[Music] Hi, I'm glad you could join me today and I thought today we'd do a canvas that's black, as you can see.

That's one of the most enjoyable type paintings that I have ever found in this method of painting.

So I tell you what, let's have them run all the colors across the screen that you need at home to paint along with me.

While they're doing that let me tell you what I've done up here.

I have a standard old pre stretched canvas and, well I was going to keep it a secret but I'm going to go ahead and tell you.

I've put a contact paper oval on here today and then I've painted the center of this with black gesso, allowed that to dry completely, and then on top of that I've put a mixture of alizarin crimson and phthalo blue and as it works out from the center I've added more and more blue so it gets darker, darker, darker as it works out.

The warmest spot is right here in the center because I'm going to have some little, some little floaty clouds and stuff in there and I want that to be nice and bright.

And I thought today we'd do a little winter scene.

Something that's warm and cold at the same time, have a warm spot in the sky and, well let's just do it, shoot.

Let's start [chuckles] out the day with a little one-inch brush go right into some titanium white.

This, this is a fantastic painting to do in public.

If you ever want to get out and amaze your friends and neighbors, let's go on up here, don't let them see you put all the color on the canvas because we have all these transparent colors on here, and it still looks black, and don't tell your friends and neighbors that you've done this, and then when you come up here with your brush and you say, let's just do a little something right here they'll, they just go crazy because this color just comes alive.

See that beautiful lavender that's happening right there?

And I'm just taking the brush and doing like so.

As we work farther out it's going to get darker and darker and darker.

There we go.

Still using little, little rocking strokes we'll call them.

Just like so.

Darker and darker and darker as it works away from that light spot.

There, now you can do this as many times as you want to achieve a desired lightness but I would suggest strongly that each time you wash the brush [laughs] beat it dry and start with clean color.

Otherwise you're going to drag that dirty color right back into your light area and I don't think you're going to be happy with that.

So, if this is our light area always start there and now we can begin working outward, outward.

See, let it get darker and darker and darker as it works away.

There, see there, darker, darker, darker, darker.

There we are.

Now you have to make a decision.

In your world how bright do you want the sky?

Maybe you want it darker than this or lighter.

This is strictly an individual thing.

I just want to show you how you can make some fantastic effects [chuckles] using a few crazy brushes and, oh, we have a very limited palette today.

We're not using many colors and I want to show you how you can do a fantastic little painting just easy, easy.

Now with a two-inch brush I'm going to gently blend this together.

Just blend it together and all those little rocking strokes that you made you begin to see all kinds of little happy things that they make out here.

Okay, let me clean the brush one more time.

We just use odorless paint thinner.

There we go.

Go right back into my white.

Let's come right up here.

Maybe, maybe right in here.

Watch here, watch here.

Still using that same little stroke.

Maybe this comes right on around.

Let's make it look like there's a big strong old floater living up here in the sky.

Just wherever you want a few.

Don't overdo though, just one or two is plenty.

Now then.

Back to our big blending brush and very lightly, very lightly.

See, we can just blend that big old cloud right in.

Isn't that something?

You can see that sun-of-a-gun curve right around and go right into the center.

And by allowing it to get bigger on this end it makes it look like this part is closer to you and the other part's farther away.

Now maybe in our world, let's see here I'll take some phthalo blue, alizarin crimson, a little black in there too, what the heck.

Okay.

Let me find a brush here, there's one.

We'll use a little fan brush.

Maybe in our world here there lives a little cloud.

And he just sort of floats around here and has fun all day.

Just sort of let him, let him come right off your brush wherever you want him to live, that's exactly where he should be.

There he is.

And he's, he's just a happy little cloud.

Give it a little bit of blending, tiny bit.

Now we're going to give you your bravery test.

So you can come right here, very lightly go across.

Very, very lightly.

Look at that.

And you've got a beautiful little cloud floating around in your sky.

Okay, you passed the bravery test.

I'm just going to use that same color, same color.

Pull it out flat, cut across and we get our little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife.

And maybe in our world there lives a beautiful little mountain right up here in the sky so that's where we'll put him.

There he is.

See maybe there's a little bump there, wherever you want.

Maybe another little bump.

Really push that paint right into the fabric.

Get strong with it, get tough.

We'll take our two-inch brush, grab that and pull it.

Just pull it.

Grab it here and pull.

See there, there we go.

And by using the brushstrokes here you can sort a lay out your whole mountain and get an idea of where you want highlights and shadows to be without being committed and you can change it.

Lookie there, you can change it a hundred times.

I hope you can see those little brush strokes, see here?

But isn't it a fantastic way of laying out your mountain.

And if they don't show up well on your set when you're doing this you'll understand exactly what I'm saying.

I'm going to take some titanium white.

I'm going to add the least little touch of black into it, just, I want to dull it a little bit so it's not pure white.

I just want to dull it down, gray it a little.

Pull it out as flat as we can get it, cut across, and we have our little roll of paint again, see.

It's important you pull it out and cut that little roll of pain off.

Now, no pressure, no pressure.

Let that little son-of-a-gun sort of float there.

Maybe, we'll have another little bit goes right out here and just disappears.

There comes a little one right down.

Mm.

Sometimes it feels so good it hurts.

There, there we go.

Doesn't painting do nice things for you though?

I love to paint.

It's one of the few things in my life I've never, never became bored with because I, I don't think you ever master it.

If you live to be a thousand years old, you'll always know that your next painting is going to be better.

Maybe that's the challenge of it.

That's why it's so fascinating to me.

There we are.

Not let's, let's put some shadows in there.

For that we'll use some white, a little Prussian blue.

Mix him up.

There we are.

Cut off our little roll of paint, always that little roll of paint.

Put a little shadow, [Bob makes "tsoom" sound] right back there.

Come right along here push that one back.

[chuckles] And what power that you can push mountains around.

Boy, when I go home I can't push anything but the garbage but here I, I can push anything.

That's the only thing I'm in charge of at home.

It, it sets and waits for me.

But it's nice to be needed.

There we are.

Okay, little shadow that lives right here.

Now, good clean, dry brush, be sure it's dry.

If it's not dry it's going to smoosh, ooh, I forgot a shadow.

You let me do that, didn't even holler at me.

Right here, we need the tiniest little indication of a shadow.

There, now we're all right.

See if I'd have forgot that somebody'd wrote and told me.

All I'm doing is beating the paint off the brush.

Brush.

Okay.

I want to create that misty effect down here at the base.

Very lightly, lift upward, softly, softly.

Up here, see there.

On this side of the mountain follow these angles.

Always follow the angles.

Tap a little there, blend it up.

That old mountain is just laying out there floating in the mist.

Now you can play games and have fun.

Mountains are, oh they're fantastic.

Let's take a little more white, come right up here and maybe in our world there lives, yep, you're right, another little ridge or a mountain right in the foreground.

See by blending and creating that misty effect right there now this mountain will separate and become an individual.

There's no doubt in your mind when you look at this that it's in the foreground.

But if it wasn't for that little misty area in there you'd, you'd have to wonder.

You might figure yeah it is, no it's not, whatever.

But by creating a little bit of mist now you know.

It separates, look at that.

And you can keep on until you've covered your whole canvas with layer after layer of mountain and that's not bad.

It's a super, super nice way to learn.

Just knock off that excess paint.

There we are.

Now, once again, create our mist on this one.

Now you could put another range of mountains in here, and another and another and as many as you want.

There we are.

Very soft, very nice.

Okay, now then.

Enough mountains, let's do something else.

I'm going to take some black, Prussian blue.

Might as well mix us up a nice pile here.

Alizarin crimson.

Shoot, we can throw some Van Dyke brown there too, it doesn't matter.

So we have black, blue, crimson, and brown.

Let me clean my knife.

And we'll grab this old fan brush.

That was our cloud making brush, it doesn't matter.

As long as it has color on it, dark color.

And maybe back in here there lives in our world some little distant trees that are far away.

Now because they're dark against this light colored mountain they'll stand out.

There, see, and we'll just let them go right on over.

We don't know where they go, they just go.

Okay.

Now I want them to get a little larger on this end so it'll give the impression that this is going away There, see there.

To about there, whatever, we don't care.

Wherever you want them.

Now then, I have several old fan brushes going.

I'm going to take the least little touch of a light color.

This is just a little white.

I want to touch right at the base and lift upward.

Right at the base so it looks like just hundreds of little trunks living back here.

Now if they come out a little too bright in your painting, all you have to do is rub them to pick up that dark color that's underneath and automatically it'll get darker and darker and darker as it blends together.

There, that's just enough to set it out a little bit.

Tell you what, we have that color.

Go right into, right into some titanium white and maybe underneath here there's just some happy little snow covered, ice covered little bushes and stuff, see them?

Just push upward make that brush bend upward.

There.

Mm.

See, just one layer after another, however many you want.

[Bob sings "doo-doo-doot-doo-doo-doot"] Okay, now, let me find a clean brush.

That one's clean enough for our use.

I'm going to take just a small amount of titanium white on the large brush.

I want to create the illusion of some reflections under here.

There's color on the canvas, all you need is white.

Grab it and pull down, straight down.

It's important that you pull straight down.

Straight down.

Okay.

Now that's mixing with that wet color that's underneath.

And very lightly you can just blend it.

Now then, we'll use some, we'll use some liquid white.

Pull it out flat, right on your palette.

I'm going to add the least little touch of phthalo blue to it just to cool it down a little.

Pull it out very flat, cut across, and have a teeniest little roll of paint on there.

Oh, it's just so small.

And very firmly, very firmly.

And sorta lay the knife down as you go so it gets all the paint that's on the knife.

See push very firmly down.

And you can make just all kinds of little things happen there.

Okay, well we got a nice painting going today.

Every once in a while things just work beautifully.

Let's take our old fan brush and go right back, right back into that same dark color and let's make a happy evergreen.

And he lives right about there.

Back and forth.

There he comes.

Ooh, right over my [chuckles] mountain.

There he goes.

Well, we know that mountain is back there.

If anybody asks you just tell them there's a fantastic mountain that lives right behind this [chuckles] tree.

You saw it in there.

Let's give him a little friend that lives right there.

We don't want him to be left behind.

There, see?

There's a couple trees.

Hope you can see these.

They're very dark, very dark.

Maybe, yeah.

We've messed up the mountain so bad why not put one right across him?

There he comes.

Now, you're going to pick up a lot of that white.

When you're doing this at home, if you have trouble making the paint stick over the top of all that white, I don't seem to be having too much trouble but if you do, take a little paint thinner.

Add a little paint thinner to your color and a thin paint will stick much easier right on top of all the snow and everything on there.

Make your life a little easier sometime.

Okay, let's take a good old one-inch brush here.

I'm going to go into, what am I going to go into here?

We'll go into some, grab a little white, shoot, there's some phthalo blue.

I'm looking for a pretty dark blue color there.

Pull the brush in one direction, firmly.

I want to round one corner.

See how round that corner looks?

Now, when we head up here that corner, that corner's going to be to the top, push upward.

There, and by pushing upward it makes all those little leafy looking things happen.

I'm going to bring that down a bit like that.

And all we're doing, once again, is just throwing in some dark colors so our light color will show up.

Okay.

Now then, we can take another one-inch brush, I'm going to dip it into the liquid white, pull it through titanium white.

The liquid white is only on there to make the paint a little thinner so it'll stick.

That's the only reason it's on there.

Now, going to put all kinds of little snow covered frosty bushes in here.

Just some pretty little things.

Mm, it should look like lace.

Do one little bush at a time.

Jack Frost has, has waived his wand and magic has happened here, beautiful.

Mm.

Maybe, right there, have another one.

Boy, you know if you was out here [chuckles] this would be a nice spot.

But you'd get cold out here.

So maybe, maybe we should have us a little cabin out here so we could set by the fire and look at this beautiful scene and be warm.

So I'm going to take the knife and scrape out a basic cabin shape.

Just take the knife, we'll just put a little, a little cabin.

Maybe there was a, there was a trapper that lived out here years ago and this is all that's left of his little cabin.

Okay, take a little Van Dyke brown and do the back eave.

[Bob makes "zoop" sound] That's all there is to it.

Now, for the other side of the roof I'm just going to use titanium white.

Snow's on it.

[Bob makes "ssshwoo" sound] Okay, I'm going to get the little knife.

It comes in a little handier for getting in these little spots.

Take a little brown and this is a little dark sienna, a little Van Dyke brown.

There we go, see?

Just pull in our basic little cabin shape.

Basic shape, that's all we're looking for at this point.

A little dark sienna and white.

Still using the small knife.

Just barely grazing the canvas, touch and pull it down.

We'll make the front of this cabin a little brighter.

Now, we can take, just make the indication here and there of a few old boards.

This is a rough cabin.

Take the knife, cut off our cabin, do a cabin-ectomy.

Just the way we want it.

Take a little bit of Van Dyke brown, put us in a little door.

We gotta have a little door.

People always yell at me because I never put chimneys on my cabins so I'll just use a small edge of the knife put a little [chuckles] chimney on that one.

We can take the least little touch of crimson.

There, just, but there's nobody home.

So there's snow on top of the chimney.

I normally don't bother to ever put chimneys and I get people writing me [chuckles] and say, "Boy, that poor guy's freezing to death.

Now give that, give that poor fella a chimney."

So today we did.

Take a little titanium white.

Let's just put indication of a little bit of, a little snow path down there where he can walk.

Okay, back to my brush that has liquid white and titanium white and we can continue to put some happy little bushes right in here.

When you touch the canvas give it a little upward push.

Just a little upward push.

There we go.

Now, I see something that I should do.

On this cabin here, on the other side of the roof, I didn't put any snow over there and there would be a layer of snow there.

And that'll just make it look a little better and it also makes your cabin stand out.

Okay, in these bushes here and there I just want to scrape through and just put the indication of a few little sticks and twigs and all kinds a little things.

Let a few hang right over the path and pushes that path down into the painting more.

Wherever you think they should be.

Okay, find me a fan brush, there's one.

Oh here's one that's already dirty.

I'm going to take, this is white with a little phthalo blue in it.

Okay, lets go right up here.

I want to put the indication here and there of a little bit of snow on these trees.

Don't want much because I don't want to lose that beautiful contrast.

So it's just white with a little touch of phthalo blue in it.

There, and this sort of makes those limbs stand out a little bit and the arms on the tree.

Mm.

Boy, that looks cold.

Better get you a big Alaskan parka out.

I lived in Alaska I used to wear muk-luks.

And those are big canvas boots that come way up, and boy they're fantastic.

They keep you from freezing to death.

Like them.

Okay, tell you what let's do.

Let's bring the camera right up here close and I'm going to pull the contact paper off and let's take a look at what we have.

Now see, I didn't paint the canvas, I left the canvas white.

So when you pull this son-of-a-gun off boy does it stand out.

I mean it really stands out.

But now when you're doing this at home, maybe you want to paint this a different color like a light blue or a tan or anything that, that makes you feel good, there's a, there's a million different things you can do.

And I use a lot of ovals only because that's a nice shape to work with.

But I have letters from people who are using octagons and squares and just any shape that the mind can imagine.

And when you're doing yours sorta look, make a determination.

One of the things that I've found, place mats are excellent for getting shapes.

I used place mats and lay it on the contact paper and take an X-Acto knife or something and cut around it and then glue it on.

But that works very, very well.

Okay, I'm going right back in to that dark color that I had.

Load a lot of paint into the bristles.

Now maybe in our world here let's let this one tree, just this one tree, that's the only one I want, escape.

He's going to slip right out of the bounds of this oval and live right up here.

There he is.

Just that one little tree.

Now we'll take, we'll take some of our phthalo blue and white and if you have trouble making this stick add a little bit of the liquid white to it.

That'll make it a little thinner and it'll stick and we can come back in here and just throw on a few little highlights.

Okay.

Now then.

I'll go into a touch of the, touch of the paint thinner right into some titanium white and I'm going to load this liner brush full of color.

This is very thin, it's like ink, and roll the brush, brings it to a nice sharp point.

And maybe here and there let's just put a happy little stick or two that's all frosty and, oh Jack Frost has really worked on these too.

Just here and there, don't go too wild with them.

Too many of them don't look right.

And maybe up through here you can make out a little ones.

These little details, they're nice.

There we go.

I think we're about to the point we can call this one finished and sign it.

I'm going to take a little red, thin it down with thinner, and let's sign this one right about here.

Sincerely hope you've enjoyed this one.

It'll show you how much fun you can have using some black gesso, a little contact paper, and imagination, and from all of us here, happy painting and God bless.

[announcer] To order a 256 page book of 60 Joy of Painting projects or Bob's detailed 3 hour workshop DVD Call 1-800-Bob-Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]