I am under a lot of scrutiny today.

The owner of these bison is in the studio.

He's cameraman number one!

[piano plays; bright in tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Welcome!

Welcome!

I used 2 welcomes because this is the 2nd part of "The Bison," And it will be done in 3 parts.

Let me show you what we're going to work on, what we're going to work towards, and how we're going to do it.

What I'm going to work on is the canvas that I had from last week-- Ultramarine Blue and a little yellow and white.

You have the notes on that, so just a little review.

This is all dry.

Over to the right is a middle stage.

It looks pretty complete, doesn't it?

That's what we're going to work up to today.

Previously done with acrylics, today done with oil.

The oils will dry before we go to the final stage, the little refinement.

So I'll start by putting on walnut oil on the whole canvas.

And when I do this, I'll push some on and spread it around because I don't want it on real thick like, but I want it on so the paint will flow freely.

No Saturday night bath-- just to facilitate the moving of the colors on the canvas.

What I was initially going to do was to start right with the bison, but I think it would be wise if I take and put just a little bit of color next to the bison, which means the background, the trees.

And when I do this, I have a small brush.

This is Cobalt Blue, white, Alizarin, with a little touch of Payne's Gray.

As far as a formula I would say 1 Payne's Gray, 1 Alizarin, 2 Thalo Blue, and about 6 white.

I just need a little bit more paint on there.

That's better, this has just a little bit more warmth to it.

The advantage of having the drawing on makes it so we can be very careful.

For instance, if you do accidentally come too close, then by the mere wiping, you bring back your line.

♪ Bring back my line to me.

♪ Okay, we'll come over to the left, coming around the head, carefully around the horn.

That sounds like a sailing term.

Let's go "around the horn."

Sounds like a baseball term.

Did you know that?

Throwing "around the horn."

In the olden days that meant you'd go from 3rd base to 2nd base--what was the other base?

First base.

Oh, that's pretty.

I like what that does just by thinning out over what was previously there.

That's almost enough right in there.

Of course, when we get to it, we'll push this more up into the tree.

And I'll work a little bit with that where you can let some of the underneath to show through as well as allowing what's on top to show.

That's the joy of underpainting.

Sometimes it-- what do they say graze?

Yeah, I think it's graze.

They do the building of form and values and so on, and then they put color over.

Okay, we'll go right to our center of interest.

In the tease I said I have the owner in the studio today, camera one, he is here!

I should have asked him the name of this, this beautiful animal.

He just flippantly said, "Oh that's Buck."

I had a person down south-- let's go, let's paint, huh?

This is Rose and Payne's Gray.

I had a person down in South Carolina that named their dog after me, "Buck."

They called him "Little Buck."

He was part wolf, he got great big.

He was more than Little Buck.

As we said last time, as we put this on, you have a little feeling of character.

As I'm doing this, I'm pushing this around so it feels like I'm curling the hair a little bit.

I'm gathering some dark that we'll put up on the horn.

So we'll go ahead and take that up.

You'll notice as we do the horn, it is done very sharplike against the head comparing with the nap of the forehead.

Let me get just a little bit more, and I'll come down the side of the head, and you'll achieve a nice contrast with the background.

Remember we put just a little bit of the snow back there.

This has a very nice contrast.

We push this over.

We again will leave a little bit where we're going to put a light inside.

This right now will come down close.

There is just a little light above the eye as well, right above the eye and, of course, in the eye, and then we have a very nice dark that is right above that dot in the eye.

That's such an outstanding place to have an accent, a contrast, the dark and the light.

Come down on the side of the face.

I think they call it face.

Side of the head, face-- I like "face."

We'll move closer with the darks towards the middle, and underneath the eye there's also just a little patch that'll be just a little lighter than this, so we'll have this, and very soon we'll be putting the other dark on.

I think what I'll do since I have this on the brush, I'll just leave this area and continue down-- we'll do at the bottom here.

So we'll put this dark on other places that it goes, which will be on the body of the big bull, and we'll do it on the distant ones.

I love that little beard there.

Now, it has dark, but it's not this dark So we're not putting this on there yet.

As I do this, I'm seeing what I want.

I'm covering the dark with the dark, but if I take a little paper towel and just wipe a little bit, you have it where you're playing with the color coming through.

The tone that you get by wiping, and the Ultramarine Blue shows through.

It sort of emphasizes the little reddish flavor of this color even more that it does with just straight coverage.

I've told you, I've lived in the winters.

We used to live-- we said 10 miles to the kids, but it was really more like one mile from country school.

So I went to country school, one-room school.

"Buck you're not that old!"

A one-room school from grades 2 to 6, 156 North.

It still sits there today, not as a school-- somebody purchased it, but oh, that was a great place!

Sometimes it was cold in the mornings, and we had to all gather around the-- what do they call it, transom?

Okay I'm going to put some on the back leg, and when I put this on, I want this to be quite dark so I won't wipe as much as I have on the front part.

This has just a strong silhouette, and it's so sturdy, and it really attracts nice attention, and I like just a little bend of it.

The little little sway, again thinking composition.

Now, I didn't go out there and say, hey, would you move your front leg a little bit?

But it was done that way,é and this sure did help me.

Okay, on the back leg, not much more with this color than just outlining because the inside's even lighter.

I will, as we've done before, wipe just a little bit.

And this is a blend.

It's not really removing.

It's a blend.

On the back one I'm touching a little bit, because I had a little texture there, and I do not want texture in the dark.

Anytime you have textures in the dark, it's going to pick up lights, and it's harder to appear as darks.

I'll even come over on the head just touching a little bit.

How's that feel?

Does it itch behind that horn a little bit?

Ah, they are great animals!

And they have feelings.

I was going to say, "they're human too," but they have feelings.

Here I'm going to take the same dark and run over on his relatives, his friends.

I hope they're friends.

It doesn't matter.

If you're not friends, you're sure are a long ways away.

This reminds me having them back there how we used to go to that country school-- I'm just putting the darks on-- my brother some mornings he'd start out.

He'd run, and he'd be 5 minutes ahead of me.

So I saw him, and I'd run up to him, and the minute I got to him, he was all rested, so he ran again.

That wasn't very nice, but he's a great brother.

Doing the darks.

Do you notice what I did?

I'll continue with that aspect is were I'll wipe just a little bit after I have the darks on.

On the horn rather than wiping, I'll blot.

See, I got some dark off, and still it looks quite dark.

Okay, I have enough on the brush to go over to your friend.

That's me, these are me, and here's my brother, is waiting for me.

The minute they get up there then he'll take off!

No.

Animals.

I played this DVD on a loop, so I watched this 2-minute loop of the romp for many minutes at a time, half hour and then later another half hour.

And then, of course, I'd freeze the frame and paint from it.

But it was just like you need to give the animals a little break.

They need to quit posing for a while.

They need to run around and do their thing.

Okay, there we are.

Now let's go ahead with the next color that we'll continue with them.

I have a red light, a red light, pushing in, and it just touches into that Quinacridone Rose and Payne's Gray.

So this'll give me colors that'll come up on here.

I like that.

And see, I can thin it around too?

You have the outline.

And this more than ever when I place this on, I'll need to come and wipe a little bit because I need to have that underneath showing through.

Ooo, that's a pretty color!

It looks so good over the blue too, doesn't it?

You can see the effect of what happens.

Now, let's put a little down here, a little over here, a little there, a little there, and I'm going to going to come and wipe these in just a minute to make them work more fully for me.

Same way here-- I'll place it on and wipe it, place it on here, and then wipe it.

Before I do that, since I still have the same paint on the brush, let's go over to the head.

We'll take this color, go right over here and come right in the middle there.

That really helps feel with the form when you have a little bit lighter, but it's still the same family the kind of the reddish family.

Now let's go ahead and-- well, just maybe a little bit more.

Okay, that's far enough.

Now on the blend where they come together that would be best done maybe with a brush.

But as we come up into the middle part, and when I say "the middle part," I'm talking about right in the paint as well.

This is the middle part, but this also allows the underneath to be part of the color scheme so it looks less painted.

It looks like the real thing.

Pushing this over, we'll have another color that'll appear there very shortly.

This is so neat, then the next stage that you'll come back to we'll do some refinement on it.

Let's go down to the palette, and I have Yellow Ochre, pick a Yellow Ochre and just a little touch of what?

Yellow and red-- let's see what we get from that.

That works.

Here we go, right on the back.

Now, when you're kind of at a finishing stage, of course, you'll come up, and you'll include that line, the outline.

We're removing that.

Now here-- I'm going to come back onto the horn in just a minute.

But it will have to be I think a little different color.

We'll see.

No, let's do that.

If we put a little bit in there-- that'll work.

Then I have this come down.

It blends into what's there.

Push it around, and I'll pick up just a little where they're mixing together, that color, and come over here.

I know a mop brush will work well on that so I'm picking up the mop brush.

Clean and dry?

Now it has a little bit-- let me set that one down.

You're pretty good, but I want this other one.

It's a little bit smaller.

No paint on the brush.

I'm just working with what's there.

When I pick up a little bit of this light that I just placed up here-- I just put it on the brush.

Now there's a little bit on the brush so we can start just a slight feeling of character coming down.

See how that helps?

It isn't just putting on color.

It's putting it on in the right character.

Let's go over to these 2 little peoples, far away, but they certainly have a place in our painting.

Okay, let's come back now on the horn.

I want to go down-- this color, this is what we put on the body.

What if have just a touch of white in it like that.

It has just a little kind of a pink.

It's not quite as golden as the fur is back there.

I'm going to use the same thing and come right over that eye.

Remember we left a small place for that?

I'll hold it this way-- maybe you can see it a little better, then underneath, right in here.

Boy, you now can see his eye, can't you?

Let's just blend.

This is just a tap blending to soften that together.

And we want this guy to have some character there so I will take white with a little bit of-- what are you!

Payne's Gray.

Well, that doesn't quite work, so I'm going to put a little warmth into it.

I mixed a little bit of the ochre in with it.

This will be-- oh, that's so much better.

He has a right to look correct.

He has a right to look right.

I softened just on that edge.

Now I'll take a little of that Payne's Gray and just make it darker on the left edge of it.

I just like that the way that is.

You know it's cold the way it's breezing there.

When I watch these on the DVD, you could see them puff and puff and the snow kicking up.

You knew they were moving.

Let's take a little of that Payne's Gray and the same mixture that we put on the beard.

I want to put this down right across the nostrils there, so we have a little bit of shape on that as we over the nostril, It'll go over and in front of this nostril.

We need just a little more dark there.

The dark, I'm using Payne's Gray and Quinacridone Rose.

This dark needs to come up just a little bit higher.

Okay, I think that's alright.

Now, what I want to do is to take and put on some more of this snow color.

This was the Cobalt Blue, Payne's Gray, and Quinacridone Rose.

When I do this, I'm retaining a little bit of the blue that's there.

That is such an important part in snow scenes, to see and feel some of the blue.

I'm using a fan brush, just putting it on very loose like.

You can hear it scrubbing.

[soft scraping] And because I've already had it on earlier next to the bison then I don't have to worry about coming too close to it.

I'll let this come down lower again.

There is one thing that quite helps when you put colors next to each other, and that's, for instance, the trees against the top of this, the bison.

If I just touch-- and when I'm touching this, I'm actually pushing up just a little bit, just a little bit, and then you get the feeling of softness, because the character of this as compared the horn-- the horn you wouldn't do it because that's very sharp.

As I come down, what did I notice?

The tail needs to have a little dark on it so I'm using the Quinacridone Rose and Payne's Gray.

Sometimes you can say, "Quinacridone Rose;" other times you'd say, [mispronouncing] "wacknino row."

I think I said the latter that time.

I want to come a little lighter in the middle there, the middle of the shoulders, and I'm going to use that small mop brush.

Let's come with white and a little bit of the yellow.

It has just a little Yellow Ochre in it.

This is just a little lighter than what was there.

Perfect!

And I'm staying very close this time.

I'm staying very close to the horn.

By doing that you want the interior, you want to feel that you can feel the ribs, and know where the hip joint is and so on.

You don't have to be a doctor, you just have to be an artist!

I want this dark to come up a little higher.

Why?

Because that's the way it is.

Of course, you can look at the one over to the side.

Now I'm taking red, red light, just with a little yellow.

This will give me a little extra light right on the rump.

That is such a nice little light there.

Boy this is so neat!

I feel because that's so nice-- let's come over on the head just a little bit.

This'll emphasize the color in there just a little bit more than it did before.

A little stronger on that edge so you feel that's separate from the rest of the body.

Do these guys need more?

Some of this can come down in the leg just a little.

Oh, I love that brush!

It did such a good job!

One last thing.

We don't have much need for this because we'll pick it up next time, but let's take just a little bit of the snow-- Cobalt Blue and white, with a touch of Viridian Green.

So we can kind of say yes, this is where we want the snow.

Woo, that's powerful snow!

I'm going to spread that out just a little bit, and I'll wipe it so it's not quite as strong.

You make use of the underneath showing through.

I like that, but I don't like it.

So I'll like it more so when I've thinned it out like that, blended it around.

We want to have a little bit under these folks too because that is a bank that they're coming up against.

Remember how we curved this up?

This one's curving this way; that one's curving that way.

And sometimes a little distance between them, distance between here and there, is felt as I put the light on there.

Oh this, this-- you look great!

I can't think of anything that'll make you look any better, so we'll kind of just blend a little bit.

You're always aware when you put color over a priming and a monochrome such as this, that now I need to be more conscious of how much of the blue is showing through, how much of the blue should show through.

And I certainly don't have any problem with it showing, but a little more subtly than it was doing.

Oh, I'll tell you one thing that is going to be so neat, and that's taking a little bit of the same snow color and just touching to the left of the face.

That will feature that part of the head and you don't even have to see the eye or anything, but you feel it.

Let's take and put just one small little stroke of dark, and that's the same dark we were using there, the Quinacridone Rose and Payne's Gray and put just a little eyelash.

Can you see that, camera number one?

Is that right?

Does that look good?

It looks good to me.

So you come back next time, and we'll put some more final touches on.

We'll allow this to have a week to dry so then we can put a little more character into it.

But I think this has been just a grand opportunity for me to feel, to feel this developing!

We'll see you next time.

Thank you for watching "The Bison!"

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

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪