Original subtitles

(relaxing music)

- Okay, so we are coming into the home stretch on this.

I've let this sit for a day,

it's still a little bit damp unfortunately,

but I'm gonna keep going.

Even some of these dark areas

that I painted like four days ago,

they're still damp in here,

so I'm just gonna paint over it

and let that color come together.

But really, all I'm really doing now,

I'm liking the lion the way he is,

I'm liking what we've got over here,

it's really kind of pulling this area together,

trying to get this to work a little bit better.

If you remember the last time I talked to you,

well, to me it was several days ago,

but for you guys it was just the last time we talked,

but I painted over the branches up there,

which I really like that a lot better,

getting rid of those branches and opening up the composition

so that we have, our lion has a view,

and also it makes more sense that all of this is in sunlight

and we're catching shadows here with our branches up here.

So that all feels right to me.

So now it's just a matter of kind of working

some of these branches over here.

I don't wanna work them too much,

I still wanna keep them loose,

I still want to, let me slide this over a little more.

This is our focal point, I wanna keep this impressionistic.

I went to the Ringling Museum of Art

yesterday in Sarasota, Florida,

and saw some really wonderful, really beautiful paintings

that really inspired me, and what was nice is

I feel like I'm on a good track here,

and so I just wanna continue on with that.

So I'm going to work some of these leaves here,

I wanna get some of these branches

very similar to what we had here,

and I want that dappled light feel,

so I want some hot areas coming through

on some of these leaves, and remember,

we bought that, I bought that cadmium green,

and I wanna mix that up a little bit.

I'm just gonna mix it right now, I'm not gonna use it yet,

I just want to get some of my colors ready,

'cause I might work a little bit of this in here first.

It's a very strong kind of acidic green, that cadmium.

You can see I still have the ability here

to move some of this paint around.

Some of these little blooms,

these little brown blooms on the branches,

I wanna hit them a little brighter in spots.

That's a little brighter than what I want,

so I'm gonna darken it a little bit.

There we go.

Just to give them a little more dimension.

Yeah, that feels pretty good.

Just hitting a few spots here and there

just to round it out.

I'm gonna jump around quite a bit right now

in what I'm doing.

So I hit some of those oranges, I'm gonna jump around.

I wanna hit some branches now, little twigs and whatnot,

that's really where it's gonna make it sing.

I'm gonna come back to the leaves in just a little bit.

Actually I'm gonna keep this brush, actually.

So I'm creating a nice kind of warm gray,

or more kind of a brown.

Yeah, I like that color.

So I'm gonna come up here, I wanna hit

some more of these branches.

I have to turn this, unfortunately.

There.

I'm just using this to create some definition,

and you know we'd see other little branches coming in.

I'm gonna darken it a bit more and cool it.

So I'm cooling that brown down to more of a gray.

I didn't darken it a whole lot.

I've got some Payne's gray I'm gonna throw

out here real quick, and just, I don't usually use it,

but I wanna use it now.

I like Payne's gray in watercolor,

I don't usually use it in oil,

but today we're gonna use it,

and it's a good substitute for black,

it's got color to it, it's got a cooled feel to it.

There, I've still got a nice cool feel.

Once again, I'm just creating some texture here and there.

I'm toning back some of the branch value

that I did the other day.

I just wanna knock it back a little bit

so it's not so bright.

There.

Now I'm gonna stand up, Dustin.

I'm gonna get up and do some

of these upper leaves, branches.

Okay, I'm gonna head back down to the ground again.

I wanna warm this up again now, this gray that I've got.

Creating lots and lots of texture here,

over the last few days, letting it build up,

painting over it, letting it build up, painting over it,

and in doing that you can create a lot

of really interesting texture,

really gets this ground to sit right.

So now I'm gonna lighten it up,

I wanna hit some brighter highlights.

Nice and bright, not too bright

that it's going beyond what the shadow dictates,

but just bright enough to kind of sit on top.

There.

Here I'm building up some highlights

on some of the branches that are falling

in front of the cat's feet.

There, that's giving it some nice texture.

There, just defining some of these branches

a little bit more.

There we go.

All right, I gotta paint in this leg

where I haven't painted in yet,

right back by the right ankle,

there's still a lot of bare canvas right here.

So I just wanna get that covered.

There we go.

I'm just trying to get that covered up.

Get some of the tail in there,

just getting a little, just roughing it up a little bit.

Staying very loose with it.

There, just give it a little texture.

And then this side, I just wanna lighten it a little bit

like it's catching a little bit of light

right there on that side of the,

and a little bit of warmth.

There.

Just a little bit of reflected light on that,

just to round out that tail a little.

All right, let's jump into our greens,

get some nice bright greens in here,

especially up by our dappled sunlight

on the hind quarters there,

I wanna make sure I'm getting dappled sunlight

on those leaves that are closest to that area

so it'll look consistent.

So I'm gonna come up here, Dustin.

All right, getting a little bit of dappled light here.

Let me step back, I think I may have overdone it

with the leaves over the hind quarters there.

Yeah, they're just drawing a little too much attention.

I'm gonna have to wipe those back.

Just gonna stand back here

and just have a look at everything overall.

Overall, everything feels pretty good,

except for that bright green that I put right here,

it's drawing too much attention.

I shouldn't have put it in such a dark area,

because there's so much contrast there,

I'm drawing attention, so I'm going to try

to scrape that out as best I can.

I can't really wipe it out because I'll smear it.

I'm gonna paint over it.

Ah, I can't really paint over it either.

I'm gonna paint over the other ones,

and then I'll have to come back and paint over them again.

That's not too bad, actually.

Let's tone all these down a little bit.

I like that green, actually.

There, that's a little more palatable.

That feels better, and that's actually

more in line with my reference as far as the color goes.

I'm just kind of bopping all over the place here.

- [Dustin] Mm-hmm.

- I know, sorry Dustin.

Dustin has to suffer 'cause I'm jumping all over.

There, why, that feels nice, those colors.

Now I feel like I'm getting some nice

kind of loose rendering in here of these leaves.

I wanna come up here now, Dustin.

- [Dustin] Let me show the hands up.

- Right up in here.

Then jump over to the right.

Okay, I'm gonna pull this over,

drop this down a little bit.

Okay, I'm gonna hit some of my colors over here.

I'm gonna adjust what I've got here.

There, we got that to match a little better.

Those greens are working a little better.

Okay, I'm gonna jump back over to the right.

Here on this side I wanna work a little bit

of earthier tone into those greens,

get them to sit a little better.

Just working a little bit of earthier tone in here,

like I've got.

Just they've got just a little bit of that in there,

and it'll help these leaves sit just a little better

with that earthiness of the cat.

I just warmed up the greens a bit.

I'm giving him some dappled light again.

Gonna go ahead and hit some

of these leaves a little bit more.

So the thing about these leaves,

you wanna make sure you're not just making leaf shapes,

but other shapes as well.

There's all kinds of little shapes

that are connecting in there.

I'm gonna jump over to the left here real quick, Dustin.

- [Dustin] Say you go left, then you go right.

- [Aaron] Yeah, well, I did

what I needed to do, (laughs) sorry.

I apologize for that.

- [Dustin] Lord, I apologize for that there,

be with the starving pygmies in New Guinea, amen.

- [Aaron] Just trying to get the shapes in here all right,

just trying to get all these shapes in here nice and right.

- [Dustin] That's right.

- I'm gonna come down here a little bit.

- [Dustin] Then you're gonna go up.

- No, I'm gonna stay down a little bit, I promise.

There.

How's all that all looking to you?

- [Dustin] Definitely there isn't much lacking

on the lighting.

- [Aaron] Are you liking it, is it looking better,

the leaves on the trees and the peppermint leaves?

- [Dustin] I like how the more it goes up to the left,

the brighter it gets, so it stays dark

down the bottom right.

- [Aaron] Uh-huh.

- [Dustin] Nice gradient.

- [Aaron] Uh-huh, thanks.

I think I'm done.

- [Dustin] You think?

- [Aaron] I don't know.

I don't wanna overdo it.

- [Dustin] You don't wanna overdo the details--

- One thing I do, I don't like how his fur on his neck

just goes straight across.

- [Dustin] I think that's from the brushing.

- It is, so what I'm gonna do

is I'm just gonna mix up a little bit

of that color paint, that brown,

which I think I might already have,

and I'm just gonna brush it out a little bit,

ever so carefully.

No, it's too--

- [Dustin] It's too dark?

- [Aaron] No, it's too wet.

- [Dustin] Ah, yeah man.

- [Aaron] So I'm just trying to brush some of this fur out,

just a little bit.

- [Dustin] Don't wanna over-extend it.

- I want it to feel nice and fluffy, you know fluffy?

- [Dustin] Fluffy.

- Fluffy.

- [Dustin] I'm saying fluffy.

- Fluffy, fleur, the fleur, fleur-fy.

- [Dustin] The fleur.

- So now I've got a nice fan brush

that I can go in now with that I just bought,

I just bought a fan brush.

- [Dustin] Is he your biggest fan?

- My biggest fan brush, right here.

I just bought this here fan brush.

There.

That looks a little better, doesn't it?

- [Dustin] Yes.

- So it's not so straight across anymore.

Yeah.

Just a little bit more, I'm gonna,

I gotta balance out some of these greens down in here,

I think, over here.

Just a touch.

I'm gonna throw a little more phthalo green down.

We're right in the, man, we're so close to having this done,

I'm just going through now and just looking

at little areas here and there

that I feel could be a little stronger.

I'm liking how these leaves are finally coming out.

I like getting some nice chunky paint in there.

I'm just going with the chunkiness, and ah.

Nice.

I'm gonna step back for a minute,

we might have this thing done.

I'm gonna take a little break,

I'm gonna take a little bit of a break,

and I'm gonna scrutinize it a little bit more,

and then we'll come back.

So all right, let's take a break.

All right, so we are in the home stretch,

we are literally in the home stretch now.

I think I just wanna hit some highlighted,

like I have in here, some lighter colored branches

down in here, I wanna hit some of those up top here,

just a couple, maybe five or 10 minutes worth of work,

and then I think we are done.

I just made a mistake of going to do some retouch varnish

over it to even out the finish, and one thing you don't do:

don't varnish your painting straight up and down,

I forgot and I went and did that,

and some of the varnish ran.

It's gonna be okay, I let the varnish dry,

and then I was able to paint over some of it,

but you gotta varnish your paintings flat,

and I was just, everybody knows that,

I should have known that, I was in a rush,

I leaned it up against my fence out back and I varnished it

with a spray varnish, and it ran a little bit.

But it's okay.

The other thing too is don't varnish it too soon.

I've done spray varnish in the past over wet paintings

just to protect it a little bit,

but I was laying them flat,

so in this case some of the wet paint ran a little bit

'cause the varnish mixed with the paint,

but, once again, it's gonna be okay.

But like I said, I just wanna hit a couple

of small areas up in here just to hit some lighter branches,

busy it up a little bit, and then I'm gonna call it done,

and so I'm just gonna jump in here,

get some cooler color, and mix it over here.

I'm really excited about this.

It's been a, you know, it's a nice loose painting,

it's probably a little looser than what I normally do.

If I'm painting smaller, I tend to paint a little tighter,

but I like the tightness to looseness on this one

for the size of the painting that it is.

I really like it.

So here I'm just gonna come in and,

as I said, just hit a couple spots, busy it up,

give it a little bit more interest.

I wanna darken it, the value feels a little light to me,

so I'm gonna darken that a little bit.

I wanna continue to darken it a little bit more,

and cool it off a little bit more.

So now our value is brought down nice

to an area that I think is a little bit

more visually pleasing.

There.

Much better.

Just coming in and hitting little,

little areas that just need a little bit more modeling.

I'm gonna drop this down just a bit,

I don't know if I can.

Ah, I can't really do it.

Just little branches, let me see what we've got here.

That feels pretty good.

I don't wanna go any more than that in there,

maybe I wanna lighten it up a little bit.

There.

I don't wanna overdo it, I just wanna add

a little bit more interest over there.

Make sure I'm not overdoing it.

I think I've got it.

I think we are there.

There's been, you know, a lot of ups

and downs on this painting, and,

I just wanna hit a couple spots here, (laughs)

you like that Dustin?

- [Dustin] I knew it.

- [Aaron] 10 hours later.

- [Dustin] 12 hours later.

- No, but I've really enjoyed doing this painting.

It's been a while since I've done a painting this big

in the studio in oil, and, you know,

if you guys follow me, you know I love

to do all kinds of different mediums:

oil, watercolor, ink, charcoal, digital, animation,

whatever it might be, and I really recommend

you guys push yourselves and do the same thing.

It really makes you a better artist,

it pushes your creativity,

and just the fact that you're sitting here

doing this with me and listening,

or painting along, or whatever,

that alone is really gonna help in your creativity

just by the sheer fact of watching another artist.

I do that myself with other artists

so I can learn, continue to learn, and be inspired,

and so, you know, I was inspired on this trip.

I went to Africa, I saw this guy out on the Maasai Mara,

and took a whole bunch of photos and sketches,

and came back, and here we are in our studio,

you know, a few weeks later,

and I've got this 30 inch by 40 inch oil painting,

and I'm really happy, and I'm really happy

that I get to share it with you guys.

So I hope you guys learned something from this,

I know there's a lot of areas in there

where I was just kind of painting away and not talking,

I kind of get caught up sometimes,

but, you know, just by watching

you're gonna be picking things up.

Remember things like your value structure,

making sure your values read,

making sure that you're paying attention

to your warms and your cools, all that kind of thing.

Don't worry if your painting doesn't look great

in the beginning when you're painting in oil,

because you're gonna be building it up,

you can paint on top of paint,

and really build it up and get some depth.

There's a lot of different things,

so remember all those different things

that I taught to you during the course of this,

and try doing one yourself, maybe not one as big,

but maybe do one a little bit smaller

and try some of these techniques, I think you'll enjoy it.

So go do a painting, go put some beauty back into the world,

and I'll see you on the next one.

Thanks, bye.