 Funding for Painting Journeys is provided by Veritas. Financial Knowledge is Power. Be Empowered. 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. Hello and welcome to Painting Journeys. My name is Kitty Lynn Plisch and you're going to be journeying with me across the canvas. Today we're still in the Grand Canyon. I had hoped to finish the painting in my home studio from our last episode but I did quite a bit of work in the background and I brought that more to a finished state. And then today I wanted to show you a little bit about how I work with a palette knife and how I can bring this part of the painting, the foreground, all of this right in here that is so vivid and colorful, how I can bring that all to life on my canvas with my palette knife. So that's my goal for the day. I'm really glad you joined me and once again this is Painting Journeys and my name is Kitty Lynn Plisch and we're going to journey into the Grand Canyon today. Alrighty, thank you for joining. Okay, first thing I have to do here is mix up some paint. And I'm going to go ahead and take a little bit of time here. I'm using my normal palette, the same one that I always use. It's probably kind of boring to look at the same thing every show but this is what I use. I'm going to mix up a variety of colors here and have them ready to go because when you're working with a palette knife you don't really want to always have to stop and remix. So I want some nice colors in here that I'm seeing and there will be some nice cool colors for the shadowed areas and some nice warm, vibrant colors to show you the beautiful red rocks. As you can see off in the distance it's very gray. There's almost like a haze that sits in the canyon. So I tried to bring the background a little more to life than what I saw in the photograph. I tried to stay pretty true to it as far as showing depth. I got lots of violets in here and lavenders and everything because I did want to show the depth and the distance but I also know that it isn't as attractive when you show it so gray and almost foggy looking like the photograph is. I'm mixing more colors, I'm mixing some darks and some lights, I'm mixing some reds and the compliments and greens with them and just kind of thinking out loud here and shooting from the hip like I usually do. And if anybody out there has noticed, yes I did get all of my hair cut off. The reason I did that was because I just thought it was time to simplify life and you know there's nothing better than having a simplified life, right? So I got it cut off and I like it and I hope you like it too. But if you don't, please don't let me know because there's nothing I can do now. It's gone. Alright, enough about my hair. Well, I'm mixing away here. One thing I would like to share with all of you so that you there watching this episode can just say a simple little happy birthday to Lacey, my camera girl today. She just is turning 20. She's finally out of the terrible teens. Lucky girl. So she's nice enough to come in on her birthday and be my camera girl. I should say camera woman. She's not a girl anymore. She is woman. Alright, let me see here. Do we have enough to get started here? Probably not. I'm talking more than I should. Let's make some lighter colors here. You know, this is the part of painting that takes the absolute longest is mixing up the colors. I know some artists that actually will take and mix up every color and value from cool to warm that they see that they're going to use in the painting before they'll ever pick up a brush and lay it to the canvas. That doesn't work for me. I'm a little too impatient. I want to start painting. I don't want to waste any more time than I have to in this mixing color business. I want to really, I see a beautiful red glow in here and I want to capture that. And I'm trying to get just the right color to do that. So maybe I will have to do a little mixing as I go here. Let's see, how does this look next to this? Well, pretty good. Not bad. We can start with that. Okay. All right, I'm going to go over to, I'm going to take a smaller knife and I'm going to go over to this area right in here. It's a little bit darker right here coming down. Now if I put this on here, immediately I notice that it's not dark enough or to tell the back from the front. So I have to go in and adjust that and make what is behind just a little bit darker in order for it to show up with the rock in the front. So I'm going to take the brush because I just want to do this softly and I want to come right in here. Oh goodness, now I can't hardly even see it. All right, let's see here. Right in here and I want to darken this so that we can see what I'm going to do with this little outcropping here of rock. And then we'll just make that go up so that it looks like it's coming down. This is a big mountain right in here and I think I'll just soften some of these lines here. Now I see I got that brush in my hand and here I go wanting to make those adjustments. Can't ever leave anything alone. All right, there now we'll be able to see that just a wee bit better I think. And then down here we're going to have a little bit of light back there. Give a little bit of distance. Okay, now back to the knife, all right. So I'm thinking that this here is just a little bit coming down about like so. There's a little bit of an outcropping right in here. And then on the top here it is quite light and it's light back in there too. And then there's a few little variations in there. Okay, a little bit of the dark coming right down here. I got the nicest email from a lady the other day in Massachusetts. And it was so great to hear from someone that actually watches my show and follows along on my website and my blog. That was really such a good feeling and she was so encouraging. And she evidently really likes the program and it was just such a pleasure to hear from her. And I highly encourage any of you that have the notion to go ahead and email me or go to my website and contact me and tell me what you think of the show. And if you're learning anything or if you feel like you're actually seeing places that you've never been to or that you would have liked to have visited or possibly maybe even you have visited and I'm bringing back some good memories for you, that would be very nice. I would love to hear from you. Okay, now I see just a little bit of green in here. So we'll just put a little bit of green right there. Okay, and there's a little more right in here. All right, that's kind of growing on the top there. I want this right here. Just don't want to lose all that light. That light is really important right there. All right, now I'm going to go down in here. I see some light that's coming right there. And then it comes up here. And it's coming across here. Oops, not nearly enough paint kitty. It's coming here and then this is actually going up more at an angle right there. Like so. And coming around. And down here. And then we have these little steps here with the light. Real light areas. And some light right in here on the other side of this tree. I hope that the sound of the palette knife is not too annoying. I know it sounds like chalk on a blackboard sometimes. Okay, that fixes that area. Now right in here, it's just a little bit coming down right in here. It's just a little bit different in the color and coming over to here. It's just a little different. It's mostly light right in this area. I mean mostly light right in this area here. And not so light right here because the sun is obviously not hitting right here where I'm painting. Okay, so that comes right in there. Now we have this beautiful red, bright red that's coming down here. I have to tone that down a little bit. That looks a little bright. There we go. That's a little better. And it does get a little bit darker right in here where we go into the shadow. In this corner, in a little corner there, there we go. We have a little bit of this coming out here, a little jutting out. And then this right in here is very dark. So I'm going to take some Payne's Gray and some Alizarin Crimson. And I want to make her nice, rich, rich, dark for in that area. And I'm going to take a smaller knife too. I brought my little baby one. Oh shoot, did I get it out? Yep. Here's my little baby knife. Isn't that cute? Actually what it is is a big knife that had to be ground down because I bent it. And that's going to come here a little bit and come down and come in here. Comes up there a little bit. We need a little bit of the red on top of the dark right here. You know, I just may end up going back to the brush because I don't like the way this is looking. And I wanted it to be nice and jagged looking and everything. And maybe I'll just make some of my finishing touches with a knife. I'm not getting what I want out of this. I need a little more definition here. Okay, let's see here. Alrighty. I can go a lot faster with a brush also. There's so many colors, you know. It's just amazing to look at something like this. And, you know, if you look at this outline right here, doesn't that resemble a woman standing there, a pregnant woman? I always see things in the rocks. I'm not going to paint it like it looks like a pregnant woman, but that's what I see in the photograph. Then when we were on our road trip, everybody, my son and my granddaughters were all kidding me because I saw things in the rocks everywhere. And they say, there she goes again, and some dark right down in here. And then this is coming out more and coming down here and then it's making a little bulge right in there. This should have a little bit of an edge right here and coming down so that we can see that that's coming back like that. There we go. We have a violet, a violet shadow. It's quite pretty. It is being cast by the tree right down in here. And I got to last my tree when I was working on it in the studio at home, but we'll get it back. And then these little steps here. And I think I really still want a little more of the red in here. Let's see. You have to be careful. You don't want it to look garish, but at the same time, you want to show that beauty that we're seeing there. And we've got another dark area right in here. See that right there? Okay. That's about straight down from the tree, so it's right about right in here. It's not real dark. It's just a little area there that is coming down. This maybe has just a little bit more dark in it. I think I need a little more red in my dark. It's too cold. I need it to be just a little warmer. Maybe a little green in it. And this in here. There. That one. That looks better. Okay. And part of what makes this look greener is because there's some trees in there. This is coming down like this. And this is all going across here like so. And this little tree is in here. He's got lots of little green things. Now that I can do with my knife. Bug in my paint. I don't know how a bug got in here. All right. Let's see here. Okay. We're seeing lots of little green businesses in here that are growing and coming down the side of this hill right here. And there's bright yellow green coming down over in here. And this area below the... And this green is all coming down into here. And then we have a tree that is right in... Okay. That's not that dark. Right in here is a tree trunk. And I'm going to use a tiny brush now to describe that tree a little bit. The branches is kind of a really neat, neat tree the way it's twisted and gnarled and everything. Can you imagine the force of the wind that goes through here? And what these trees on these high bluffs like this that jut out over the canyon, the velocity of the wind, how difficult that must be for those trees to withstand that. I think that's pretty incredible how strong they are. It makes me think of the poor trees in California that I saw on the news the other night. They're having lots of distress because of the drought out there. But they say the Sequoias, they say that they're probably will be okay because they've been through droughts before, but just the same. You know, a person worries. You think, well, the heck is going on here? Why does it have to be like that? Some areas have too much rain and other areas don't have enough. Why is it like that? And I guess we won't know those answers until Total Hindsight will give us those answers. We're not going to get them now, I know. Okay, I'm just going to put a little bit of brushwork on the tree here and make him pop a little bit so he shows up a little bit better there. I want to do too much to him because he really doesn't have a lot going on as far as greenery is concerned. This is a little darker green right in here. This little grouping of sagebrush or plant life, whatever it is that's growing right in there. That's a little darker. Okay. I think I want to kind of pump up that edge right in here though so that we kind of get the feeling that this is, and then this really, I don't have that right yet, gang, I'm going to have to come down on that to get that feeling of that coming down. See the stroke that you use describes the movement of the object and now that looks like that's going down. Much, much better, much, much more readable as form, movement. All right, we want that to just kind of drift off into the darkness and I know I'm probably being way too picky here because it's taking too much, I'm taking too much time but I'm having fun. I hope you are too. That's why I do this show to bring you joy and because it's a joyful thing for me to do. All right, we're going to see here and here and kind of get a little, I know what I'm needing. I know what will make it look better. Some of this, my favorite color of livers are in crimson. A little bit of that in there. That'll give it a little touch of what I want there. In fact, that whole side is coming across like that and then we have some of that in here too and we have a little bit here on the side coming down. It's a little darker and let's see here. Okay, we've got the bump there. This has got to match more up with her neck and this has got to be a little bit lighter in here. Take this and I'm going to pull it out. All right, let me set back a little ways. Okay. All right, I think what I'm seeing that my problem is is that the things in the back are not dark enough right around the area here, the C. Okay, I just got the sign that I'm halfway through the show and am I halfway through what I'm doing here? No, but that's okay. We do what we can. There's nothing more that we can do than that to the best we can. There we go. I want you to be just a little lighter there. Okay, all right. Now then these need to be just a little bit darker coming through here and here and then this is that nice red right in here coming around, coming into this crack here. This is kind of a lighter red right here. We've got a stroke of bright right in there coming down and we've got some brights in here too that I'm just going to, and maybe a little more orange would help. Watching the mad woman as she tries to figure herself, her way across this canvas and this is a journey today, I'll tell you. I don't know what prompted me to tackle this, but that's okay, that's okay. No challenge, no success, right? I like that bright right there. I don't know why, but it just turns me on. Now this over in here is, not quite as dark bright kitty, tone it down now. Don't get too happy with that bright color. You'll be messing up. That's coming down like this. Now I don't know what that is. It looks, this right area right in here, it looks like a, I had trouble with that last episode too, trying to figure out why that looks so white. I think I'll put a little darker in there. But it's definitely there. So I think we'll just have to throw it in. Let's see here, white and I'm seeing some little piles of brush, sage brush. Kind of a cool white mixed in with this. And I think what I'm going to do is just kind of do a patting effect and see if I can get that to look like what I'm seeing there. Give it a little more of a textural approach to kind of get that to look right. Because it's definitely like a little, whoops, too much, too much. We'll get a little green in there too. Okay, where was I? Right in here. A little green in there too. Now this is definitely in front of what's behind there. So we've got to have this show up because I think it's more in the foreground. We don't want to be copying the photograph slavishly, but we still want to have it look like it, you know, you can see it. So, okay. I'm not real crazy about that, but maybe with a few darks around in there, that'll help. Okay, and I really think what it needs is for me to come in behind with some of the dark again. And dark, if it's not light enough, it's because it's not dark enough. And that's one of the hardest things for some artists to understand. They keep wanting to add white to their paint to make something get lighter. And the way to make something get lighter is to darken what's around it. And then it will show. As you can see here, that looks a lot better. Alrighty, okay. Now I really want some pretty bright areas here where I see the mountain. Nice, bright. Okay, let's see here. How about right in here? A little bit. This is a little darker in here. And that looks like it's a, maybe has a little more shape to it. It's kind of a rounded thing right here that's kind of coming up and then there's a light thing coming right down in there. Okay. And then there's, we've got some reds down in here too. That's not red enough right there. Once again, you've got me really working here. I like that. I like that bounce back of the color. It's good, good, good, good. Okay, and in here just a little color. Okay. I can always, if I find, when I close the show today, if I find that, you know, that something that looks a little too garish, I can always tone it down. But it's better, I feel, that it's better to go, you know, push a little further rather than to be too timid with this. This is such a grand place. To me, it really requires not a heavy hand, but a brave hand. A brave pallet knife. Okay. Let's see here. Cave in there. Kind of coming out in here, and this is going up, and this is coming down in here, right in there. So we can see the tree through the... I'm going to put just a little bit of reflected light into the bottom of this over here. There we go. Okay. Now then, we do see some reds down in here behind the trees. And we see some reds over in here. Oh, it's a little darker though. Let's calm that down a little bit. Don't get too happy here, kiddo. That's all down in there. Now this right here, this beautiful place, right in here where it's all kind of a violet look. Let me get at that. Let's see, violet, cobalt violet. Pretty, pretty. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Love that color. Sometimes to me, the paint is so yummy looking, I could just eat it. I mix up all these gorgeous colors, and of course I'd be one sick puppy if I did, but still. You know, it's like all the different shades of ice cream in the world. Okay, so now right in here, we have, that's too light. So we scrape it out, or let's take our wipe out tool. Wipe that off. That is way too light. It's mad with me. I'm gonna put that on there. Does that work? No, it's too blue. Wipe it out again. And as we close the show, she'll be saying, and wipe it out again. But that's okay. That's what we do. A little more of the violet. I bet I can have it now. I think I have it. If I don't, we'll move on to something else. Because, yes I have it. Here we go, I have it. So that's a nice kind of a violet color right in there. And it's kind of coming down in here. And it's a little bit, just a little bit coming over in here too. Now over that, I'm gonna be putting my greens and this little log that you see. So I'm just kind of softening that in right there. Because everything is gonna be coming over that. Before we get too far into it, I want to come back to this little tree here. It's a very important tree and I almost forgot about him. And I don't want to do that. So, I think I better go to the brush though. There's that little brush, there it is. Now he has a quite a thick trunk. And he's short. You can see how the wind has just blown these trees at an angle. They've grown at an angle. He has a lot more foliage on him. Let's wipe this down. And I don't know if I got the 15-minute sign or not. Did I? He's not showing me so... Maybe I might still be okay then. Sometimes a time flies so fast. You're not sure where you are. Now we'll take the little knife and pat it on. Now we've got quite a bit up in here. And you can see the texture. Well, I like texture. I like thick paint in a painting. You know, if you're gonna paint with another medium, such as watercolor or pastel, gouache, whatever, you know, go ahead, paint thin, you know. But if you're gonna paint with oil, and you want it to really have the feeling of something, I think, is alive, then get that paint on there. That's what it's for. Don't be skimpy with it. Put it on, have fun. If it takes a year to dry, so what? You got time. Here's my 15-minute sign. I was ahead of myself. Good! Good, good, good, good, good. That means we still have some time left. A little more of the dark on the opposite side here, right in here. Oh, now that's a nice looking tree. Alrighty. Maybe just a little more there. Is it showing up? You know, I look at the tree, and I look at the relationship of the, of what's around the tree, and it doesn't seem light enough to me. I'm gonna come in here. I'm gonna make more light, lighter and brighter light, and come back up there and put that on right there. And I'm gonna catch it in a couple of other places too. That light is very, very bright. And over here, of course, maybe a little bit in here. There we go. And that kind of, let's see here, this is going kind of up and out. Okay, there. That looks a little better. And I can soften this down a little bit so that it looks like it's a little more. I don't want that. Who put that there, huh? Who put that there? Did you do that, Kitty? All right, there we go. Okay. A little more dark behind it. And right in there. That shows up pretty good. Alrighty. And that's coming down. And then this is, it comes in again. I don't want that to be too dark, but this comes in again in here. And then it's coming down there. And that seems to have a very light spot right in there. So it's always light against dark and dark against light. So that seems to be, no, that's not right. That seems to be quite light in this area right in here. Okay. And this is kind of coming down here. Okay, then, all right, then let's see here. We have our log laying down here. I think I'll put that in. I'll switch back to the brush now. And there is that log. And he's laying, coming right down here. And then he goes this way. And then he comes out. And right there. And so then he needs some light on him. But it's a blue-white. It's a cool white, not just a little bit to kind of show him up here. There is that little spot that is right behind here that is a little lighter and a little more yellow right in there. Where he's coming out. And there's some of this right in this area here, too. Okay, and then there's some of that in the foreground. Some of that same kind of a more golden, yellow color right there in the foreground. And I'm probably not going to have time to do the trees for you today. I think I'm not even going to attempt them. I think what I'm going to do is finish up the painting and bring it to you and show it to you on our next episode. It's really looking very, very good and I don't want to ruin it in these last few moments we have together by going in there and just throwing something on just to be throwing it on. I'd rather spend a little more time just fussing with it and giving it some of the finer points that I wanted to have to show you how to do that. Alright, let's see here. We have an area here that's jutting out and this is coming up and this is a little bit shorter right in there. And then this right in here we need bigger brush kitty. We need a little bit more of this in here. You know, I think it's just amazing that I was so ambitious and I really thought I was going to get this done, completed today. But there was more to it. The Grand Canyon is a tricky place. Don't underestimate it. It will fool you and make you look like a fool because you won't be able to do what you say you're going to do. There you go. We have some little things coming down there. That's looking pretty good. Okay, I do see some dark that I want to get in and it has green in it and it's right over here. Basically I'm looking for areas where the darks are and putting them in because this is coming down here into this violet right in here and it's quite dark right there and then there's going to be that nice bright yellowish bush here and there's going to be a yellowish bush down there. But that violet looks really pretty. All of this is going to just be that kind of scrub brushy look. We have a lot of greens coming down that are of a darker nature coming right down in here and there's this little tree there that I haven't done yet and this is quite a bit darker coming down right in here too where all these trees are in there and coming down to that. So that kind of gives you a little idea of the darks and the lights and I still want this to I want this to be have a stronger look to it because that is so light and the only way that we can get that to be lighter is to darken what's behind it. As I've said before it just we want that to really pop right there and it's not popping the way it should and it could be a couple of different reasons why it could be that the paint isn't thick enough so that it has enough texture could just be the shape of it I might not have it shaped correctly and maybe a little more shadow down on the bottom of it I'm really sorry to say we only have five minutes left in the show today we have five minutes signal from Lacey I wonder what Lacey is going to do for her birthday hmm twenty and I wonder what she's going to be doing tonight I hope it's fun whatever it is there we go lots of cake and ice cream and good friends and family to share it with there we go okay now we will have this tree I'm just going to put just a little tip of this tree right there so that you can see where it's going to be because I know the time is clicking by quickly here but you're going to see that tree right in there it's kind of make it brighter kitty we need it to show up for the people at home there you go okay now as I said it's not completed but pretty darn near I'll finish it at home and I think it will I think you'll really when you tune in be sure and tune in to the next show because if you do then you'll see I promise you'll see the painting completed and not like it is right now okay so this has a little movement right in here and then there's a little brush going down into here there's so much on this to paint that it's just too much fun too much fun and then next next our next show I had mentioned something about going to the ocean and the Pacific Ocean in California in Southern California and I will be painting the Pacific Ocean in Southern California on our next show so you'll want to be sure and tune in so that you can see how this one turned out and how the next one will be when I start it so maybe that helps who knows I know I want a little bump right there okay this is just we just got a couple minutes here left I'm put seeing around trying to poke a few more colors in here and soften some and alright there we go maybe some darks in here and I don't know I'll have to take a really close look at this one kids but you know what they say 50-50 chance a mess or a masterpiece so anyway thank you so much for joining me today once again this is Painting Journeys my name is Kitty Lynn Klisch be sure and catch our next show where you'll see this completed and you'll see me start the Pacific Ocean in Southern California thank you so much bye bye for now Funding for Painting Journeys is provided by Veritas, Financial Knowledge is Power be empowered