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

[music] Hi there.

Welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm Nicholas Hankins.

It's a pleasure to have you back with us.

And it's my special pleasure to share with you another one of Bob's beautiful paintings that he created for his series 32 of The Joy of Painting.

And it's quite a painting indeed, as you can see.

Come on up to the canvas and I'll show you what's going on here.

So I have an 18 by 24 pre-stretched double primed canvas, just like Bob used on the show.

And as you can plainly see, I've taken some black gesso and a natural sea sponge, and I just kind of plunked around some little shapes all over sort of to approximate trees.

The look of trees.

And then once that was dry, the Black Gesso is a water based paint, so it dries very quickly.

I applied a very, very thin, even coat of liquid clear.

And as you caught me here, I'm just applying a little yellow ochre to the canvas and getting started there.

So let's, let's mix up a new color and we'll get going.

So follow me down here to the palette.

I'm going to use some alizarin crimson, proportionately much more alizarin crimson than sap green, but we'll mix sap green and alizarin crimson together.

Just a little more of that green, come up with a real pretty sort of reddish brown color.

That's how Bob creates that pretty autumn scene with that old tree leaning across that little stream.

Something about like that.

We'll try it out and see if we like it.

Just take that same old dirty brush and we'll pick up some of that brown color.

Homemade brown.

Homemade brown color.

Let's see what we've got.

Yeah, like that.

That'll work just fine.

So let's come on around.

I'm just going to kind of surround that yellow ochre that I got started and we'll paint a little bit of this color down here all over the bottom of the painting, too.

The beauty of having a little bit of work on your canvas done in, in black gesso is that it's locked into place and it won't move.

And then we can take these transparent colors and paint right over the top of it.

And that gesso will still show through.

And it's beautiful.

You can create some of the most beautiful things you've ever imagined with that black gesso.

And it creates so much distance and just really puts a lot of, well it just puts a lot of mood and atmosphere in your painting it's such a nice thing.

There we go, maybe just a little more of that color.

Put it down here all over the bottom.

All right.

Something like that.

Something about like that.

And then I'd say we're just about ready to wash an old brush so come on down here and let's take care of that.

Now, as you well know, Bob's brushes don't like soap and water, so we wash our brushes in odorless paint thinner.

And we'll shake out the excess.

Beat Devil out of it and we're ready to go again.

All right.

Now let's take, well we take a clean brush first now, clean, dry brush.

And I'll just sort of soften and blend some of that color back into the background.

So nothing stops too fast.

I don't want to be able to see where one color stops and the next color starts.

And we've just about got that taken care of.

We'll pick up a little titanium white now.

And there's a nice warm glow in this painting.

Now, Titanium white is opaque.

Crimson and the sap green are transparent colors.

We can see right through them.

But that white is opaque and even the yellow ochre is a little bit opaque.

And that just means that it will obscure things a little bit.

It's still, if it's applied thinly, you can still sort of see through it.

As you can see, there.

But that will, that will really just create that look of fog and mist and things glowing back there.

You can almost feel that, feel that early, early morning, early on a late summer or early fall morning, feel all that mist and sunlight burning through the haze back there.

There we go.

Well, let's just keep going with that same brush.

It's working pretty good.

We'll take some more of that titanium white, and go right into some yellow ochre and maybe a little touch of bright red.

Yellow ochre, a little bright red.

We'll load that into the brush.

I'm just going to, just take the brush and sort of tap it and scoot it.

Scoot it a little bit into that paint.

Push up a little ridge paint right on the end of your brush.

All right.

Let's go up here and work on some of these far distant little trees back here.

Just going to tap on some little, little highlights, a little, little accents hanging out there on their branches.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] Just tapping with the corner of the big brush, not using that entire brush.

It's such a big, big, unwieldy brush.

People can tend to be a little afraid of this one sometimes when they first start painting but it can do beautiful things once you learn how to drive it.

You have to be a licensed brush driver.

Har, har, har, I'm sorry.

Try to, try to hold off on the jokes.

They're dad jokes.

I guess I have a license to tell bad jokes.

With, with apologies to my little boy.

[chuckles] Still just tapping with that corner though.

I try to use just a portion of that big brush because you can make some beautiful little marks with it.

Maybe, maybe we'll even go a little lighter.

Let's pick up a little more white.

Same color, but I'm just going to lighten it up and you can make your trees and etc.

look even more obscure back here.

They're just, just barely peeking through.

They're really bathed in sunlight.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Got to make those little noises though.

I know you've heard Bob say that.

Got to make those little noises or it doesn't work.

There we go, just some beautiful little things.

Let's pick up some of these other yellows.

Let's try a little Indian yellow and yellow ochre, and we're going to vary the colors just a little bit to get some of those autumn, autumn looking colors going.

There we go.

Tapping and turning the brush just a little bit.

Maybe even a little cad yellow in there.

A little touch of the cad yellow.

Let's come back and we'll plant a little tree right in there.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] There he goes.

All right.

And I'm going to switch brushes.

Let me make sure it's nice and dry.

And let's go back into that, back into that homemade brown color.

We'll load it up full, nice and full of that color.

Tap it in there.

Tap, tap, push up that little ridge of paint.

There you go, there's a good shot of it right on the end of the brush.

All right.

Let's come back up here.

Now, we can come back and start to layer.

Start to layer in some more little trees and etc.

This one's a little closer.

It's a little darker, a little more, a little more in silhouette.

Got a big old branch that hangs out there.

There we go.

And you just kind of let these things grow whichever way you want them to, because trees grow all sorts different ways.

It's up to you to decide that in your world.

Now, obviously, I'm trying to stick as close to Bob's as I can.

I want to show you how Bob created that painting and how he'd go about presenting it to you.

These are such beautiful paintings.

I'm so excited that these, we can finally share these with you.

Been a long time coming, been a long time coming.

And I hope Bob would be pleased with it.

I'm sure if you're excited about painting the minutes and it's doing good things to your heart, he's happy about that for sure, he's got to be happy about that.

All right, let's tap back into some of that color.

I want a couple more little trees.

There's a couple that live on this side about right there.

About right there, again, just, just with the corner if you use just a portion of that brush, you can paint some of the most delicate, beautiful little things you've ever seen in your life.

It's just a matter of getting a feel for it.

It's like any other thing.

Just have to get a feel for it.

Just have to get a feel for it.

You can't jump right in.

You didn't jump right and tie your shoe right the first time.

You didn't jump right into a car and drive it right the first time.

Takes a little practice and that's all right.

Give yourself time to practice.

Give yourself time to learn how to do it.

We'll pick up a little script liner brush.

Now I'm just going to dip it in the paint thinner.

A little paint thinner, these old things need a trunk.

Take some of that homemade brown, add a little white and lots of paint thinner in there.

I'm dipping it and getting a lot of paint thinner.

Just adding a little brown to it at a time as I go.

And let's come up here and put a little indication of a tree trunk that may or may not peek through there.

I'm not sure.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I'm not going to take a whole lot of time to put it in just in case we do lose it.

Then I won't feel too bad if we come back and cover it up.

You ever do that?

Cover it up?

I do that all the time.

I did that all the time when I was learning how to paint.

Paint something so pretty.

And I'd come back and 2 or 3 minutes later with a big old two inch brush and I'd just stomp right over it and you'd never know it was there.

But like Bob says, it's okay.

We know it's, we know it's back there and we learn from it.

And if you learn from it, you didn't waste your time.

Any time you learn something, it's, it's not a waste of time.

Even a little, little stick sticking up out of there, I think.

A little treetop peeking through, something like that.

Be good enough for now anyway.

Let's see.

Let's go back to that brush that has all the yellows in it.

Going to add some more yellows to it, make it real nice and bright and pretty.

I want to put a little highlight on, a little highlight on these trees over here.

Again, just gently, gently, gently tapping and turning.

Now, if you have any trouble getting your paint to stick to the canvas you can add just a little touch of the liquid white here.

That'll help it stick, but just a delicate little touch.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] Delicate little touch, lots of paint and a light little touch.

There's a secret to that.

That's it.

[chuckles] A lot of paint and a light touch.

I'm adding a little sap green to my color.

Tap in here again.

Let's come up here and highlight this big boy.

Same way.

Just corner the brush.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tapping.

And I'm just trying to think about as much as I can.

I'm trying to think about little individual layers and leaving a little dark in between those layers.

I don't want to, I don't want to mash it all together and lose it.

There we go.

Vary the flavor a little as you go.

That's always nice.

This has got a little, a little sap green in it.

Maybe we hit a little more Indian yellow in the next batch.

Work right over the top of your little tree trunks if you want to, work right over the top of them.

That sort of pushes the tree trunk down into the middle of the tree.

Makes it sit down there where it belongs.

Lots of paint, light little touch.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] Come on down here.

We can pick up a little more white on occasion if we want to so it, so it shows up just a little brighter, especially as it gets closer to that, that sunshine glow.

It would be less obscured out here.

Kind of in that direct path.

Pretty.

Pretty.

There we go.

I'm just trying to vary the flavor a little as I go.

There's a little bright red in that batch.

That little bush is special right there.

He's got some bright red on him.

And let's go back.

Same brush again.

I'm just going to, going to keep on going with that one.

Because it's working so good I'm going to add a little sap green to this and we need to indicate a little bit of a a little bit of a hill back here.

There's a little stream.

So we need to put in the banks of the stream, something for these trees to sit on.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] I just kind of, kind of roll right down.

And of course, as you're doing this, remember, think about the lay of the land.

Got to think about whichever way you tap or tilt or turn your brush here, that's going to create an angle in your land.

So if you would, if we were to tap down this way be a very steep bank.

But I want to just sneak in here kind of shallow, but working down toward that all the time.

Oh, I'll tell you what, before we get too far there, let's do this.

Let's have a little fun with some, take a little one inch brush and pick up some white, A little titanium white, just plain old titanium white.

And back here, I want to see a little indication of a reflection, a little light reflecting down in my water.

So we'll just take and pull that straight down.

Pull that straight down before I wind too many little banks in there.

There we go.

We'll take a clean brush.

Just graze across that.

Pull it straight down first and then straight across.

There we go.

Now we can tap some little river banks in there.

You can even add a little bit of your brown if you want to go a little darker.

I'm going to let these come right on down.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] And this cuts, if I remember, yeah cuts right across and down in front there.

And as you're tapping, see it's going to pick up some of that brown and it'll get darker, darker, darker, darker.

Darker, darker, darker.

You can sort of tap that back edge and let it disappear back into the shadow back there.

Same thing on this side.

Just tap it real gently and they'll automatically pick up some of that, some of that nice brown that we put on the canvas when we started.

And that's, that's one of the most fantastic things about this method is that it does so much of the work for you.

If you let it, if you let it.

You can mix your color right on the canvas.

You don't have to work yourself to death on the palette.

I know you've heard Bob talk about that.

Add a little yellow down here in the corner, brighten that up just a bit.

And maybe, maybe, maybe, here and there, and there and here, let's take a little Van Dyke Brown on the, on the knife.

I'm going to flatten it out.

Just cut across, cut off a little roll of paint and we'll come up here.

Just add a little, add a little dirt underneath our river banks there.

Just kind of rubbing it in.

A little under that one.

Muddy banks of this little creek, of this little stream back here.

Now, we'll take a little titanium white, maybe some of that homemade brown, maybe a little dark sienna in there with it.

I'm just going to mix it to a very marbled appearance and we'll, again, cut off a little roll of paint there, just like that.

And let's come up here to the canvas and we'll very gently, very gently just graze.

Put a little highlight.

Don't need a whole lot, but a little bit here and there.

Gently, gently graze it.

Come back with our big brush, has all those greens.

Maybe we'll, we'll come back to you in a minute knife.

We'll pick up a little brighter, a little brighter variation of these greens.

And you know, some of these little banks will have brighter sunlight playing on them, just like this.

Here and there.

Don't overdo, don't overdo.

It's easy to overdo.

I see that all the time when we teach classes down at Bob's workshop.

We have people come in and the first little taste of the highlight on a tree or on the bushes or the grass.

It looks so good.

It looks so good.

It's working so good so you just, you kind of naturally figure we'll just put this everywhere.

But that's when it loses its effectiveness.

You don't want to, you don't want it to lose its effectiveness.

We'll tap a little bit of this color in over here too.

This little bank needs a highlight on it as well.

There we go.

Still following the lay of the land, that's kind of pushing our little mud banks down there underneath as well.

We need them to sit down there and belong, sit down there where they're supposed to.

They look like they're stuck on top.

Sometimes you just have to tap a little grass over the top of them.

Now I'm going to pick up a little touch of liquid white and just mix it with some titanium white.

Maybe a even a little touch of that sienna, just to knock it down.

So it's not pure white.

I'm going to cut off a very tiny little roll of paint.

Let me do that again.

A tiny little roll of paint on my knife.

You can barely see it there and we'll come back, just wiggle around, keep your knife very flat, parallel to the top and bottom of the canvas.

You don't want your knife to dip down one way or the other.

Cut in a little water ripple here and there.

Water's moving, stream's moving up against our little riverbank.

Not sure, stream or whatever it is.

I guess, it depends.

Wonder how you, wonder what the difference is there between a river and a stream.

Is that size thing, gets to be a certain width?

It's a good question.

I'll have to look that up later.

Hope somebody'll write in and tell me before I get a chance to look it up.

Who knows?

All right.

I think it's about time for our bravery test in this painting.

Yes, it is.

Let's take our palette knife, and we'll cut off a nice big hunk of Van Dyke Brown there, and we have living in this painting.

Are you ready to do it?

Are you ready to do it?

Whew, I don't know if I am, but here we go.

Yeah, big tree.

Just crosses right through everything.

[chuckles] Right in the middle of the works.

He is a big one, but that's all right.

He's a pretty tree.

He's a pretty tree.

Will be by the time we get done.

Starts off looking a little rough, but it'll be pretty by the time we get done.

I'm even going to add a little midnight black to this, just to make sure it's real nice and dark.

I'm putting this paint on nice and thick so there's plenty of texture on it.

You can, you can actually feel the texture on this when it's dry.

But just make sure you wait until it's dry before you feel the texture.

I've had a lot of people, people, people love to ask this question with their fingers.

They say, "Is that painting dry?"

Oh, happens all the time.

So maybe, maybe hang your painting up high on the wall or, you know, out of reach until it has had a chance to dry.

People love to ask that question with their finger, and I don't know why, but they do.

But I guess that means they like it.

So it's okay.

[chuckles] It's all good.

Let's see, we'll take a little Van Dyke brown and Sienna and a little homemade brown.

Why not, mix it up into a marbled appearance and mix it with some titanium white.

And I'm just going to come in here and put a little again, very, very textured I'm going to put a little bark texture on this tree.

Pardon my arm in the way there.

Try to keep it out of way as best I can.

There we go.

Just add some little highlights.

You can, you can vary.

You can add more, more touches of the color.

You can add more of Van Dyke Brown in there.

Go heavier on the white, heavier on the sienna.

Just try it.

Just try it all.

And of course, at home you've got unlimited time to work on this stuff and you can really turn them into something special.

So, I want to see what you do when you do it.

Be sure and, be sure and send us a picture or post it online.

Tag it "Paint Like Bob Ross."

That way we can see what you're doing.

I can see what you're doing with this.

Let's see, let me take just a little touch of, about to run out of room on my palette here.

Maybe I should clean up.

Clean up a little spot to work here.

About out of room.

Fortunately, this palette cleans up, cleans up pretty quickly.

I'll mix up a little Prussian Blue and midnight black, a little touch, titanium white in there with it.

There we go, make a nice sort of blue, blue, gray color.

And I'm just going to put a little indication.

Don't overdo this either.

You can get way too much of this too easy.

I want just a little dab of reflected light on the backside of that tree, it sort of, sort of helps round it out.

It's a neat effect.

It's a real neat effect.

All right.

Back into my paint thinner with my little script liner brush, lots of paint thinner.

I'm going to go into some Van Dyke Brown and I'm sort of, sort of rolling that brush around there.

Let me see if I can, yeah, there you can see it.

Just rolling that brush around in my fingertips as I, as I load it up.

We get that paint just as thin as ink.

And let's come up here and we'll have particularly up here at the top and then working our way on down just some little, just little branches on our tree.

Kind of like to hold that brush up in the air like this and then use just the tip of it to create some old, gnarly limbs hang out there.

Sometimes they'll cross over the trunk.

That's really neat.

Makes it look more, more three dimensional when your limbs, limbs and branches and sticks and twigs and etc.

when they cross over the trunk, that means that either they either wrap around in front or behind one way or the other.

It's kind of going back into space one way or another.

Or forward into space, I guess I should say, back or forward into space.

We've got a wild looking little branch comes up through here, winds its way around.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka, rr, rr, rr" sounds] Sometimes those little noises are just thing you need to make a, make a little branch sort of wiggle around the right way.

We could have some that maybe, maybe they broke off.

Maybe they're, maybe they're hanging down like that.

Just all, all manner of different, different branches and twigs, sticks and limbs.

So we'll have a big one down here [Nic makes "rr, rr, rr" sounds] about like that.

Just fill them, filling full of all sorts of little arms.

[chuckles] All right.

I'll tell you what we got, we got a minute or two left play here.

I'll put a little, I'll put a little brother down here at his foot coming up.

Growing up out of the ground.

A little, little twig or two down there.

Take my brush that's got all the highlight color on it.

Come back to that just a second.

I'll kind of cover up his foot's a little bit.

[chuckles] I loved when Bob called it the foot's.

Kind of, kind of taken that for my own.

I love that.

Cover up his foot's a little bit, you know, and there's even a little, there's even a little, one more little bush that's right there, right there on the edge of the bank, [Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" noises] just like that.

Put a little highlight on him.

Tap, tap, tap that in there.

And I'd say we just about to have finished painting.

So thanks so much for watching.

Hope you enjoyed it.

And we'll see you next time.

Take care.

[music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankin's book of 13 Never before Seen painting projects from Bob Ross, call one 800 Bob Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]