touches against the yellow.

That's good.

Wether I have any in the finished painting or not, you'd be surprised how helpful the red is under the greens.

They show through and play together.

That's what I like, putting the spirit in.

Then you're always making use of some of this when you are putting on the final colors.

See I can come back, just soften here and there.

It makes a little sense to have a little more quality in each stage.

[soft scraping] Okay, we'll clean the brush.

I want to next, take some Thalo Blue-- no let's go earlier with this other.

Let's take, this is Sap Green, and this is Raw Sienna.

I want to push these across.

I'm going to use a little more Raw Sienna.

I want to push these across on these distant trees.

You see, when I do this, even though I've just placed it on, it dries quite quickly.

See, that's why I don't have fingerprints, it dried, right?-- Smart man, Buck.

I don't mind it mixing in a little bit, it actually warms the green slightly as I do it.

When your right in the path, right in the path of the sun, there is certainly a difference between how the green looks, where as right over to the side, but right through the sun, you get that kind of reddish look.

Many years you think, I'll just put greens over there, and so on, and so on.

But I have studied it carefully recently, and you squint a little bit, and you see where that is a little more reddish as it is in the path of the sun.

Let me say something about painting, when you do.

You can see a beautiful sunset, and there are sunsets all over the country.

You don't necessarily have to have that stream and that water there.

If you look at that sunset and you say, oh, I want to paint that, but I want to paint a little water with it.

You can do it.

You could be in a car.

You could be standing in a meadow.

Or you could you could be standing in a beach, wherever.

It's the sunset that will give you the drama that you need.

Ok, going further with the Raw Sienna and green.

I'm finding that I'm using a lot of the Raw Sienna.

I'll let a little bit of this just casually come down into the water.

How about over here?

This looks like a good place.

You can see I'm using quite a bit of water, because I'm spreading this out.

There is an excellent use of the that underpriming, when you come thinly over it.

Whether you are using the light green, or you're using the red.

It's just a little more warmth in it, than if you used pure white.

Then I like to select a priming that goes a lot with the finished product.

If I had a portrait to do, this is a pretty good middle tone for the portrait, for the flesh color.

Let's go ahead with a little bit of blue and white.

On this, for the distant left tree, I want to have a little bit more of the pure color.

Even though we want to have a little bit of that splash aspect further.

This is Thalo Blue and white, and we are pushing this on.

You can see when you look at the little pochade, that this is not the same.

But the color underneath!

What that does for this being a part of the whole sequence of colors.

The whole spectrum-- it's beautiful.

I'll let a little of this go into the water.

Let's put just a little bit down at the bottom of this area.

This will be foliage down there too.

I think what I'll to do now, I'm going to mix up some color for the sky.

I'll go ahead and place on the sky color with the brush.

do you remember last year, the last DVD, we kind of blocked in, and we used all knife going through.

This time I am going to use some knife in each stage, whenever I desire to do so.

I don't know if I'll be using any in the acrylic stage this time.

I am going to take this is white and this is Yellow Ochre.

Mix that up.

It's kind of nice to mix right in front of you.

Then you can see how I make decisions.

A little bit more gold.

Now I will take the Thalo Blue and put in to it.

This won't be very strong.

It will actually be kind of a greenish gray.

Just a little bit more like that.

Are you too light?

Oh, that's perfect!

You hold it up to what you're looking at.

Another nice thing, if you don't have an original, hold it up and see how it relates to the rest of the scene.

If I had a white canvas and were putting this up, this would look darker than the white canvas.

But by being this tone, this will look a little light.

Of course, we can go as light as we wish on it.

I'll take the fan brush, put a little water with it, and push this around.

There is something that kind of happens here that I like.

That's this is already a little bit dry.

So when I push this sky color there, it will kind of thin out over it a little bit.

I'll want to push with a paper towel to make sure it removes any sharpness.

Now this will be the time to do that.

You may have to even take a little bit of wetness on the paper towel.

I'll push it around, and it softens, almost like a blend.

That's fine.

I'll come down a little lower.

I don't mind having some of that color right down at the base of it.

Then we'll come over on this side.

Just a little bit, so a see-through feeling there.

You let a little bit of the red show through on that too.

No reason for this to stop time and say, let's let it dry.

You may find when you do that at home, and don't have studio lights, it may dry a little bit slower.

I would prefer this is dry where I'm going to come with the next color.

This is the next color.

This is where we are going to make some large foliage.

Dark greens.

So I have a Sap Green and I have Burnt Umber.

Let's see what kind of proportions we use on that.

It's not a case of guessing.

You just feel what will work right.

I want the green to be kind of dominant, so I'll put the green out first, then I'll add the umber to it.

The way I get a formula, I'll say, ok, this is about 1/5th part umber.

If that's enough, fine.

It isn't, so I add more.

Its going come down to being equal parts.

Equal parts of Burnt Umber and Sap Green.

It has a little warm brown feeling to it, a little green.

When you are doing the silhouette, you have to think, what would be more the color-- if it's a little darker or if you see more the pure green.

When we come to putting on the oil, the we can do a little bit of detail.

This works very good.

I want you to notice, as I come across the red which we put on, you definitely can feel that there.

Have you ever been a sentry?

Buck has!

Oh, I've got to tell you a story.

I tell you, you won't believe it.

I was in the army, in Texas.

A make-believe war.

We had a night movement-- a make-believe war, so we are going against the enemy.

I'm coming across over in here.

This fellow, this lieutenant put me up on top of this hill.

He says, "There are going to be 3 troop carriers of ours, coming up, and the bridge is out.

I want you to direct them with this flashlight."

It's midnight.

"Direct them with a flashlight down this road, because the bridge is out on the other one."

So the first troop comes up-- bump-bump-bump-bump-bump.

I shine the light, shine the light, and he goes down that way.

And after not too long, comes the next one.

You can see I want this to come out a little ways here.

When the next one came, guess what?

Some of the dust of the previous one was still in the air.

I could hardly see 'em, I could hardly see 'em.

Finally, I got him the right way.

How many did I say there were?

Three!

I'm pushing over here.

A little bit of this goes on a distant tree.

Then came the final troop carrier up.

There was no chance-- I'm just pushing this across.

I'm using it in a little bit in a transparent manner, because the underneath is dry.

I'll come just a little bit on this side too.

Why do I hesitate in the story?

Because it is sad to tell you.

The guy came...[imitates a large engine running] I couldn't see him; he couldn't see me.

He went down the road.

He went down the road where the bridge was out.

25 guys killed!

The sergeant came up, he says, "Get in Paulson!"

He didn't speak to me all the way back to the camp.

We get to the camp, I think, what's the deal?

There's 3 troop carriers there, and there are 60 guys there.

I said, "what happened?"

He said, "Paulson, it was a make-believe war."

It was make-believe that the bridge was out, but I didn't know it.

Ah, my gosh, that was one of the most horrible feelings ever.

"Make believe"-- the bridge was out.

Why didn't they tell me that?

Got to tell you everything.

Ok, let's come over here.

What I want to do on the side when I come to that tree, is to come with some of this dark, so blue--gosh, you're already wet.

I mean dry!

This will be just perfect.

I can hardly wait to see how this is going to go.

Why?

Because it is the first time I've ever done it.

I want to see what it looks like when it's done.

Of course, this is stage one, so this won't be done.

You'll have to come back, and when this one is dry and we do it with oils, then I'll discover it the same time you do.

Boy, I'll tell you, that's painting with risk.

But that's what I love.

That's what life's about.

If I make a little mistake, what will happen?

Nothing!

You'll come back.

You'll come back.

Further up here, and let's go down in here just a little bit too.

How are we on this side?

You might put just a little-- I know what we need.

I want to put a little bit of the sky color into the water so that it isn't quite as reddish right there.

So I'm coming down-- this is still wet.

I want to take this, which is sky color.

But let's put a little blue into it.

Oh!

That's pretty.

Love this area.

I will go right close to the sun reflection.

One thing you have to be sure of is, I have the reflection right here, which means the sun is going to be right there.

That works, that'll work.

Straight line.

Push just a little of this-- no, I don't want that down there.

Let's take a little Burnt Umber.

This is straight Burnt Umber.

Boy, I'm using the fan brush for the whole works!

Buy a whole bunch of brushes!

Put the rest in the case.

Like that.

One aspect that will be helpful-- leave that just for a minute.

The minute we talk about not using any more of these brushes; I have another one.

This is a liner brush.

He is such a good friend.

I am going to choose to do the Umber and the Alizarin Crimson.

This is Alizarin Crimson and Umber.

Very watery, because you want that to flow like ink.

Notice as it come out past, that you have that reddish feeling.

The result of the sun being behind it.

This is just one of the most choice opportunities, to be on PBS.

I love PBS!

And if you do, if you support the shows, you support PBS.

That's how we get to have these shows, and they are so neat.

I was telling Bob, my good friend, who is the head of all this, that I was teaching up in Portland very recently.

And while I was there, the show was on.

My mother in Minnesota, she gets to see it every week.

It may be all snow, because her TV is so old!

But she recognizes the voice.

I want to go a little bit brighter in the one spot on the tree.

This is red and white.

Not a lot of white.

But just enough to give a little pinkness to it.

See that?

I'll put that right in there.

That is so pretty.

Here's the thing, in stage one, which this is, this is stage one you can be just a little more free with it.

If it's too much, the next time, of course, you're going to cover it anyway.

I don't now how much of this I want to see.

But I want just a little bit of feeling down there.

It kind of separates the far from the near.

I don't see why we can't put just a little bit more over in the edge.

I'm looking at this thing, I like to look at this way: if you were to leave this stage, that it's acceptable to you.

When I look at this tree, I take a little more blue on it.

Just making a little bit more character.

Kind of touching, so it has a just a little bit of that edging that we can accept as being a tree.

You've never seen a blue tree?

Well, if you lost your leaves, you'd be blue too!

Wouldn't you?

We're coming over here.

This has been a great day being with you!

I just know how much you'll get out of this series, because it is going to be new every time.

Every time it's something new.

We'll have a variety of subjects, and you'll enjoy.

I love to here from people about the show.

What the like, and which they'd like to see as well.

Both subjects, and, yeah subjects, I guess that would be it, because I'll do the technique.

This blue just works up a little bit up around in there.

I think what I'd like to do is soften just a little bit branch that comes out into the sky.

So I'm taking a little bit of yellow-- what do need?

Yes, I want a little yellow, because this is close to the sun, rather than using the sky color.

We'll make this just a little bit smaller.

How nice and easily this is done when you're working on a dry surface.

You're working with acrylics, but they dry rather quickly.

I'll add just a little bit more yellow over on this side too, so you get more of an expanse of that.

Putting the soul into the painting early, is what's kind of the goal this time.

I think you'll like it.

Next time we do a series, we'll learn something else.

We'll learn as we're doing.

I come with preparation.

I'm prepared, I mentally think, what I want to do.

Its always nice, like I teach a workshop.

I like to be able to come without notes, so if I find a way to make a little better painting, then I'll go ahead and do it.

The students like that.

You see here, I touched a little bit of the yellow I put up here.

I came down here, touched around a little bit on the edge of the bank, and just a small little bit on the far side.

So feel the trees are not necessarily just sitting right in the water.

There's a little land in front of them.

When we come back next time, we will be putting character into these areas.

We'll add just a little bit more.

I'll tell you want I would like, is kind of a final thing.

A little blue and white.

this is Thalo Blue as well, but it's just a little darker.

Excuse me, its lighter, but it is going to be darker than that.

Oh, that's a nice little leaf.

We'll put this out here.

I'll remove my little leaf out in the middle then take just a little of this.

When I push this over since it's dry surface it's working on, I'll take a paper towel, and there we are!

So we'll see you next time, and we'll go on with "The Sentry."

Remember, "Show the people the way, Buck!

Don't lose anybody."

I won't lose you if you come back.

Bye bye!

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

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