(smooth jazz music) - Hello, I'm Bob Ross, and I'd like welcome you to this, our seventh "Joy of Painting" series.

If you've painted with us before, I'm certainly glad to see you again.

If this is your first time with us, I think you'll really enjoy this fantastic wet-on-wet painting technique.

We'll use about dozen colors, some sort of unorthodox brushes, and we'll have a lot of fun.

And each week, we'll do a fantastic painting here.

Now, I hope you drag out your paints and your easel, a big glass of iced tea, and you sit down and you join me each week and learn the joy of painting.

So I'll tell you what let's do.

Let's have them graphically run all the colors across the screen that you need to do the painting that we're going to do today.

And they'll come across your screen in exactly the same order as I have them on my palette, starting with a Titanium White and working around.

And while they're doing that, let's talk a little bit about what's been done on the canvass.

I've already covered this canvass with a thin, even coat of Liquid White.

This makes the canvass wet, makes it slick.

It allows us to actually blend color right here on the canvass instead of working ourselves to death on the palette.

And today, I thought we'd do a painting that uses a very limited palette.

In other words, only a few colors.

And I'll show you how you can do a beautiful painting using only a couple of colors, some big brushes, and let's go up here and do it.

I'm going to take off today and go right into some Van Dyke Brown.

We'll use this ole big brush.

And I'm just going to literally tap some of the color right into the bristles.

So just you tap, that way it gets a nice, even distribution of color all the way through the brush.

See there?

Both sides, nice and even.

Good, let's go up to the canvass.

Now, let's start out today right up here, and we'll make little X patterns, little crisscross strokes.

Just ... (laughs) This is the way the teacher used to grade my paper in school.

Boy, she'd just go through it and make all these big X-es.

That's the kind of grades I got.

There we go.

Now, this color is blending with the Liquid White.

And automatically, beautiful things begin happening.

Continually keep this brush moving.

Don't stay in one spot and just work the color dead.

We want some life in this sky.

There we go.

Just keep it going.

Now, as we work downward here, maybe we'll put a little bit of warmth down here.

This is going to be the horizon area right down in here.

So I'll go right into a little bit of Dark Sienna, without cleaning the brush, and tap a little of that right into my bristles.

Just a small amount, all right?

Watch here now.

We'll go right up here, and with that color, I'll blend sort of upward so we have a nice warm color right at the horizon and it goes up into the Van Dyke Brown.

A little more color.

And let it work upward.

Isn't that fantastic?

Now, while I have this old dirty brush that has all the browns on it, I'm going to take and add a little touch of Yellow Ocher to it.

So we've got the sienna and the brown.

Add a little bit more of each, there.

Now, let's go down here to the bottom of the canvass and just have some fun.

Just pull that across.

This will end up being shadow.

I think today we'll do a painting that, oh, will have some snow in it.

And this will end up being some shadows.

Now, very gently, very gently, I'm just going to blend this entire sky together.

Just blend it very lightly.

This just takes out the brushstrokes.

But you don't want to kill all the little patterns that you have up in the sky.

That's what ends up being the interesting part of it.

Okay, I'll tell you what let's do.

I'll clean this brush.

And we clean our brushes with odorless paint thinner.

And I really recommend you use odorless thinner, or you'll be working by yourself.

Your spouse will run you right out of the house.

Shake off the excess.

Now, I have a box down here I shake the brush into, then ... (laughs) And that's really the most fun of this whole technique, is just raising Cain with that brush.

Of course, it's also one of the best ways to redecorate your whole room if you're not careful.

Try to contain that part of it.

Then we'll take a big ole round brush here and go right into some Titanium White.

We'll just pull it through there and load it up.

Load it up, a lot of paint.

Okay, let's go up to the canvass.

Maybe there's a big happy cloud that lives in this painting.

And he lives right there.

See, just work that brush.

Let this ole cloud just float around in the sky.

Let it have fun, mm, there we go.

Don't stay in one place.

Continually keep the brush moving.

Continually keep it moving.

There.

If you stay in one place and just grind this color in, all you're going to have is ... Well, you're going to look like big cotton balls up in the sky.

Now we'll take this big brush and just very gently blend the bottom of it.

Just blend the bottom of it.

If you've painted with us before, in this series I'm going to introduce you to some new brushes and some new equipment.

I think you'll really enjoy it.

There we go.

Now, I'll beat this brush a little.

And that just takes off the excess paint.

Then we're going to fluff these clouds.

Look at there.

Look at this.

Look at here.

Pulls up all those beautiful little stringy things.

And don't worry if you pull up big stringy things here because when we blend this, they'll go away, and they end up being the nice, soft, fuzzy edges of your clouds, see there?

Okay, and maybe you want ... Maybe you want several layers of clouds in your painting.

Can do, easy.

Just load a little more paint, come right in here, and drop in another happy little cloud.

And in your painting, you put as many clouds as you want.

Just drop them in.

And clouds are very free.

They may be one of the freest things in nature.

They just sort of float around and have fun all day.

And think about that when you're painting.

Think about how free clouds are.

Paint your clouds that same way.

Give them that feeling of looseness, of freedom.

Just let them go, there.

Mm-kay, now then, maybe back here, let's have some little background trees that live all back in here.

And I've got several of each brush going so I don't have to spend all my time washing the brush.

I'm going to go right into some Van Dyke Brown.

And I'm just going to tap this brush right in some brown and right into the sienna.

Back and forth here, we just sort of mix them on the brush.

See, really get in there and tap that son of a gun.

Work it hard.

All right, let's go up here.

Now then, maybe right here lives a happy little tree.

There he goes.

And he goes right on up.

Notice here I've started at the bottom and worked upward.

That way, it's darker at the bottom than it is at the top.

So you have the illusion of dark shadows down at the bottom.

Okay, and just put in some very basic little shapes.

You're not looking for ... You're not looking for distinct shapes at this time.

Later on, we'll begin worrying about very distinct shapes.

Right now, we're just blocking in.

Maybe here lives one.

Oh, look at here, he's a little taller.

Little bit taller.

There we go, see how simple that is?

But keep the dark color down here at the base.

This is really what what makes it fun.

Just sort of let these things go.

We'll have another little tree right here.

Keep it very dark at the bottom, and begin forming some basic shapes.

Very big, very basic.

My gosh, I got to talking there, and my little tree turned into a big tree.

We may have to nail another canvass on top so we have enough room to cover all this.

Okay, we'll give him a little friend here too.

And some up here that are maybe very light.

Very light.

Very light, just barely can see some of them.

Look at that.

And then a super way to throw in some happy little background trees.

There we go.

Now then, tell you what.

I'll set that brush down, and I'm going to get a number 2 script liner brush and go into a little bit of paint thinner, and right into my dark color here.

This is just the browns.

Turn that brush.

You want this paint to be just like water, very, very thin, very thin.

Turn it and pull it out.

That'll bring it to a beautiful, sharp point.

Okay, let's go up to the canvass.

Now then, I want to put in some indications back here of just some little tree trunks, some little stems.

And all we do is just quickly drop them in.

Since this paint is very thin and very wet, it slides over the thicker paint.

This base paint is very thick.

It's very dry, thick paint.

Now the thinner paint will just slide right over it.

Look at that.

Look at that.

There.

Mm-kay, I'll put a few in here and there, wherever you want them.

Just sort of take a look at your trees and decide where you think little trunks should live.

And drop them in.

There's a little indication way back here of one.

I think you're really going to enjoy this series.

In this series, I'm going to bring you a couple of special guest artists.

I have one guest artist that you might have heard of.

He's a fantastic painter.

He's one of the best painters in the country.

I'm very proud in this series to bring you a man named Ben Stahl.

I hope you've heard of Ben.

He is unreal, he's one of the best painters in the country.

He agreed to come and do a demonstration for us.

So you'll see him in this series.

Okay, tell you what let's do.

Let's build a happy little tree trunk in this big tree.

For that, I'm going to take brown on the fan brush.

Load both sides.

There, you can see it, both sides are very full.

This is Van Dyke Brown.

Let's go up to the canvass.

Hold the brush straight into the canvass and touch it.

As you come down, add more pressure.

Make it get bigger toward the bottom.

(laughs) A super, super way to make a little tree trunk.

It's that easy.

There's nothing difficult about it Now, let's put some highlights on this.

We want this tree trunk to stand out, be strong.

I'm going to take a little bit of my Yellow Ocher, a little sienna, and we'll blend that together with a touch of white, like so.

Now I'm going to take the knife and cut across and get a little roll of paint right on the edge of the blade.

See there?

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, if our light's coming from the right, and if you're right handed, that's normally the easiest, touch, give it a little pull, just let it sort of bounce across there, just here and there.

Just let it bounce here and there.

There, okay, now I'm going to take some white.

This is almost straight Titanium White, because I want this edge here to really stand out.

This is almost straight Titanium White.

There was a little bit of the color left on the blade, but mostly white.

There we go.

Now then, we'll take a little bit of Liquid Black.

A little Liquid Black, and take my liner brush again, and I put a little paint thinner in to make it even a little bit thinner.

Okay, let's go up to the canvass here.

With that, we're just going to very quickly throw in a few happy little indications of some tree limbs.

That's all there is to it, see?

That paint's very thin, and it flows.

It'll absolutely flow.

There.

And however many limbs you want on your tree, maybe there's one that hangs down here and there.

Whatever.

And we can go right into some Liquid White and go right back over and throw just a hint of some highlight here and there.

Like maybe there's a little snow laying on top of some of these.

There, that gives you an idea how to do that.

Now let's put some highlights on these.

Maybe there's a little snow that's been captured up here in the limbs.

So I'm just going to take the ole round brush here, put the least little touch of Yellow Ocher in here, and just tap in a little bit of color.

Just like so, just tap it in.

Okay, let's go up here to the canvass.

Now then, just barely, barely going to touch and just begin forming some of the basic tree shapes here that we want.

Just some basic limbs.

Look at there, see how easy that is?

Don't over do.

(laughs) This'll start working so good for you, in a heartbeat you'll cover your whole tree.

And you don't want to kill all the beautiful dark color that you worked so hard to put in there.

Just here and there.

Just let some of these little things just fall in there.

The least little touch of the Yellow Ocher though, not much.

Not much.

Just to kill the white.

All right, now, while I have that color on the brush here, let's begin laying in some snow right here.

We can just use this brush.

There, all I'm doing is laying a little color right on the canvass.

We'll come back and clean that up with another brush.

Might as well use it while we've got it here though.

This is where we being determining the lay of the land.

Allow a little of that color to pull right down in there.

That'll end up being some nice shadow areas.

And back into my browns.

Let's just pop a few happy little bushes.

Look at there, see?

Already, that begins to create the lay of the land, shows you which way the land flows.

Maybe there's a big ole bush that lives right there.

See, and it makes it look like his little thing, it goes back into the distance there.

This is what helps create the illusion of distance in your painting.

All right.

Now I'm going to take a fan brush.

It's a number 6 fan brush.

And very lightly, I'm just going to grab these edges and begin working on the lay of the land.

See how you can just pull a little of that color out?

And it makes it look like there's a shadow right there.

And you haven't hardly done a thing.

Just like that.

There we go, there's a little bit, pull it.

You can always take and add just a tiny bit more if you want your shadows to be a little more distinct, and make all kinds of beautiful little things happen.

Look at the amount of distance that we've put in here with just a few strokes.

You can see all the way back in there.

It's very soft and very gentle.

Tell you what, now if I was in a place like this, I'd want to build a little cabin out here.

Let's have some fun today and build us a happy little cabin.

I'll start out with the Van Dyke Brown.

Pull it out very flat, cut across, and we get our little roll of paint again.

Always get that little roll of paint.

Let's go up here.

All right, and maybe the cabin lives ... Yep, you're right, he lives right there.

We'll do that back eave.

There it is.

Then we're going to come in here and put the front in.

There's many, many ways to paint cabins.

This is just one of many.

During the series, we'll show you several different ways.

Let's paint the other side.

We're going to leave the roof off right now.

We're going to come back later and put the roof in.

There.

See, all we're looking for right now is just the front and the side there.

There we go, that easy.

Now let's have some boards in our cabin.

There we go.

Got a little hair on there, so I'll just pull him off.

Now I'm going to take some white, some of the Dark Sienna, and a little, little, tiniest little touch of the Prussian Blue, and make sort of a nice, warm grey color.

And a little darker.

There, cut across it, a tiny little roll of paint.

Let's go up here now.

Now grab it and gently come across, very lightly.

Barely, barely caressing the canvass.

Just let the paint break.

If you've painted with me before, this is about the same as putting snow on the mountain.

Just about the same.

Now to that same color, I'm going to add a little more white because I want it to be a little lighter on the side here.

Our tree says the light's coming from the right.

So very gently, we'll decide where our side is here.

Just a little bit lighter.

Okay, now then, tell you what.

Let's put some slabs or some boards in there.

Now I've got a little bit of brown on my knife.

And here, all I have to do is just touch the canvass and begin laying these in.

And this guy that built this cabin, he was about as much of a carpenter as I am.

Some of them are fat, some are skinny.

It's an old cabin.

It's had a hard life.

See there, but that easy, that easy, you get the side of your cabin.

Now, now we've got to put a little roof on there.

(laughs) The guy that's living in there now, he's at Chill City, he's getting cold.

Let's go up here.

Touch, pull, and bring it down.

Look at that.

Okay, touch, bring it down.

Touch, and bring it right down.

Isn't that fantastic?

That easy, you can build a cabin.

Well, I wish it was that easy in real life.

There.

Maybe put a little snow on the other side like so.

Now we've got a cabin, except we need a way to get in and out of it.

So right here, let's put a little door.

Little door.

And I'll take a little bit of the light color and just work around it, give it a little highlight.

Tell you what, I'll tell you what.

Let's put a window in this little cabin.

We'll use a little of the brown, and then we'll use a smaller knife.

It makes nice little things.

It's a lot easier to get into these small areas.

There.

And ... Let's give the indication, maybe there's a little glass left in the window.

Touch, give it a little pull.

Just a little Prussian Blue, little Prussian Blue.

Just a touch, don't overdo.

Don't overdo.

Work a little bit here like that.

And if you wanted to, use a little, tiny edge here, put a little chimney.

Use a touch of the Bright Red.

Not much, it's very strong.

Put a little red on there.

Maybe nobody's home today.

There, a little bit of snow on the roof.

Mm-kay, let's have some fun now.

We've got us a little cabin.

I'm going to grab the bottom here and begin pulling this out, helping to create some shadows once again.

There we go.

Now maybe, maybe ...

I'm going to tell you what, I'm the world's worst lawnkeeper and I believe this guy probably was too.

Let's go up here.

Maybe (laughs) maybe he didn't cut his lawn and there's a huge, big weed lives right here in front of his house.

And it comes right on down wherever we want it to go.

Yes, sir, he takes care of a lawn about like I do.

I get in more trouble about that.

There we go.

Just put some happy little weeds here and there.

And tell you what ... We'll take some of this brown, pull it out flat, cut across, get that little roll, okay?

Maybe there's a happy little fence, a little snow fence type thing.

And it lives right there.

Now, a super easy way to make a beautiful little fence, maybe they're sort of following down.

We'll take a little bit of light color, usually just sort of the brown and the white.

Just touch, touch.

A little tiny bit of the blue is in there too.

Makes it look a little bit colder.

There we go, just drop that in.

Now with the small edge of the knife, just going to go along here and just barely, barely touch.

Put the indication maybe there's a little bit of snow that's laying up here on top of them.

Look at that.

Now, right into the Liquid White.

And I'm going to cut across it with the knife.

In this, I use a hilo knife.

And we'll put a little bit of wire hanging on there.

Look at that.

Look at that.

That easy, look at there.

I used to use a one-haired brush, and I worked myself to death trying to put wire on there.

We try to show you the easy way of doing things.

Use the ole fan brush, and we'll pop a few weeds up around here.

And maybe there's a few coming down here.

Wherever, let them go.

This is just a fun little painting.

Then we go back with the white.

I want to grab some of this brown and turn it into shadow, because it's a little darker back behind there.

Just let this work, let it work, let it play.

See?

Look at all the beautiful little effects looking.

Once again, this is the way ...

This is the way that you create the lay of the land.

Look at that.

There.

A little bit right there, make it ... Because the sun would hit right there in my mind.

It would strike right there and be a little bit brighter.

And we'll put a little bit right under this here.

You can't make a mistake with this.

If you put a weed in here that you don't like, you just turn it into shadows.

It's that easy.

There we go.

Just think where a little light would hit, let your fan brush just play right across there and sparkle and have fun.

Now let's brighten that one up right there a little.

Maybe, maybe, yep, right here is another big ole one.

Each one of these represents another plane in your painting.

It makes it deeper.

Each plane really helps make the painting look like it has more depth.

There we go, we drop in a happy little shadow right in here.

There it is.

Wherever you want them.

We can pop them up.

Now then, I'm going to take a little bit of paint thinner on my liner brush and go into my brown, bring it to a nice, sharp point.

Okay, let's go up here.

Maybe there's a few happy little sticks and twigs that live around here.

This is also a super, super easy way to make little beach scenes.

If you ever want to paint the ocean with a happy little beach, this works very, very well, the same principles.

You know what?

I bet you ... Let's take ...

I bet this old fella had a fence out here at one time, and there might be a little bit of it left right there.

It's just about fell down, but there's still a couple of them, oh, tell you what, right there, right there.

This one is really fell over.

Hard life.

And we can take a little bit of white and a touch of the Yellow Ocher in it, and I'll just put the least little indication of some highlight on that, just like so.

Maybe, maybe, there.

One old post still trying to hang on, one rail right there, one rail, there it is.

Now then, we'll take the fan brush and just pop up some happy little things right around the foots here.

See, now we can begin, maybe ... Look at there.

This is where you can go in and put in a few little finishing touches.

See, and each different little layer you put inside of this helps create the illusion of distance again.

I know you're probably tired of hearing me say that by now.

But it really is what makes paintings interesting, is the fact that they have depth to them, that they're not just flat.

You're working with a two-dimensional surface, trying to make a three-dimensional painting.

So you have to use illusions, light against dark, dark against light, continually.

That's what makes it work.

That's what makes your painting pretty.

I'm going to put a few of these little weed things here.

They come right over the top, just like so.

And you can do a few of these using the Liquid White too.

See how they stand out against the dark?

That easy.

Look at there, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

That simple.

And I think we're right on the verge of having a finished painting.

I'm going to take a little of the thin oil and go right into my Bright Red.

I like oil because it's very slick.

You can use thinner, but oil, to me, works a little nicer.

Turn it, let's go up here, and we'll sign this one.

Let's sign it right here.

I certainly hope you've enjoyed this painting.

It's been a lot of fun, and I look forward to seeing you in the very near future for the next show, and hope you become a regular viewer with us.

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

(smooth jazz music)