[Music] Hi, I'm Nicholas Hankins, and I'd like to welcome you to the 34th Joy of Painting series.

Over the next 13 weeks, you and I will place some of nature's masterpieces on canvas, using about a dozen colors, some unorthodox painting tools, and a whole lot of joy so let's come up to the canvas and get started.

I have an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas on the easel, and I have placed on it a piece of self-adhesive masking paper from which I removed a little oval pattern.

And then in the open area I have applied a little liquid white with the old two inch brush.

And we're going to take that same two inch brush and we'll get started here.

I'm going to take a little cad yellow and yellow ochre.

Just mix them together on the brush and we'll go up and light up the horizon.

We'll have a nice little, happy little mountain scene today, I think.

There we go.

Just a little, little sun.

I guess this is a sunrise.

I guess you have to decide whether it's a sunrise or a sunset and I'm going to say today it's a, it's a sunrise.

Let's take a little bright red on the two inch brush.

Tap it in there.

Come on back up here and I'm just going to add another little band of warm color just above that one.

There we go.

Maybe a little in the water.

Just using level strokes in the water.

That'll give us sort of an orangey flavor.

That's pretty the way those two mix together.

Let's grab a little alizarin crimson next on that same two inch brush.

Haven't washed it yet.

There we go, a little bit of crimson.

Add some of that to the water.

And finally let's come back and mix a little alizarin crimson and just a touch, just a tiny touch of Prussian blue.

There we go.

I'm just mixing those colors on the brush and we'll see what we come up with.

Should be a pretty lavender color.

Oh yeah.

Sort of, sort of a grape color.

I like that.

And again, down into the water, just a little bit of that paint.

Because as you know, the water is going to reflect whatever's in the sky and that's just what we want.

Okay, let's grab a, let's grab a clean dry two inch brush.

I'm going to come up here and blend and soften.

A little bit of the same thing in the water.

Only I'm going to brush all the way across in the water.

Okay.

Oh, you know what?

We should probably wash a brush.

I don't want these stacking up so let's take our, let's take our original two inch brush there and we'll just, we'll clean that one out.

Shake out the excess.

Got to, got to beat the devil out of it.

Got to have a little bit of that.

Got to have a little bit of that when we're painting.

Okay.

Let's grab an old fan brush here.

Come on back to the palette with me.

We'll load up with some titanium white, maybe just a little touch of bright red.

Just a little touch of bright red in there.

Okay, that's good.

Load it full and come back up here with me and let's paint.

Let's paint a happy little cloud floating around in our sky.

Something like such.

Here we go.

Just making a little tiny circles.

Little tiny circles.

Let's have another one kind of rolls in off of the, the left edge over here and just tapers down to nothing.

There we go.

Back to my, back to my clean, dry two inch brush.

I'm going to just gently blend little tiny circles with the top corner of the brush, then we'll fluff it up and brush across.

Same thing on this side.

Little tiny circles.

Fluff it up and brush across.

I think I want one more, I think I want one more little cloud floating, floating along in front of that one as long as we leave a little dark area in between them.

And we can contrast.

We can do that and that's always neat.

Once again, blend it at the top corner just sort of settles the cloud down into the painting, nestles it down into the canvas.

All right, let's keep that brush in our hand for just a second.

We're going to come back to our palette here.

And I'm going to mix a little more of that lavendery grape color.

A little alizarin crimson, a little touch of Prussian blue and some white.

I'm just going to brush mix that on my palette here until I get a color I like.

That looks pretty good.

And let's come back into the, into the horizon back here.

We're going to have a little, little distant mountain.

It's very far away and we don't have too much detail on this one because it's so far away.

Just forming some little peaks in here.

Like that.

We'll let it run, [Nic makes "shooom" sound] out that side of the canvas.

It's a pretty good mountain making noise, I think.

[Nic makes "shooom" sound] That's sort of an all purpose noise.

I use that one a lot.

Bob always said things worked better when you make the noises.

And I think he's right.

I don't know that they work better, but I know it's, it' a whole lot more fun when you make the noises so.

Yeah, we're just going to blend the base of that mountain.

That liquid white allows us to move the paint around and mix and blend just, just easy as can be.

If we didn't have that liquid white on there, we'd be in agony city.

That'd be terrible.

Terrible.

I'm mixing up some Prussian blue, midnight black, Van Dyke brown and alizarin crimson just in a big pile here on my palette.

We've got a major decision to make and I bet you already know what it is.

Flatten that color out, cut across, and we'll just get, we'll just get a small roll of paint right there on our knife.

I know that's probably hard to see but trust me, it's on there.

[laughs] We're going to, we're going to come up here and decide where our big major mountain peak lives.

Mine's going to be right there.

It's got another little bump right there.

And then it comes down, down, down like that.

I'm pushing very firmly.

I really want to feel like you're grinding that paint into the, into the fabric of the canvas.

And maybe, maybe there's another little bump that lives out here about there.

Maybe we got another little bump over here.

Yeah.

Okay, I tell you, scrape away all that excess paint.

I don't want any buildup on there.

You're just sort of grinding it down.

Feel like you're grinding it into the fabric.

Sometimes I tell our students in class that you want to, you want to feel like you're taking the paint and trying to squeeze it out the back side of the canvas.

I think it's a good analogy.

Now, again, I'm just grabbing that paint and pulling it down, kind of following the angles in the mountain.

There we go.

And once more I'm going to soften, soften, soften.

Blend away the base.

Little crisscross strokes and just blend away the base.

All right.

Now, we'll have a little fun.

We'll put some snow on our mountain.

So let's take a little titanium white.

Maybe just touch a bright red in there with it.

Warm it up.

That's a bright sky so it would probably light up the snow a little.

A little warm, warm white.

Again I'm just going to use a small roll paint and let's come up here and find the point of the knife.

We're going to place it right against the peak of the mountain and then just let your knife float.

Just let your knife float.

Don't push down on it.

Touch.

And let it float.

Don't push down on it.

The paint will do the work.

The paint and the equipment will do the work for you if you let it.

If you let it.

Let's come back up here.

[Nic makes "tchoo" sound] We'll let this one kind of wander over that way a little bit first, maybe, and then it finds a little ski slope and goes, [Nic makes "tchoom" sound] comes right on down.

It's just looking for the big challenging hill there.

We're, we're beyond the bunny slope at this point.

[chuckles] I'm probably not.

I'm... I live in Florida, so I'm not much of a skier.

But I would like to try it again someday.

It's been a long time since I've tried that.

All right, let's take a little bit of that white.

I've got some of that leftover lavender from my mountain from earlier, so we'll just, we'll just mix all that together, and then I'm going to add a little bit of the mountain base mixture, that sort of dark gray and a little more Prussian blue.

I just want to mix that together and make a nice shadow color for our snow on the opposite side of the mountain.

And I'm going to load, first I'm going to load the small little edge of the knife because we got some tight little spots on our mountain back here.

Let's come back and get those first.

See, we can work that little, that little edge into those tight spots.

Come up and get a little on this.

See?

Follow those little contours in your mountain.

There we go.

You can really shape them and make them pretty that way.

Maybe, maybe that kind of cuts right through there and pushes that little peak into the background.

[Nic makes "tchoo' sound] Just like that.

Bob always liked to say you have the power to move mountains, and you do.

On this piece of canvas, you do.

Let that come right on down.

[Nic makes "tchooo" sound] And then there's just a little shadow kind of in that little gully right there that's making it stick up.

Makes it stand out and look pretty.

And this little one.

We can't forget about that one.

That little Pete needs some to.

There we go.

Okay, now, if we really want to push that mountain into the background, we've got to put a little mist at the base.

So come on up here and watch what we do.

We're just going to take and tap very gently.

And I've got to follow the angles in the mountain.

In other words, I'm not going to come through here and just chop randomly at it.

I'm going to tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, soften.

Just like you pat a baby's cheek very softly.

Follow the angles on this side, too.

There we go.

That gives us a nice little misty area.

Knock out the excess paint.

Now, I'm going to come back and just remove the tap marks by sweeping like this.

A little bit on this side.

Again, follow those angles though, that's really important.

All right.

Now.

Let's make some footy hills.

Got to have a little footy hills down here at the base of the mountain so I'm going to add some more of the mountain base mixture to my shadowy snow.

Maybe add a little Van Dyke brown and some sap green.

It's easy enough, right?

Keep it uncomplicated.

Painting should be uncomplicated.

If there's anything in your life that shouldn't be complicated, it should be painting.

It should just be fun.

Painting should just be fun.

Let's come up here and we'll start tapping in some little, little tree line foothills.

I'm just going to tap, tap, tap.

And I'm tapping into that little misty area.

That's why that's so important.

It's tough to paint over a lot of paint.

But that little misty area really pays you great dividends.

There we go.

I'm just allowing the brush to vary a little bit in angle.

Thinking about the lay of the land as we go.

There we go.

Then we'll grab these, grab these little tree tops and just sweep them up.

Just pop them up with that same brush, grab the paint and pull it up maybe quarter of an inch.

So it feels like lots of little trees growing on the, along the profile or the top of the mountain, along the ridge, even down into the, down into the hills just a little bit.

I'm going to take my big brush and give it a good firm chop.

Really, really give ourselves a nice misty area right here.

This is where you take out your hostilities and flustrations.

[chuckles] That's a good old southern word.

Flustrations.

It's one I've been guilty of using myself.

Let's see, there's what I'm looking for.

One inch brush, you were hiding on me.

They do this sometimes.

Let's take now and tap the top corner of the brush into the paint like that.

I'm picking up - going bye bye here, sorry for just a second.

Picking up a little more of that mountain color to make it just a touch darker.

And let's come back in here.

Once, once again, we're going to utilize that little misty area.

Create some little... little deciduous tree tops or bushes or whatever this is.

As I work to the left, I want them to get just a little taller.

so it feels like they're getting a little closer.

Even though the one that I'm painting here might be the same height as the one that's way over there, it looks a little taller just, just due to the fact that it's getting closer to us.

And that's how you can create all sorts of atmosphere and perspective in your painting.

Make it, make it feel like it really is getting nearer to you.

You learn all these little tricks as you paint.

You don't have to, and it's not the type of thing you have to sit down and, and memorize in a book.

It's not necessarily an academic thing.

You can learn this stuff as you go, just, just having fun.

That's how I learned it.

It's been my experience that's usually when things stick best when you're having fun.

When you're not being forced to remember it.

Speaking a sticking, I've added just a little liquid white to my paint here so it will stick on top of this thick paint.

That's our golden rule in this method, thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

So we have thick paint underneath and now I'm adding this thin paint on top.

And we're just going to pop a few little highlights on these.

Just a little, whatever, I don't know what kind of trees they are.

They're happy little trees.

That's all I know.

They're far away distant little trees.

All I know is they're the kind of trees that lose their leaves.

Or the kind of little bushes that lose their leaves.

I don't know exactly how big these are.

I'm not sure what breed a cat we're dealing with here.

There we go.

I don't know that we have to either.

[chuckles] Like I say, as long as we're having fun.

I'm going to add a little bit of that nice, light greenish color to my water.

Just pull that straight down and then we'll come back and soften it and brush across.

And, while I'm in the neighborhood let's grab a little fan brush here.

I might touch just, whoo, just a drop the paint thinner.

And I'm going to, I'm going to darken my mixture with a little more black, a little more blue, a little more crimson to make that stronger, darker.

I'm going to load this brush to a nice chiseled edge.

There we go.

Just by pulling both sides through there.

All right.

Let's come up here.

And we're going to have a little evergreen tree now.

We've got a bunch of deciduous trees.

We need a happy little evergreen.

Use just the corner of the brush.

Work back and forth.

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

I wanted that just a little to... evergreens are usually, usually, in my experience, a little darker or at least they look a little darker when they're out in nature.

There we go.

And they provide a nice dark sort of bookend on the painting.

I think that's very pretty.

Take our knife and cut in a little tree trunk, a stick and a twig or two might even need a few back here in all of this stuff.

Scritch, scratch a little, a little mark or two.

Might take my bright yellowy brush, and I'm just going to kind of cover up the base of those trees so we don't, we don't see exactly where they end.

Go back to my little fan brush.

I'm going to dip it in just a touch of liquid white.

And let's pull it through some ochre and some of the cad yellow.

There we go.

And we'll come back and add just a touch of highlight on these little distant trees.

I don't want to get too crazy with that.

There we go.

Take a little touch of the liquid white, a little touch of titanium white.

Maybe even a little, little touch of the Van Dyke brown.

And I'm going to mix a, a color here that's just kind of a soft, sandy color.

We'll make a little, little distant shoreline back there.

Cut off a tiny little roll of paint.

Let's come up here and just kind of separate our, our land from our water with a little slip of land there, a little sand bar.

Just hold your knife very level.

I'm pushing very firmly, sawing back and forth, just like you're trying to saw right through the fabric.

You won't.

At least, at least not without a running start you won't.

Okay, I've got that little, I've got that little one inch brush that's dirty.

I'm just going to keep, keep with it for a second.

I'm going to pull it through some of that mountain color.

I'm adding a little crimson, a little sap green.

Pull it in one direction and then we're going to turn it up.

Whichever side of the brush you're pulling towards you, we're going to turn up and we have that little rounded corner on there now.

Let's come up here and find some closer, closer bushes.

These are, these are darker still because they are closer to us.

Just more paint as you need it.

See, that makes a nice silhouette against that bright, sort of pinkish water.

There we go.

Go back to my cleaner brush.

I'm going to dip it in a touch of the liquid white and we're going to treat it the same way.

I'm going to pull it in one direction through the paint, maybe add a little sap green so I've got kind of a slightly different thing going on here.

There we go.

And turn that end up.

See, that brush is absolutely loaded with paint.

All right.

Let's take this up here.

We're going to go just outside the dark and add some bright little highlights to this, this foreground patch of bushes.

Occasionally I'll pick up a little bit of the yellow ochre.

Here and there, maybe even a little touch of the bright red just to, just to give it a little different flavor.

I try to make every brush look just a little bit different so it gives some nice variety.

All right.

We'll scratch in a little stick and a twig here and there.

I tell you what, if you want to bring the, bring camera up here and we'll take the, take paper off and see what we've got.

It worked again.

It worked again.

Move my contact paper out of the way.

But I'm not done yet.

We're going to have some more fun here, okay.

Let's take maybe... we'll grab a little, little fan brush and fill it full of Van Dyke brown, midnight black.

There we go.

And all right, this is your bravery test.

You ready?

Let's come outside of our little painting and we'll drop a little tree [Nic makes "shoooom" sound] you right there.

Let's have another one.

[Nic makes "shhhooo" sound] Geronimo!

He lives right there.

All right.

Pick up a, pick up a little touch of Titanium white and just a, just a teeny tiny little touch of Van Dyke Brown.

Mix that together to a marbled appearance and I'm going to cut off a little roll of that paint once more.

And let's jump up here and give this bark a little highlight, just a gentle touch and give it a tug.

Tug around.

Tug, tug like that.

Same on this one.

I mean these are a little birch trees or aspen trees.

It's up in the mountains so that's very likely.

It's probably one of those.

We'll find a little, little script liner brush.

I think you'll do.

Grab a little paint thinner.

Add a little more paint thinner.

Takes a few drops to get it as thin as you need.

You need it thin like water or ink or soda pop.

Whatever.

And I'm just going to add a few little branches, and I'm not going to get too crazy.

These, these little, these little aspen trees are going to have at least a couple odd clusters of leaves left on them so I don't have to go too crazy here but we do need a branch or two just in case it shows.

Extend the top of that just a little bit.

That always looks kind of cool when they taper off real nicely at the top.

I said, don't go crazy and I kind of am.

I've probably got plenty of, plenty of branches up here already, but what's one or two more just for good measure?

When it's working, you don't stop, right?

Anything shows through, we'll be glad we did it.

Okay, that's probably enough now.

Back to my little one inch brush again that's got that dark color in it.

Got a little sap green, a little blue, a little black.

Maybe a little Van Dyke brown, maybe even a little ochre.

I don't want it to get super, super, super, super dark.

We'll take a, we'll take a little bit of good measure in there with some of that ochre.

And I'm just going to pop a few little clusters of leaves around on this little tree that are just kind of, just kind of budding out maybe.

Maybe this is a springtime type scene.

Some of that snow on the mountain is going to melt pretty soon.

Ooh, that's scary.

Reaching up there on that blank canvas.

It's kind of fun, though, isn't it?

It's kind of thrilling.

I'm a fan of that saying, "you have to go out on a limb because that's where the fruit is."

Got to take a chance every once in a while.

There we go.

And even these old branches are going to have a little, they're going to have a little highlight on them too.

I need just a touch of that, woop, touch of that liquid white.

Lid [laughs] just about came with me there.

There we go.

Let's come back up here and add a little highlight on some of these branches.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Plenty of paint and a light touch.

Lots and lots of paint and a light touch.

And as I start winding this whole painting down, I want to thank you for joining us for another series.

This is my third and I hope we can live up to your expectations.

And I hope that you'll come back and paint with us again.

So until next time, happy painting.

Bye bye.

[Music] [Announcer] To order Nic's 68 page all color book with 13 painting projects or the 3 disk set of DVDs for this series, call 1-800-BOB-ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [Music] [Music]