The Joy of Painting with Nicholas Hankins: Bob Ross' Unfinished Season

[music] Hi, welcome back.

I'm Nicholas Hankins and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the final episode of the 32nd Joy of Painting series.

I hope you've enjoyed some of the previous shows and I hope you're ready to paint a little summertime scene with me today.

I've got a canvas up here on the easel that's an 18 X 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas.

It's already been coated with a thin, even coating of the liquid white so it's ready for us to have a little fun.

Let's do it.

This is phthalo blue that I've picked up on my old two inch brush and I'm just going to pop in a quick happy little sky here.

Just using little crisscross strokes, making it a little darker up along the top, and then working my way down.

And as you well know, if you've painted with us before this color gets lighter and lighter and lighter as it mixes with the liquid white and that's exactly what we're looking for in a landscape.

Something about like so.

Let's pick up a little more blue, maybe even a little touch of phthalo green and we'll come down to the water.

We'll just use, we'll just use some level strokes in the water.

This is a, this is a bright, happy painting.

Just working from the outside edge, sweeping in.

There we go.

All right.

We're about ready to wash a brush, so let's do it.

We'll come down, clean out our brush in some good old odorless thinner, shake out the excess, give it a little wrap on the easel leg, and we're all ready to go again.

Bob's not kidding.

That really is the fun part.

[chuckles] That is so much fun.

Now with a clean, dry brush, I'm going to begin in the light area and just soften this sky out and get rid of any unwanted brush strokes, brush marks.

Just kind of wiping off the brush in between.

I'll blend out my water all the way across there.

There we go.

Okay, we're off and rolling.

Let's take a one inch brush.

We'll pick up just maybe a little drop of liquid white and some titanium white.

Fill that brush nice and full, a little touch a bright red in there with it and we'll have some little fluffy little clouds living up in our sky today.

Bright, fluffy little clouds.

Sunshine type clouds.

As my little boy would call them, "sunshine clouds".

Not those old rain clouds.

I'm so pleased that we were able to bring you this 32nd Joy of Painting series.

It's, it's kind of a dream come true for me.

I, I hope, if you've been watching and painting along with us over these past 13 episodes that you've enjoyed them.

And if you have, let your, let your station know.

They'd like to hear from you.

Let's take that two inch brush.

Just soften out, soften out these clouds.

Give them a little fluff up, tease them a little bit.

Brush across, just two hairs and some air.

It's all it takes.

These clouds are probably big enough, though and well, well lit enough that we might have a little shadow in there so I'm going to add a little black to my, my brush.

Just making a gray.

I'm going to put a little shadow on the back side of these clouds like this.

Build them up nice and big and bright.

A little more on this one maybe.

Just, just using the corner of the brush making little circular strokes.

And I'll even blend those shadows the same way.

I'll just take my brush and kind of, kind of grind up that bottom edge, make them sit down into the painting and soften them a little bit.

There we go.

All right.

Well, let's take, let's take a knife.

Let's take a knife first.

Scoop up a little white, a little sap green, a little blue and black, a little touch of brown too.

Make kind of a gray green color.

Something like that.

That should work.

Doesn't need to be mixed real, real well.

And I'll load that brush, that same little one inch brush, same dirty one inch brush with some of that color.

And let's come up here and just, just kind of find this is very, this will be a scene reminiscent of back where I come from, back in the hills of east Tennessee.

Matter of fact, that's where I painted this painting the first time.

This, this little painting actually has kind of a story behind it.

I, I held this one back to the last episode for a, for a reason.

I'll tell you a little more about that as we go here.

There we go.

Let's take that big brush and just, just soften it, soften out the base.

Have a little mist at the base of our hills.

Then we'll go a little darker.

Let's pick up, this time we'll grab a little Prussian blue and black, a little more Van Dyke brown, a little more sap green.

Just all those good colors.

And let's come back and we'll have another little row of happy little hills back here.

A little darker so they appear a little closer.

I'm just sort of tapping with the corner of the brush and swiping down like that.

Great little way to paint some rolling hills, tree covered rolling hills.

There we go.

Once more, back to that two inch brush.

Let's soften the base of this one.

Brush it out, make it nice and misty and soft and tell you what, while I have that two inch brush in my hand let's just go right into some more of that color.

I'm going to add a little brown, a little more green, just make it a little darker overall, a little more black and blue.

There we go.

Once more, I'm going to tap, tap, tap that brush into the paint, give it a little push and let's have, right about here, just a little piece of land that kind of comes out.

Comes down toward the water.

Okay, so I promised you a little story about this painting.

This is a painting that I first painted.

And in fact, as I'm tapping in, this is kind of boring here, as I'm tapping this I'm going to see if they'll show you the original version of this painting that I painted back on the 4th of July, 1995.

Long time ago.

Hopefully you, you feel I've progressed a little since then.

[chuckles] We're going to do, we're going to do a newer kind of a cleaned up version of this painting for you today.

But as, as fate would have it, I painted that painting on the day we lost Bob.

And as much as that's a subject that I don't like to dwell much on, as I was preparing to share this with you it kind of dawned on me that, that was actually a painting this painting and my memories of painting this painting were actually very happy memories.

I'd had a wonderful day getting ready for fireworks that night.

I was 13 years old.

And Bob was my hero and in a lot of ways he still is.

But it kind of dawned on me that, you know, Bob was very private about his illness.

In fact, his instructors didn't even know until he had passed away by a little letter that went out letting them know that everything was going to carry on, just like he'd intended.

But my memories of that day were very happy because Bob wanted them to be happy.

He didn't want any sadness going forward and that legacy of joy continues on.

And I'm so pleased to be able to, to be a little part of it.

And, and hopefully, hopefully you're enjoying it, too, because that's what Bob would have wanted.

That joy continues.

But that kind of selflessness is just, well, that's one of the reasons he's, he's one of my personal heroes and always will be.

So thank you, Bob.

Just putting a couple of little happy little trees back here.

This is all dark, very, very dark green, just, just that same dark mixture.

Popped in a couple of little bushes back there, too.

I'll put some pretty highlights on those in minute.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] There we go.

Actually, speaking of those highlights, let's take a little, [chuckles] this'll be fun.

Let's take a one inch brush, I'm going to grab a little liquid white, pull it through some titanium white, pull it in one direction only, and let's pick up a little [chuckles] this will sound crazy, let's pick up a little blue, blue and white.

We'll have like a little flowering bush back here.

I just want to make sure I've got enough liquid white in there.

If you have any trouble making this paint stick, you'll want to make sure you've got it thinned down with enough liquid white.

Ooh, isn't that pretty?

See?

Sounds crazy, but it's kind of pretty.

So you might say I've been I've been saving this painting up for 28 years.

So hope you'll, hope you'll enjoy it.

I hope you'll paint it and celebrate Bob with me.

Because he's certainly worthy of celebration.

We'll take a little highlight color and just plunk it on these little, these little distant trees back here.

[Nic makes "bloop, bloop, bloop" sounds] There we go.

Taking that same brush that has the green, we'll pull it through all of these yellows and I add just a little drop of liquid white to that.

Oh, there we go.

Just mix them.

Just kind of mix them all together.

And let's come up here and add a little touch of highlight, a little accent to our, our distant, our distant little hillside back here.

There we go, just something quiet and subtle.

Don't want too much interruption from anything back there.

It's sitting in the background where it's supposed to be.

Let's take a little dark sienna and I've got some of that bluish color.

Just make a real pretty gray.

A little more liquid white with it.

Cut across.

We'll cut in a little water line back here, a little water ripple, shoreline far away, just kind of clean up that edge bit.

There we go.

All right.

Now, let's come a little closer.

Let's go back into that nice dark color.

Go back with my fan brush.

We'll have some bigger trees live a little closer.

Just with that same color.

We've got a big, yeah, certainly right there.

Why not?

Big Tree lives right there.

And you just work back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and work your way down that tree.

What a marvelous life I've had being able to share this with everybody.

That really is, that really is the fun of it.

That's the joy of it, is sharing this with other people.

And there are certified instructors all over this country.

What a legacy Bob has left.

So many.

Show you how easy it can be if you want to do it.

And it can be.

And it is.

It really is.

Let's pick up some dark color.

I'm going to pick up some black and blue and a little brown a little crimson, a little green.

Just all those colors, make a big mess out of my palette.

Why not?

Why not?

we'll put some, we'll put some trees in here.

I think I had trees in the original.

Might have cleaned up a few spots and made it a little neater but [chuckles] we'll get, we'll get the same basic gist.

I remember standing out on my parents' deck.

It was such a pretty day painting this painting, painting outdoors.

That was a lot of fun.

Still is when I have the chance to do it.

If you've never tried painting outdoors, you ought to try it.

You never get better light.

Just to hear all those summertime sounds and I can, I can just kind of go right back to that in my mind.

What a nice day that was.

What a peaceful day that was.

Let's see, we'll grab a little, grab a little liquid white on our one inch brush.

Just going of pull it through some of those yellows.

And I'm going to change up the yellows as I go.

And we'll pop in, pop in some happy little bushes that live up, live up on the edge of the lake here.

Nice bright greens, maybe a little Indian yellow in the next batch so they're slightly different.

There we go, a little ochre in the last batch.

Just kind of work through them methodically.

I want the, I want the colors to change just a little as I go.

And be sure you save a lots of dark in there.

Got to have that dark to show the light.

How true is that in painting and in life?

Go to have dark show the light.

I'll put a little light on our little evergreens here.

Not sure what variety of evergreens these are exactly.

I know I used to call them all pine trees and I had a tree expert in one of my classes and he corrected me.

I think he said those are actually spruce trees, so.

We'll, [chuckles] we'll go with that.

I just reduce them all to happy little trees.

That's what they are to me.

And you get to make them whatever you want to make them in your world.

That's the beauty of painting.

You get to make it your way.

All right.

Had to clean off a little room.

I was running out of space.

That ever happened to you?

Does me all the time.

Let's mix up a little, a little gray and brown and white.

Got some black and brown and white in there and a little sienna too just to give it sort of a reddish flavor.

I'm just going to graze over that little bank [Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] like that.

Take a little bit of my water ripple color.

Oh, tell you want.

While I've got some of that highlight on the brush, let's do this.

We might see, let's see a little hint of that highlight showing up in our water reflection there.

Yeah, there we go.

Graze across.

All right, now.

Make this one just a little brighter.

A little more liquid white and titanium white.

Mash that out real flat and just cut across.

There we go, we'll make that little water ripple shine just a bit more.

All right.

Now I've got a brush that's still filled with, still filled with dark.

Lots of dark, so let's use it.

Let's use it up.

It's the last painting of the series, so we need to use all this paint up.

[chuckles] Let's come down here and have, have bushes live right here.

Big brush makes some beautiful stuff if you're not afraid of it.

You've got to pull it out and use it once in a while.

Then we'll tap a little land in here.

[Nic makes "shoom" sound] Just comes down like that.

Then I had a little, I kind of rearranged my tree.

I had a little, happy little tree sitting way back there in the original.

I'm going, I'm going to pull him to the front.

We'll put it, we'll put it in basically the same place, but I'm going to pull him up front.

I'm going to use some dark Sienna and Van Dyke Brown on a fan brush.

And let's have, he lives right... [Nic makes "rr, rr, rr" sounds] Well, he does now.

Right there.

[Nic makes "shooo" sound] Maybe there's a little arm coming in from there.

I got another one.

Another big arm coming down [Nic makes "rrr" sound] right in there.

Make him a big tree with a big old foot.

Comes across and down on this side, right down like that.

Oh, right over my little tree in the background.

Oh well, too bad little tree.

You win some, you lose some.

Let's use a little liquid white, some of our yellows, maybe a little touch of sap green.

And I'm going to add some highlights back here before I get into highlighting my tree.

That way I can just push them into the background.

A touch more liquid white.

There we go.

Lots of paint here and just a very, very, very light touch.

Going slightly outside of the dark.

And you just sort of, you just sort of kiss it very gently.

Something about like so.

Okay, let's take... well, we've already got a little white and brown and black all mixed together so.

Mixed it to a marbled appearance.

Let's take some of that and just, just kind of graze [Nic makes "ssssoo" sound] down the side of this tree.

We'll put some bark on him.

[Nic makes "shoo" sound] Let him fall right out like that.

A little down this side.

[Nic makes "rrrr" sound] A little down here.

Pardon my hand in the way.

[chuckles] [Nic makes "sssshoo" sound] There we go.

Okay, over on the back side, I'm going to pick up some black and brown and make sure it's very, very dark on this side.

That's where we'll just push our little, push a little bush back into the background back there.

Make him quiet, make him behave.

You don't have to behave but that little bush does.

Take a little paint thinner and some Van Dyke brown, we'll put some little branches on this tree.

Now, I'm not going to, I'm not going to belabor this too much because we'll do some of these branches as we put a little foliage on him.

But I do, I do need just a few in there in case they show through.

Just here and there.

There we go.

And if you should have any trouble making these stick or making your paint flow, chances are you just need a little more paint thinner in it.

That's usually the error.

As many classes, as I've taught, it's rare that someone gets this paint as thin as they need it to be the first time so don't be afraid to put a little paint thinner in there.

It'll make it work better.

It really will.

Back to my browns and blues and black, a little green.

Just, I'm just going after that two inch brush today.

Why not?

We'll put some, we'll put some sort of light, airy foliage up here.

Just let it.... it's almost springtime looking.

Springtime.

Summertime.

Good time.

It's my favorite time of year.

Good thing I live where it's warm all the time.

Or most of the time anyway.

Most of the time.

There we go.

I want to, I want to still be able to kind of see through here.

I want birds to be able to fly through here and not break their neck.

So we'll have a few little branches still showing.

We don't want to cover everything up.

Okay.

Let's jump back to our little one inch brush.

A little more of that liquid white, a little sap green, cad yellow, Indian yellow.

Just mix them together.

Nice little combination.

And we'll pop some little highlights on all of this stuff out here.

Do one little cluster of leaves at a time.

Don't get hurry, don't get greedy.

They'll be there waiting for you.

And you can change the flavor a little as you go.

The light changes.

Maybe one part of the tree got more chlorophyll in it than the other, who knows?

As long as you've got an excuse [chuckles] and as long as it looks intentional, that's usually the big key.

As long as it looks like you meant to do it, usually everything works out okay.

There we go.

All right, down in front here.

Let's go back to our cleaner two inch brush that we had going.

We'll load it up with some of these yellows, a little touch of the blues there, and we'll come down and just add a little accent, a little highlight to our grass.

Our little grassy foreground here.

And as I'm kind of wrapping things up here on this painting, again, I just want to give you a heartfelt thanks for joining us for making a little boy's dreams come true.

I hope you've enjoyed being with us.

I hope I'll have us back.

We'll come back and do more paintings again if you want.

Put a little grass in the front here.

Just use some of that nice dark green on the liner brush.

Got a few little things growing up by the water's edge.

I want to be sure and say a word of thanks to everybody that's here at the station who's worked so hard to put this together.

Thank you to my wife and little boy for being patient while we worked hard to put this together.

Had a lot of nights away from home practicing and figuring out what we wanted to paint exactly.

And of course, the beside you at home watching, probably the most important is to say thank you to Bob.

So thank you, Bob, for giving, giving the world so much joy.

It's my pleasure to be able to be a little part of it.

Let's come down here and sign this one.

A little bright red.

And we'll put a little bird on there to remember Bob.

So again, thanks so much for joining us.

I hope you'll have us back and until we meet again, happy painting.

Bye bye.

[Music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankins' book of 13 never before seen painting projects from Bob Ross, call one 800 Bob Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]