Oriental Falls

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

I'm glad to see you today.

You know, I get a lot of letters from people saying how in the world do you come up with ideas for new paintings?

And one of the ways, I think I'll show you today.

So let's start out and have them run a list of colors across the screen that you'll need to play along with me today because I don't know exactly what we're going to do.

And let me show you what I've got up here.

I've got my standard old 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched double-primed canvas.

Now say all of that with a mouth full of rocks.

And I've covered the entire canvas today with just a thin, very thin coat of liquid clear, and I think we'll just play a little bit.

A lot of times when I'm trying to develop a new painting, I'll start out with just a blank canvas and I'll begin to play on it, and sort of let the creative process happen.

So I think that's what we'll do today.

I'll show you exactly the kind of messes that we get into sometime.

As I say, the entire canvas is covered with the liquid clear.

So let's just have some fun.

And we'll just start out and maybe we'll take a little, [chuckles] I don't know, a little sap green, we'll have a little Van Dyke brown, maybe even a little black in there.

And we'll just mix us up a nice, nice dark color.

Maybe even put in a little of the dark sienna too.

We don't care, because I really don't know what we're going to do except have some fun.

Okay and let's go up to the canvas.

Now this liquid clear is fantastic because it does so many things, but one of the things that it does is it has a very violent reaction with paint thinner.

So let's just put in some basic little shapes and forms here.

Maybe we'll start with just a little, maybe an indication of a little evergreen tree that lives way back somewhere.

We don't know where it lives.

Something about like that.

And this is also a good experience to, to just practice making little evergreens.

Start with a fan brush, make a line, and I take just the corner of the brush.

I begin touching, see?

From the center out, work it from the center out.

Like so.

And as you work down the tree, add more and more pressure.

Push harder and harder, something like that.

And we'll just sort of let that fade into nothing down here.

So there's you some good practice on making a little evergreen tree.

Now then, I want to, I want to cause these to sort of mist and blend together.

Maybe even give it a little water color look.

So I'll take an old two inch brush, and we'll dip it in some paint thinner.

And just shake it off a little bit.

There's still thinner in the bristles.

I have not taken it all out.

But I've taken the majority of it out.

You can always add a little more.

Now when you begin touching this with the paint thinner against that, beautiful little things begin happening.

Be careful that you don't get too much thinner initially.

You can always add more.

But it's a son-of-a-gun to take it off.

There, now we'll just take that color, and let's just begin playing here.

I want to, I want to create the illusion of beautiful little misty areas that are far, far away.

There.

Just little soft things that live way back in the distance.

I'm just going to, I'm just going to sort of blend this out until it's very fuzzy, and very quiet, just a gentle little place back here.

There we go.

But see how all these little things begin happening?

And we can just let this go wherever you want it to go.

Maybe just add the least little touch of paint thinner to the brush.

Shake off all the excess though.

Don't get too much.

Once again, you can always add more.

And just touch it, and it takes just a second for the reaction to take place, but you can create beautiful, beautiful effects.

A little more of that thinner and just touch.

Very little though.

Once again, experiment a little, and you'll find marvelous things that happen.

But see it almost looks like a water color, the way it flows in there.

And maybe we'll come back and maybe we'll just do another little tree.

We'll put a little layer of trees in there.

I don't know.

As we'll see where this goes.

We use the old fan brush.

Okay.

Let's go back up in here.

Maybe there's one that lives sort of in the foreground here.

There.

Once again this is just mainly sap green and the browns and a little black, both browns though.

Maybe he's got a little friend named Clyde that lives right there, or whatever you want to name him.

I give names to my little trees and sort of make friends with them.

Of course, people look at you like you're a little strange, but that's okay.

Painters are expected to be different.

Now, back to the paint thinner on the brush.

And I want to begin pulling that out a little bit so it makes like another layer.

This one's in front.

And you can make as many or as few layers as you want.

Pretty soon here, we're going to have to decide where we're going with this though.

You can get carried away.

Now then I'm going to add a little more paint thinner to the brush.

That's just knocking off any paint I've picked up.

I just beat the bristles against the easel a little bit.

Now see the paint thinner?

Isn't that fantastic?

The beautiful effects you can create?

Once again, it takes a moment or two for this to work, for the reaction to take place, so give it a little time to set, and as it sets for an hour or two, it'll continue to sort of spread, even a little bit more.

But already, it's beginning to give that appearance of maybe just a little water color.

[chuckles] There we go.

There, just have to splash the camera man one time so he, he doesn't feel neglected.

Now let's take a little filbert brush, and I'm just going to use a little filbert.

I'm going to go into a little sap green, some of these colors, there's not a lot of paint on the brush though.

Just both sides right in there.

A little brown.

A little dark sienna, maybe even a little black.

There's still not a lot of paint.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now see you can, I hold the filbert brush sort of like a pencil and you can just take and let's begin making some big decisions in our world.

Maybe, maybe there's, yeah, maybe there's something that lives way back in here.

And we'll just begin laying in some very basic little, some little ideas, some little feelings.

There.

And you can even take your fingers and work with this to create all kinds of illusions.

Now if you don't want to use your fingers, because it will get some paint on them, you know, you can still use your brush.

I like to use the fingers sometimes just to create effects that are a little different, a little, a little unique.

There.

But you better remember where your finger's been before you scratch your nose.

[chuckles] There we go, cause I do things like that.

I'll forget that I've been painting on my finger and scratch my ear or something and people will begin to laugh and then because you've got all these funny colors on your face.

But that's alright, as long as you enjoy what you're doing and have a good time.

Lookie there.

But see that easy, you can begin creating illusions of all kinds of little things that are happening in there.

Just using a finger.

Okay, maybe a little more color on that old brush here.

I'm going to add a little more dark sienna.

I like that dark sienna.

That's a beautiful warm color.

And you can use this brush sidewards, straight on, any way that you want.

Just practice with it and scrub that paint in, and it creates all kinds of different effects.

Once again, I like to take the finger and just work that out a little bit.

See?

Let it go over here.

We're beginning to have something that looks like maybe this is a side of a mountain.

Or a hill.

I don't know.

Looks pretty neat though.

I sort of like it.

Sort of like them.

A little more of a dark color, we can outline and make some of these a little stronger.

If you want to.

This is a nice way of making a lot of little rocks and stone areas very simply.

Shoot, I like that.

There's already a lot of distance and depth in there.

Let's go back to our old fan brush.

Put a little paint thinner on it, and I'm going to flick a little paint thinner in there.

I want to keep this feeling of, like a water color going throughout the painting, I think.

I like that.

Very soft, gentle little painting.

But you can see how that instantly starts coming up all those little things.

Isn't that fantastic?

As I've mentioned before in this series, I've got a lot of letters, I'm going to add a little Prussian blue in there, a lot of letters from people saying how in the world do you use this liquid clear?

It seems like it would be fantastic, but I don't know exactly what to do with it.

In this series, we've really tried to show you some, some paintings that you can do using liquid clear.

There.

Because we have clear, black, and white, and all these things do gorgeous, gorgeous effects, but they're all different and unique.

There we go.

See, now we'll make this one darker.

Maybe, mmm.

Just sort of vary these colors, wherever you want them to go.

Looks like a big old stone lives right there.

Now I'm going to sort of fade the edges out a little.

And as I say, I like using my finger, but if you want to use just the filbert, that'll work just as well.

Just as well.

I sort of find this to be fun once in a while, just to get in there and play like that.

Pick up a little touch maybe of, ooh, a little alizarin crimson.

We'll get a little crazy here.

Nice little stone lives right in there.

But you just put as many or as few things in your painting as you want.

But this is a super way of just beginning to come up with ideas.

Start with a blank canvas and begin playing with it.

Just begin playing, you can create all kinds of gorgeous things.

There.

Don't be afraid to experiment.

Don't be afraid to, don't be afraid to go out on a limb once in a while because you know, if you go out on a limb once in a while, that's where the fruit is.

It never grows close to the tree.

It's always out on a limb.

If you want to get the fruit from the painting, go out on a limb.

Take chances with your art.

Enjoy it.

There.

You know, I've got to, I've got to do this.

You know me, I begin seeing things in these.

I'm going to take a little bit of the liquid clear, just a little liquid clear on the fan brush, and go right into titanium white, maybe I'll get a little more clear.

I'll be right back here.

Let me get just a touch more.

There.

I want to make this, I want to make this paint thin.

Very thin with the clear.

I'm only using the clear to thin the color.

Look up here now.

Right in here, I know, I know, I know, I know Watch here, watch here.

[Bob makes "ssooop" sound] A little, a little watery fall lives right there.

There he comes, see?

Look at that.

This is the way paintings come about.

This is the way that you create a whole new idea, and new concepts.

There.

Look at that.

I'm sorry, I just, I get excited about things like this and I just want to go crazy with it.

Maybe, there we go.

All kinds of gorgeous little things.

Maybe we'll just put the indication of more things that are happening up above this little watery fall.

Alright.

Just let your imagination take you to any place that you want to go.

Because this truly is your world here.

I'm going to take my fan brush with a little paint thinner on it again.

Just flick a little, a little more of the paint thinner right up there just to sort of bring all that together.

Maybe even a little down here at the base of this waterfall.

But see how it softens those edges and brings them right together?

Isn't that neat?

I used to work like crazy to do things like this.

And this will allow you to do it almost effortlessly.

There.

There we go.

Now then, we've got to make some big decisions.

Where are we going with this?

What did I do with my filbert?

There it is.

[chuckles] Let's go back and get some color.

I told you this was going to be one of those days where we just played and had fun.

But I want to, I want to get you to try being creative on canvas, just to take your time and sit down, have nothing in mind when you start.

Just have a good feeling and be happy, and, and love of the life and your world, and set down and start playing.

And if you feel good about yourself and the world, it'll show in your painting, and all these little things will happen.

There.

I'm just putting in some little, maybe some more little stones over here.

Because we have to contain this little waterfall, or it'll, it'll get out and run all over the place.

We don't want that to happen.

There.

We don't even, we don't even know where that goes yet.

We'll decide that later on.

Right now we're just putting some little stones in there to contain all this.

Okay.

Wipe off the old brush.

Now then, I'm just going to take my finger and fade that back.

Just blend these edges out.

And you can create the illusion of highlights and shadows and all kinds of things that are happening right here.

Just, just using your finger, that easy.

There.

Okay.

I'm going to go back to my little fan brush that just has paint thinner on it.

And once again, I'm going to flick a little right along the edges here.

Something like, like so.

And maybe, maybe in our world, maybe there's a whole other layer here.

Look at all the layers and the depth we've done in here.

And you can do this.

As you can see, this is so easy.

Even if you've never painted, you can do this.

You can do this.

There.

Something like so.

But just let that fade, right?

We don't know where that goes.

There we are.

Now then, let's go back.

I have to keep wiping my finger off here.

If you're painting with it, you're going to end up with a dirty finger.

Maybe we'll have a, let's have a little tree in our world.

We can just keep using this filbert.

I like it.

We'll use some black, some sap green, some of the browns, crimson, it doesn't matter.

Maybe even a little of the Prussian blue.

Whatever, okay.

Let's go up in here.

Maybe in our world, let's do a little evergreen tree right here.

We'll just paint it with this.

It doesn't matter.

You can just take this brush and just begin putting all kinds of little limbs and just sort of daub along.

We'll come back and put a few little highlights in there.

There.

Nice dark tree that lives right up here in all this.

There we go.

And maybe, let's put a little, let's just put a little color in here for our background.

I'm even going to pick up a little of that tree color.

Just sort of want this to fade out, I think.

Something about like that.

We'll just let that fade right on into nothing.

There.

Mm, I really do enjoy doing this.

And for a long time, I've wanted to show you some of the ways that we create new paintings.

And this is one of the ways right here.

Right here.

Okay, back to my little fan brush that has the paint thinner.

I'm going to flick this.

See, there's really not much here, but I want to flick it a lot and just let it sort of, just let it sort of be a nice soft little background.

Look at that.

See there?

It just sort of gives a, it gives a hint or a suggestion of something going on in there.

Let's take a little, we'll use a little blue and a little alizarin crimson.

Maybe I'll make a little lavender color.

And once again, I'm just using my finger here, but the brush would work just as good.

I've got [chuckles] into using the finger.

Ooh, that's gorgeous.

And I like that today.

Just like doing that.

You know, this, this painting, already, almost has an oriental flair to it.

Sort of has like an oriental flair.

It's interesting because talking about that, our show now is being played all over the world.

And recently, it started playing in, in Japan, and it's just, oh it's fantastic.

We have so many fantastic friends there, and, and they're enjoying the show, and it's working well for them, and we had one lovely lady who decided she wanted to be an instructor, and she came here all the way from Japan just to learn to be an instructor.

And this is Misuko Tada, and she's our first Japanese instructor.

I have to show you some of her classes that she has going there.

We had some photographs here, and I wanted to show these to you.

She has some fantastic classes and she's teaching hundreds of people all over Japan the joy of painting.

Isn't that something?

So people all over the world, there's a common denominator.

Everyone loves to paint.

Everyone, even the young people.

We have so many [chuckles] young friends, and they too enjoy this.

There we go.

I'm going to have to go to Japan pretty soon, I think, and meet some of these fantastic painters.

They're, they're just so exciting.

There.

Maybe we'll go back to the brush.

Maybe we'll put something right in here.

And we don't know what it is.

Maybe, I'm just sort of let this fade off on the side over here.

Like that.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe there's another old tree up here.

I'm just sort of bouncing around and sort of deciding what looks right and wrong, and where I want these.

When you do yours, just sort of watch, and look at it and see what's happening in it.

Because everybody's painting will look different especially if you're doing a painting like this.

Because we really don't have any set idea of where we're going with this.

We're just sort of letting it happen.

Take a little brown and white.

Maybe just put the indication here and there of a little tree trunk.

Not looking for a lot of detail, but just a little.

And take a little yellow ochre, a little cad yellow.

Make a little green just to put a touch of highlight.

I don't want this to be too strong.

I think I'll keep these colors quite muted.

There we go.

Just enough to give it a hint, just a hint.

Shoot, maybe in our world, maybe there's another old trunk.

This old tree, maybe he had a bad time and pooped out on us, but he still lives up here on the rock.

And let's see, maybe there's a little light shining through there.

A little arm sticking out.

There.

Alright.

Now then.

Down in here, I'm going to go back to the finger.

I like to blend with that.

You can make some most interesting shapes and color combinations.

There we go.

I want it to fade right on out down here.

Almost to nothing.

There.

Something about like that.

By changing the angle of some of these strokes, you can create the illusion of highlights and shadows and all of these gorgeous little things.

Just practice a little with it.

I think you'll find this is a unique way of painting.

Back to our little paint thinner on the brush, and I'm going to flick the bottom of this.

As I say, I'm going to do this through the entire painting, I think, just, just to keep this feel.

Sort of a, a watery color feel.

Once in a while, I'll put a lot on an area and allow it to actually drip, because it makes a very nice effect.

And it'll drive people crazy that you show your paintings to.

They'll, they'll go nuts trying to figure out how in the world did you do such a thing?

There we go.

Now then, let's take an old two inch brush.

I'm going to go right into a little bit of titanium white.

Maybe the least little touch of, a little, this is a little lavender color.

It's sort of got a little crimson in it, and a little bit of blue, but not much color.

Mostly white.

Let's go up in here, and let's just take that and begin bouncing in like it's, maybe there's just the indication of some foamy water back here.

White, a little bit of the Prussian blue.

Just sort of vary this a little bit.

There we go, and just sort of bounce it in.

There.

Alright.

Just let all these little things happen.

I don't want a lot of detail here.

I don't really want to know where this goes.

I want to retain this soft water color look.

Something like that.

Just very soft and very misty.

Sort of a just secret little place.

This is just a lot of mist out here.

There.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Let's go back to all of our old colors.

We had the browns and the black.

Maybe over in here, yep you're right, there lives another big old stone.

Right there.

Just work the bottom of him out a little.

Maybe, maybe he's got a friend, lives right there.

Let that just sort of fade off.

We don't know where that goes.

I don't, I don't want very sharp edges on here.

I like this softness that just sort of happens.

Alright, maybe, and we're just varying these colors back and forth, back and forth.

Fade it over on this side.

There.

Isn't that neat, though, how you can do things like that?

There we go.

Maybe about in here.

Alright.

You know me, [chuckles] you know me.

I've got, I've got to have a big tree.

We'll just continue to use this.

Maybe our big tree lives [Bob makes "tk,tl, tl, tl, tl, tl, tl" sounds] right here in front of the, right there, right there.

And I don't want my old tree to get lonely.

Shoot, let's, let's give him a friend.

He has a friend now, lives right there.

Take a little bit of sort of a gray color.

We'll just put a little touch of highlight right down the edge, just so it looks like there's a little light shining through there.

Something about like so.

Then we can just work this on out.

Something like that.

I really hope you try these kind of paintings.

It will, it will allow you freedom to just experiment, and don't be afraid to experiment, once again, that's where some of the best ideas in the world come from.

It's just experimenting and having fun and enjoying your art and enjoying your time with yourself.

Or if you do it with a friend or your spouse, it's a good time together.

Okay, back to our brush that has the paint thinner on it, and let's just flick all this too.

Shoot, I like that flicking.

Just give it a little flick.

And maybe, maybe our tree, go in some sap green here.

Maybe there's a few little limbs hanging out here on our tree.

There.

Just a few.

I don't want too many because I don't want to lose all this nice background.

Something about like that, just here and there.

Just indications, maybe we even have a few little indications of some little bushy things that live out here.

There.

As I say, this is something that I really hope you try because it, it's so much fun, and it works so well, and it's so easy.

Maybe on our tree, here, there are a few old limbs that are hanging out like so, wherever you think they should be.

A couple hanging out in here.

A few little sticks and twigs that live right back in here.

See there?

Just all kinds of little things.

Take a little, little touch of the yellow ochre, just to spice it up a little, right in here.

Maybe a little touch of the bright red, whew, ooh, just to give it a little fire in there.

Shoot, I sort of like that.

I think we're going to call that painting done.

I really hope you try this because it'll teach you creativity, and it'll allow you to express yourself.

From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

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