Original subtitles

- Hi and welcome back.

Certainly glad to see you today.

I thought today we'd do the little painting

that you see at the beginning of this show,

the little animated opening.

I'll show you step by step how that one was made.

Now it will not be an exact duplicate

of the painting that you see on the opening,

but it'll show you exactly how it was made.

Let's start out and have them run

all the colors across the screen

that you need to paint along with us.

While they're doing that.

as usual let me show you

what I've got up here.

I've got an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched double prime canvas,

and I've covered the entire canvas

with a very thin coat of liquid white.

So it's wet and slick and all ready to go.

So, let's just take old two inch brush

and start off here and have a little fun.

I'll start with a little touch of the bright red,

a little yellow orche,

maybe a little cadmium yellow all mixed together.

Something like so.

Not a lot of paint, just a little.

And let's go up in here and very lightly

just put in a quick little sky.

The little sky in that was sort of a

sort of a orangey yellowish color.

Just a very nice color.

Put it on a little darker than you want it.

It will mix with the liquid white

that's already on the canvas

and get lighter and lighter as you work down.

And that's really about all there was

to making the sky in that little painting.

Just something like so.

There we are.

Couldn't be any simpler could it?

All there is.

Okay, now then.

Okay, let's have some fun.

Today I'm going to make a big pile of brown,

using sap green and alizarin crimson

in about equal parts.

About equal parts, the two together make

a gorgeous, gorgeous brown.

Gorgeous brown.

One of our instructors, Audrey Golden,

who lives in Florida,

calls it Christmas brown because

you use red and green.

That's a good analogy.

There we are.

Okay.

Now then.

Wipe off the old knife.

Basically, all we did here

to make all the little background trees,

I'm just using the same old dirty brush,

it doesn't matter.

Tap in a little bit of color, this brown color.

Right into the bristles.

And you just decide basically,

where you want to start and off you go.

Maybe there's a little happy tree, lives right there.

And all we're looking for is just very, very basic shapes.

We're not looking for a lot of detail.

Not a lot of detail.

This is background trees.

We had a little covered bridge in there.

So this is just background material for the little bridge.

There, little opening's neat isn't it?

The title comes out of there sounds like an old car.

That's another invention of my good friend here,

Jerry Morton, who's one of the engineers.

Jerry comes up with these ideas for the opening

and don't know where he gets them,

but I really enjoy working with him.

He's like the rest of us,

he's about half crazy,

and that's what it takes to work here

and to do this.

You'll see that quick,

we just put in a little background.

Just a little background.

Alright.

Now then.

You sort of have to decide at this point,

where the water is going to be.

There's a little bit of water here

where the bridge goes across.

We don't see a great deal of it, but a little.

So you bring these trees down to basically

where you want water to be.

Alright.

Let's say we're getting pretty close right about there.

Used to when I was a traditional painter

to paint this many trees, this quick,

would have taken me forever.

Here, use an old two inch brush

just knock it in.

All there is to it.

Okay, let's take our liner brush,

old number two script liner,

and we'll take a little but of that same brown color

that we made from the crimson and the sap green,

mix the paint here with paint thinner

until it's very thin.

Very, very thin.

Turn the bristles in there.

It brings it to a nice sharp point.

And then we'll go up here,

and you just sort of look around

and pick out places you think there'd be little trunks

and stems and limbs and all those things

peapod and all my little friends

play on out here.

There, just put in a few little indications.

Where ever, where ever.

It's up to you.

Totally and completely up to you.

There, old tree needs some arms

to hold up all these leaves that it has here.

There.

Okay, that's all there's to it.

If you have trouble making the paint slight,

add a little more paint thinner.

If you have enough paint thinner

it'll slide right over the top of that thicker paint.

Very, very easy.

Okay.

Shoot, old brush is working pretty good.

We'll go right on back to him.

I'm going to take that same brush

and begin tapping it into the yellows and the red.

The bright red.

And just go around, try them all.

That way you're loading all kinds of different colors

right into the bristles of the brush.

Okay now.

Let's just sort of test it.

See if it's bright enough.

It's the color we're looking for.

Maybe I'll add a little more yellow.

There we go.

Something about like so.

And then with that we can start.

I'll put a little touch of liquid white in there.

I'm going to thin it down a little more.

There we are.

That sticks very easy.

Thin paint will stick to a thick paint,

always remember that.

And there's one, maybe Jack Frost has touched this one.

I'ts up to you, you decide.

These are just using little colors

and just the two inch brush

and just tapping on it.

Just tapping it.

That's all there is to it.

Alright, maybe, why not.

There.

Isn't that a neat way of making

just little background trees?

It's good when you're not looking for a lot of detail.

You're looking for more detail,

then you get into different ways of making them,

but here we don't want detail,

it'll ruin the illusion of distance

if you have too much detail.

Little sap green every so often.

Maybe there's a little one,

yup, right there.

Little one right there that Jack Frost didn't hit yet.

He'll get him.

That rascal's sneaky, boy.

He gets them all sooner or later.

There.

Okay.

Now.

Yup, this little devil right here.

He needs something too.

Okay.

Little bit of the red.

And you decide,

you have to make these big decisions

where all these things live.

You decide.

You can make many, many, many layers though.

That easy.

That easy.

Okay.

I've got several old two inch brushes going.

Let's take, we'll take a little black

and add it to that brown.

I want a darker color,

stronger color,

and just tap a little right into the brush.

Maybe right in here,

we'll put a few little trees and bushes.

They're a little closer, little darker.

Just to help push everything back,

create that illusion of distance.

There we just let it fade off.

We don't care where they go over there.

That's that same brown color

with midnight black in it.

There we are.

I like that color.

Let's get crazy here.

We'll take a little more of that.

We're going to have water in this painting

that the bridge covers up.

We'll take that same color black

and that brown we made

and just pull it straight down.

Straight down, straight down.

It's important that it does straight down.

There.

We don't care where it goes here.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

Because as you know,

we don't make mistakes,

we just have happy accidents in our world.

See there?

A little bit over here.

Where ever you think it should be.

There, darken that a little bit right in there.

And just pull it straight down.

I know you get tired of hearing me say that over and over,

but if you make these lines go at an angle,

your reflections just absolutely will not look right.

Then we'll go across.

That's really about all we're going to do.

Most of this we're going to cover up,

but it will give the impression

of a little bit of water back here.

Just a small amount, that's all we're looking for.

Now we can take our knife,

little bit of white, little van dyke brown,

dark sienna, mixed together.

Little more white in there.

There, I want marbled.

Maybe even put a little black in there too

to gray it.

Very good, I like that right there.

Little roll of paint.

Little roll of paint.

You just sort of play around with the color

until you find what you're looking for.

Just going to put the indication here and there.

Few little things that live right out here.

The waters edge.

Just a little soil.

Something about (mumbles).

And we can take a little yellow ochre,

a little touch of white.

Just enough to tint that a little.

(mumbles)

(mumbles)

Just enough to tint.

There.

A lighter color.

Sometimes you can take a fan brush,

put a little touch of light color,

a little white on it and lift up.

Just to blend that together.

So that it all comes together,

looks like a nice little area right along there.

See?

Right at the water's edge.

Sneaky huh?

And it's a very simple.

Very simple.

There we are.

Now take a knife and a little touch of liquid white,

I'm going to put a little, little but of blue in it.

Little bit of prussian blue in it.

Just enough to tint it

and cut across,

Just like so.

Then we can go up in here.

Put the blue in there just to dull that a little bit.

I don't want it bright white.

Don't want it too bright.

In this particular painting,

a real bright borderline to me,

wouldn't look right,

but if you want one,

you put it in where ever you want it.

At any shade, any value, any color you want.

Painting's very individual.

Everybody should paint what they see

and what they feel.

Okay, you ready?

Now we have to decide where in our world here

that our little covered bridge lives,

put a few little sticks somewhere

in that bush.

It just looked like it needed one.

Now, if our bridge is right here,

let's decide, right in here,

probably one of the easiest ways.

Well, we'll see.

There's not much paint on there,

but I was trying to scrape off the paint

so you could see.

I'll use a little color.

Let me put a little color on there.

It's just sort of to lay out the basic idea.

See?

It's all there is.

Okay?

Now try this, I know sometimes these little building

is sort of hard to do.

Does that make sense?

Just lay out the basic shape of the building.

Alright?

Let's take a little of that brown we made.

Okay.

Now here's our bridge.

Just like building a cabin.

Only it's got a huge door in front of,

using a little van dyke brown here and there.

I want a darker brown.

There we go.

There we go, there we go.

Let's put some up here on the roof.

There.

And over in here.

Look at that.

That's all there is to it.

Now.

Let's make us up some highlight color.

We'll use from brown and some white.

Some yellow, maybe even a little red here and there.

There.

Little dark sienna.

That's getting better.

A little bit more of the brown.

Yes, yes.

See it just gets feeling good

and you know you got it right.

I get our little roll of paint,

always that little roll of paint.

And let's begin picking out little individual things

in here.

See, we can just, maybe there's some little boards.

There they are.

Just little dooders like that.

Little bit of our van dyke brown.

There.

Okay now at the top of this

some of the old covered bridges

had a little area that was open.

So the air could get through I guess.

That's all we got to do to put that in there.

Now.

Up here in the front,

I'm going to make that a little lighter.

That's better, I like that better already.

I can tell looking at it on the knife.

I'll just do the same basic thing.

See, just let that color mix with what's on there already.

Don't worry about the door,

we'll go back and get it.

We'll come back and put a little door right on there.

No big deal.

There we are.

Okay.

Something about like that.

Now I'm going to very gently,

just enough to pull the paint a little bit,

move it just enough,

like it.

Just that much, it's all we're looking for.

A little bit of the van dyke brown

and we go back in here and darken up these areas.

There you are.

You can also wait til this paint dries

and go back in there and put all kinds of details in it.

You can use glazes and stuff when it dries.

By a glaze, I mean you just take a little

linseed oil and paint thinner,

mix it with a color, transparent color

and wash right over it.

Putting a little touch of white in there,

just to brighten it here and there.

So it shows up.

Okay.

This old bridge looks like me,

it's about to fall down.

Alright, now.

Decide where the entrance is.

Use a little van dyke.

See there, that's all there is to it.

That's all there is too it.

That easy.

Alright.

Something about like so.

Now for the top,

let's take a little white,

I'm going to find a place to work here,

I've about used up all my area.

Take a little white, little bit of midnight black,

I want to make a gray color.

Just black and white.

Leave it marbled.

Little roll of paint.

And let's just go down here,

and just here and there, let it graze.

Just let it graze.

Something over here, like so.

Why that old bridge looks like it's seen it's better day.

Hadn't it?

There we are.

Now we can just come in here.

You want to make it look like you can see back in there.

So just by changing the angle of the paint,

you can do that.

See, now you can see,

right back in that bridge.

We'll take a little liquid white,

maybe over in here we can see the indication

of a few little rails and stuff

that go back into the distance.

The little road that goes through,

it goes back in those woods there.

We don't know where it goes.

You could take a small knife,

little bit of black.

Put the indication of a few little stones

and stuff out here that this is sitting on.

Just do a cabin-ectomy.

Anything that you don't want,

you turn into part of the reflection that's underneath.

See, smooth it right out.

That easy.

That's just the reflection.

Alright.

Let's have some fun.

We'll grab this brush, it's quicker.

Now then, we need some soil,

some dirt for it to sit on.

I think we had something about like this.

About like that.

We'll just put this in with brown and a little black in it.

It's that brown we made with the alizarth crimson

and the sap green and a little midnight black.

That's all we're using.

There.

In my other early, early series,

we did a covered bridge that you could see

all the way through and see the trees

and stuff on the other side.

That's a little more difficult,

but it's a lot more fun to do.

It is a challenge.

There we go.

All we're doing here is just blocking in the color.

As I mentioned earlier, there's not much

of that water going to show.

Most of it's going away.

Most of it has gone away.

There.

Okay, had a little bush right there.

There we are, just a little bush,

lives right here by the water.

That'd be a nice view you can see

all the cars come through.

There.

We filmed a show in Muncie, Indiana,

and in this area, there's a lot of covered bridges left.

Some of them are absolutely gorgeous.

A little town called Matthews,

they have a covered bridge festival every year

that I've painted at several times.

Very nice town, wonderful people.

Alright.

Now, let's go back to our little brush.

Had some of the colors on it.

And we'll go into all the yellows and the reds

and here and there a little bit of green.

Mix color on your brush though.

That way it's not dead.

There's a lot of things happening

right here on your brush.

Okay, let's go up in here.

Now then decide where all these little dooders live.

And we just start laying them in here.

Just thinking about the lay of the land.

Alright.

I want to take a little it of white,

little brown,

little black to make it gray.

Let's start.

Let's start bringing that out.

Alright.

Little more of the brown and white here.

Didn't mix up enough.

Have to sort of figure out where the roads at

that comes out of here.

There we are, see that?

It's that easy.

Whole road's just coming towards you.

Let it get bigger and bigger as it comes towards you.

That's all there is too it.

Barely touching, it's like putting snow on the mountain,

no pressure, absolutely no pressure.

Save the pressure for later.

Alright.

We go back to our little,

I'm going to put a little touch of liquid white.

Just a little touch to thin the paint,

make it a little brighter.

Little green, all the yellows, little red here and there.

Nice color.

Now then we can go in here

and just begin tapping in little grassy things.

See there how easy that is?

Nothing to it.

But think about the lay of the land,

how you want the land to actually flow here.

How you want it to flow.

There we are.

Alright.

And off you go.

Just make layers and layers and layers.

Isn't that neat?

You can do that.

This little, little bush right here,

he needs some good (mumbles) too.

See?

That's all you need.

Just to make him stand out as an individual.

There.

Maybe there's a little recessed area

right in there.

See that little bush now has his own home.

You don't have to be crazy to do this,

but it helps.

With a little practice though,

you'll begin to,

you'll begin to see things in your painting.

You'll see fantastic things in your world.

Look at them.

Just look.

Pay attention to nature.

Nature is so fantastic.

Start when you're out driving around,

look at trees, look at bushes and stuff.

Look at how they have form and shape and color.

That's when it gets wonderful.

I get letters from fantastic people everyday,

all over the world.

And they tell me that all of a sudden

they're beginning to see nature.

There.

That they've looked at if for many, many years

but they didn't really see it til they started painting

and I guarantee you.

If you paint, you will find a whole new treasure.

Maybe right in your yard.

Brighten that a little bit.

Let's take a little brown and white.

Just tap in some nice edges on the doorway here.

You can get crazy and put windows in here.

Some of these old covered bridges have windows in them.

It's just, it's up to you.

You can do all kinds of things in yours.

Really and surely up to you.

I think we're about got this one to where

you can see exactly how the little opening was made.

There.

As I mention over and over on the shows,

if you have time to take a picture of what you're doing

send it to us.

We'd love to see it here at the station.

Drop us a line.

You can drop it to the address on the end of the show.

They'll send it to me.

I'd love to see it.

What you're doing and what kind of success you're having.

It really makes it all worthwhile.

Put a few little sticks and things in here.

Basically I think we about have a finished painting.

Take a little paint thinner, put a little red.

Let's sign this rascal.

We'll call it done.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing how the little opening was made

and I hope you give it a try.

And from all of us here,

I'd like to wish you happy painting.

God bless my friend.

(easy rock music)