Painting with Wilson Bickford

Join me next on Painting Wilson Bickford, as I get more Pacific on how I created these sandy dunes on Ocean Afternoon. (relaxing music) -

Narrator

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 service. 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 WiewArts.org. Hi, welcome back to part two of Ocean Afternoon. I'm glad you could make it. As you recall, last week when we started this project, we had a blue primed canvas with acrylic and then I'm putting oils over the top. I had developed the background sky and clouds. I was working on the ocean water. I mentioned that in the meantime, I was going to put in a few more waves, which I did. I also washed out the big brush so that's ready when I need it next here momentarily. I'm gonna come back in with the number 10 Flat Brush and I'm gonna take some cerulean blue and white to mimic this sky color that I put in on the lower horizon. I'm gonna put a little bit of that into the water as well. You'll see some lighter blue touches throughout in here where the wave troughs are in between. You're gonna see some of that sky color reflected. So I'm gonna take some titanium white with a little bit of cerulean blue. Don't get it too light, but I want it lighter than what's in my water at this point. And kind of relative to the sky color. See, I'm gonna chisel this brush up nice and sharp. And in between these dark areas, I'm gonna thread some of this lighter color. Same wave stroke that I was using before. But I'm putting in between the dark ones. And it's gonna look a little harsh at first. What do I always tell you? Yep, I heard you, somebody in Iowa said. "Blending fixes everything." That's right, blending fixes everything. So once I bend over this, it'll tie everything together and we're gonna put some white caps in here, too, to give the water a little action. So maybe something about like this, looking pretty good. I don't wanna do too much but just enough to fill it out, have it all make sense. Now I have a clean fan brush here and I'm just gonna lightly, I could use my mop brush too, either or, I could actually use the big brush, anything, but I'm just gonna lightly graze over that. Blend them horizontally the way that they lie. It just gives us a little action in the water. Like I said, we're gonna put a bunch of white caps over the top of that anyway. Speaking of which, I'm going to switch that brush out, my fan brush. Let me be more Pacific. My fan brush, Pacific. Get it, ocean water, yeah. I'm just being more Pacific guys. I'm gonna take the fan brush with white. Now, watch how I load this. I'm gonna take titanium white. This is the thick white. I'm going to pull the brush backwards through the paint like this to bring it to a chiseled edge, and then I'm gonna ever so slightly just push into that paint layer. And there's a little burm forming on the end of the brush, on the edges of the bristles. That is a white cap. Believe it or not. If I come in here and touch lightly, look at that. I hate to say that's perfect but that's pretty darn close to perfect, isn't it? I'm just using the brush to my advantage. Load it the way it's gonna work for you. See it gives you that nice rough look, just like a rolling white cap. Way in the distance, I'm trying to just barely touch and keep them very, what's the word I want to use? Very, I wanna say minuscule, but not minuscule. Very vague, I guess would be a better word. See, I'm gonna do the same thing, load it the same way. As I come lower, I want them a little bigger because of the linear perspective. And once I get down into where I see some of the actual dark waves, I can put the foam right on the top of those, back here I'm kinda doing it willy nilly like I mentioned before, once I get down in the front, I can be a little more Pacific. Are you getting sick and tired of my pun jokes yet? But I can lay them right on the top of some of these waves, and single them out. And I sit back and I look at it. I squint at it. I'm checking the lights and the darks, making sure it looks balanced enough. I don't want them all in one spot here or there. I want them really staggered and loose, no rhyme or reason to them. I think I need a little something over here just to balance it. And this one that's closest right here. I'm gonna take a little more paint and this time I'm gonna actually tap the bristles a little bit just to open them up, spread them out a little bit more and it's gonna give me a bigger shape. So this one's gonna be the closest one coming into the beach. So I want that a little bigger. See how that makes sense if this one's bigger, it's closer and the ones getting further and further away are less defined. And just like that, we've got sky and ocean water, pretty easy. You guys can do this. Don't be afraid to give it a whirl, fear stops people from doing a lot of things in their life. But if you're not afraid of maybe having a slight failure or having to work at it and build yourself up to a certain level, you can do, you can accomplish a lot. You just gotta get in there and go for it. I'm gonna go back to this number 10 flat brush. Now I've got the cerulean blue from the water that I just had on there. I'm gonna rinse that out. And if you look at this sand, you'll notice that you see blue, the blue tone of the canvas that was in there initially that still shows through in certain spots. I use that for the shadowed areas for some of this sand. So I'm gonna take white. I'm gonna mix it right on top of this yellow ochre spot that I had for my clouds. Remember we did that kind of a cream color with the white and the ochre way back when, when we did the highlight on the clouds? I'm gonna start there just to save room on my pallet. I'm gonna take that color with a little bit of burnt sienna, maybe just a spec of black to dull it. I'm just looking for something that's a sand color. Something that, to me says, sand. I know in different parts of the world, sand is all different. Sometimes you have the white sandy beach. Sometimes it's rather brownish. I'm gonna try this and see what I think, that's not too bad. I think I can live with that. Now notice we have layers in here. You can see the undulations, the ups and downs, the hills and gullies. So when I put the top of a dune, I blend the bottom away to the blue, and then I put another one in front and I blend the bottom away. So you have to kinda do it in layers. As you come forward. I'm gonna start by doing something like this, along the beach, along the water I should say, along the ocean water. I'll bring it down a little ways. And then I'm gonna take a clean fan brush. And I'm just gonna kinda, really scrub and blend that away back to blue, leave a soft edge on the bottom. You want a harder, more defined edge on the top of the dune with a very soft edge on the bottom. Now I'm gonna keep layering in front of that as I go, I'll come over here. Put a section in over here. Same idea. See, it looks like there's the edge of the dune there. And you're, it's downhill from there on the backside to the water. I'll scrub this in. I just remembered something. I made a little bit of a boo boo, but it's okay. I caught myself early. So there, put this in your memory bank. This would be a whole lot easier if I used this, which I have cleaned. And I put a little bit of clear on here. I forgot that step. See that, I got in such a big, big rush to show this to you. I forgot a step. Oh, well, no harm done. That's the nice part. And I could do it without it. See it's working without it. I could have done it without it. It's just gonna be a little easier with this clear on here. I forgot all about it. All right, there we go. Now that makes it a little oily and slick. There we go. I feel better about it now. Now I'm just gonna kind of build this up like I said, and keep putting these little dune edges in here. See how much easier that flows on there now? I'm gonna blend the bottom edge away. Sometimes you gotta roll with the punches guys. See, I don't want too much blue but I want a little sense of that. See, that looks pretty good for a shadow. I know it's sand and you're probably thinking blue but it works. It kind of ties the whole painting together with shades of the blue and the tan. So I'm just kinda layering it. It's actually a pretty simple process and it's very effective. By the time we're done with this, it's very, very effective. And if I see any areas that look a little too blue-ish or not blended enough, I go back and just kind of tweak them a little bit, see how that's coming together? So I'm just gonna kind of keep adding these. And I'm not even really looking at that one too much. I'm just doing what I feel right here. As it comes together. I want a little more of that color in there before I blend it down. Pastel artists will often take a colored paper, that if you are a pastel painter, you can find all kinds of colored papers. They have every color under the sun, and they're noted for painting on a toned background like this, whether it's blue, yellow, red, green, whatever, and they let it show through. This is the same idea. I'm just using oil paint to do it. Well like I say, it's very effective. See this one's got a lot more blue showing than this one and that's okay. I can eat some of this up if I want to. I'm not sure I want to. I'm kind of liking that. I might take some out just by adding a little more of that color. It doesn't take much, it's an adjustment and it's to each his own. You're gonna have to determine how much of that you wanna leave and how much you wanna take out. But to me, that gives it a nice shadow effect. I am gonna re highlight the tops of some of these dunes and brighten them up as well. So see, I just keep looking at it. I keep analyzing it, judging it. If there's too much blue, I blend over it calm it down a little bit. It's all good. It'll look a lot different once I brighten it. I'm gonna take more titanium white into this tannish color. And maybe just a little touch of that cadmium yellow pale, not too bright but I'm gonna emphasize some lighter passages, especially near the middle of the canvas, 'cause that's where we want the viewer's eye drawn in. And see, I can go through and put them on first and then blend them after the fact. It really doesn't matter. They look pretty harsh there now I realize, but I'm always telling you, blending fixes everything, here comes the blending. I'm just gonna blend and scrub away the bottom edge. Leave it a little lighter on the top. Just as easy as that. Notice, I'm mostly just blending. them the way that they lay or lie depending on how you wanna say it. This one's a little more brownish. I had a little more brown in my mixture. Like I said, sand varies depending on where you are in the world. It's all good. If that were the case, take more burnt Sienna in your mixture. See, I can do it. I can put a little more burnt Sienna in. It's all good. You're gonna be the judge of this and you're gonna be the one creating it. So you're gonna want to figure out what you want for colors. The world is your oyster, as they say. Speaking of oysters do you know why clams don't give to charity? They're shellfish, oh yeah. So see, I can incorporate a little more of that sienna-ish flavor in there. (upbeat music) If you'd like to add more detail to your grass as you can turn them into sea oats. Using the same green that we used for the stems and the detail script liner brush, you can add the plumes. So I just pull up and out, let them dangle over. They're pretty easy but they look really nice when you're finished painting. Okay, here comes the fun part. I'm gonna take the fan brush. I'm gonna get a little bit of thinner on it. I want something darker. I'll take sienna and a little bit of black and I'm going to spatter. I want some darker little pebbles and shadows in that sand. I'm thinning it down. So I'll be able to snap the, pull the bristles and let them snap and get that spray like I do when I do falling snow or stars in a sky, whatever, it's a, little dots are really small which tells me my paint's a little on the thicker side. So I'm gonna take a couple more drops of paint thinner, I want them a little bigger. And again, I need to whisk over them. They look pretty hard there right now. I'm gonna blend them, smear them out of focus a little bit. I'll rinse the brush out and make sure it's completely dry. And just using the backside of the brush to get a nice, easier touch, lighter touch. I'm just gonna blend them and stretch them out a little bit. They look a little pockmarks and shadows and whatnot. Isn't that beautiful? Worked out great. A very nice technique to know about. You didn't think it was that easy, did you? Now I've got some little lighter areas in there that look like little pebbles and shells. If I take some of the white base coat and maybe just a touch of the burnt sienna, just to throw it off white, I don't want pure white necessarily but something close to white, a first cousin to white. And I, again, I'm gonna thin this down. It's the same thing. I'm gonna spatter. Only this time, I'm not gonna blend them. I want them to remain like little dots and they'll look like little shells and pebbles on the beach. Again, it's not coming off my brush too easily. So I know it's too thick. I add a little more thinner. There we go. And those are still kind of small which tells me I need just a little bit more thinner even, so you're gonna have to experiment with that. Test it out. There we go, that's better. Now I'm getting some a little bigger. You want variety in them anyway, you want bigger, smaller, all kinds of different things going on. All right, I'm gonna put in a few more even just using pure white, not too many, but just enough. I want a little more contrast on there. I'm judging the thing over overall and it's kind of working but I think it'd be nicer if we had some brighter ones in there. Notice I'm adding just a little bit of thinner at a time. I don't want to get it too thin. There I, that little extra brightness there helps there. I think, all right, that's a pebbly beach if I ever saw one, okay. I'm gonna swish the fan brush out one more time. I'm gonna start putting some of this grass in. Primarily I used greens but I could throw a little bit of brown color in with that. Maybe I will today just for something different. I'll work right on this puddle on top of that blue spot just to save room on my pallet. I don't have green, so I need to make it. But if I take ultramarine blue with a little touch of yellow ochre, I immediately get a green like that. If I want to dull it down for any reason, I could put some burnt sienna with it. I'm gonna try this right here. I kind like that color, mine, my blue or my blue, my green is gonna lean towards blue because blue is my favorite color. We're making a secondary color of two primaries. I'm gonna put a little bit of that clear glazing medium just to thin it. And I like a blue green rather than a yellow green. That's just my own preference, but I'm gonna touch lightly like this and that's good and dark. That's good, that's gonna show up well, I like that. See, I just touch lightly and pull up and I get these little grass pockets peeking through the sand, it makes it, here's what people like to do. They'll go here, here, here. And every one of them is exactly the width of the brush. Notice some of these I'm gonna stretch out a little longer, maybe four or five brush widths across. Just don't get into a pattern of doing it too rhythmically and making a pattern out of it. Okay, maybe a little here. I want this, definitely this one big grassy area right here. And like I said, if you wanted, it's just a personal preference. If I wanted to take a little sienna into that, I can bleed a little bit of that brownish color. Maybe some of the grass is dried out and they haven't had any rain in a while, who knows? You got some of that brownish color like dead grass in there with it. It just kind of breaks it up to me and makes it more interesting. I'm gonna take the Long Scriptliner. This is the number two long scriptliner. This is the one I always use for the really long grasses. Again, the key to using this brush is to keep your paint quite thin. So I'm gonna go right into this green. I've thinned it right down like milk. It needs to be quite thin. And the brush is loaded right from the tip of the bristle to the metal feral, the bristles are completely forward to the end. I'm gonna take a little bit out of it like that and I'll try it. Yep, looks just about right. It should skate off your brush that easily. And see, I like putting some of these tall ones through the horizon line because you're putting a strong vertical element through a horizontal and it really pushes that back. So I like to break that edge. But it's grass. So let it just kinda lean to and fro. Be loose and free with it. If you're brave, you can really put one big tall one in there like that. Make sure your paint is thin enough. So you don't run out halfway up. Over here I'm gonna put some of these two, maybe not as tall as that other side. I'm gonna come back and balance that out with some highlighted ones, put some lighter yellow greens in there. Like they're getting some light on them here and there. I know we got a lot of clouds, but the, obviously the sun can peak between the clouds here and there once in a while. I think that's looking pretty good, don't you? I can almost hear the seagulls. (imitating seagull) Okay, I've swished that out. I'm gonna take a white base coat, a little bit of yellow. This time, a little bit of the cerulean blue. It'll give me a different flavor of a yellow green. I just want, I'm just thinking in my mind, highlighted grass. So get a color that you like, get one that's light enough to contrast against what you have up here, loading the brush the same. I'm gonna come in and add a few lighter stalks, right in amongst everything. Let them crisscross in front of each other, no rhyme or reason to it, it puts a little extra spark of life into those grasses. Put a few over here. And it looks like it would be a good day for sailing. So using the detail scriptliner that I had earlier, I'm gonna put in a sailboat. I'm just using the white base coat because it's already thin and it should bond to the canvas very easily. I'm gonna roll this to a point. It's basically a shark tooth shape. I've gotta get my little steady stick out here. My little 69 cent dowel from the hardware store is my best friend for steadying my hand. I'm gonna have the wind blowing this way. So you'll see that the sail is responding accordingly, aimed in that direction. And you're not gonna see much of a hull from this distance but if you wanted, you could swish this out, take something darkish. I'll just use a little bit of this black right here and I'm gonna put the smallest little line right at the base of that to suggest the boat itself and the hull. And there we have it. Hope you enjoyed this lesson. I had a great time bringing it to you. Until next time. Stay creative and keep painting. (relaxing music) -

Narrator

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 -

Narrator

All 13 episodes of Painting with Wilson Bickford, Season Eight, are now available on DVD or Blue-Ray in one boxed 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. (relaxing music)