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

[Music] Boy, isn't that a beautiful sunset scene that Bob created for his series 32?

And unfortunately, he wasn't able to share that one with us.

But today, you and I are going to walk through this painting.

Hi there.

I'm Nicholas Hankins, and hope you're going to enjoy this little sunset scene with me as you caught me here prepping the canvas.

I'm just using the old two inch brush with a little Indian yellow.

I'm going to tell you all about how I did some of this prep work, how Bob did this prep work as I just coat this entire canvas with some Indian yellow, transparent yellow.

I'm working on an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas, just exactly like the type of canvas Bob would have been using.

And as you can plainly see, we've already, we've already been busy here.

All of this work that you see on here, this black and white painting is painted with black and gray water based gesso.

And I painted all of this stuff on here.

Well, I painted all the little mountains and trees in the background with, believe it or not, just an inexpensive little hardware store foam applicator that you can pick up for maybe a dollar and a quarter at the, at the hardware store.

And then these tree shapes in the foreground we've, we've blotched in there with a, a natural sea sponge, I've just plopped it in the, in the black gesso and sort of plunked around and thought like a tree until we had some nice big dark silhouette shapes up front.

And once all of that was dry and the black gesso does dry very quickly, it takes maybe 15, 20 minutes to dry.

Once all that was dry, then I've coated the canvas with a thin, even coating of liquid clear.

Very thin coating of the liquid clear.

And that brings us to now, what you caught me doing.

I'm just applying this Indian yellow, transparent Indian yellow, all over the canvas so we can still see through it.

The ochre and cad yellow are opaque colors so they would cover.

Now let's have a little fun.

Let's take that same dirty brush and I'm just going to go right into some of the alizarin crimson.

Just a small amount, don't need a great deal.

And we'll head up to the top of the canvas.

Watch this.

We're going to turn that, top of that painting, into a bright, bold orange color.

Shoo.

That's strong, isn't it?

Just using our little crisscross strokes, a little more of that same color.

Let's come up in this corner and start.

And just let it work right on down.

When you use the liquid clear, another advantage is that you don't lose any of the intensity of your color.

It stays real bright and saturated.

Doesn't turn as pastel.

That lets you paint beautiful, vibrant skies like this.

Put a little orangey glow over here.

There we go.

While we've got that going, let's jump down here to the bottom we'll make some of this... You'd think that orange would just kind of carry through the whole scene.

We'll add a little in there, maybe over some of those trees.

Just give it a beautiful orangey glow, all over there.

All right, that ought to do it.

Tell you what, let's wash that brush out.

Wash it out with a little odorless paint thinner.

Go down here and shake out the excess.

And just beat the devil out of it.

That's always the fun part, isn't it?

Okay.

Let's grab a clean, dry two inch brush.

And I'm just making double sure that it's nice and dry.

Let's go into some titanium white now.

We're going to come back and light this, light this little mountain scene up.

We're going to put some of that sunshine glow in there.

A little white, and I'm just going to go right above right where I think the sun would be peeking over the, the summit of the mountain.

Now white's an opaque color.

Watch what happens as we do this.

As we stretch this color out, it gets brighter and brighter and brighter in the sky.

It's like turning a light on.

And I'm just going to let it carry on up, on up, on up.

And, I'll wipe a little bit more of that out.

I don't want to get it too strong or cover too much, but if you just kind of let it bleed over the edge of your mountain a little bit here, maybe over some of your trees.

[chuckles] Isn't that a neat effect?

Just looks like fog laying in the valley or haze or like a hazy summer afternoon.

See a little mist and fog in the valley, sun just breaking over the mountain peak.

It's a little obscured, but it's still there.

That is such a cool effect.

All right.

I need to mix up a little color so let's come down to the palette and do that.

I'm going to take a great deal of Alizarin Crimson, lots of the Alizarin Crimson and just a little touch of blue.

Lots of crimson and just a little blue.

I want a nice lavender color, but I want it to the red side so.

If you want to check out and see what you're working with, you can put a little white off to the side and just mix it in there.

Check out your color.

All right, matter of fact, why don't we, why don't we do this?

Let's take a little white off to the side and we'll make a little separate pile with a lighter version of that color.

There we go.

Now we've got two little piles to work out and we'll see what we come up with.

Okay.

Let's go back to that two inch brush and you can adjust pretty quickly that way, too.

Let's say we want it a little darker.

We'll just grab a little out of the dark pile and put it in the light pile and we'll come up here and see what we can come up with.

Let's say, looks like right about there... we've got a little, a little hazy, misty, soft cloud just kind of hanging out in the sky and I'm making a tiny little circles.

Can you see that?

Tiny little circles with the two inch brush.

And then I'm going to let this thing just kind of spin and drift and wander off wherever it wants to go.

Just to, just above that sun, it's just burning bright down there in the sky.

A little more of that color, let's come back, same way.

Little tiny circles.

Tight little, tiny circles.

See what I'm doing there?

I'll try to slow it down.

Tight, tiny little circles.

Something about like that.

Let me reach over here and grab a another clean, dry brush.

I'm going to soften over that a little bit, knock it down, stretch out some of the edges.

There we go.

And let's come back.

We'll, we'll continue to play with this just a little bit.

I'm going to take a little more of that dark color, just kind of build up build up a few little shadows within that cloud.

There we go.

Likewise, we can even take a little fan brush, grab a little number six fan brush, take a little of that lavender color, and let's stretch some little stringy, stringy, stringy little clouds, smoky little clouds just kind of hanging in the, hanging in the horizon down here.

Just making a little back and forth motions like this.

Just let them kind of drift wherever they want to drift.

I'm trying to stick pretty close to Bob's because I want you to see how this scene goes together, the way Bob intended it to go together.

There we go.

Now go back to my, back to my clean, dry brush.

Same thing, I'm just going to soften those out a little bit.

Something like so.

Shoot, sometimes it's even fun to take a little white, a little touch of the bright red and we'll sneak a little, we'll sneak a little highlight in there.

Sunshine's just bouncing up in a couple of spots.

Doing all kinds of fun stuff with these.

All right, now, let's get busy.

[chuckles] Let's get busy.

We've got some big storm clouds to put, to paint up above.

And, like they're just sort of encroaching on that happy little cloud there.

These are, these are sneaking up in to, into the back and I'm darkening that color actually with just a little touch of the midnight black, that same lavender, pure dark lavender.

Now, watch this.

It's fun.

Just take your brush and kind of let it go crazy.

Just [Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] all over the place.

[chuckles] Isn't that fun?

Maybe it kind of, it kind of wiggles out here and up and then back down, a little tail on it.

I mean, literally, there is no right or wrong with clouds.

They can go all over the place.

Let them look any way you want them to look.

Should be, should be free, fun, fun, free and fun process when you paint clouds.

Just have a big old time.

There we go.

I kind of want to level out some of the bottom edges there.

Got another one over here.

You can sort of make little tiny circles or just sort of scrub up and down, experiment a little bit, have fun.

Change things around, try, try and see what works best for you and that's the way you do it.

Because there's, there's no right or wrong.

No right or wrong with painting.

If it makes you feel good, it's right.

If it works for you, it's right.

But that's about the only rule.

The only hard and fast rule anyway.

There we go.

Another little stringy one right there.

Shoo, isn't that a mess of clouds?

All right, back to my, back to my lighter brush.

It's reasonably clean.

[laughs] Reasonably clean.

And with two hairs and some air, I'm just going to drift over these little clouds too.

Just barely, almost touch the canvas.

That's, that's what it'll probably feel like to you when you start, when you're learning to just sort of graze that canvas a little bit.

You feel like you're almost touching it.

Eventually, eventually you have to a little bit, but it's okay to sneak up on it.

All right, let's take a little more of that bright red, a little more the bright red this time, a little bright red, titanium, white.

Just loading that on a clean fan brush.

Had an extra one standing by there.

Fan brushes are standing by.

There we go.

Sneak a little highlight on the bottom of these, on these big, big storm clouds.

Even they get a little, a little silver lining touch.

You can kind of work with the edge of the brush and just make a little cradle type strokes if you want a very, very small amount of highlight or you can kind of give it a little circular stroke.

I'm just sort of bouncing between both right now.

There's a little more of a circular stroke so we feel like there's kind of a fluffy, rounded bottom edge here.

This goes back to sort of flat there so, just adjust.

Just adjust your stroke to the type of cloud you've got, see what happens.

I'm going to blend those down just a little bit, set them down into the painting.

I want to add a little Indian yellow to that color.

We'll shoo, shoo, shoo, [laughs] we'll brighten it up, make it more of a golden flavor.

More of a golden flavor.

Let's come up here.

And sometimes you can even just sort of tap.

Just tap, tap, tap, tap.

Put a little high on them that way.

If you're afraid of it, if you're afraid of it, mixing a little too much, that's a nice way to do it.

And then there's a little one floating around up there.

Just change it around, change it around, see what happens.

A little highlight on the bottom.

All right.

Graze over it and knock it down, two hairs and some air.

Once more.

Isn't that a mean looking sky?

Golly.

Mean looking sky.

All right, let's come on down here.

I've still got some of that peachy color, that yellow and red and white in my brush.

I'm going to come down here and there's a little body of water right there.

And the dark's already behind it.

We painted all that dark in with the, the gessos.

Just a little black gray gesso.

I want to pull a little reflection into that water.

Take my big brush and just sort of pull it down.

So it feels like that sky is reflecting in that little lake.

Brush across, maybe take the palette knife, get a little touch of liquid white and mix it into that peachy color.

Cut across.

Little tiny roll the paint on the knife.

Not much at all.

Let's come up here and just push it very firmly.

Cut in a little water, water's edge, water ripple back there at the edge of the lake.

Creeping along.

Try to keep that knife just as level as you can as you work across there.

If you get some on your foreground trees you can just kind of take your finger and rub them out.

Who says you can't finger paint?

[chuckles] Who says you can't finger paint?

I think it's okay.

I hope it's okay, I just did it.

Now... how about, let's pick up, let's pick up a little, I'm just working into this pile of paint that I had going here.

I'm going to pick up little yellow ochre, a little touch of sap green.

Mix them together.

Maybe a little more ochre.

Yeah, I like that better.

All right, let's come back here, and we could start picking out just taking the corner of the fan brush and giving it a push.

The color's kind of similar to what we've got going on up there and that's what I was hoping for.

I hoped we could just sort of blend that right in.

Then I can start changing it slowly, slowly.

I'm going to add a little more sap green.

Come back up here, sneak a few little touches.

You can even pull up if you wanted to and make it feel like a little grassy texture there at the base of those trees just bouncing around.

Something like that.

As we move a little closer here, maybe let's take, let's take, let's take, I've got the, I've got the two inch brush I was using for that cloud so there's a little lavender residue in it, but I don't mind.

It won't hurt us.

Let's mix our Indian yellow, yellow ochre, a little bit of that purplish color, a little bit of sap green together.

A little more of the green I think.

There we go, I want sort of a, I want really sort of a mucky color to start with.

This is going to be some shadows.

I'm going to start sneaking in just a little bit of shadowy grass down here.

Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and let that orange glow between it.

You can even, you can even strengthen it with a little more of that purpley color.

There we go.

Now, add a little cad yellow to that mixture.

Just move it up here, grab a little cad yellow and move it up here.

Add a little more sap green so we get a, a lighter, brighter version of that color.

Let's come back.

This kind of represents a little bit of our middle, middle ground, middle tone color, like the light's still zinging through here and just catching.

Sunset that bright boy, you'd see some light zinging through here, I'm sure.

It's amazing how quickly sunsets change, too.

If you've ever stood out and just, just watched one for a few minutes, in 30 seconds,it can look completely different.

I'll never forget standing by the roadside with my dad.

We were in western North Carolina coming back over the mountain.

I used to live in Tennessee, East Tennessee.

We were coming over the mountain and saw the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen in your life.

Dad pulled over.

He's a photographer, so he did a lot of pulling over, taking pictures of pretty stuff.

Just going into a little bit of that purple, a little bit of that purple I mixed up and sap green as I talked to you, as I reminisce.

I'm going to go back over some of these little tree shapes with my one inch brush.

Just firm them up, make them a little darker here.

But we pulled over and Dad got his camera out and we just stood there and probably 10 minutes we didn't say a word to each other.

We just watched that sky change.

And this reminds me so much of that.

It's a sky just like this.

It was so pretty.

Still got that picture somewhere.

But needless to say, with a photographer for a dad, I never really ran out of subject matter.

[chuckles] He kept me busy and encouraged.

I don't know if I've said thank you enough for that sort of thing.

I need to dedicate this one to Mom and dad.

This one is for y'all.

They never let me give up on stuff and I appreciate that.

Okay, picking up a little black and sap green now, maybe a little touch of crimson.

Just keep it real dark.

I want to darken up some of my little bushes here.

Some little bushes living right there at the base of these trees.

I know you can't see very much right now, but I want to make sure I've got all the dark in there that I want.

Then we can change equipment.

I'm going to go in here and grab.

Let's see.

I don't know, that two inch brush is working pretty good.

Let's stick with it.

I need to do a little housekeeping first, though.

Clean up some of that mucky, murky color and get rid of it.

All right, let's go down here and grab a little cad yellow, a little touch of the ochre, a little touch of Indian yellow, a little touch of just sap green, I don't want this to get too, too muted just yet.

Keep it sort of bright.

And then I'm going to load that brush and give it a little push.

Push, push, push.

There we go.

And let's come up here.

Oh, tell you what, Before I forget [chuckles] about got ahead of myself there.

Before I forget, I want to take a little dark Sienna, Van Dyke brown, and a little touch of that lighter color in with it.

We're going to, I'm going to drop a little tree trunk [Nic makes "ssshoo" sound] right in there.

Got to have some pull all this up.

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

A couple of little arms on him.

About to get too excited there.

All right.

[chuckles] Just want a little, little sunshine bouncing around on a couple of these limbs out here.

Change the flavor a little bit.

Now maybe we can go a little darker.

And as I'm looking at that painting, I'm realizing, too, we've got a little, we've got a little evergreen tree lives in between those, those two deciduous trees.

So I'm going to load up a one inch brush with some blue and black and a little sap green.

Just load it to a, load it to a nice, sharp, chiseled edge.

There we can see that brush comes to a real sharp, chiseled edge.

Let's drop in a little, little evergreen tree that lives right there.

Just take the corner of your brush, just start working him back and forth and back and forth.

There we go.

He lives right there.

Go right into a little touch of your highlight green here.

We'll give him a little, a little bit of sunshine on his branches too.

Something like so.

All right.

Back to my big brush, I'm just going to pop a little highlight on those branches as well.

If you have any trouble getting your paint stick, just add a little touch of that, a little touch that liquid white to it.

There we go.

Let's jump over here on the other side.

That little tree needs some highlight, too.

I'm adding a little bright red to that one just so it's a little different flavor.

There we go.

A couple of little highlights on my bushes.

Use my one inch brush here and get a little bit of that, a little variety of all that color.

.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] Boy, that's bright.

Pretty.

Yeah.

That'll work just fine.

That'll work just fine.

Drop a little bit.

I'm going to put a little bit on these down here too.

Those need a little bit too.

I'm just changing the flavor a bit as I go.

Just change the, change the tone of the yellows.

Maybe even pick up a little more green.

I kind of want it to feel a little darker as it goes off into the, off into the shadows back here.

A little touch of the blue and black.

Oh, yeah, that's a nice green.

I like that.

Where's that been all my life?

[chuckles] A little touch of the bright red, which will actually act as a duller in this instance.

And I want to, I want to have some more muted ones down here in the corner.

Something like that.

Tell you what, just for fun, Bob's got a little....

If you want a little detail item, take a liner brush and a little paint thinner, some Van Dyke Brown.

Bob's got a little branch that just kind of lives, pokes its head right out the, right out of the corner there.

There we go.

All right.

Well, I'd say that one's finished.

Thanks for joining.

Come back and paint with us again.

Bye bye.

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

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