[Music] Hi, welcome back.

I'm Nicholas Hankins.

Thanks for joining me in the painting studio today.

I have a warm winter scene planned for you and you caught me preparing my canvas here.

I have an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas.

It's been covered with a very, thin even coat of the liquid clear and I mean a very thin, even coat of the liquid clear.

And I'm just painting a little Indian yellow on here.

This is a nice transparent yellow.

You caught me finishing that off.

So come on up and we'll get started here.

I'm just going to add to this dirty brush now some alizarin crimson.

I'm going to go right in here and just tap the bristles.

Load it up with a little alizarin crimson.

We'll start with a little and if we need more we can add it.

All right let's come up in here.

Ooh, that's bright isn't it.

We're going to make a nice warm orangy glow.

Late evening and the sun's setting and the colors are really clear in the winter time.

Almost like you're looking across the farm or something.

And I'm just going to let this color work up and mix with that, that Indian yellow and turn a... It's sort of a less vivid orange toward the top.

Now, the reason I use the liquid clear on this painting was I didn't want to lose the intensity of the color.

If you had liquid white up there, it would soften and be more of a pastel color.

I'm just picking up a little more crimson here as I talk to you.

It would be a little more of a pastel color, but I wanted that bright, vivid glowing orange.

That's the reason for me opting for the clear.

And any time in your world, when you're creating a painting and you want it to have those very intense, vivid colors and not lose its, not lose its saturation, that's time you want to turn to the liquid clear and let it, let it do its thing.

All right.

That ought to do for a minute.

Let's go down here and wash a brush.

And as you well know, we wash our brushes in odorless paint thinner.

Shake out excess.

And we'll beat the devil out of it.

Of Course, of course.

Now, let's find, we'll find a little one inch brush maybe and I'm just going to pick up a little titanium white.

Now, we're going to go into an opaque color.

I'm going to add just a little touch of the bright red to that, so I've got a little bright red, a little titanium white and let's come up here and we're going to start to add a little glow to the sky.

That way we get a little softness around the sun and we retain some of that bright, vivid orange.

And I'm just going to let this kind of work outward and upward.

There we go.

We'll use a clean, dry two inch brush here just to, just to soften that area.

Bring it all together.

All right.

Okay.

Now, we do have a little - since the sun's setting - we've got to put a little sun back there over the, over the tops of the hills.

And it's going to be, maybe, right there.

Just wipe my, wipe my finger off.

That's the easiest brush to clean.

And then we'll go very gently, just kind of dust.

A matter of fact, I tell you, the best thing to do for that when you have a little build up of paint like that's, go and grab your little blender brush, your little soft blender brush.

That lets you get away with more.

We can take any of the, any of the odd looking brush strokes out of the sky with this one.

Okay, now.

Move some of these brushes out of the way.

They're starting to stack up on me here.

Let's take some, let's take some titanium white.

I'm going to move it over here into a separate spot on the palette.

Take a little titanium white, a little midnight black, alizarin crimson, and just kind of play around with the proportions until you find a color that you like.

I'm looking for kind of a lavender, a gray lavender for my distant, little hills.

This is white, midnight black, and alizarin crimson.

I'm just sort of changing the mixture a little as I go.

Maybe even just a little touch of blue in there with... Ooh, that's looking pretty good.

Let's give that a try and see what we've got.

That's about as technical as I get when I paint.

I just kind of eyeball it and say, that looks pretty good and I try it out.

And if it's not, I go back to the drawing board and change it or back to the palette and change it.

Alright, let's come up here and with our, our one inch brush I'm just going to tap, kind of tap the corner in there.

And this is where you, this is where you give it the test.

Is that, is that right?

And that looks pretty good.

I think it could be just a, just a fuzz darker.

So I'm going to reach and grab a little more, a little more black, a little more blue.

Just change the flavor slightly.

There.

I like that better.

Okay.

Now, we'll work along here and just, just create some distant little, distant little hills.

This is one of those neat little scenes that could be just about anywhere in the country, really.

Kind of reminds me of where I grew up in Tennessee.

We have these little rolling hills and they're just beautiful.

We get intense sunsets like that in the winter time.

Could just as easily be in, up in Pennsylvania.

My good friend Carolyn lives in Pennsylvania.

Hi Carolyn.

Hope you're watching.

[chuckles] Now, I'm going to take a two inch brush and just kind of, kind of soften the base of these little hills.

But we get to retain some of that nice glow.

Isn't that neat?

Feels like the sunshine's just filtering down in there into the base, base of these little, these little distant hills.

All right.

Now, maybe, maybe, maybe let's come back and pick up a little more, a little more black, a little more crimson.

Once again, I'm going to go a little darker.

A little tiny touch of blue.

Just don't want these to get too blue.

All right.

Now, let's come back.

Maybe we've got another little range of hills.

Yeah, so these need to be just a little darker.

They live right in front of those others.

And I don't want a big, a big, big change.

I want this to be very subtle.

Just a slight little change.

There we go.

And as you tap, just think of the lay of the land.

Think of the way the hills are shaped.

Think of the, think of the slopes that you'd see.

Hardest thing to do when you paint little trees like this or little hills like this... Little tree lined hills, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

The hardest thing to do is make sure that they don't all just line up with the same shape.

I'm trying to, trying to vary that shape a little bit so it doesn't mirror it exactly.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to sort of slide fingers into a glove and have it all sort of look the same.

Alright, let's soften these little trees or these little, [chuckles] I keep wanting to say trees.

There are trees on the hills, but it's a lot of trees.

It's a collection of trees on the hill.

Regardless of what it is we're going to, we're going to tap it and make it a little softer at the base.

Something like that.

You can even, you could even touch just a tiny little touch of white in your brush as you tap and it'll kind of give you the impression of some fog and mist back there, which is kind of cool.

Just a little bit here and there.

Then we'll soften, soften, soften.

Alright.

Something about like that.

Okay.

Now, I'm going to reach and find a clean two inch brush now.

Make sure it's pretty dry and we're going to come up here and just fill our brush full of wh- Ooh, tell you what.

Before we do that, before we do that, I want to put a little shadow down here.

Just tap.

I think we'll need a little shadow at the bottom so I'm going back into that lavender color, adding just a little more blue and black to it so we change the flavor a little bit.

And I'm going to come down here at the bottom.

This will look a little strange at first.

And I'm just going to put a little, little bit of that lavenderish gray color down here like that.

This is one of those paintings, it'd be sort of fun to do for your, fun to demo for your friends and family because it looks so weird when it starts out and then by the time you get it all wrapped up, they go, "Ooh, wow, I didn't expect it to look like that."

[chuckles] Now, I've filled my brush just full of titanium white and we're going to come along here and go [Nic makes "whhhooooot" sound] cut in a little snow meadow there.

Snow covered meadow.

[Nic makes "ssshhoooooo" sound] Just brush right across there.

I've got it coming at just a, just a slightly downhill angle like that.

And then we'll work it on down and allow it to mix a little bit with that lavender so we get kind of a, kind of a depth of field effect there, just, just by adding a little dark into our, our foreground.

Then again, I'm going to, I'm going to come over here and grab my little, my little blender brush, my little soft blender brush, kind of wipe it out and I'm just going to use it to take and smooth my snow out a little bit.

Like that.

There we go.

Okay.

Now, let's come back to the palette.

We'll do a little more mixing.

I'm going to start as a, as a base for this next color.

I'm going to start with what I had for my little foothills and now I am going to add a good little dose of blue to this, a little more of the black, even a little more of the crimson.

But much more, much more blue gray than it was originally.

That's a nice way to sort of get some color harmony in your painting as you're, as you're working your way forward in a, in a little landscape.

If you sort of keep taking the color that you used in the previous step or in the previous layer and you use that as a base for your next color, you can kind of keep everything harmonious.

I'm loading up a little, little number three fan brush with some of this color and let's come up here and decide while we've got some closer bunches of trees.

I'm just kind of taking the corner of my little fan brush.

I think I want it to be just a little darker.

So I'm, I'm on the fly.

I'm just adding a little more black and blue to my color.

A little touch crimson.

Let's see what that, ah, yeah, that's better.

Okay.

See, you can change your mind.

That's okay.

You can change your mind and I can too.

But I'm just taking the corner of that brush and giving it a little, see if I can, there a little pop up like that.

I'm just sort of taking the paint off the top side of the brush and creating a bunch of little trees out here in the field.

And we want to make sure we, we do sort of bring them down into the snow and anchor them in.

There we go.

So they sit out there in the, in the pasture field, I guess.

Probably too cold for the cows to be out.

Alright.

Now, I'm going to take my, I'm going to take my little two inch brush and just grab, first I'm going to grab the loose hair out of the [chuckles] end of it and then I'm going to grab a little bit of this color and just kind of anchor these trees into the, into the ground by just stealing a little bit of that gray and pulling it into the, into the snow.

There we go.

It kind of plants them into the ground.

We might have a... I'll take a little paint thinner and some Van Dyke brown, a little bit of that lavender color on a liner brush.

We might have a little indication of a couple of tree trunks that would just sort of peek through here.

Maybe we see them, maybe we see them, maybe we don't.

But we're going to pop a couple in there just in case they show.

All right.

Let's see, I'm going to grab, I'm going to grab a larger fan brush now.

Take a little, take a little drop of liquid white, get some titanium white on there and just going to brush mix in a little phthalo blue.

There we go.

Got white, phthalo blue, and a little liquid white.

This is going to allow it to stick to that thicker paint.

We'll paint some snowy little highlights on our, our distant trees back here.

Same way, just going to take the brush and give it a little, give it a little pop.

Hopefully, this will kind of look like a twilight scene.

Sun's going down.

End of a long cold day but you get a little warmth in the sky.

Late.

And it's so pretty.

A little back here.

There we go.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Isn't that a neat little way to paint some far away trees?

Maybe there's another little bunch that's just, just a little closer, just a little in front.

It's kind of neat to show some depth early.

Start to see some layers even, even in a small space like that.

Might be able to make out.... There we go.

A few little things right there.

I'm going to put some on the other side too.

I like these little trees.

Have a little bunch of them over here.

They just kind of exit stage left.

Or is that stage right?

I never could, I never could keep that straight.

I think it's backwards, isn't it?

You theater people will have to let me know.

I was one to get confused with that sort of thing.

I'll pull a little, little shadow out of this bunch of trees too.

There we go.

Give them a little stick and a twig just in case they show.

Now, let's come back with our, our highlight brush.

Go back to that big fan brush that's got the white and the blue.

I'm going to jump over here to this side.

Put a little highlight on that closer group of trees.

There we go.

And these, these little trees need some too.

And like with any trees you paint, just, just be sure not to cover up all your dark.

Be careful about that.

There's nothing worse than shaping a big bunch of trees you like and then you come in, smash, highlight all over them and they just turn flat.

That's terrible, terrible feeling.

There we go.

Alright, let's get serious.

We've got to make a, we've got to make a big decision.

We're going to make a big tree.

So I'm going to grab a little filbert brush here and fill it full of Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna, a little midnight black.

Just kind of mix all three of those darks together and get that brush loaded really well.

And we're going to have a big tree that starts maybe up here and it comes around and around and down [Nic makes "rr, rrr, rr, rrr, rrrr" sounds] and it finally winds up right there.

Whoo, isn't that scary?

[laughs] Is that scary or what?

Ah, it won't be by the time I get done with it.

You watch, you just watch.

See there's another arm comes in.

Got a big old trunk.

Maybe, this is big old oak tree.

It's dropped all its leaves.

Boy, I got to play under a big oak tree like this when I was growing up.

Big oak tree lived out behind my mamaw's house.

I'd spend a lot of time under that tree just playing and having a big time.

I miss that old tree.

I might have to paint that one one day.

Let's see, I'm just kind of using the edge of the brush at the side of the filbert brush here, just to cut in some of the, some of the bigger branches.

See?

As you come in closer, you can push a little harder and branch gets bigger and I'm really letting the paint build up here so it's got some nice, nice texture on the trunk.

Got some thick texture on the trunk.

But you can also hold that brush very lightly and it'll make some very delicate little branches.

See that?

Isn't that neat?

It's a versatile brush for sure.

There we go.

And you just kind of let your branches cross over one another.

Run every which way.

More crossing over they do, the better they look.

Maybe one comes through there, something like that.

I just want those big ones in place first.

Then I'll come back here and let me, let me just wipe that brush out a little bit.

I'm going to pick up some titanium white, some dark sienna.

This is in the dirty brush.

I've just kind wiped it out.

And let's come in here and we'll pick out, we'll pick out a few, few highlights.

Although I don't want these highlights to get super uber bright.

I just want them to kind of be suggested in there.

We'll add some little snow accents before we're all said done though.

But just, just lots of paint in the brush.

I'm, I'm loading it very full and just allowing that thick paint to grab where it wants to.

Trying to keep it on the lit side of the tree though on that, on that highlighted side of the tree.

If you've got a big branch, you can highlight your branches a little bit too.

Something like so.

And then you just sort of work it into the, just kind of work it into the, the flow.

I see big trees like this that have some little, little roots that are coming on down here, spread out like that.

In fact, let me grab a little fan brush here, a little clean fan brush.

I'm going to pick up some titanium white and go ahead and just kind of, just kind of plant a little snow right up against some of those roots and settle that thing into the ground a little bit more.

There we go.

Make it feel like it's piled up around the tree just a little bit.

There we go.

Now we need a little liner brush, little liner brush, some paint thinner, a little black, a little Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna in there too.

That's fine.

We're going to get our paint nice and thin and then we're going to come up and add some smaller, little branches that are hanging off of this tree.

There we go.

If you're having any trouble getting the paint to come off the brush or stick, just add a little more paint thinner to it.

And I'll tell you what, when you have all kinds of time at home, you can have branches all over the place, just tons of them.

Loads of little branches and it looks so good.

It looks so good.

I'm under a time limit here, so I have to, have to put in a few.

If I, if I had all the time I wanted, I'd probably stand here and put several more than I'm going to, but at least you'll get the idea how to do it.

And that's the main thing.

You get the idea, then you get to take it as far as you want.

And the fun part about that is you might come up with an entirely different spin on this painting, then I'll learn from you.

That's what painting's all about right there.

Learn from everybody.

Grow with a little, little lesson from everybody.

Everybody wins with a deal like that.

Alright.

Isn't that a gnarly old tree?

Tell you what, I'm going to go back here with a little liquid white, titanium white, tiny touch of that blue in there with it.

Make sure it's real oopie, goopy, wet.

Let's come back and just, I'm going to sprinkle a little snow, whew, kind of hanging onto this tree.

It's been, it's been out here most of the day, kind of melting, but some of these bigger branches, it's kind of, kind of laid up in the crevices.

There we go.

Sometimes it sort of clings to the side of the tree and the roots and stuff.

There we go.

[chuckles] Something like that.

Alright, tell you what, before I put that brush down, just thought of something, let's take a little bit of that, take a little bit of that sienna and white and out here, a lot of times in the winter you have some old weeds and sticks and stuff that are just, stick up real high and they kind of stick up out of the snow.

Pop a few of those in here and there.

Here and there and there and here as Bob always used to say.

Then I want just a little something to kind of cap off the front here.

So I'm going to go back to my, my lavendery color and we'll have, we'll have a little bunch of bushes or some kind of growth down here that's just sort of hanging onto some leaves.

A little dark something in the foreground there.

Maybe take a, another one inch brush with some liquid white and titanium white, a little touch blue.

And we'll put some of that shadowy frosted snow on here.

Something like that.

Whoo.

Isn't that a, isn't that a snowy scene if ever there was one.

[chuckles] I hope you've enjoyed it.

I hope you'll paint it.

Send in pictures.

Let's see what you're doing.

Happy painting.

Until next time.

[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]