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

[Music] Hi, I'm Nicholas Hankins.

Welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm so glad you could join me today for a little Bob Ross technique painting.

We're going to go down to the banks of a river so, come on up to the canvas, let me tell you what's going on.

I've got an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas.

I applied some water based black gesso to the lower portion and just kind of popped around some little shapes up here with a, a natural sea sponge.

And once that was dry, I've covered this portion of the canvas, the dark portion with liquid clear, and then with a very thin mixture of a combination of Prussian blue, Van Dyke brown, sap green, even put a little crimson in there.

And then the, the top as, as usual, has been coated with just a small amount of the liquid white.

And with that, we're all ready to go.

I'm going to take my two inch brush and pick up a little Prussian blue and we'll, we'll paint a happy little sky up here.

We're going to go, go sit by the river on a nice, lazy summer afternoon.

And the sun is getting low and it just sort of sparkles across the leaves and makes it look pretty.

Make little golden touches on the trees.

We can let some of that color just kind of drift down over that.

Put the brush to the side for a second.

Let's take a one inch brush now and pick up a good bit of titanium white.

Well, we'll pop a little cloud in that sky.

This is a scene right out of my, my old stomping ground in East Tennessee, where I did all kinds of growing up.

[chuckles] Soften that little cloud, just use little circular strokes, lots of paint on the brush, little circular strokes.

Paint a beautiful little cloud or two up here.

Big puffy summer time cloud.

Let's do another, get plenty of, plenty of white on the brush.

We'll come back and just build another little cloud right in there, floating around and having a big time.

There we go.

Once again, I'll blend out the bottom, fluff it up.

Brush across, make it sit back there nice and quiet.

All right.

We'll keep going with that little one inch brush actually.

I've got, I've already got some white on there and that's good.

Let's go into this base color that I that I coated all this portion of the canvas with, that mother color that's sort of going to, going to show up throughout the entire painting.

I'm going to add a little more sap green to it and some white and then just tap, just tap that brush and give it a little oomph as you push it into the paint.

We'll come up here and just pick out... We've got big banks of trees that are just sitting out here along the river, basking in the sunshine.

Just want to create some nice little loose tops.

These are the highest trees so they are lit a little more, a little more so than some of the others.

And I'm just tapping with the, the corner of the brush.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, like that.

And I'll grab a clean and dry two inch brush here, make sure it's nice and dry, and then I'll just kind of tap and diffuse and soften the base so it looks very hazy and atmospheric.

Summer time in, in East Tennessee is just that hazy and atmospheric.

There's always lots of humidity and late afternoon haze just kind of hangs in the, hangs in the atmosphere.

It's beautiful, though.

If you ever get a chance to visit the Smoky Mountains or the just Appalachian region in, in particular at any time of year, it's gorgeous, especially in spring and autumn.

Taking a little bit of that, a little bit of that cad yellow, yellow ochre on that same dirty brush.

I added a little liquid white just to make sure it sticks.

Let's come back and we're just going to lighten the tops of these little trees.

These are the ones that are kind of being sun kissed just along that top edge.

Still using just the corner of the brush, I'm just going to pick out some more individualized shapes in there.

There we go.

Just tapping, kind of tapping and turning the brush a little bit so it feels like foliage and leaves just hanging around.

Working slightly outside the dark first and then coming on down and into the shapes.

There we go.

A little, little variation every time.

I even add a little sap green just to change the flavor.

There we go.

Once again, I might, might just kind of tap and diffuse this a bit just so it doesn't appear to stop suddenly.

And it pushes it into the background just a little more too.

That's also nice.

Feels like it's a little farther away from us.

And it is, so that's good.

Now let's build some closer trees, a little darker.

I'm going to put some, put some more distinct tops in here, so I'm going to pick up another clean brush and go into just the dark color, just the dark base mixture.

Maybe add a little sap green once again, avoiding the white that's in the paint.

I want to keep this very, very dark, very pure.

I don't want it to get chalky.

So let's come back.

We'll create some more distinct closer treetops just living in front of those.

Yeah, there's one right there.

They've got, they've got it made too, just hanging out on the banks of the river, watching the old Nolichucky float by For that dark, there we go.

Now, as we work down into this area, I don't have to worry too much because it's already dark down there.

I'm not going to bother, not going to bother tapping all that in for no reason.

We don't need to.

We will now take, though, a filbert brush.

Let's, let's load this up with some Van Dyke Brown, dark sienna, a little touch of white so it shows up against that background.

And we'll paint some little tree trunks back here in these trees.

There we go.

I want these to, I want them to show up, but I don't want them to look like they're glowing either.

Kind of a happy medium between light enough to show and dark enough to still look like it's in shadow.

Because these are, these are kind of in an area that's being blocked from the sunlight.

I also want to vary the, vary the shade and vary the value just a little bit kind of reflect different types of trees.

So I might add a little more sienna, a little more, a little more white here and there.

I know right now it feels like these are just kind of sitting on top of the trees, but just you, just you wait.

Just you wait, it's going to... it's all going to take its proper place here in just a second.

You'll see what I'm talking about.

This is the fun part of the painting when everything just starts to gel together after you've got that foundation built and you get to, get to play around with the details.

Let's come back and add some little, a few little arms on these trees.

We're not going to get, we're not going to get too crazy with branches and sticks and twigs.

I just want a few in case they show because we will lose so many.

Sometimes you get one that kind of [Nic makes "rr, rr, rr" sounds] hangs down like that.

Sort of bends down like it's trying to get a drink out of the river.

Keeping, keeping enough paint thinner in the paint that it, that it flows off the brush and I don't have to work too hard to get it to, to get it to stick and make nice little lines.

There we go.

A few on these back here too.

Like I say, just little indications.

I'm not, I'm not trying to paint a particular number or be able to count for accuracy.

[chuckles] We just, we just need an impression, that's all.

Leave you with an impression, a good impression, lasting impression.

This part of the country certainly left a lasting impression on me.

It's very near and dear.

Very near and dear to me.

A whole lot of my family and friends are back there, too.

So it's near and dear to me for a lot of reasons.

All right, that ought to be sufficient for our little branches and etc., so let's get to the good stuff.

Let's get to the good stuff.

We're going to jump in here with a little more of the combination of yellows.

I've got mostly cad yellow and Indian yellow right now, a little, little bit of titanium white, just to make sure it's really, really bright.

And let's check it out and see how it looks.

Yeah, there we go.

Again, just the corner of the brush.

I'm going to light up these tree tops with a little bit of this color.

If you have any trouble making that paint stick, just, just add a little liquid white to it.

That'll help you out tremendously.

Again, these are the tops of the trees, so they're going to be quite bright.

But I want it to darken rather quickly.

I want it to get darker quite rapidly once we're out of the, the upper, upper area here.

Just tapping and kind of turning letting that foliage cascade down.

A little, little something on these over here, too.

We don't want them left out.

There we go.

Bright, bright, pretty tree tops.

Making sure they stand out against that beautiful background.

Okay, now we're just about, we're just about out of that area where we have a lot of little bright golden yellow type highlights.

So let's come back down to the palette and I'm just going to take that brush and go through some of that base color.

Grab, be right back.

Be right back.

I'm going to grab a little titanium white and a touch of blue, maybe a little touch of Prussian blue and phthalo green.

Kind of makes more of a silvery bluish kind of green.

And now we're going to come in here and continue to shape our little trees and add some accents.

But it's a much, it's a much more muted, much softer type of green.

See that?

Shadowy silver green.

Be sure you don't cover all your darks, though.

Got to have those darks in there.

They do a very important job.

There we go, occasionally one's a little brighter.

It's, it's like poking its head out just a little past some of the others.

So you just kind of play it back and forth, pick and choose.

You can add a little midnight black, gray it down, darken it, dull it if you want to be a little more quiet and sort of sit back in the back there.

Shh.

Like that.

Then you come back and brighten it up again just a touch.

Maybe a little more blue.

Just every brush load of paint, I try to change it a little bit, but I'm always loading it the same way.

Always pushing the, the tips of the bristles into the paint so it sort of scoops up a little ridge of paint on the palette.

There we go.

Getting down more toward the, the banks on the shore here.

And all those little holes and all those little dark places in there are so important.

Ooph, you've got to have all that in there.

That's where the deer and the bears and raccoons and squirrels, that sort of thing, hides.

There we go.

Maybe, maybe just a little touch of yellow with it this time.

Maybe, maybe this is getting out to the point where we'd see a little more sunshine kind of trickling through.

Begin to think about how this is going to wind its way down to the banks of the river to the shore.

Sometimes you can take a little black and yellow and just mix those two together.

That makes a nice green.

It's a little midnight black and cad yellow.

Real soft, quiet, subtle kind of green.

Okay, tell you what.

Now I'm going to grab a two inch brush.

This is the one I was using in the sky a minute ago.

I'm going to pick up just a little touch a titanium white and let's come up here.

I'm just going to add some reflections, some light into the river so it feels like there's water there.

I want to do this in a couple a couple of passes.

So I'll initially just put a little white in there.

And I'm going to reach back and grab my, my little one inch brush I was tapping all that foliage with, take some of that foliage color, we'll pull a little bit of that in here and there and there and here.

Just not with a, not with too much of a plan.

Kind of let it happen.

Maybe we'll pull a little bit of bright or yellow up from the bottom in a couple of spots.

Maybe there's a little there.

And we'll come back and take our, our two inch brush, give it another, another pass of just sweeping down for blending's sake.

Then we'll brush across.

Already, we've got the makings of a river there.

We need to keep doing a little work to it, but we've got a good foundation for it.

All right, let's take a little, let's take a little Van Dyke Brown, a little dark Sienna, tiny little touch of white.

Just going to begin to get a little feel for some, for some ground, a little exposed dirt and rock.

Back here I'm just going to kind of scrub it.

Scrub it around like that.

Let it, let it get established a little bit.

Jump back to my little foliage brush has all those good colors in it, and we'll let a little bit of that come down and overlap the dirt so it doesn't feel, does it feel stuck on top.

We'll also take some of that, some of that good old brown mixture.

I'm going to, I'm going to take a portion of it, put it up here.

Maybe add a little black as well into a bunch of white, and I'm going to add nice, nice little dose of liquid white to that as well.

Soften it up to the consistency of, I don't know, maybe sweet cream, something like that.

Grab our little filbert brush, wipe it out.

That was my tree trunk brush.

It's going to be my rock brush now.

We'll fill this brush full of Van Dyke Brown, a little black, nice, full on both sides.

And then I'm going to reach over here and take just one side [Nic makes "wwwhhht" sound] through that light color.

So I've got dark on one side of the brush, light on the other.

Let's come on up here.

There are a tremendous amount of little river rock that live on the banks of the Nolichucky.

Beautiful little rocks and stones.

I say little, some of, some of them are, some of are big, [Nic makes "oootht" sound] like that.

And some little bitties, some I'm kind of wander out into the water, see if I can see any fish or salamanders.

All those, all those good things you go down to the river and look for as a kid, see what you can find, take back and gross your mom out with.

A few little rocks out there, too.

Something like so.

Something like so.

Whew, I've got a mess here by my titanium white, I've got to clean that up.

It's poor housekeeping on my part.

There we go.

Housekeeping, palette keeping, can't be that different.

Take a little blue and white, just on my little number three fan brush, and we'll come back here and start to kind of tidy up our, our little shore here.

We're going to put some sparkles alight on the water, little rapids around the rocks.

Just kind of show that this, this river is in motion.

It's moving around.

Water's winding in between and around and up to the shore.

Sometimes, sometimes it comes out between the rocks and [Nic makes "sshht" sound] comes over and a little waterfall.

[Nic makes "wwhht" sound] A little watery fall like that.

And then you get a little splash and then it carries on its way again.

[Nic makes "pshoo" sound] And it kind of winds through there [Nic makes "shhoo" sound] little, and another little watery fall comes that way, too.

Crashes [Nic makes "tch, tch, tch" sounds] and wanders on out.

However you want it to look.

It's your little river, you design it the way you want it to look.

There we go.

Just a few little, few little, little rapids.

Sometimes there's a little splash.

[Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] Sort of set your rocks down into the river a little more.

But just like with the trees and bushes that we've painted today and in this, throughout this series, just be sure you don't cover all that dark.

Got to have some of that dark in there.

It plays, it plays an important role in all of this.

And let's soften that just a bit with my big brush.

And let's, let's get, let's get crazy now.

Let's get crazy.

Let's go back to that filbert.

It's got, it's turned magically back into a tree brush.

It's been a tree brush.

It's been a rock brush.

Now it's a tree brush again.

Load it full of that Van Dyke brown and a little black.

We're going to come way forward in the painting.

We're going to have a big tree that lives [Nic makes "rrrrr" sound] right there.

[chuckles] How's that for a decision and go with it?

It goes right off the canvas.

This little scene is actually from a photograph I took over the summer when we went home to visit family.

We got stopped for a minute in traffic and looked down over the river.

It was just the right time of day.

I got to see all this beautiful, let's see... there was a big, big [Nic makes "rrrrr,rrrr" sounds] branch that hung over like that.

had all kinds of Had all kinds of foliage on it.

Tell you what, we're probably to the point now we could switch over to a liner brush.

Take a little liner brush with some paint thinner, a little Van Dyke Brown.

Just pull a few little smaller, smaller limbs and branches.

[Nic makes "sssssoo" sound] Here we go.

Just let them kind of make a little y-shapes that fork off of one another and turn.

Sort of feels like little arms on the tree and they're, they're holding their palms out to catch the rain.

That's, that's the thought I always had in my mind when I painted tree branches and the like.

Take a little bit of that, a little bit of that rock color I had going here and a little more sienna, I'm going to put just a touch a highlight on this branch that's curving over in front of the tree so, so we can see it.

So we can see it's there.

[chuckles] We'll know in a minute.

We're going to put some leaves on here and make them real pretty.

But.

I do want to be able to kind of tell that there's a branch under all those leaves.

And maybe a little, little limb or two forks off of there.

[Nic makes "sshht" sound] Something like that.

That old tree needs some bark on it.

So we'll take a little dark sienna, Van Dyke brown, titanium white cut off a little roll of that paint on the knife.

And let's come back up here and this will help, this will help our little tree stand out some more.

I'm just going to, pardon my arm in the way here, but I'm just going to kind of touch, touch, touch, touch, touch and put a little, little highlight and a little bark texture on that on that tree.

Ooh, he's a biggie.

He almost goes up there where I can't reach him anymore.

A little on this one too.

Here we go.

About like that.

All right.

Let's go back and grab our one inch brush again.

It's got all that dark color in it.

Let's come up here and we'll sock a little, sock a little foliage on this.

Sock it to me.

That's what the tree's saying.

Need leaves, sock it to me.

A little hanging out there.

Maybe a little right in there.

Just kind of darken it in, fill it in.

There's a little bit right there.

That might have actually been from a neighbor tree that was reaching over to kind of photobomb.

Had to, had to hold his arm out there and say, I'm here.

Don't forget about me.

Build up a little, little dark texture in here.

This, this, this was a wild little branch.

It kind of hung way down.

It was just a little bitty branch, but it had lots of leaves on it.

It was healthy.

So it kind of made that tree droop over, and hang over and down.

Take some liquid white on a, on an oval brush.

That would work really well for this forward, forward section.

I'm going to take a lot of really bright yellow and Indian yellow, cad yellow.

Add some little highlights on this tree.

Keeping just enough liquid white in there to help it, help it stick easily.

Change the flavor occasionally, maybe a little yellow ochre.

There we go.

I'm really going to go for the gusto here on this, on this last set of leaves because, boy, they were bright.

Yeah, like that.

Just that golden sparkle hanging out there.

It was so pretty.

It was so pretty.

Since you couldn't be there, I just thought I'd paint it and share it with you this way.

[chuckles] And that usually works.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed hanging out on the banks of the old Nolichucky River with me.

If you're ever in East Tennessee, stop off and see some of this beautiful scenery.

You'll be glad you did.

Thanks for painting with me.

Happy painting and I'll see you next time.

[music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankins' 68 page book with 13 painting projects or his companion DVD set, Call 1-800-BOB ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]