I don't know if this painting has a story to tell or not, but I have a story to tell.

You stay tuned.

[piano plays; bright in tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The rest of the story!

Let me show you the pochade, and I can talk to you while we're doing the looking.

This is a small painting done out in a meadow.

I just love that; a Minnesota meadow.

When I was growing up, I would say from the age of one month to about 17, any time I saw a large field, my first thought was, could we have a baseball diamond out there?

My cousin, his father went to a Yankee baseball game and caught a foul ball.

A New York Yankee baseball.

Now, I wasn't really a New York fan, so we talked the cousin into going and getting the baseball, which he did, and we played out there.

Wham!

I hit one into the puddle, or pond, and it's there to this day.

For two weeks afterwards the frogs croaked a little louder!

I don't know if they were happy or cheering me, but there is a Yankee baseball down there.

Let's go ahead and show you the canvas, what we prepared.

This is a two part painting.

The first part we'll do with acrylics.

The second time we'll do with oils.

I think you will really enjoy the technique.

If you prefer doing all oils, the only criteria I would have would have is, that it's dry when you come the next time to paint on it.

The priming of the canvas is a little different.

It's Permanent Green Light and white.

Let me show you down at the palette.

I have some Permanent Green Light and I have some white.

So I'll mix those together.

It looks like it's about equal parts.

That's very good, that's what I've primed the canvas with.

Then I put on my drawing, I outlined it, in this case with a little Alizarin Crimson.

Which will merely be a path for me to follow as I'm placing on the paint.

The first thing we'll do is put some splashes of color on.

We are not really concerned too much about detail or position yet.

We just want the energy of what's there.

Sunset time at the meadow.

Ok, I have some yellow and white.

Let's see what kind of formula or mixture we want on that.

I'll start with equal parts.

That looks just about right.

Maybe just a touch more white.

So I would say that looks like it's about two white and one cad yellow.

This is splash time, so we're using water.

I have a fan brush.

Coming over, let it mix in quite a lot.

Then we splash to the canvas.

I wipe the brush a little bit, because now that it's wet up there, I want some that will be a little more firmly placed.

When I do the little pochades, let me just have you look at that a minute.

This one was done from memory.

I saw the scene, then I remembered it.

I remembered it the way I wanted to see it.

Which means what?

I might mean I need to make a couple trees a little taller here, and so on.

I did it my way.

However, when it was finished I put a little glaze on it, I used little Van Dyke Brown just to tone it a little bit.

We'll probably be doing the same thing today on the original, or on this one as we're doing it.

I don't necessarily feel that a pochade has to stay untouched after you do it with your enthusiasm and energy.

What will make it better?

That's always the criteria for whether you work further or not.

I will let some of this come straight down into the path, down into the stream, the puddle.

This is kind of a pond.

That's what it is.

It's not a stream.

It's very still water.

I'll take and clean the brush with the water.

I recommend having a good paper towel, because when you're wetting the paper towel you don't want it to pull apart.

You don't any of it to be left on the brush.

Let's come with Raw Sienna.

However, I just cleaned the brush, so I'm going to pick up and have it just a little wet.

Here's the Raw Sienna.

This will splash up.

You can see this in the pochade, again, I'm pointing.

This is a pochade, the color, the Raw Sienna that I'm using there.

You're guided a little bit at this stage of where to put things and what colors to use.

But you're always with the idea of what would look good there in energy?

So I'll be putting some Raw Sienna down here, yet the pochade has a little golden tone there, or greenish gold.

So we'll get that later.

This will be a nice foundation.

As I come over to the sun area, I'll lightly touch, I'll let it blend just a little bit.

If it didn't blend in, but it is.

But if it didn't, I would either kinda moisten the cloth and wipe a little bit, so we get the blend.

See up there?

That could be pretty sharp if I don't blend it.

So I'll blend just a little bit.

And it is blending into what was previously put there, the yellow and the white.

So that works just to our advantage.

Do I need any more Raw Sienna?

A little bit more over in the far right sky.

Again, touching into the sun area with this.

You'll find the advantage we have, by using this primed canvas.

How much of that will be felt, when we're doing the sky in the oils.

So it works very well.

I thought I was at the beach.

I saw a wave!

Let's go with red.

Now, when I do the red, I'm looking at it as more of a pink.

What I am saying is, let's put a little white with it.

Then when I get here, and I'm going to bring white over, my thought is, what would happen if I would mix this in to the yellow and white?

And I think that was a good choice.

It's just a little bit softer by mixing it with the yellow and white, than if I mixed with pure white.

I will show you down there.

Gives me a chance to guess too.

The one with the white would be a cooler.

Gees, now that I do it, I'm going to go cool.

"Buck, you're such a cool artist."

Thank you.

I took the words off the prompter.

That's what it said!

Ok, here we come, the pink.

Now, the pink will cover a little bit of that previous yellow and white.

I will go over to the right.

I want this also to be softened at the top, which I haven't done yet.

Come over this way.

Now I'll go back towards softening.

Hopefully I can soften by pushing the brush around.

Yes, that's working.

You'll find that oil does accomplish a lot as far as softening or any correcting you need to do.

But I really feel at each stage you help yourself, the more you make it correct.

Isn't it nice that you can have decision making that you can say, "I want to use this," then you can change your mind.

It's said, "That you can always tell a good artist, but you can't tell him much!"

So what does that make me?

Somebody told me to do it this way.

Let's come over here.

We have, this is rose.

Now watch where this goes and what it does.

This will go over where the tree lines are.

What happens, you look at my palette and you see all those colors.

You think, gee, you've got so many choices.

I remember when we used to eat on the farm.

They would say on the family menu, you have two things-- You can either eat it, or you can let it go.

On a farm you always have a choice, and that's where I was raised.

This is just lovely, because it goes over the drawing, and I can see through.

I can see the drawing.

Now, as I go to the top, this is a temporary top.

When I put the dark on, some of this will be playing around the edges a little bit.

That'll give me a great opportunity for bringing the sunset into the trees.

What's happening in the middle here, it's a little softer, and it gives a feeling that you can look through and see further.

That's like the Green Monster in Boston.

hit it over there-- and center field there is a long ways away.

I love talking baseball.

It's nice being in the city filming these shows, where I once played baseball.

I had such a great manager.

I want to tell you just something about him, and that will lead up a little bit about art and artists too.

This comes over soft, soft like that.

When I came up from Pelican Rapids, 50 miles away, to try out with the Fargo-Moorhead Twins of the Northern League, the manger was Danny Litwhiler, he played eleven and a half years in the major leagues.

But you know what?

I came up.

He says, "go down and warm up."

You'd see me later, he came down, he said, "Let's see your fastball."

I threw the fastball.

He said, "well,that's good.

Let's see your curve ball."

I threw the curve, and he said, "bring your elbow in closer."

So I did.

"That's a good curve!"

5, 6 seconds of instruction!

That's why it's important to go to somebody that is so knowledgeable, and willing to share the knowledge.

I hope you feel that on these shows, that I am showing you, I'm giving to you what I know.

I learned from a great man, Claude Buck, one of the very best.

He was so giving.

He would write on the back of his canvases-- see, I'm just going up a little higher.

Just a little wetness so it softens slightly by going up higher.

So I'm adding the softness rather than trying to push this up.

He would write on the back of his canvases the colors that he used and the design, the technique, the symmetry.

What a giving person.

Because he wanted me to learn, stand on his shoulders and go higher.

I say the same thing to you.

Learn from me.

Copy this.

Change it a little if you want, as you're inspired.

But make it a step forward by learning from the good ones.

Gee, I think I put myself in a class there.

Well, you can all be in that class where you give, and that's what we're doing.

Notice how I'm going to again put this on.

And when you look at pochade, you say, "I don't see any of that red there."

You feel it, you feel it.

You'll see it even more or feel it even more as I put the other greens and so on, on it.

This is the meadow.

♪ In the meadow.

♪ Couldn't Elvis Presley-- he actually saw this scene, and that was one of his songs.

♪ in the meadow.

♪ Or something like that.

I was in an art class once.

I was teaching a work--no, it was just a regular class.

I was going around helping the people.

I like to hum a little bit.

[humming] ♪ De, de-de.

♪ I was helping this one lady.

She says,"Buck!

When I was growing up I wished I could sing.

She says, "Now, I wish you could sing!"

So that was kind of funny.

She was such a great personality.

This is a good beginning.

Besides, what we have done-- we'll add a little extra work to it-- we want to have some of the segments right.

When I say "segments," I'm thinking all the ingredients.

So I'll put a little reds in here.

You can see where the rocks are.

There's a particularly important one, right down close there, and there's one over here.

This one may be a little large.

Just turn on the hose, and make the pond a little higher!

Let's do this, let's go a little lighter in the sky and we will take our yellow and white.

I quite like using a knife when we're talking about quantity.

Here's yellow and white.

Let's bring it over here so I can be a little purer with the white, not quite as much yellow.

But the yellow, where I'm going to place it, is already dry, so I need to make sure it isn't pure white.

Here is the position of the sun.

Not a lot of change, but you'll find when we put on the clouds, then that the light will show up a lot.

We'll come down lower into the water.

This time-- let me fill it this way instead of sliding this way, I'll slide the other way.

The reason being, when I come up here it'll be easier for me to place the knife right there.

This right in the path of the sun.

So it comes straight down.

We'll add just a little bit here and there in the water.

Just a little bit near that rock, then it features that rock just a little bit more.

Maybe a little bit on that side of it.

We'll be having other colors as well.

Let's go ahead now and take--what are you?

What are you?

Raw Umber.

Oh, I love Raw Umber.

The water--I don't know if you can get a shot of that-- that kind of looks like tomato soup!

Ooh, you're pretty!

This is Raw Umber, and I'm going on top of the area where we have the trees.

I put this on, oh, 5 minutes ago?

But it's already dry enough that we can do this.

This is going to be put on so that you can see a little bit of the red underneath, but this will start framing up our darks, this silhouette feeling.

As I get closer to this, particularly when we start finishing it with oil, we'll have a couple of places where we want to have, where the sky showing through.

I'm not paying as much attention to that right now.

I know one spot right here where there's going to be a branch, and then we can push this over.

So this will be just what we want.

Here, as we talked about center field at Fenway Park, we want to have the feeling of a little distance.

So it won't be quite as tall as these.

So you can look over them and see some distance.

Just hanging out a little bit.

So you get just a little grace into that.

We'll come further with this.

This Raw Umber is doing a fine, fine job.

Doing a fine job of painting, fan brush!

The fan brush is so versatile, because you can tap, you can brush large areas, and get a lot of accidental looks to it.

I love that brush for what it gives.

But it's a case of, you kind of need to know how to paint, before you let that brush do so much of the work, when you come to small branches and areas.

But once you know how, you've heard people say, you could use a house brush and you should be able to do it.

In the hands of a knowledgeable person.

This continues down on the land area.

I will have a little bit of this on the sides.

You can see that I watered that up a little bit more, so I can push it around a little bit faster.

It isn't just the speed I want, but the character was happening up on the trees.

Whereas down here, we just want to put on more large shapes.

I want to go on the left side, because I have need to put al little bit of color on the land through he middle.

There was an artist.

I don't remember his name, Munford?

All I remember was that his wife's name was Pam.

That was P.M. and his was an "A," so it was A.M./P.M.

She told me about him.

I never met him, he was deceased by the time we were talking.

She was saying that he was with group of artists once, and they said,"Whenever you paint a landscape, you have to paint some sky."

And he says, "No you don't, I will show you."

So he painted a landscape, and it was just filled.

Then he a had a little reflections of the pool, of the sky.

And that satisfied everybody.

It must have been quite a feat, because several were a little dubious that he could paint a landscape without seeing any sky.

I'm letting some of this go into the water just a little bit.

Now what I want to do is-- let's see, this is?

What are you?

You're Sap Green.

Sap Green and a little Yellow Ochre.

I really am going to love putting this up there.

You can see in the pochade, the little green.

This color may not be quite that color, yet.

But it will be a cushion or a mattress where the oils will come.

Oh, that doesn't look so bad.

Notice how I'm capping it on too.

This will represent a little bit more of the character of the foliage as it's on there.

Sometimes I talk to you, but am I reaching you?

Yeah, I see you.

Gee, I care about you.

I can feel you!

That's one of the great things about television.

You can actually see through, and see in the room.

Pick up your brushes, pick up your shoes.

[laughs] Anyway, glad your there.

Coming over in here.

Now, when I go to the right and left; I don't have to have quite the detail feeling, so I'll just push it like this, the brush.

Because when we come to the oil stage; we are going to do a little bit of a Saturday night bath, you can almost overdo a little bit in the first stage.

Because the bath will erase some, or subdue it some.

Whereas here, we just want it on there.

Now down in the corner, I'm going to choose to go a little bit with the fan brush.

This is Raw Umber.

Just a little bit of character early on that, not much, but a little bit.

Not on this side.

We do need to have a line that will separate where the land and the water end.

The reason we are doing that is because some of this is just reflections from above.

That's why it is so close to being the same color.

I'm taking a little bit of this green, and it will soften the water a little bit over on that side.

The little reflections.

It's so nice to paint, and have a beautiful floor director that gives you the signals.

Just be careful when you have one minute left.

OK!

Let's show what happens on there, softening a little bit.

I could go a little darker in the water, right there.

You want the focus to be in the middle.

And that certainly happens.

But your going to watch, when we come back and we put a few other colors in there.

Right now we've just sort of established what's there.

I do like the aspect of maybe putting a couple of little glints in the sky.

Yellow and white, just some soft little... That's not very light.

I'll go a little more white.

Just a little silver lining to some of those clouds.

You'll have, when we come back next time, we'll put a little darker there, so you will have the sun peeking out.

Peeking out behind the clouds.

Can't you just see, it's a place to play ball, but even that, you can lay down the bat and enjoy the scene.

Thank you for coming.

I'll tell you what, we're going to have a great time as we go on with the meadow.

I'm putting just little extra lights down low, kind of by the trees.

So this is the time to say, "We've just hit a home run."

See yah later!

Bye-bye.

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