all ready to do a fantastic painting with me? good. let's have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to do this painting with me. and while they're doing that let's go on up here and let me tell you what i've already done. i've covered this canvas, which is an 18 x 24, with a piece of con-tact paper that has an oval cut in it.

now this is just normal old con-tact paper you can pick up at your local hardware store, grocery store, whatever. i've just cut an oval out of it, stuck it on there, and then i've covered this whole inside with liquid white as we normally do. other than that, there's nothing different about that. i thought today we'd do a fantastic little winter scene that i really think you're going to enjoy. let's go on up here and get started and we'll take right off. i'm going to start out today with a small amount of prussian blue and a little touch of midnight black. and just mix them right on the brush like so. now, using the little criss-cross or "x" strokes, let's just make a happy little sky. now see how you're making these little x's? start at the top and work downward.

by starting at the top and working downward your paint will mix with the liquid white and automatically your sky will get lighter toward the horizon, and this is one of those little tricks that helps create the illusion of depth and distance in your painting. this is just prussian blue and midnight black. now then, while i have that color still on the brush, maybe we'll have a little water in this. i love water, so i use the same colors, just blue and black. and i'll just go right across like so. i don't know exactly where the water is going to be, so anything that's not water, we'll make it snow. we'll make a little winter scene and all of this can be shadows. so, it really doesn't matter where you put this. just have fun.

now then, let's wash our brush, and we wash our brush with good old odorless thinner, and be sure it's odorless. if it's not, son of a gun, you're going to get run right out of the house. you'll be working out in the yard. shake off the excess, then just take out all your hostilities. this is really where you have fun. now then with a good clean dry brush, i'm going to start in the light area and blend upward. still using the little criss-cross strokes, little "x" strokes, just blend upward. now very lightly, we'll just go across, take out all those brush strokes, until it's pretty smooth. and if there's any areas that are real dark, just blend them, and they'll blend right in. the liquid white underneath is fantastic and will take out all those dark areas.

now, i like to put a little black in the sky since it's winter. i want to give the impression that it's cold. we'll just go across this just to smooth it out. and that quick we have a happy little sky. now today, let's make some clouds up here. and for that we'll use a 1" brush. now you can make these clouds with a 1" brush, 2" brush, fan brush. you could make them with your shoe. it's no big deal. just take and pull this brush through the paint; get a lot of paint on the brush. now you have to make a big decision... where does your cloud live? i think...yes, he lives right here. and making tiny little circles continually just like so. just happy little circles. clouds, boy, they just float around

and have a good time and let your brush do that. let's have another one down here, wherever you think a cloud lives. that's exactly where that son of a gun lives. just drop it in there. now i'm going to take a clean, dry 2" brush and use just the top of the brush, and very gently blend the bottom of the cloud out. we are not touching the top at all yet. now then, we grab it, and fluff it. and do this in circular strokes. avoid doing it straight up, or it looks like it's raining upward. that will bother you. same thing down here, just blend it out; fluff it and go across. now sometimes when you're painting clouds, it's fun to do layers of clouds, one on top of the other, so completely finish one and then come back,

and watch here. we can go right in here, and drop in another happy little cloud. and maybe he lives right underneath here. it doesn't matter, wherever. you can put as many or as few clouds in your world as you want. take our brush. give it a good little rap, and do the same thing. just blend it out a little bit. and then pull it. now this is two hairs and some air. in other words it's extremely gentle. the paint that we use is very firm so you can do all this blending without becoming a mud mixer. if you use a very soft, slimy paint, you're in trouble. the only time we use soft paints is for highlights, and normally that's yellow. yellow is normally always a highlight color, so that can be very soft, but these base colors you need to be strong, very strong.

let's put some little trees back here in the background. i'll mix up some black, some blue. oh, i like that black and blue, and a little bit of van dyke brown. let me clean off my knife, and we'll take the round brush. and we're going to tap. just tap that right in there like so. now then i want some background trees back in here, so all we're looking for right now is basic shapes. start at the bottom of the tree and work upward so the bottom is darker than the top and put in some very basic shapes. now i think i'll put a whole line across here. we'll just have trees all the way across. you know, in the last series, i showed a little bird, a little robin that i was raising

that had lived with me since he was just a baby. and we've had so many people write and tell us that they watch this, and they want to know what happened to him. let me show you the robin. this little bird was orphaned, and he lives with me now, and i feed him every day and take care of him, and pretty soon he's going to be a big bird. he's going to learn to fly and we're going to turn him loose and send him back to nature. now just recently, myself and diane shaffer -- she's the bird lady here in muncie -- we released that robin when he was full grown. i had raised him from a little tiny baby until he was a big bird. and diane and i let him go close to her house and there he went. that really makes it all worthwhile. my gosh, i must have spent half my life for a while there, running around and chasing earthworms to feed this little robin. but i just wanted you to see that he was all right.

he grew up, and i was so proud to let him go. this year i raised seven little birds, and they all went. we had everything from robins to starlings. i even raised some starlings, and i know they may not be the best bird in the world, but i like them. i like all little birds. and the lady you saw there on the screen that was with me, as i say she's the bird lady here in muncie, and we're trying to put together a shortie that will show what she does and how she takes care of all these birds, and maybe you'll get to see that in the future. i've put little trees all back here in the background. now i just want to create a little mist at the base, so i'm just going to tap, give it a little rub, tap. then give it a little upward lift. that makes it nice and misty and soft. now then let me wash that round brush. wash it the same way.

there's a screen in the bottom of this bucket that i scrub the brush against, shake it off, and it's almost as much fun as the big brush. now then, let's have some snow on top of all these. so i'm going right into the titanium white, and i'm going to tap firmly. the top of these bristles is where you really want to do the tapping. go right up in here and get some paint on them. now use just the top bristles, and begin laying all kinds of little snow-covered areas on these trees. you can just put thousands of thousands of leaves just with a couple of strokes, but layer these, see? that once again creates distance. i know you get tired of hearing me saying about distance, but i think it's so important that paintings have distance in them. so many paintings are flat, and then you don't like them.

and i want you to be happy with what you learn and what you do. we get letters from people all over the country saying it's working for them, that they're turning out some of the most beautiful paintings you've ever seen. and they never dreamed they could even paint, and they can, and you can. we show you everything that you need here to do fantastic paintings. and we have teachers that travel all over the country, like my son steve. boy, that little son of a gun, you've seen him maybe on some of the other shows, little bitty fellow. he's over 6'4". he travels around and teaches people. he's a lot of fun. and there's about a dozen other teachers, so if you ever get a chance, go watch them. they give demonstrations all over the country, and you'll enjoy them. now we have some little snow covered trees back there. we can take our knife, just go in here.

scrape in the indication of some little trunks and limbs and sticks and twigs, all kinds of things. you've got to have all these trees because my robin has to have a place to hide up here. i hope you enjoyed seeing that little rascal as much as i enjoyed bringing him to you. i'm sort of proud of him. it's like another kid. now i'm going to take titanium white on the 2" brush. just pull it through the paint, lot of paint on the brush. we have to make some big decisions. where's the snow? well, i think it's right there...that easy. you just make a decision, decide where your snow lives, and pull it in. and you can put all different angles in here

so that it's not just monotonous, not just one flat angle. but now if you want it flat this is your world, so you make it any way you want it. isn't that super? this old 2" brush, boy, it's a son of a gun. you can really get in there and build some snow in a second. let's have some fun today. maybe we'll put a little barn out here. and maybe one of the easiest ways that i've found to do barns and buildings of any kind is take your knife and scrape out a basic shape where you want him to live. this removes excess paint and allows you to lay it out without really being committed. maybe we'll do a weird-shaped one today. you can do any shape barn in your painting that you want. do something like that and down here, whatever.

but see how easy it is to lay that whole thing out and you're not committed? let's start with some white. watch here. well, let me do it this way. this is the best way so you stay in the lines. you just sort of outline it. that will help you keep it nice and smooth on the edges. then pull down. see how straight that line is? isn't that sneaky? i look for those easy ways to do things. roof comes right down like that, right on down, and over here we need a little bit of snow. there it is. boy, i wish i could build a barn that quick. now with the van dyke brown, i'm going to come right in here and put a little eave or an overhang. now i'm going to use some van dyke brown and dark sienna sort of mixed together and we'll start off by just putting some dark in here.

we need dark in order for our light to show. you put light against light, you have nothing. dark against dark, you have nothing. painting is just continually dark against light, light against dark. clean off the old knife. let's put some color in there. take some dark sienna, some bright red; mix it together. let's put the least little touch of white in there. oh, that's nice. don't overmix it. leave it about like so. cut off a little roll of paint. even there it's all mixed and marbled. let's go right up here. now i'm just going to take the edge of the knife and just sort of bounce across. now if you get some down in the snow like i have here don't worry. you just take it right off. we'll just zip that off. don't worry about it.

little bit right here. now we take our knife and do a cabinectomy. and see it gives the impression of a lot of little boards. now a darker color, and we come right in here. that's a little darker. not as much light's going to hit in there. now, show you a little trick. let's get us some brown on the knife here and come right down here and look. we have that little roll of paint on the knife. that's so important that you have that little roll of paint. maybe there's a little opening under here, so just put dark right here. now over in here we'll put some more boards like that,

and with our dark we'll continue that opening. isn't that neat? looks like there's a place under there the chickens could go at night. when i was a kid i had all kinds of little chickens. i'm going to put a post there so it don't fall down. the only problem, though, i wasn't a very good chicken farmer. they turned out to be my friends and i wouldn't kill them. we ended up with a bunch of chickens, and we're hungry, but i had my buddies. i'm going to take a little brown. this is van dyke brown. a little of the bright red in it, and i've got the little knife now, and i've cut off that little roll of paint and over here i just want to show this going in a different angle. now there's boards going that way. and when you're doing these old buildings, i don't know if you can see that. maybe if i make it a little bit lighter, you can see it a little better.

when you're doing these, you design your barn however you want it. barns grow all kinds of ways. however the old farmer wanted to make them. now then, let's put some snow around the edges here. to do that i'm going to dip the fan brush right into liquid clear and then go into titanium white. i dipped it into the liquid clear to make this paint a little thinner. it's much thinner than what's on the canvas. we can come right up here, grab this, and pull it. because it's thinner, it'll lay on there and you can get away with doing all kinds of things. just look at that. snow lives right up in here. now if you were trying to put a paint on there that was the same thickness you'd run into some problems and you would yell at me. and i want you to be happy. i want this to work for you.

now then i'll tell you what let's do. let's start bringing some little things. while i have that clear, maybe there's a little pond right here. have to make some big decisions. it's going to live right in there. i'm going to use the 2" brush, little bit of the black and blue. i want to darken underneath here a little bit so it looks like a happy little reflection or two and then just go across. just blend that in. want it a little bit darker. and that easy there we go. now with our liquid clear and titanium white, we can begin bringing all these little things in here. little pond lives right out here. there's another one, just however many you want. this is your little pond,

so you put them where you want them. little dark underneath, go across, creates that illusion of a reflection. maybe, oh, there we go. we'll just do it that way. see how easy it is to make snow? snow can be one of the most fun things you do. same old brush, i'm going to add a touch of the black and blue. maybe right in here there's a little bush. he lives right in there like that. and then we can pull it out. this same idea works very well for making little sand dunes too if you're ever doing little beach scenes. little liquid white, put it out on the palette. we'll just cut across it, and we'll just put some happy little waterlines around here, sort of clean all this up, bring it together.

one over here, wherever you want them. now you could even take your fan brush and pull a little bit of white across there and make it look like it's froze. getting cold here, better get your coat out. i'm going to find the liner brush, little bit of brown... maybe right in here there's a happy little stick lives here. we bent him...have to make those little noises or it don't work... few little sticks and twigs here and there. maybe there's a couple around the house. this fellow probably cuts his yard about like i do, and i'm the world's worst yard keeper. let me get a fan brush here,

and i have several of these old fan brushes going. go right into some van dyke brown. load the brush full of paint, lot of color. i know what i want to do. let's take the oval off now, and i'll show you what happens. bring the camera right up here close and i'm going to take this piece of con-tact paper off. isn't that fantastic? right there you've got a beautiful painting. but you know me, i can't stop with it. i've got to keep piddling with it. i get letters all the time saying bob, you had a beautiful painting. i thought you'd ruined it until right to the very end. now i want a tree. i like to break the borders on these ovals. we introduced these ovals, oh, three or four series ago, and they have become one of the most popular things we've ever done. i get letters from all over the country and pictures, but people have shown me what they have done with ovals,

and numerous other shapes, not just ovals. little brown, take a little of the titanium white. just touch, give it a little pull. and when you're doing this at home try all kinds of shapes. placemats are a good place to get some nice ideas for different kind of shapes, and you'll have a lot of fun with them. now back to my liner brush and a very thin paint. let's put paint thinner on. it's like water. and let's go right up in here and put a little tree limb here or so. and if this paint is very thin then it will literally flow. d st p however many limbs you want,

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