Painting with Wilson Bickford

It's cold and blustery out, but we still need to get to the barn to do the chores. Join me next on, "Painting with Wilson Bickford," as I paint Snow Glow. (mellow music) -

Announcer

Support for "Painting with Wilson Bickford" is provided by the J.M. McDonald Foundation, continuing the example modeled by J.M. McDonald, by contributing to education, health, humanities and human services. Sharing since 1952.

Online at jmmcdonaldfoundation.org. (upbeat music) The View Center for Arts and Culture is an Adirondack exhibition and performance space featuring in person and online classes for creatives of all ages and abilities. Open calls, events, and class schedules online at viewarts.org. Hi, thanks for joining me today.

I'm Wilson Bickford, and I have a fantastic little oil painting lesson that I wanna share with you today. We're gonna paint this nice, old red barn. If you go to the WPBS-TV website, you'll be able to download the supply list, and the sketch that I'm using today, and you'll be able to trace the design right on your canvas. And I'll talk about that here in just a moment.

I'll run through the paints that we're gonna be using today. These are oil paints. Today I'm using ultramarine blue, Van Dyke brown, cadmium red deep, and titanium white. I also have some white oil base medium here that I'm gonna use to lubricate the background, and some clear glazing medium.

For brushes today, I'm using a two-inch scenery brush, a number 10 large flat brush, a number three fan brush, a one-inch small texture brush, a number-six small flat brush, and I have three liners here, a number-two detailed scriptliner, a number-two liner, as well as a number-two long scriptliner, which is optional. And if I get to that point, I'll show you how to use that, and what I have in mind for that. For the prep work, I took the sketch, laid it on my canvas in the appropriate spot, whatever looks good to you. I prefer to put a piece of tape here at the top to hold it like a hinge usually, so it doesn't move around on me.

I lift it up, I slide graphite transfer paper underneath it. You can get this at any art store, it's just transfer paper. And I use a red pen. The red pen shows up on the dark lines, so I know where they all are.

And I just trace the design on there. From there, I took my number six small flat brush and some black acrylic gesso and I painted in everything that was wood. I didn't do the snowy roofs and I didn't do the foundation. Just anything where it's gonna be the red painted wood with black acrylic.

Let that dry completely. You can either let it air dry for a couple of minutes or probably 15 minutes and it'll dry on its own or you can speed it up with a hair dryer and do it in a couple of minutes. And make sure it's absolutely thoroughly dry. From there, I took masking tape and I layered it on, covered it completely and I carefully trimmed away the excess with a utility craft knife.

So the barn is completely covered up, that way, I can just freely paint the background right over that and not have to paint around it, which would not be fun nor be easy. So I can just freely go in there. I'm also now going to take a piece of tape and tape off my snow line. I don't want to get this all these blues and browns down into my nice white snow area.

So I'm gonna take some of this tape, enough to go across the whole with of the canvas. And people ask me all the time about the tape. This is just normal every day masking tape from my local hardware store, it's nothing fancy. It's not a special art tape or anything like that.

And see, I'm gonna bend this and twist it to conform to the lay of the land that I want. I want a little bit of a hill and a slope on it. I could actually take little sharp knife and put more of a undulation in that if I chose to, I don't really think I need it. So I'm gonna press that down securely.

And now that the prep work is done, we're ready to paint. Are you ready? Here we go. I'm gonna take my two inch scenery brush.

I'm gonna take some of this white base coat, I won't need much, take a little bit of this white base coat and I'm gonna lubricate the background. Notice I'm scrubbing it in thinly. A lot of people get into the habit of painting and they're doing this, like they're painting their wall. You're putting it on too thick and heavy rhat way, I scrub this in very, very thinly.

As I said, we don't have many colors today. We don't need a lot of colors. I have a very limited palette as far as the colors go, hey, maybe we'll just stop here and call this one barn in the mist. What do you think?

Eh, you wanna keep going? Oh, sure. Have it your way. Okay.

I'm gonna leave a little bit of a hole here for the moon showing through. So I'm gonna paint some dark colors around, leave a little bit of an opening there. I'm gonna take same dirty brush with the white in it. I'm gonna take a little bit of ultramarine blue, maybe just a spec of that Van Dyke brown, which will gray it.

I don't wanna wanna get too dark, too gray, too early. So I'm being careful. Notice I don't have a lot of paint on my brush. I don't need a lot, that white base coat will extend this and make it go a long way.

So I need to figure out where I want the moon. I'm gonna say about there. So I'm gonna paint and leave a spot around it. This is not the moon.

It's just the opening where the moon is going to be. Everybody else looks at that and says, boy, you're making that moon really big. That's not the moon. That's gonna be an opening.

The moon is gonna show through there. I'm gonna put at least probably three different colors into this. And you can vary it depending on how you feel about it. Notice I can paint right over the barn and not have to dance around it.

I'm leaving it kind of blotchy. I'm not painting it solid like a wall. I want some life in it, some atmosphere. I want it to look a little turbulent and overcast and stormy and all those good adjectives that make your painting interesting.

So that's coat number one. From there, I'm gonna take a little more blue, maybe a spec more brown. I'm gonna go darker, Now, I'm not trying to match that painting exactly. I've already been there and done that one, so I'm just winging this and doing whatever I feel.

And that's what I would recommend that you do. You don't have to paint the way I do. I'm just showing you the ins and outs of this so you can duplicate one of your own. I said, I went grayer.

This one's a lot blueer, I'm going more gray today. Just on account of cause, it's all good. And remember, I said I was gonna put in three colors. This is only number two, so I got another one coming.

So I could put more blue in there, but I've got something else in mind. Notice how I'm leaving that opening. I'm gonna stick a moon in there. I want to darken it down just a little bit.

So I'm gonna bleed a little bit of that color in there, just enough to throw it off white so I can put the moon in as being white. See my sky's looking pretty turbulent, that's good. I'm gonna switch from there. Now that needs to be blended.

It's very rough. You can see all the brush marks in it. We're gonna come back and blend it at the end. Paint smart, not hard.

Don't go in and blend everything out, I gotta do it at the end anyway. Well, I do it twice if I can only get away with it once. I'm gonna take a fan brush and into this color, I'll take a little more blue. And this time I'm gonna sneak a little bit of red, red and blue give me purple.

Do I need purple? No. I could just go with blues and blue grays if I chose to. This one's got some purple in it.

I'm gonna take a darker value and some purple. Now you're making a secondary color of two primaries, red and blue. So you can lean towards a bluish purple or a reddish purple. I kind of want it more towards a bluish purple myself personally, if it was a sunset, I could go with more of a reddish purple, but for a winter scene like this, I don't think the reddish purple works as well.

And see, I'm thinking more cloud shapes here. I'm running out of paint so I'm just gonna mix up a little more here on the fly. If it's too dark, you can put a little bit of white with it if you need to. And I'm still working around that opening.

And I know what you're thinking, you're saying, boy, Willie, you went right off the rails this time, that looks so bad. Well, we're gonna bring big daddy back in off the bench. Big daddy is gonna fix this. So that's gonna be my sky.

And what I mean by big daddy fixing it is I'm gonna take some paper towel and I'm gonna wipe this off. There's plenty clean enough to blend with, I don't have to wash it or do anything fancy. I'm gonna come in and just do little circles and ovals over the top, just enough to melt away the coarseness and the graininess and see around this edge of the opening, I'm softening that so it's gonna be a nice, soft glow. The name of this painting after all is Snow Glow.

So I want a nice soft glow there. We're gonna have the moon peeking through the atmosphere and see this one's a lot more purple and blue. You can do do the same thing on yours. I'm using the same exact colors today.

It's just how I'm mixing 'em. And I mentioned that one had more purple, I was going not quite as much purple today. That was just my choice, I just wanna show you. You have a lot of different variations of this that you can get by using the same materials.

There's my sky, was that easy or what? Yes, it was. A lot of people don't know this, but I used to be a comedian. I did a job one time at a barn that was full of cows, but I got mooed off the stage.

That's why I took up art. You believe me, don't you? Yeah, I thought so. Okay, from there, I'm gonna take my number two detailed scriptliner, and I'm gonna take some of this white base coat and maybe a little bit of the thick white with it, just to balance it out.

I don't want something quite that thin, but I need something thinner than what that thick paint is, if that makes sense. I just know from experience, I'm putting wet paint on top of wet paint. So I have to thin this down a little bit. I'm gonna flatten the brush out and I'm gonna come up and I'm gonna paint in a moon.

I want it kind of bright. So I put enough white on there to make it stand out. Obviously you wanna keep it as round as you possibly can. And for something this size, you probably don't want anything much bigger than a dime.

Mine right here looks a little smaller than a dime right now. But like I say, you don't want anything bigger than a dime. It's gonna look really out of scale. So I just put a nice round moon in there and you'll have time to finesse that a little bit.

I see some brush bristles here from scrubbing with that big brush and the fan brush. So I'm just gonna pluck those off. If you take a brush and just come in diagonally, usually you can whisk 'em right off there. If it leave a little mark, you go back with big daddy and you blend that out.

Now onto that moon, I'm gonna put a few craters. I'm just gonna call into this darker stuff that I have here, the blue gray, and some of the purple. They don't need much paint. And I'm just randomly gonna put a few little blemishes on here, which will suggest craters.

So it looks kinda moonish. Is that a word? Moonish. I can wipe the brush off and separate the bristles with my fingers.

It gives me a softer touch and I can come in just lightly, pat those in, soften them a little bit. Notice this when I left a little indistinct on the bottom, it's almost like you're not seeing the bottom of the moon, like it's lost in the haze. So if I wanted that on this one, I would just lightly, lightly, lightly blend that edge away. All right.

So far so good. I think we're cooking with gas, don't you? I think it looks pretty good. From here, I'm gonna start putting in the background trees.

I'm thinking dead winter trees, you know, not green or anything like that. They've lost their leaves mostly. And we just got some snow on the branches and whatnot. And they're far away in the background so we don't have to get too technical with it.

I'm gonna use the one inch texture brush, and I'm gonna take a good amount of this Van Dyke brown, and I'm gonna tap the bristles open. Watch how I load this, notice I keep taking more paint, more paint, more paint. It's because I'm looking at the texture I'm getting on my pallette. I wanna start seeing that raised texture.

And I want the bristles really loose, notice I'm tapping the bristles and not matting it together like this. You want the bristles really open and loose with a lot of paint. And when I come up, I'm gonna start at the top of the trees and work my way down. So kind of figure out how tall you want your trees and see I'm just dabbing the top corner of the brush is what's doing all the work, but see how that looks airy and looks like you can see through it.

I'm out of paint. You get four or five touches outta that brush. Then you're gonna have to stop and put more paint on it. And notice I turn the brush left and right as I do it to round them off and I just don't want a nice flat hedge across there.

So I kind of see it in my mind's eye and again, I'm not trying to match that one exactly. I'm just going to what I feel. That's when painting is fun, when you're going with how you feel. I did commission work for a long time for people.

I had painted their pets and their cars and their cottages and camps and houses and a few birds, cockatiels and parrots, and you name it. And you know, that was great while I was doing it. But I found that I was painting for somebody else all the time and trying to make them happy. It's nice when you can just paint what you feel, which is what I'm doing right now.

So I don't do as much commission work anymore, but it was a good gig while I was doing it and I enjoyed it. But eventually, sometimes you just have to work for yourself and paint for yourself. Okay. See, it goes up and down, and up and down, and you just want something that looks realistic.

I'm gonna hop over here to the other side and come out the other side of the barn over here somewhere. I do want some of it to infringe going behind the roof line a little bit. I think that's a nice effect. So I am gonna target that area.

Notice how often I keep dabbing more paint on this brush. It takes a ton of paint to get that texture. So I'm constantly going back to my pallette and refreshing my brush. Down here at the bottom, we can afford to have it more solid, especially next to that snow line.

All the undergrowth and shadows and thickness is down lower, closer to the land. You want the trees airy at the top. Okay. From there, I will take, go back to this brush.

Doesn't matter, I can use my liner brush, I can use the painting knife. I'm just gonna scratch in a few little indications of some tree trunks. Now you're gonna pick up quite a gob of paint on the tip of your knife so you wanna wipe that off every so often, let 'em lean to and fro every which way, don't put 'em in any particular rhythmic grouping of any sort, just enough so we got some skeletons holding up all this snow and branches in here. (light string music) If you prefer having fir trees in your background instead of the limb trees, you could use some green.

Now this is sap green, this is not on your supply list for today's lesson, but if you took some green and added it with the Van Dyke brown, maybe a spec of white, get a really dark, dark green on a fan brush, you can alter the type of trees that you put in. You would just simply tap these in along the background, just like we did before with the one inch brush and the bigger trees. To highlight them, rinse your brush out, go right back into the same blue that we used. Wipe that out, take the white and blue, lots of paint just as before, we're doing the same thing.

We're just using a different brush, different color, get lots of paint on the brush and the light touch. And you can lay the snow on the trees. Okay, I'm gonna take the one inch flat brush and I'm gonna rinse it out in the paint thinner. I have to wash this out because I'm gonna lay snow on these branches.

So I wring it out really good on the edge of the pale. This is just odorless paint thinner that I'm using. And then you wanna blot it off really well with a paper towel, get it good and dry. I'm gonna start out with a light bluish color, which looks like shadowed snow.

And then I'll come in with a little bit of white just to zing it where the moonlight is hitting it the most. So I'm gonna load the brush exactly like I did when I did the brown, I'm gonna take it like this and I'm leaving the bristles really open. Most of the work is gonna be done by the top corner of the brush as I hold the brush vertically, I'm gonna put a little bit of blue with that to make a shadowed blue color. It's not like this is in strong sunlight.

Everything's gonna be kind of in shadow 'cause it's nighttime or dusk, whatever you wanna say. Notice how much paint I'm getting on this brush. That's what I call heavy paint. When I go to my canvas, I'm gonna use a light paint or a light touch, excuse me.

That's what I call heavy paint, light touch. I'm using a lot of paint here and I'm gonna use a light touch on the canvas. So I just touch lightly like this. Again, you gotta keep a lot on it.

Keep an eye on your brush, if you're picking up a lot of brown, you'll need to wipe that off. I don't seem to be picking up too much. Lady luck is smiling on me today, for some reason. Go right over your trunks.

So there's gonna be branches in front. I kind of start at the top and work my way down, let it fade away and get darker as it falls down into the shadows. You wanna leave some of the dark showing, so don't get crazy and lose all of it. Okay, that's looking good.

Now I'm gonna wipe the brush off. I'm not gonna bother washing it. I don't really need to wash it, I don't feel, so I'm going to wipe it off really well. And I'm just gonna take some pure white now, right on the top corner of that brush, more or less, and again, same exact thing I've been doing.

I'm just really opening those bristles up, a lot of paint and right around the area of the moon where you're getting that brightest light, I'm thinking you're gonna get some moonlight cast on here and it's gonna brighten these up a little bit. So I give 'em that little kiss of light right there. I wouldn't wanna do it everywhere. I did sneak a little bit over on this side just enough to say so.

So maybe having said that, I'll put just a little touch on this side too like you're getting some light coming through behind the barn from the moon and that'll do it for the background. Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I think so. All right, from there, I'm gonna lay that brush to the side.

I can remove this tape. I got a nice clean line for my snow. That's why I taped it out. I'm gonna take the number 10 flat brush and I'm gonna put white base coat from the top of the ridge here from the top of the hill down to about maybe here somewhere, about halfway.

I don't need to put it all the way down and I'll show you why. I was just gonna say, ah, I jinxed myself. I was just gonna say, try not to get into your brown. And the minute I thought, I did it, let's see if I just reload with white, I can get that out there.

It's no big deal, just plow through it, brush it outta there. I'll even take a little bit of the thick white, clean that edge up, there we go. See, I showed you what not to do, but if you do it, I showed you how to fix it. There we go.

Okay, so I'm going to go to that line as close as I can get. I'm gonna scrub this on just like I would've with the big brush. And you're probably saying, well, Willie, why aren't you using the big brush like you did before? Well, I'm gonna show you, that brush, that two inch brush we used earlier, still has my DNA on it, so to speak.

It's got my colors that I did in my sky just like yours will. So if I use that brush now, see I'm bringing the white base coat down to about here. So this is dry, but I can go back with big daddy. He's still got that stain of blue on it.

And if I get in here and really scrub, I can utilize some of that paint and it matches my color that I already have in here, which is known as color harmony. Now, see, I really have to work 'cause there's not much on here. Now, if you had more of that paint left here, you could use it. I really don't have any left, but I really don't need it either.

If I put this on and work it in, you'll notice once I start moving up and I get into where that white base coat is, where I left off of that, it greases the wheels and then I can kind of blend them together and everything gets kind of smooth. And see, I'm gonna blend that off with no line between the white and the blue gray. So it looks like it's gradually lit from the top down and it's falling into shadow down here. All right, we've only got a couple of minutes left here, but that's gonna put me in a good spot for next time.

I think I got just enough time here. I'm gonna take my number 10 flat brush again and I'll wipe it off and I can use this purplish blue gray stuff that I had before. I wanna put a cast shadow from the barn. And then by the time we come back next time we can take that tape off and start developing the barn.

So I want to put a nice, the light is coming from here. So the shadow's gonna fall diagonally to the left here a little bit like this. So I'm just gonna put this on, work it in, smooth it out. And I don't have to make an exact duplicate of the shape of the barn because it's coming downhill, the shadow's gonna kind of disappear and get lost.

So I'm just gonna feather it away. Just let it get lost. Hey, shadow, get lost. See if I just let it disappear, it takes care of itself.

Just feather it away. All right, that's gonna put us in a good spot for next time. I'm glad you tuned in today. I'm hoping you give this project a try and I'd love to see your version of it when you complete it.

You can track me down on Facebook or my website, and I'd love to see your version of it, send me a photo. Don't forget, don't miss part two coming up next time. Until next time, stay creative and keep painting. -

Announcer

Support for "Painting with Wilson Bickford is provided by The J.M. McDonald Foundation, continuing the example modeled by J.M. McDonald by contributing to education, health, humanities, and human services. Sharing since 1952.

Online at jmmcdonaldfoundation.org. (upbeat music) The View Center for Arts and Culture is an Adirondack exhibition and performance space featuring in person and online classes for creatives of all ages and abilities. Open calls, events, and class schedules online at viewarts.org. -

Announcer 2

All 13 episodes of "Painting with Wilson Bickford" season eight are now available on DVD or Blu-ray in one box set for $35 plus 4.95 shipping and handling, or learn the techniques used to paint sundown beacon with the in-depth "Paint Smart, Not Hard" series of Wilson Bickford instructional DVDs. Additional titles available. Order online or watch or download directly to your computer or mobile device. More information at wpbstv.org/painting.

(light upbeat music)