[Music] Hello my friends.

Welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm Nicholas Hankins and this seems like a good time to go down to the lake.

So come up to the canvas, let me tell you what I've got going on.

This is an 18 by 24 pre-stretched, double-primed canvas and I coated it with a coating of black gesso, which is a water-based paint.

And I allowed that to dry completely.

Once that was dry, I applied a very thin even coat of the liquid clear, extremely thin coat of the liquid clear.

Might even try to wipe it back off after you, after you paint it on.

And then I've taken some Indian yellow and painted a little strip and some alizarin crimson, painted a little strip of that.

And at the top and the bottom, I mixed some crimson and phthalo blue.

So with that, let's see what happens now.

I'm going to take a one inch brush and some titanium white, and we'll come up here and set the sky on fire.

This is the last, maybe the last embers of the evening here.

Isn't that a bright one?

Whew!

We'll just stretch that color out.

And while I have it on my brush, I'm just, I'm going to come right below into the water area and stretch a little bit of that color down here as well.

I want to paint just, just that moment as the sun ducks down under the horizon and we get a really brilliant, pretty sunset over the lake.

Now, just going to wipe that brush out a little bit and go back, pick up a little more white on the same dirty brush, but I did wipe it out a little bit.

And I'm going to come up here and just kind of pick out what I hope will sort of feel like big sweeping clouds in the sky.

And the sun's just kind of glinting across the bottom of them like this.

You can stretch that further up, further up.

And likewise, add a little into the water the same way, just, just kind of here and there.

A little hit or miss with this.

Just so it lights up some spots in the water.

There we go.

Wipe it out again.

Back into the white.

I don't mind a little bit of color getting in there.

That's okay.

That won't hurt anything.

There we go.

And then start sort of gentle until you see what it's doing.

Ooh, that looks pretty.

These are the kinds of paintings that are, they're not only fun to demonstrate for you at home on camera, they're fun to demonstrate for your friends and family when you first start painting.

And you'll be, you'll be amazed and they'll be amazed at all this color that just happens without you seemingly having done a darn thing.

The canvas still looks black, and then you pick up a little white and hit it on the, hit it on that, uh, that black canvas with the white paint.

And suddenly magic starts happening and they ooh and aah and they think you're a magician and everybody has a good time.

Make sure I got a clean dry brush here.

Now, I'm just going to come back and, and start to blend this and soften it a little bit.

Take out some of the more offensive brush strokes.

If anything looks a little harsh or coarse this is our time to, this is our time to smooth it out and soften it out.

Just knocking off the excess color there.

Down in the water, I'm just going to brush all the way across like this.

Wiping off some of the excess.

Knock it out a little bit.

And I'll blend on up into the darker area.

There we go.

Isn't that a nifty little sky?

I hope you said yes.

[chuckles] Hope you said yes.

If not, maybe, maybe it'll look niftier by the time we get all this in here.

I've got some, I've got some fun stuff planned in this little painting.

I'm taking a little roll of titanium white on my knife and I'm just going to come back here and start to create a, a distant little horizon.

This is one of those big lakes where it kind of looks like you're looking out at the ocean.

And then I'm just going to continue to kind of touch, touch, touch, touch, touch.

Again, a little bit of titanium white, mash it out nice and flat on your palette, cut across and you get that little roll of paint right there on the end of the knife.

And I'm just touching, touching, not scooting or pushing or scrubbing or sawing or any of that stuff.

I'm just literally touching the knife against the canvas like that.

And it's going to take what it wants and it'll give you back what's left.

Just like the tax man.

Thank you Bob for that joke.

Never gets old.

There we go.

Okay, now let me grab my little, my little blending brush.

Well, it's not so little, it's two inches across, but little as in, it's my little friend here.

Whew, isn't that a neat effect?

Just two hairs and some air.

I kind of float across that.

Let it blend a little bit.

And we're off and running.

Okay.

Actually, I should probably wash this one inch brush.

I'll go to pick it up in a minute and it'll still be dirty and I'll get in trouble.

Shake it out.

There.

Cleaned right up.

Okay, now I need to mix a little color so follow me down here to the palette.

Let's take, we'll take a big old hunk of midnight black, some Prussian blue, a little Van Dyke brown, alizarin crimson and sap green.

How's that?

Just all that good stuff.

And we'll mix it together.

And I'm going to park it right here.

And I'm going to take a little bit of it and move it to the side and add a little white to it so it just, just lightens up a touch.

It's still very dark but it's just a touch lighter.

It's a little chalky.

That's what we want.

And let's take, how about a, how about a one inch brush again.

It was working pretty good.

I'm going to take this brush - it's just, sort of take the top corner and tap.

Tap it right into that paint until you can see some ... there, maybe you can see it, you can see some texture in there.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] And then we're going to come right up to the canvas and tap that texture back off the same way, just off the top, top corner, that little brush like that.

We're going to build a little island lives out here.

Just raising the handle up slightly and giving it a little tap.

Tap, tap, tap, just like that.

And down below, I'll pull some of that color down into the water.

Those will become reflections when we do the full treatment.

I'm not quite ready yet.

Find a little fan brush now and we'll pick up some of that color.

Maybe just to touch more of the very dark, dark.

I'll load it into my fan brush on both sides until it comes to a nice sharp, chiseled edge.

Well loaded brush.

Okay, let's come back up here.

And we'll plant a few little trees back here.

Happy little trees on our island.

Just using the corner of the brush, give them a little push and they'll fall right out of there.

There's a taller one right there.

Figure out where you want them to live.

Turn that brush onto the corner and just give it a little push and they'll fall right out of there.

Might even, might even add a little, little hint of them into the reflection as well.

This little island's getting populated with trees.

Several of them back here.

It's a popular spot, popular tourist spot for pine trees or evergreens or fir trees or whatever, whatever these are.

Happy little trees.

That's all I know.

A little in the water.

And we'll have, yeah, maybe right there, a little taller one.

This is the, this is the senior tree of this group.

Got the most experience out here.

[chuckles] Got to make up little stories when you paint.

That's half the fun.

Now we'll pull some of that down very gently.

Very gently.

And then I'm going to brush across.

Very gently.

Something like so, just to, just to blur it a little bit.

And we'll have some fun back here with all this stuff.

Let's take, first I'll take my little knife since I've got that in my hand.

And I'm going to add the indication of a little, a little tree trunk in amongst those trees.

And maybe just sort of push through and plow through the paint.

Add a few little additional tree trunks or sticks and twigs or whatever you want to see growing out here.

Just little detail stuff that would take a long time to do with your little one haired brush but we can do it pretty fast with a, with an old knife and just pushing paint around.

Now.

Move that to the side.

I'm going to take that same dirty fan brush.

Just wipe it out a little bit.

Touch it into the liquid white and let's come back here and grab a little, little cad yellow, yellow ochre, a little touch of Indian yellow, maybe even a little touch of sap green.

Mix them all together there.

Something like so.

Okay.

Let's come back here and we'll add a little, little touch of highlight on these trees, but not so much that we lose that nice, that nice dark contrast.

I'm even going to add a little phthalo blue to my color.

Make it a little darker green.

There we go.

That makes those little trees come to life.

Can't forget about the big guy here.

Alright.

Now.

Back to my little one inch brush that I was using.

Let's come in here and we'll give it a little tap, tap, tap into some of these yellows, all manner of yellows, ochre, cad yellow, Indian yellow.

Maybe even a little touch of bright red every so often.

And I have a little bit of that base color left on there too.

And this is just going to let me shape and create some little plants and foliage and trees and shrubs and who knows what.

All manner of things back here.

All manner of loveliness growing on this little island.

Helps you hide the feet of those little, those little evergreens and sort of plant them down into the painting a bit.

There we go.

You can take a little bit of that color and add it to your reflection.

[Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo" sounds] Then we'll come back with our, our big brush again.

Get it as dry and clean as we can.

Just two hairs and some air, I'm going to graze that and sweep across.

And back again with my little knife, let's take a little Van Dyke brown.

I'm not through playing with this island back here.

We're going to, going to do some things to it.

Maybe there's a little, yeah, a little rock lives right out there.

Actually, it's kind of a big rock really.

It's a big rock, but it's far away.

So we'll, we'll kind of split the difference.

Take a little white, dark sienna, Van Dyke brown, mix them together.

Just to a marbled appearance.

And I'll take a little roll of this now on my small knife and we'll graze that very gently.

[Nic makes "whhoo" sound] Just barely touch.

And then I'll take the clean side of the knife and just pull a little indication of an accent on the other side.

And with a slightly darker mix of that same highlight color - I'm adding a little more sienna and Van Dyke brown to it - just going to come back here and sort of create some, oh, this is the kind of, this is the kind of soil that you really can't step on.

You'll just kind of sink up to your kneecaps if you try to walk on this.

It's that, that wet sandy kind of gooshy stuff that lives around the edge of water.

If you've ever stepped in it, you know what I'm talking about.

Some would say, I step in it a lot.

Okay, [chuckles] let's take the fan brush again that's got all those light greens on it.

And I'm just going to extend a little, little grass out here around the base of the, base of the rock and onto this ooky gooky land out here.

It's, it's firm enough to support some, some grass, but that's about it.

Just give it, just give it some area there.

A little touch of titanium white, liquid white, tiny little splash of blue in there with it.

Just make something pretty.

Nice pretty color for some water lines.

Just a, just a little agitation right around the edge of the water there, where the fish are getting their last bite before they go to bed.

Or the frogs jumping in the water, whatever.

Whatever's going on there.

Don't know.

Alright.

Coming on forward here, let's take... Let me first move that thin paint out of the way.

Might need more of that later, but not right now.

Maybe down here in front, I'm just going to add, maybe the light kind of shoots through here and we get another little ripple on our water.

So I'm just going to kind of touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, add a little something to it like that.

Just so happened to be in the right place right there.

Get my brush cleaned off enough again to just give it a little sweep.

Again, this is two hairs and some air.

Don't push down hard on this.

Just graze it in a big fluid motion.

Real lightly.

There you go.

Something like that.

Okay.

Have to keep doing palette maintenance here.

Doing a little housekeeping, giving myself some room to work.

Get a big old palette like this and I still run out of room.

I'm just going to fortify my dark color from earlier.

That's the black and the brown and crimson and green.

All those good colors.

Make sure I've got plenty here because I'm going to make some very dark shapes in the front and I need a lot of, a lot of dark color to do it with.

There we go.

Whew, my palette weighs a lot on that one side.

[chuckles] That's plenty of paint so let's come up here and decide.... I think I'll start on the, I think I'll start on this side and we'll have some closer trees here.

Again, just loading that brush full.

And let's come up and decide, yeah, I have one right there.

Yeah, these are nice full healthy trees here, growing by the lake like that.

And there's a little one coming up beside him.

They're sort of leaning in toward the water.

That way they can get a good drink and see what's going on at the same time.

[chuckles] I'm kind of envisioning these, maybe they're sitting on a little hillside here.

We'll see what we work out.

Then I want a big, big, big, big one.

Grows up into the almost nighttime sky up there.

He's so big, I'm kind of planning out his, his tree trunk a little bit because I want to leave some of this one showing, give it some character there.

Some little peep holes we can look through and look to the background.

That's always kind of cool.

My friend Doug, he was my instructor in my certification class for the, become a Bob Ross teacher.

And he calls those peekaboo spots where you can look through and see, see the background.

And they're important.

They add a lot of depth, a lot of interest.

Make your painting feel special.

And it should because you painted it.

That's what makes it the most special.

Alright, let's take a little dark sienna and white and brown.

Adding a lot more dark sienna to this this time and I'm just going to touch couple of spots here And pick out a little bit of light glinting on those trunks.

See as dark as that color looked on the palette, it's, it shows up quite light on a, on a dark canvas like this.

So, so be careful.

Keep that in mind if you do a dark canvas.

They're, they're a whole different world.

Come back to my lighter fan brush here, has all the yellows.

I'm going to add a little, little phthalo green - or excuse me - phthalo, you're phthalo blue, aren't you?

You're turning green though.

That's what I want.

We'll get there eventually.

You know what I'm saying.

[chuckles] And then I'm going to add a little, little accent, little highlight to these trees as well.

There we go.

Just don't want these getting away from me.

I want them to stay a little on the dark side.

Shadow wise, not morally.

[chuckles] There we go.

Don't want our trees getting corrupted.

That'd be terrible.

We want happy little trees, not crooked little trees.

Okay.

Maybe, tell you what, let's just take the big brush and I'm going to fill it full of this dark color on both sides [Nic makes "shoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] and then give it a little push or a little scoot.

And I'm going to push up a little ridge of paint there.

I hope you can see that.

Just pushing up that little ridge of paint.

And you've got one just like that now on the end of the brush.

And we can come up here and start to pick out just where we want to have some little plants and stuff growing along the edge of the, edge of the water.

And it's kind of creeping down, creeping down this way.

Sort of like so.

Down in here, I don't much care.

It's all dark and I don't have to worry too much about it so we'll just kind of tap that in quick and, quick and dirty.

Get it done.

And then we'll carefully worry about those edges.

I also want to have, as I load the brush up again, I'm going to get just a, [Nic makes "wshoo" sound] just a little tiny teeny, itty bitty drop of paint thinner in there because that paint's very thick as it should be and this will just kind of help it pop off the brush a little bit.

I'm going to come up here and just kind of start shaping a great big deciduous tree that's hanging in off this edge.

It's go time.

Bravery test has been activated.

Take your big brush and throw something in the front that's very, very dark.

Why not?

What could go wrong?

[chuckles] What could go wrong?

Nothing as long as you believe in yourself and you're having a good time.

And this one's not quite going to land on the land here.

It's, it's sort of, it's just off.

It's just off, out of frame.

I started to say just off camera, not off camera - it's just out of frame or frame of reference there.

I'm go back, whoop, excuse me, there easel.

Let's go back and grab our fan brush and I'm going to load it with some Van Dyke brown and dark sienna.

And I'm going to take... watch this.

Let's take a little bit of white, some of that dark sienna, mix it together here.

Make a little separate, separate pile there.

Be right back.

I'm going to take that brush that's loaded with dark color and pull one side [Nic makes "wwhht" sound] through the light.

So I got dark on one side and light on the other.

I'll turn my light side toward the sunlight there.

And just make a little tree trunk that has little touch of, a little touch of highlight on it and the shadow all in one stroke, like that.

A little paint thinner on my liner brush, and we'll see maybe a branch or two just sort of peeking through here.

Maybe we see it, maybe we don't.

But there's a couple in there in case somebody wanders up and asks.

There we go.

Just so we maybe see one or two.

And I'm going to grab a trusted old brush.

This is my little oval brush and I'm going to load it up with some of that green and yellow.

Just, just a little bit of everything here.

Give it a little tap, tap, tap.

Let's come up here and we'll start picking out some little individual branches on our tree.

Little individual shapes that live in there.

That little oval brush works so well for that stuff.

I love it.

I love it.

Add a little green in here.

Especially as we get back and lower.

I want some accent, but I don't want it to get too, too bright.

A little ochre once in a while.

Maybe out here on the edges, it gets a little brighter again.

There we go.

Just a little something there near the bottom.

Don't want too much.

Let's come over to the other side here.

We'll pick out some nice little highlights on these bushes.

These are a little more in direct light, so maybe they're getting those last little glimmers of sunshine.

All this little stuff growing back in here.

Add a little touch of red, maybe.

[Nic makes "whoo" sound] Give it a, give it a little different flavor, but kind of neat.

A few little odds and ends growing here by the lake.

This would be lush, lush, vegetation area and we would absolutely have to have a way to get back here and catch a little fish.

So let's build us a little path right here.

That way we can get back there and catch that old trout.

[chuckles] Put a little highlight on it, just graze it.

Canvas will take what it wants.

Now we can come back and settle, settle that little path right into the painting.

Just kind of overlap.

Overlap the edges.

So it looks like nature's trying to take things back and that's what it does.

That's absolutely what it does.

Like I said, maybe once in a while I'll grab a little bit of that bright red, maybe some ochre.

Give ourselves a little different flavor of bush or tree or whatever this is.

Kind of cover it in here.

Scratch in a little stick and a twig here and there.

Neat thing on a black canvas is they show up dark.

So that's kind of cool.

Nice little evening by the lake.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope you'll paint this painting.

Try it, let me know how it works out for you.

Until next time, happy painting.

[Music] [Announcer] To order Nic's 68 page all color book with 13 painting projects or the 3 disk set of DVDs for this series, call 1-800-BOB-ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [Music] [Music]