 God's beauty is all around us and my goal as an artist is to capture and interpret that beauty on canvas and to take you the viewer along with me on this painting journey. And welcome to Painting Journeys. My name is Kitty Lynn Klisch and we'll be journeying across the canvas today. I'm going to take you to a new location but first of all I want to talk about the painting where we were on our last episode. Last episode we were in the foothills of the Grand Teton. And if you remember the painting from the last show it was a little different. I think I had the cabin up a little higher and not quite as much color. You know I went in in my home studio and I did a little rearranging with the composition. I wasn't real happy with the cabin where it was. I wanted to bring it down here and then of course I wanted to echo all this marvelous light that we're seeing up here. I wanted to echo it down there. It makes it just pop in that corner right there. So this is the lost cabin in the foothills of the Teton's in Wyoming. And so now today we're going to go north, travel north, and we're going to go into Yellowstone. And I remember as a kid when I was growing up in school we learned a lot about Yellowstone Park and Old Faithful. And I was fascinated with Old Faithful. I always wanted to go there. Well I finally made it and it wasn't quite exactly what I thought it would be like but it was enchanting. It really was. So I'm going to start painting and then I'll tell you more about the journey as I'm painting. Thank you. First of all though I better get some colors mixed up here. I want to dive right into that luscious sky. Get all those darks in before I put the lights on. We've got some really strong value changes in this. You have you know like a really dark value going through here and sort of a medium value here and this is sort of a medium to a darker value. And then of course this is very light. It's almost like a four-value photograph that I'm working from. And of course we don't want it to look like a photograph. We want it to look like a painting but I want to dive into that sky. It's just oh it's so fascinating to me. I don't know if the camera picks it up or not but there's actually pinks and purples in these clouds back here and the camera may not be able to pick it up but I'll bet you my brush does. So here we go. I'm just working with my regular palette that I usually work with. I think I've even eliminated a few colors today. I added one new one. I added brown matter. I was dinking around in my home studio and I used picked up a little bit of brown matter and used it. I wanted to try it and I really liked it. And so I put a little bit on the palette today. We'll see if we can use it anywhere in there. I'm making a nice grade blue. This is what takes the time is mixing the paints. I wonder can you hear the knife scratching against the palette? I can. I put out two globs of white. I thought I'd be on the safe side today instead of having all my white and one pile on my palette. I put out two globs because I thought well I want to keep one cleaner. Okay now that looks a little too blue according to what I'm seeing here. I'm going to add just a wee bit of green to that. Warm up that blue so that it's not so cold. And then of course the green being the complement of the violet and the clouds. That will make it even more dramatic and beautiful. Here we go. Let's see here. Oh yeah. I think we nailed it kiddo. All right here we go. And then we'll put some more darks. We need to mix up a few more darks here. I want to have a lot of colors to prepare and ready to just dip into. So bear with me while I go through this process. I had always always wanted to travel to Yellowstone. When we finally got there we were actually on a trip from here in Wisconsin where I live all the way to the west coast to Washington state. And as a special treat we stopped at Yellowstone on the way and it was really the park. I don't know if you have been there. I know many of you have but those of you that haven't the park is very diverse. As you go through the park you'll you'll hit areas that are almost barren and it's quite large. I think the park covers goes into three different states. I think it's Idaho and Wyoming and another state. I'm not sure. I can't think right now. But anyway it it's very large and you have your mountains and of course they're very wooded and then you have these areas that are like plains that are flat and sage-like almost like like you would think more desert-like more like high desert. The wildlife was was quite abundant. We did get to see the big elk and I'm gonna scrape that down. I don't like where that's going so we'll just scrape that off and we'll put a little bit of pink in there a little bit of violet. This is what we want. Now we can start coming down with the dark. This as it comes down has to be quite a bit darker right in here so that we can see the the smoke from the volcano. It's listening to something on I think it was PBS the other day about volcanoes. It said that believe it or not that the biggest volcano we have in the United States is old faithful and they don't really know when it's really ever going to to really go off. That's really something it's kind of in a way it's kind of a little scary. Let's get some blue in here. We have some blue in here and there's a little blue in there. This is a little darker down in here. It was very when we saw the volcano when we saw old faithful can't say rub but blow I guess you'd call it. I had always been under the impression that it was like clockwork you know I don't know where I heard that but I was in the impression that every you know hour or every so many minutes that it went off like clockwork. Well that's not the way it is. They put a sign up and there's all these chairs that are sitting around quite a ways away and you it'll tell you like you know the next time it's going to blow it will be like at 5 20 or something that's what time it happened to be when we were there and we waited for oh I guess almost until 6 o'clock and then and it was getting quite dark in the sky I think there was a storm coming it finally went and it starts out with little little bubbles little tiny bubbles that kind of pop up it's like something boiling on the stove pot of rice boiling on the stove and it just pops and pops and pretty soon it gets larger and larger and the steam starts to roll out and it I think right now in this photograph that I have of it I think it's at it's about as high it goes up what do they say that well the the the I believe the the steam itself actually goes up to about 50 feet or further it's not a good place to be too close to as we as we traveled to the park through the park we saw a lot of other areas that were really I thought were prettier than where old faithful was located you know where the the lakes and I think my favorite area was the Yellowstone Grand Canyon or the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone I thought that was really beautiful it's just like the Yellowstone or it's just like the Grand Canyon in Arizona it's just a beautiful beautiful deep deep canyon with a large waterfalls and smaller waterfalls and all these vantage points to see these places I'm leaving this clean because I want that for my for my white smoke or steam I guess it's really steam not smoke one of this really light back here so that you can see the distance under here I'll come back and do a little futzing with that later right now I'm just trying to lay in them the colors that I see there's this beautiful turquoise in the sky that I'm having a little trouble getting but I'll get it I'll just keep working it until I do right in here there it is we've got some clouds there this appears to me to be need to be a little bit lighter once again I'm working with these bristle brushes I don't know kids I'm still not sold on them they are just so scratchy this is a lot of white in here I think I'll go ahead and get the dark on and for right now I'm just going to mix up a really dark value I'm not going to worry about any detail we'll wait for the detail till we get closer to the you know till we get the whole canvas covered so right now we're I'm just going to put this really dark dark green sort of I'm making a black sort of a green to put in that those trees back there and I'm going to push that up in order to have more of a feeling of forest and trees you know a lot of times the brush stroke will will actually define the subject matter better than anything else you just paint it with the brush stroke going the right way at least that's what I like to do see if I really don't have to fuss with this much it already looks like trees and stuff and then this over here and that's far away so we'll let that edge be real soft and I soften up those edges in the background just by taking and dragging the the sky over the edge and that's that softens it and makes it go back into the distance it's not really that close and then I can always come back in and if I want to and refine it just a little bit more but that looks a little better a little further away I really like soft edges and paint and paintings soft to go with the you know you have the hard edges and then you also have to have the soft edges so anyway what's really interesting in this in this waiting for old faithful to blow is the different people that are sitting there I happen to be sitting near a group that were wagering on when it was going to happen and I guess this one person was quite adept at telling just when it was going to they they could tell by the amount of steam or bubbles or whatever I didn't want to do that see that's a nice thing about painting in oil you don't want to do it you don't like it just take it off I see that little bit of stuff over there I'll go back and darken that a little bit but okay now this is coming down here and then I'm gonna go to a different brush and I'm going to paint the this ground area that I see I see this light edge and then this needs to be kind of softened into that it's kind of a light edge there is coming and it comes up in here and then it goes down this is this is almost like a shale it's sandy rocky I don't know quite how to express it it's I'm not it's not the most attractive stuff in the world let me just tell you that but we'll see what we can do with paint to make it look attractive because like I said but it isn't really about making this a look like the photograph it's this is supposed to be our our impression of this right now that light sort of rocky the only thing I can think of the only word I can think of is shale seems greater than that kitty let's see here I'm working very hard trying to get the the right colors in here for you but that is going across there now here is a little darker this is a little darker and it's coming up here and kind of coming down that's even darker yet this is where it's kind of sits in the land sort of comes together and all different points here that's another thing that makes this kind of an interesting thing to paint because you have all these directions going different different ways and it helps to make it a little more more interesting here this is a little darker right in here okay and then yeah this is darker coming down here and then over in here we have a little bit of that brownish coming down and we have the white shale over here that's quite white coming in to here on the bottom you have almost just has a little tiny bit of a pinkish look in here where those where it's first starting to come up see now this right here we go okay this is fun isn't it yeah brings back some really good memories memories of relaxed times you know you just kind of get all caught up rushing through life and you forget what vacation is like to just amble along and see the different things marvel and their beauty dream about being back in your studio so that you can paint them and nice vacations are nice traveling is nice traveling on canvas is nice like I do all right here we've got all these little patches of lights and I want to just kind of get that filled in sandy colors you can already tell that this is gonna be much much brighter than what the photograph is but that's okay that's what paints for and there's some little darks in here and get a beautiful green color when you mix your paint gray with the yellow ochre I want some red in here and then this down in here I'm seeing a little alizarin crimson I'm probably gonna knock all this down a little bit but just for now I just want to have it have it on there then I can tone it down and do what I want to do I see a little group of green things in there this looks a little green in here there's a little green right in right in here and there's more light and some orange I think I started to tell you about those painted I think I can't remember if it was that called the paint pots or just what but it was this real strange surreal area that was cordoned off and you and you walked around it you couldn't go into it and was all these pools of the and they were bubbling you know just like like I was saying like the rice kind of simmering and bubbling up and popping and they were doing this and but they were different colors it was was very interesting very I don't know it's kind of like if you couldn't imagine feeling like you're on another planet that's the way it was it was just so different the people you know most most of the people that were walking around it you could tell that they were really quite awestruck at this natural phenomenon that they were seeing I heard on the news not too long ago that there was a really serious fire in Yellowstone and I truly hope it didn't do too much damage because we have a lot of fires now going on in the in the West like that that's that's pretty I think at least I think it's pretty it's colorful like that bring this down a little bit more I think we need I know you're waiting for me to get to the actual steam huh that great big bundle of steam let's see here that's lighter back there you want this it to stay lighter and go take the green and oh no it's a little more violet there we go yeah that's what we wanted okay I think I'm going to darken if I go to my lightest lights I think I'm going to darken this area over here on the bottom there we go and then there you can see just a little touch of that and in there and I'm going to take a paper towel soften that down a little bit so that it it doesn't pick up too much of the green and now I'm going to start coming in here and get back with that blue brush first of all I think I'll take I think I'll work this a little bit and soften it a little just kind of soften and move with the with the clouds it just seems to help make it a little softer and and I don't have my big brush with me today but there that looks a little better I often do this you know because this guy is the furthest thing back and so it should be a little softer I think you know when you're thinking about distance atmosphere things like that you consider all of that and yeah this guy should be back further and it should be softened a little bit we don't want to make it look like it's really too stormy there we go now we've got some nice things going in here I think yeah mm-hmm okay and we do have a little a little bit of the blue up above right up in here in this little corner right up in here and it's coming up there I see we're going to have some areas of blue coming through in here there's going to be an area right in here and then this is going to be coming around this right here it is going to be coming across over here right there that's all going to be white white and this is going to have some blue coming around down in here I'm trying to sort of come in from the outside in to create my my steam I think I need you know your eye bounces around I think I need this to be just not that white kitty I need this to be just a little bit lighter back here and the on the skyline just a little bit lighter there and then we'll kind of soften that in we'll have that same light over here and up in here this big brush and come down a little bit just keep that nice and soft okay and then over here I'm really seeing a lot of of clouds back there and they're warm they're a nice warm white where this is kind of cool this is much warmer up here so I'll take some white and warm it up a tiny bit of yellow ochre that works pretty well there we go you can really see that that sun is is hitting those clouds back there so now we'll just have to pray that we don't make green when we put these yellow clouds on well I think I'll take the safest road here and wipe some of this out okay now let's see here now these are just kind of going across I'm seeing a lot of green here I hope that's not look like there are clouds in the background we do have a little bit of blue right in there right in here there's a little touch of blue and there's a little touch right up in there this is a little darker in here and there's a little dark right down in there now this is a violet over here here sort of violet color and that's from the steam and it's a little violet on the edge right in here also as it's coming up here this is this one's coming down here like this the blue right here blue violet you see here it's my next biggest brush I guess I'm just gonna have to clean this one and stay with it try to wipe it all the paint off of it that I can it's just turning into a bit of a challenge today but that's okay we're up to it aren't we just hang in there we'll make something happen here I'm kind of like the way this is sort of coming down and around sorry I'm so quiet I I told they forgot forgot you were with me I was so engrossed in this my gosh you know it's just that the process of painting of journeying across your canvas and you've got all these choices to make and and beautiful things to to see and bring out that you forget you forget you're not by yourself you forget to talk you forget to think sometimes I even forget to breathe when I'm painting I love it so much down here now this works down here isn't it exciting you know you just to see this this tremendous thing that's been around for who knows how many thousands maybe millions of years and you're here you are in this TV studio capturing it on canvas it's like a miracle kind of it's wild and free dangerous but beautiful and I want to try there was like little bubbles coming up that kept coming up and popping and I want to try to show you those you know to show you that that feeling of of those little things I don't see them in the photograph but I know they were there I saw them I was there I saw them and see light things going this is this is lighter coming up right here we have some light coming onto this too and the warmest part of it the very warmest part is getting so excited now because it's coming together it's wild it's wild and it's rough and I know it's rough but I can see it happening now we need light right in here I love to paint with thick juicy paint this is that this is what is called impasto thick juicy paint just let that paint build up on there and let it describe that the movement and the thickness of the paint describe the surface of what you're seeing this is warmer right along this edge right in here I do want to take the another brush and bring back some of the blues in here and we have a little bit of the green that's right in here showing has to be a little darker there and then that we may have to wait because if I touch that now maybe if I do it with my paper towel touch it and knock it down a little bit you see you can paint with your fingers with paper towels with brushes knives spatulas whatever you want to paint with there that knock that down to show that that is behind and we'll put a little more on top of it there to kind of there now that that shows that that is that mountain coming from behind and I just I want this to just right in here I wanted to just really come down looks kind of van Gogh-ish doesn't it yeah that's okay that's alright I like it I hope you like it too I hope after sitting here and sitting there and watching me try to make this come to pass here I I we traveled across this canvas I I hope you do like it I think I like it pretty good I think I'll go back in here and maybe make a little more of the green right in here and a little more of the light that seems to be there again that's that rocky it's sort of stuff that I was telling you about you know the the terrain just keeps changing from enormous rocks and cliffs and waterfalls to mountains to rivers and streams beautiful I saw the most beautiful elk of course I only saw him from the back I have this great picture of this elk coming in from the back of him as he's walking away right in the middle of this stream it's just what an experience it was I hope if you haven't been there that someday you'll get to go I really do a little green down here a little bit right in here maybe some up in here right there I think I should do something here to show more where the where this is here I think this needs to be a little crisper there right here there we go that helps need those we need those little signposts that lead the eye into where the the important part is a little more white right in there and let me see here I see a dark green coming right here and then the last thing I want to do here is darken up the bottom of this and make it look it's coming out of that and I think even though I don't see it in the photograph it might help if I come with a little bit of dark right underneath to kind of show that that is coming out of there I think that helps a little bit I think this needs to be just a little darker right in here for the background there I truly hope that you've enjoyed our little journey through Yellowstone and to see Old Faithful at its finest as it is blowing and I hope that you'll join us for our next show when I think I think we'll continue west and go to Sedona Sedona Arizona that's a really beautiful place to the red rocks of Sedona I think you'll like that so you have to be sure and catch us next time as we go to Sedona Arizona and of course you'll want to see whatever little things I come up with to change and make this painting here a little bit you know more refined and that I'll do in the studio I want some light right in here okay my cameraman is telling me I have one minute one minute where's our time gone where has it gone I don't know but I sure have enjoyed being with you today I and I hope that you enjoyed our painting journey to Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park once again my name is Kitty Lynn Klisch you've been watching painting journeys be sure and catch us next time bye bye till then