- Hello again. Glad to see you.
Thought today we'd one of these almighty black canvases.
It's time we got into doing something on a black canvas.
I'd like to show you how
you can do a beautiful, beautiful landscape
on a black canvas.
I've already went ahead,
because we are short of time on this show,
I've already went ahead and covered the whole canvas
with Alizarin crimson.
Now I'm gonna take a little Van Dyke brown
and work into the edges, just around the edges,
so it's, we already have it covered with Alizarin crimson,
and now we're putting a little brown on it.
The whole canvas was covered with crimson.
There we go.
Just around the corners.
Thought today we'd do a beautiful little sunset.
And maybe we'll have a little sunset
like the sun's going down behind the hill back there.
And we just have a beautiful glow in the sky,
and then we'll go from there.
Now I'm gonna take and pull this back and forth
to a get a nice even distribution of paint,
working it up and down, back and forth.
There we go.
All right.
Mm 'kay, now we'll start with a one-inch brush,
we'll use a little bit of cad yellow.
Figure out where the sun is, just went down,
and we're gonna start like right here.
And begin working this paint around.
You start in the center and work
around and around and around,
and already it's picking up the Alizarin crimson
and it's turning into
a beautiful little yellow-ish orange-ish glow here.
There we go.
And we'll start right here, let it work outward.
You want it to get darker and darker and darker and darker
as it goes out toward the edges.
So we always start with a color in here and work outward.
There we go.
Okay.
A little bit of color here, work it out,
and I'm doing this in little-bitty X patterns.
Back and forth, back and forth, there we go.
Mm 'kay.
Now let's take the big brush,
and gently gently hypnotize this.
We're still making the little X's.
There.
Just work that in.
And then just enough to take out the brushstrokes.
Okay.
(water sloshing)
(paintbrush rattling)
Okay, let's take a little bit of Alizarin, a little brown,
put it together here on the brush, mix on the brush.
And maybe back here in the distance
we'll have a little foothill back here.
Just let this brush bounce along and play.
There we go.
Don't let the size of this big brush scare you.
It does fantastic things.
Okay.
Now, maybe we'll have some highlights.
Take the little yellow and green and,
little touch of red here,
and we just push some little highlights coming down here.
We'll make these little foothills way back in the distance.
Okay.
Let's put some back over here.
There we go.
Then we'll take a clean brush, and just gently lift up,
very very lightly,
just enough to give it an upward swirl.
There.
Very light, barely barely touching the canvas.
You let two or three hairs just about touch.
Just enough to move the paint a little bit.
Okay.
Now we'll take a little yellow
and a little permanent red mixed together here,
and we'll start putting in some reflections.
Maybe we'll have a little,
have a little lake right back here, a little pond.
Just lay a little color on.
And pull this down.
There we go.
Then just enough to give a little watery effect.
Just
ripple it a little.
We don't want to destroy.
(water sloshing)
Mm 'kay.
(brush rattling)
Clean the old brushes here, and we'll move right along.
Okay now I'm gonna go back into this brown and Alizarin.
Once again we're mixing it on the brush.
A lot of paint on the brush.
Maybe we'll put a little tree standing back here.
We'll make this one with the fan brush.
There we go.
And trees get lonely too, so we'll give him a friend.
There.
And maybe there's a little one right there.
Got two big ones, so, invariably sooner or later
there's gonna be a little one.
There he is.
Let's fill him in, make him just a touch darker.
Maybe we'll put a third one right there.
Work that in a little bit, create a shadow behind the tree.
Okay.
(water sloshing)
Now, we'll just, with a knife here
we'll just make a little waterline
running back through here.
These black canvases, we cover with a black acrylic.
A flat black acrylic paint,
and allow it to dry before we start.
And the Alizarin crimson that we use here,
is a transparent color, so the black shows through.
It looks black, but when you apply color to it,
man it really comes alive.
Okay, let's start with some almighty trees and stuff.
We'll use the big brush today.
And let's have a big old tree right here.
I know this may be quite difficult for you to see
but we are putting the general shape of the tree right here.
These black canvases make some of the prettiest pictures
that you could imagine.
And if you're interested in selling paintings
and making a happy buck to put in your pocket,
these are the ones that really sell.
Let's have another tree right over here.
Let these limbs just fly out, firemen.
Maybe a big tree up here.
And as you can see, we're really hitting this canvas,
we're really pushing the paint into it.
You need an almighty easel.
Little Tiny Tim easels will let you down.
This easel is made out of a platform step-ladder.
And they work very very well.
They're very strong, very simple to build.
Okay.
We've got that filled in.
Let's put some tree trunks here and there.
Okay.
And we'll put some dark paint right along here.
There we go.
Just, in your mind,
wherever you visualize there might be a little trunk,
just drop one in.
Now mix just a little brown and white,
so we can put a little touch of highlight on this
and make it stand out a little,
like a light's playing through here and touching it.
There.
And we'll put a trunk right over in this one, too.
Little dabble.
Okay.
Now, if the sun's here, light's coming from this direction,
this would be highlighted on the other side.
Now probably in reality, if the sky was this dark,
you would have nothing but silhouettes.
But that would be a boring picture.
This is a lot more fun.
Okay, you take a little bit of magic white,
little yellow,
maybe a touch of Phthalo green.
And we can put some nice little leaves
on all these little bushes.
Look how that color stands out
against this black background.
It just jumps out at you.
Okay, now, let's,
let's put some on this little bush.
And there's some little things growing down in here.
Use your imagination, let it go.
Let it go.
Remember, this is your world.
In your world you can create anything that you desire.
Okay, let's do this old big tree here.
What's so very nice about these black canvases,
if there's a light shining directly on them
they look totally different than if they're without a light.
So in essence it's almost like
having two paintings in one.
Especially if you hang these, after they're finished,
over a light, so at night if you turn the light on
it shines up on this,
it's remarkable what happens.
There we go.
All the little bushy areas.
Maybe some little touches out here.
Okay.
Now let's take some more Van Dyke brown
and let's put an almighty tree right here.
We'll just let him bend and play and
work right on up to here.
And, there we go.
There.
Have another little limb coming down through here.
And maybe there's some little things
happening up here in the leaves.
And we'll have a little light playing across here.
Just pull that knife sort of, swirled,
so it gives the appearance of it being round.
There we go.
Now we're ready to put some highlights
on these little leaves out here.
Okay.
And just let the light play through this tree.
Leaving a lot of dark areas.
We need these dark areas to make the tree look round.
Don't kill 'em all.
Such a, such a temptation, to do a little bit more.
I used to work with one art teacher,
that, he had a set of handcuffs that hung in the studio,
and he'd walk by and he'd bump you
and he'd point at those handcuffs.
And that was his way of saying,
"You're beginning to fiddle it to death."
We don't have any handcuffs here today,
but stand back and look every once in a while.
Don't overwork your picture, you'll fiddle it to death.
Okay.
This looks like a
super place, maybe, to have a little path
that runs up through there.
So now take a little Prussian blue and Van Dyke brown
and just very easy here, we'll just make a little path
that runs right through this.
Got to have a way to get around the lake
to catch that big trout that lives out there.
Know he's there.
Okay.
Then we'll put just a little bit of highlight on there.
Just let that run down through there and break.
You want that paint to break.
So it leaves some of those beautiful dark areas in there.
There we go.
Now.
Little bit more magic white here.
Just want to thin that paint
so it'll stick on top of all the other paint.
Now we can start in here.
We'll start putting some
nice little bushes that are hanging over the path.
So the path just disappears back here behind the big tree.
Okay.
And these bushes protruding up over the top,
push it down into the picture.
You need 'em.
They pay you great dividends.
And we'll put some on this side
of the road over there.
Mm 'kay.
Let's make another big tree.
Maybe right up through here.
We'll just have a big ol' tree.
There he goes. Van Dyke brown.
Van Dyke brown's a very nice color,
it's almost like a chocolate brown, very warm.
There.
Okay, now a little limb right there.
Now one thing I'd like to mention while we're
putting the highlights on here,
if you have questions or comments or
anything you'd lie to know about what we're doing here,
please feel free to drop us a line,
care WMVT, and we'll give you the address
at the end of the show.
And do use it, so you know,
we're here to help you,
if you have problems or if you have questions,
anything concerning this method of painting,
we'll be glad to work with you and try to help you.
Okay.
We'll put some highlights up here on this one.
Little bit more of the magic, thin it down.
Just a touch.
Okay.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of little leaves.
Okay, now, let's go down here,
put some little things around the tree.
And maybe you can, right here, say,
let's put a little stone.
Maybe a little stone just lays right along here.
Of course he's a happy little stone.
We don't have any other kind.
And we'll make up a little highlight color.
Just lay right over there.
Like so.
Okay,
now let's put some, mm, nice one there.
Nice one there.
Okay, let's have some little bushes right along in here.
Now when you're doing this,
load this brush by pulling it in one direction
so that it looks like an old shoe on the end,
sort of hangs over.
You put that round part to the top,
and tilt the brush sort of downward
and just push,
just enough to bend the bristles a little bit.
Don't fight it, let the brush do the work.
You have the fun, let the brush work.
Maybe we'll put a nice little sparkler right there.
Just sort of to break that up a little it.
Okay.
Now let's lay in a few stems here and there.
And all we're doing here is literally just cutting
right through the paint, using the point of the knife.
We literally just cut the paint.
There we go.
This is one of the paintings
that we do in class quite frequently.
It's a very effective painting,
it teaches you how to use black canvases.
It's a lot of fun.
And it's extremely, extremely effective.
We'll have a few little sticks coming over like so.
There we go.
And once again, these little twigs and these little sticks
show different planes in the picture.
It produces the illusion of distance.
Use 'em to your advantage.
'Cause the woods are always full of them.
Let's see, maybe back here we could just
put a little indication of a trunk here and there,
some little sticks.
There we go.
Okay.
All righty, I think this one's just about ready.
Then we can sign it.
So I'll use a very thin oil here.
And we'll just take
and use the liner brush,
and you mix this paint until it's like water.
And if you mix it very very thin,
curl that brush as you pull it out,
twist it, so it brings it to a point.
It's just like you were writing.
You don't have to wait until the painting is dry.
Okay.
There.
(water sloshing)
This same technique is also very good
if you want to put some nice little sticks and limbs in
that you wanted to draw in,
use the oil to get the paint thin.
And then maybe we could come right across and,
'cause a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.
There.
Just let these little things happen here and there.
Okay.
One of the things that we're trying to do
as we travel around and teach this almighty method,
is we're trying to gather up an army of teachers.
And soon we'll have teachers that
travel this entire beautiful country,
teaching this fantastic method of painting.
If you would like to have some information,
drop us a line.
Once again,
we'll show you the address at the end of the show.
And soon we'll have information on teachers
that are all the way across this country.
Teachers that we can guarantee
that can teach this fantastic method.
Okay.
I think now, we'll just put a couple little things
here and there.
Put another little stick or two.
I hope you've painted along with us
and you've enjoyed this half as much as we have.
We really enjoy doing these black canvases,
they are extremely, extremely effective,
and you'll find
that they bring a nice warm glow to your heart.
These can be done in a multitude of colors.
You can cover 'em with any color that's transparent.
We can use the Prussian blue, sap green,
any of these colors, or combinations of colors.
Later on in this series
we'll do a winter picture on a black canvas
and I'll show you how you can put the moon in the sky
and let the light play across the snow
when you have the almighty mountains and stuff.
And I'll think you'll find
these black canvases can do fantastic things.
We also wanna do some pictures in the series
where we paint the canvas with one color.
Instead of putting the magic white on the canvas,
we'll paint it, for example, the sap green.
And we'll paint beautiful pictures
by doing that.
There's a multitude of things that can be done with this.
Use it, experiment with it, go with it.
Just let your heart be your guide.
Let your imagination take you anywhere that you want to go.
Let it go.
Okay.
All righty, I think we're gonna call that picture finished.
And, once again,
we want to thank you very much for watching us.
And from all of us here at WMVT, happy painting.
Thank you very much.
(guitar music)