You can always tell a good artist, but you can't tell him much!

I hope you learn from today's show.

[piano plays, bright in tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm so glad that you came back.

I am assuming you saw last week's show, because that was stage one, with acrylics.

Now, I have before you stage two, where we will do oils.

I also have next to the completed stage one, I have the little pochade, which was our inspiration.

So now we're going out and we're going to do it with inspiration, with knowledge, and techniques, because we don't have anything past that.

I'll tell you something-- those little pochades, you finish a painting over here and put the pochade next to it and you say, "which one would you like?"

You might find several that will say, "I'll take the pochade, because it has that energy in it."

You hope you get that energy in here.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but those pochades are good.

On the canvas, which is dry, I have put walnut oil.

This is put on kind of generous, then I will wipe a little bit.

The wiping is to spread it around evenly, and it's to remove any excess.

This is all preparation for our Saturday night bath.

I love what this does.

It makes what you call a "tonal," T-O-N-A-L, a tonal painting.

So it has so much mood and everything before you start putting colors in.

Actually, it accomplishes a lot of what needs to be done, and you may have to paint just a little bit less than you first planned to.

So let the painting guide you.

Don't force saying, "I've got to put this in.

I've got to put this in."

Let's see what goes in.

So I'm picking up Van Dyke Brown.

It looks very dark, but it's kind of a combination.

It's almost like black with a little warmth of burnt umber.

Van Dyke Brown, I really love it.

When I put this on, it's going to scream.

It is going to scream.

You are going to scream, "Buck!

What you doing?

What you doing?"

But you wait till I push a little on, kind of like the walnut oil.

I'll put a little bit on, not cover the whole thing.

I'll take the paper towel and push this around, so we get a small feeling of wetness everywhere.

I'm not evaluating it yet.

I'm pushing this around, then I'll evaluate where I need to wipe, and where I need to add.

There was a famous artist, George Inness.

Absolutely loved that man.

He did a lot of the type glazing that I'm doing here.

Oh, he was so enthusiastic.

He would paint over a painting at a moment's notice whether it was his or his son's, or somebody that bought a painting.

You just couldn't stop him.

He always wanted to make a little bit better painting.

I had a great experience-- look, I'm wiping more in the light area.

Wipe here and wipe there.

I wipe down here, so you're establishing where the lightest parts are going to be, then the rest, I'll be working color into the sky, but it'll work a little into that.

One day I came into the studio, and Claude Buck gave me this book on George Inness.

Let me go ahead and put some paint on as I'm taking.

This is walnut oil.

See where I dip it in?

I don't really swish it around.

I might kind of touch it on the edge there, because I want to get the walnut oil basically clean.

Now I am going to come with the sky color.

This Yellow Ochre and white, with a little Thalo Blue.

So Claude Buck gave me this book, "The Art, Life, and Letters" of George Inness, by his son.

Because the son wrote it, it was a very personal touch, very nice.

I read it 7 times, I loved it so much.

One day I came into Claude's studio.

He had a big seascape sitting there.

He was not there.

It was on a Friday.

I would paint with him Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday class, Friday.

I thought, if George Inness was here, he would take a knife and put a splash on that wave.

Which I did.

And I went home.

I came back on the Monday-- I'm still going to use some of this color and push around in the sky.

When I came back in the studio, Claude never said anything about it.

We just talked and talked.

At the end, I could last no longer.

I said, "Claude, that bad stroke on your canvas, I'm the one that did it."

He says, "I don't know what you are talking about."

I says,"I put some paint on it.

I was acting like George Inness.

Didn't you see it?"

He says, "I saw what needed to be done to correct it."

And I just corrected it.

So my help wasn't a lot of help.

What was kind of interesting was years later after Claude had passed on.

One of my friends had a painting of Claude Buck's, it was a nice still life, a lantern and a skull of some kind of animal down front.

It was absolutely beautiful.

Well, it was damaged.

This guy calls up and says, "Buck I've got this still life of Claude Buck's.

It's got damage, could you fix it?"

He brought it over.

It had damage in the lantern.

It had a little damage in the background.

And I fixed it.

I fixed it with knowledge.

Not being George Inness, being Buck Paulson.

You need to be yourself.

It's fun to have enthusiasm, but do it out of your own feeling.

Not out of trying to imitate somebody else.

As far as George Inness' style of painting, absolutely beautiful.

I'd have no problem trying to imitate his style.

I'm making use of some of it today, as we suggested.

Let's put some of this down in the water.

I wrote something down, and I want to read it to you.

"Each person in the universe looking at a sunset sees the sun focused on them.

And it is!"

you put a person here, and you put a person down 50 yards away, and you ask, "Is the sun coming to you?"

"Yup."

"Is the sun coming to you?"

"Yup."

The sun comes to the viewer, the viewer.

So when you're painting a painting you could have a person standing here, you could have a person standing there, but to the viewer, it comes straight down.

So remember that.

I want to tell you something a little later, about your responsibility too, as far as being a reflection for someone's life.

Oh!

That is so pretty.

I look at that, and when I look back at the original.

I can see I need a little more yellow.

I'm picking up Cadmium Yellow, and I'm coming up to the bottom of this.

See how that just settles down a little bit?

You feel like there's a little more distance because the trees will have a chance to stand out against the contrast.

Oh, I love doing these shows, it's so neat.

I get messages and e-mails and phone calls from all over the country.

People loving the shows and wanting more of them.

I'll tell you, the number of people that send photographs, e-mailed photographs, of what they've done with my paintings.

In many cases they are pretty darn good.

Some of them may change a little bit and a say, "I made a little change on yours."

I think, wow!

That's great!

It's so nice to be impersonal and feel like you can learn from everybody.

I want to come down with-- I looked up the canvas, it looks oh, that's yellow and white, but it's dry.

That's from before.

So this is Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Yellow, equal parts.

With 4 white.

1 Ochre, 1 Cad Yellow, and 4 Cad white.

So this will step up just a little bit.

Again, I'm going on top of the dry, previous painting.

It's so fun for me, watching what that little glaze does.

We may work, and you can hardly tell that a glaze was put on.

But it is a path.

It's a sentinel.

It lets you know the way to go.

Let's go ahead and put a little Blue and White at the top corner of the sky.

This will give us a little feeling of the dome shape.

So you are darker in the corners, and you feel like there is a great distance in the middle.

I'll spread this around a little bit.

I don't have mush paint on.

Just the smallest change is all that I desire.

I'll come down a little bit closer to that tree, so it stands out just a little as silhouette against there.

What about down in the water?

Maybe a little bit of that there too.

I've put the light in the sky, but I haven't put the lightest light down in the water, so let's do that.

Use a little bit of the corner of the brush.

This is just the Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, and 4 White.

I want to make sure that I'm a very straight path down.

So that will be right there.

As I do this, I made a point, but I'm spreading this around a little larger.

Then, I'll come with a knife, for a little quantity, and for just a little lighter.

When I say a little lighter, let's just add just a little white to it.

Did you see all that?

I'll wipe this just a little bit, so I get just a chunk of white, right there.

Because I've done that with that kind of impact, I feel the need to come up to the sun itself and do that.

So I've added a little more white to what was put up there previously.

Also, the knife gives you a little more quantity, so automatically it will look lighter.

Now we want to do some work over in the foliage and the branches.

I do want to come back with a little bit of the twigs showing, because I covered them a little bit.

So here's some Alizarin Crimson, and I think I can just about use that straight.

Oh, look how the sun burns into that!

And then also here.

I want to put in a little bit of foliage.

I'm going to start out there instead of starting on the big foliage.

While I have a small flat brush with me, I want to tap just a little bit, soften the edge of those strokes, those knife strokes.

Down here, maybe spreading it out, just a tiny little bit.

But I do like the thickness, and the impact that the thickness gives.

Just a little strong.

I just touch it with a finger, and it's better.

What I felt the need for was taking a little bit.

This is Cadmium Red light.

I'm going to take just a little Raw Sienna.

And we'll touch this.

This will give us the feeling of a little reddish from the sunlight hitting the leaves.

Very gently through there.

Yes, I hear you.

I hear you.

You said, "be careful."

And I am careful.

Often I would put the big foliage on, then come back with the smaller foliage, but since the mass looks so good, then I felt, let's go ahead and do this.

At the same time, I'm going to run across and do some of this on the edge of the foliage over here.

Notice, I touch, then I am kind of wiping.

I want very little.

It is a long ways away.

Come over here and we'll just kind of blend this slightly, gently.

A little bit down below.

We can use a little bit of warmth as the pond changes into that path.

That's good on that path.

That works very well.

I'm glad we chose to do that.

See, it's a "we"-- you and me!

On the right side I have, this is Sap Green.

I'm going to come with Sap Green straight, see what happens.

We already have some Van Dyke Brown there.

There purpose of this is to build towards the light.

You could say build towards detail, if you want.

So I will go lighter and lighter.

This merely will become a cushion which the next degree will set on and will be a little more detail.

I'll put a little bit more down below.

This isn't meant to show much of anything.

It's just positioning, so when I put lighter green on it, you'll feel the change from the light to the middle-- this would be called middle green-- into the dark.

So let's come down here.

I'll push this around a little fast.

Now let's go lighter.

I have my Sap Green.

Let's take a little of the sky color to lighten it.

This particularly needs to be done down in the lower stage, lower part of the painting.

You get a little feeling of accent.

At the same time, you get some detail into it.

I need to take another fan brush which is clean.

I ran kind of quickly, I hope you could see that.

This is used strictly as a blender.

It was dry and clean.

When I put this other one on, let's use just a little less paint.

It will blend a little bit more as I do it-- I think.

Let's come with the other one blending more, because it does need that.

A little bit out there.

Then I'll work just a little bit of this green, Sap Green, into here.

I think I'll take just a little green and a little of the Van Dyke Brown.

So we get just a little bit of a silhouette effect intermingled with that reddish tone that's out on the edges, that's being burned.

I like that-- I like the accidental effect and how it responds.

Just a little bit close here, so your eye will be up there and it won't be quite so much near the tree.

I'll touch into there.

That cuts the tree trunk a little bit.

Now I will take a small brush, this is kind of a flat Badger brush.

I need--this is yellow.

I'm jumping around-- a little bit of green.

A little bit lighter.

Just so we have a little bit of individual foliage down at the bottom.

See, that truly helps that path, doesn't it?

You can always blend more.

We are not taking a lot of time to blend.

Blending is such an important part of painting.

In my opinion, the difference between an amateur and a professional, is often just with blending.

So it is quite important.

Over on the left side I have some Turquoise Blue.

I'm still down on the palette while your up on the left side.

We'll come a little bit with this.

This is Turquoise Blue with just a little white.

We're building just out slightly where the sun is just peeking into it.

While I have it on the brush, the blue on the brush, watch what I do.

We come right over here and put a little bit of blue in at the same time.

On the far side of the river, we put a little red earlier.

I'm going to go a bit darker with this.

This is Raw Sienna and red.

Let's change minds.

Let's take-- are you Sap Green?

Yeah, you're Sap Green, with just a little Van Dyke Brown, so we get a slight interior look of green over there.

What we were doing before, we had just a little bit-- this is also the Sap Green, a little white.

I put a little blue in it.

Anything that will give us just a little different feeling over there.

So you feel like there is some land over there too.

A little closer down here.

Again, I want to blend, so I am going to blend the far side.

As I do it, I let some of that come right down into the water.

I have no problem with some of that same green being there.

I want to go just a little lighter in the path.

This Raw Sienna and white, with a touch of Van Dyke Brown.

Just a little bit lighter here, so this leads you into the picture.

Let's go just a teeny bit lighter, teeny bit lighter on the tree trunk.

This is red and white.

Let's put a little yellow with it.

Just slightly.

That gives a nice impact.

I want to do a little bit stronger on this one branch that's coming out into the sun area.

Right here.

We'll just make that a little stronger, and give it a little additional twig, like that.

The more gentle that it looks, the easier it will be to accept it.

This is a little Alizarin Crimson.

Out here the same need, to have just some of these breaking off just a little bit.

They give such a delicate feeling.

Oh, you're not delicate!

Isn't it nice when you can just touch it a little bit?

Just touch it--no panic.

Sometimes the touches you hadn't planed to do are just right, they're nice accents.

Other times they stay just as accidents.

That is one that had to be corrected.

I am going just a little stronger on this side, so it kind of balances everything that's out to the left.

I wanted to make one comment as I leave today.

That is this... "The sun affects its surroundings.

The tinges of color on the edges of the trees are glorious.

You too, can affect the ones that you meet with the light of your eyes, your voice, your attitude, and by your actions."

you don't have to bee a sun, but you can be an effect.

You can be an influence-- I hope you do so.

You come back next time, ok?

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

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪