 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, this is Kitty Lynn Klisch and you're watching Painting Journeys. I'm glad you join me today. We're going to take a trip to the Grand Canyon and it's a marvelous, tremendous place, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. But first of all, on our last episode, I was working in the Petrified Forest. I was in love with the agate log in the Petrified Forest. And so I wanted to show you just how that turned out. I took it home. I made very, very few changes on it because it just really didn't need them. I darkened this area in here to show a little more depth and now you can really see this gully that is going through there that's full of trees. And you can see this agate log that has been supported with cement. And eventually someday, maybe in another thousand years or a million years or whatever, that log will be washed away. But as for now, it stands. And so that is the agate log in the Petrified Forest in Arizona. And then so from there, we traveled that same day. We traveled on up to the Grand Canyon. And we were in the south, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. And the most beautiful picture that I took, I believe, was this one. I just thought that was just so phenomenal. But I had a little trouble with my printer and it didn't print out quite right for me. But you know, those things are really not important because I'm not going to be copying the photograph. I'm going to be creating from it. So once again, my name is Kitty Lynn Klisch and this is Painting Journeys. And we're going to go on a journey to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon today. So here we go. First of all, my palette, same palette. I always use different paintings, same palette. I think that what I'm going to do today, oh, and let me explain this. This is kind of crazy looking, I know. I was getting ready for the show and I thought, hmm, maybe if I tried with the complement color in acrylic, if I just went back in there and tried to make some darks and some lights, well, I'm not an acrylic painter and I don't really like the medium. It's all watery and icky. So anyway, it didn't work out too well for me, but maybe you can see it. This area right here is this area and there's the trees there and there and this is this ledge right here. But don't pay any attention to this. This looks like a mess. This looks like somebody's nightmare. So we're going to work on this today. Now, and I'm going to start in the background, but I'm not going to go for any detail at all because I can see that this painting has a lot of subject matter to it and is probably going to take me some work back in my home studio to complete it. So I just want to kind of get this brushed in quickly, lightly kind of masked in and then I want to work more on what's pretty, this part right here and then I'll try to bring that to life before you see it on the next episode. Always remember, if you want to see how a painting was finished, tune in to the very next episode because it always starts with showing the last painting from the last episode. Okay, well, that's enough of that talking business. Now we better get to work. All right, now I've mixed up a little bit of some gray here and I'm going to just take a brush and this one looks like a nice brush and I'm just going to come in and maybe very thinly mask in some darks and that's a little too thin. It's not covering my green real well. You know, when you're there, you see all these marvelous photographs of the Grand Canyon and then when you get there in a way it's a little disappointing because unless the sun is looking just perfectly in a certain way at sunset, I've been told sunset is the best time to visit the Grand Canyon. You don't see all the colors. It's the light from the setting sun that actually gives you all those beautiful colors that you see in the postcards and everything. So I want that to happen here but I'm going to have to take a lot of creative license, I know that. Creative license is where you just do what you need to do to make it resemble your representation of what it is that you're painting and all artists have creative license. No one has to paint things exactly as they see them. Some people paint very abstract and those are very beautiful and they see something in there. I don't usually, it's not my cup of tea abstract but it certainly is for some people and that's okay. And then other people paint just as sharp as if it was photo, they call it photorealism and you can't tell it from a photo. That's kind of the extreme going the opposite way. So now we'll just take a little bit of this light and we'll try to catch a couple of these plateaus in here. There again I'm trying to keep this very, very light. The downward stroke of the brushwork creates a feeling of going downwards and the downward movement and a horizontal brushstroke creates the feeling of a flat. So that's why I always try to paint the dark edges going downwards and I'm hoping that this will kind of look like different things in there. This is a very thin wash that I'm using here. I'll probably have to go back in there and maybe just a little more color would help, especially in this area right in here. Just saw just a little bit of the color, maybe in this area right in here too. This is light. One of the most important things to remember is the light against dark You know we have all this really dark subject matter and what's in the background is quite, it's almost like a mist on it. I don't know why that is. It's kind of hazy, foggy like. I don't know what makes it that way. I've been to the Grand Canyon twice now and I don't understand why it doesn't look real sharp and clear ever, that I've seen it, but maybe it's the time of year that I go. Maybe the heat in the summertime causes kind of a steamy stuff to come up. Let's try a little bit of a brown. I like to mix my browns. I never use a store-bought brown. I mix my brown with my cad red light and my sap green and maybe this guy right here, this kind of behind me will put a little color in him and make him come down and down. There we go. He's a little darker right along the edge here and that's more of a point right there. I can see now I'm going to have a challenge when I take this back to the studio trying to get this to look right. I didn't think it would be that tough and I really don't want to get bogged down with it or I won't get to my objective which is the foreground for you. We'll just put in a few other colors in there and kind of try to get it to show up a little bit. I like that violet in there. I actually saw that violet when I was there. That's kind of a neat color. So much happening there. Maybe a little brighter orange. As I'm painting, I'm just sort of talking my way through it. I know that it still does not look like I want it to look if I reinforce my dark so that you can see that those are going in a downward. There's another one here and he's coming right there and then this has got some dark here. I think one of my favorite things about painting is the fact that especially with oil, oil is so wonderful. It's such a wonderful medium because if you don't like the way it turns out you can just wipe it out and do it over again. It's one of the most forgiving mediums and yet for some reason some people really struggle with it because you have to have a good handle on what you're doing with it. That's for sure. If I step back, that doesn't look too bad. It's kind of doing what I want it to do and then I'll just take a little light here and come across there and make it look like a little plateau, maybe a little more right here. Okay, I think that's going to be enough on that. I got a little more orange right there. Right in here, a little more orange and that comes out there a little bit more. It has a little more color to it as you get closer. You see by my going in a downward motion here you can see how I'm building the shape of it. Okay, that looks like mountains back there. I've got a lot to work to do there though. All right, now some reds and oranges and I don't want to make this as bright as the picture is. So I'm going to tone down my colors and right here on this edge, this is coming like this and it's coming down and it's kind of bumpy. It goes in and then it goes out and I have a hunch what I really want to do is get my palette knife and just go to tone with that. But I did that on the last show so I'm going to try to stay with the brush for this painting. Let's see here, so this is a little darker. Now I need a little more violet. This is a little darker right in here and there's some dark in here. There's some real dark right down in here. This is a very dark area in there. A little red in there. I like that alizarin crimson. You put that in there and it really makes it come to life. I'm trying to just find some of those dark areas there that I want to, I'm trying to set myself in here for where am I, you know, kind of a, and then this is dark green up in here. So we'll take some green and we'll add a little bit of alizarin crimson to it, darkened it a little bit and there this is this, this rock comes around like this right here and then it comes in. Let's see here. We need some space back here because we have that rock right there so we need a little light back there and a little light right back in here behind this too. There we go. And then starting right about here we've got a real dark area and that's coming down. We're just going to mask that in and we've got some pretty dark area right down in here. It's kind of hard to tell right now what it's going to look like because it's so all over the place with color and add some violet. It's fun. It's fun being able to be here with you today and mixing up these colors and trying to make something make sense. Oh well. You'll bear with me as I struggle across this canvas, won't you? That's all part of the painting journey. Looks like a little bit of light right in there. Little yellow. This all seems to be golden here but let's get this rock here. Now he's going to have to be darker. You see how he's darker than what is behind him. So we're always looking at the value. What is darker? I think that needs a little more orange in it. I don't like that dirty color there. That's a little bit better. Maybe a little red. Me and my reds, I love red. There we go. That's coming down like that and then there's some light that's kind of coming this way. All righty. And then there's light right here. It's going to be my one brush painting. You notice how I'm doing what I used to tell my students, don't do this now. Don't paint all your whole painting with one brush. And look at me, here I am doing it all with one brush. But oh well. For the sake of expediency we'll just over here with this. There's a little bit of green on here. And then the bushes and stuff are kind of a grade green. They weren't real bright. It was very desert-like as far as the colors were concerned on the foliage. Let's see here. Nope, that's not going to be dark enough. Just mixing away here. There we go. I want this to be just so that it's like a little foliage here. I don't care for that around there. I'm going to have to get rid of that. And then this yellow-green foliage is all coming down here. I'll wipe this out because it's the light. Very light. Top of that rock right in there. Coming back. And we're going to have some of this light right here coming right around that to kind of set that out there. That's going to need... Alright. And then right down in here make this come down. And here now we've got this little green business here going across the top and coming over to here. And then we have very light. Very, very light. Almost white. That rock is so light. There was a place where there was a flat, sort of a flat plateau like this and it had a great big boulder and it was just sitting there. It did not look like it belonged there. It was just sitting there and it was so odd to me because it was like some big giant hand had picked it up and placed it there. It was the strangest thing. Well, okay. I've got the picture right here and I want you to look at that. Now doesn't that look like a big giant hand picked that boulder up and put it down right there on that flat rock. I think that's the darndest looking thing. Anyway, I was quite fascinated with that. And you can see it there in the photo. I always like to bring a few extra photos with me to show you how some of the other things that, you know, that I saw in the area. Boy, I'll tell you, those people that went down in the canyon, I thought they were some real brave souls. I would never be able to attempt that. I'm just putting this little shadow in where this little tree is right here. Okay, and then we have this little tree and it is got a pretty dark trunk on it. Now I want to make sure I don't make it too dark, though. It's short and stumpy. There's the cast shadow from it. And then it's got some branches and then we're going to make the little dark green tree. First of all, I'm going to come in with a little darker green, I think. I just want to tap this in. I don't want to really make it solid. Just sort of tap it. And then I will be able to come over that with the lights. There we go. Now this goes up a little bit higher. I have the nicest young man today is here in the studio with me. He's from the Madison area. He's a student. And he's one of my cameraman today. And he just gave me the notice that we're halfway through this. And I'm looking at my canvas and I'm thinking am I halfway through the canvas? I'm halfway through the show. I don't know. I think I better try to go a little faster and catch up here. I have some light oranges on this tree a little bit. I do want to make some things that look like what they look like so that you can kind of get an idea of where this is going. Alright, maybe it needs a little bit of dark. And I'll probably open that up with a little more of what's behind it later. And we have another little tree coming up here and it's got some little business. If you look at him very carefully you can see how windblown he is. That's something I'm going to have to put on with my a very tiny little brush to show those that kind of tortured shape that he has there. We'll take this smaller brush and we'll see if we can do it here. This is coming around like this and that's coming out like that in here. And then this is coming up here and he's kind of going around there. It should be a little redder I think. There we go. And this in here, let me see, let me take this brush and mix up some nice red. Let me see here. Well, you know, when I don't talk that means I'm really thinking hard and I'm asking myself, oh goodness Kitty, whatever made you think you could pull this off today something this complicated and subject wise something that probably take me several days to paint in my studio. I don't know. Sometimes I just feel like well I think I'll just go for it. What the heck? You know what they always say 50% chance of a mess or a masterpiece. So we'll just as long as you bear with me now because before this is over with I might surprise you. You'll bear with me won't you? Sure you will. There's just so many little things here that I'm just not real sure what I want to leave in and what I want to take out. You know, sure enough if I leave something in it's going to be the thing that needs to be taken out. There's always the danger of putting too much and see we need some of that light up here again. Light red and orange-ish up in here because this is kind of coming down and around there's a nice nice orange backlit area right in here and then this comes down here and then that starts getting the darker again and then this, let's see there's some area right in here. That's a little lighter. I'm painting very thin because I know I'm going to be going back over this with in my home studio to do the finishing touches on it. So I'm working very thin I'm not piling on the paint like I did last week around like that. Let's see here let's get something behind this and this just looks like to me this just looks like light rock with some kind of a sage brushy looking stuff on it but it's definitely behind this so it's not as bright as this is but it's not as soft and faded as that is so we have to come up with something in between there has kind of a pinkish look to it. There's some light right down in here that's going across and that's very light because there again it's another little plateau that is behind this is coming up this way here and going like so and that's down there that little plateau and then this is in front of it here. Let's see I think I lost my way. I'm going to come and darken this a little bit and right in here a little bit there we go. Now we're doing this and those little dark red things in there I'm sure it's like sage brush but it has a so when I put those on I'm going to have to put it and make it darker on the base and just kind of pick those up a little bit and I'm not going to put a bunch of them and just pick them up a little bit and then I'm going to come in with a little bit of the orangey color to put on the top kind of an orangey brown to kind of make them just a little something so that we know something is growing in there if that looks right or not okay alright let's see here we'll just kind of soften that down a little bit thank goodness for softening I don't know where I'd be if I couldn't soften because that makes a big difference there now that doesn't look too bad now we have some bright bright reddish orange coming right down in here this in front of this area and it's dark it's got some dark in it right in there I don't know if you guys see that or not but I do and that's what helps now is to put this behind this and that behind this and that's going all the way down here it looks like and now that this little corner this little whole area here that is in here I want that even darker I want that yeah I want that have a little more of a shape and more of an intenseness to it and little sharper edges and then it'll soften as it's coming out and I think that helps that look yeah okay and then there is a place right here that looks like it's going straight down and this is going across okay now then I see violet I actually see it I'm seeing violet in here it's coming up like this oh that's not enough paint on there okay come on now do what I ask you to okay I'm going to have to wipe that area out we have too much paint on it to do what I want it to do here I'm going to take the violet and I'm just going to put that violet right up in there hmm alrighty and that's going to come down right in here and then this right here is a nice light kind of an orangey red right in here and this right in here is sort of the same thing kind of a nice bright orangey red that's coming down and around and then we have the light or the light is striking here because that's kind of coming over right in there so we'll have the light striking right in here going in a cross braid cross wise now we have more orange coming around here around this thing here and it's coming down here it's real bright right there right in there and then that's all dark and that's trees okay alright now let's see if we can get this right in here um and I think this is a little lighter right in here and it's kind of like a stand that's kind of coming up and there's a little one coming down there and then there's some little things that are here and this comes out a little bit more and that comes out a little bit more and this is a little lighter in here and there's this dark that's right in here coming around and that's I'm going to just go with a purple on that right underneath there, there we go that's what I wanted oh I can see I'm going to have a ton of work on this one before I bring it back to show you oh yeah and I hope that you'll be sure and catch our next um episode of painting journeys where you'll see the finished work and then maybe you'll be able to tell that yeah maybe she does know a little bit about what she's talking about because you can't really tell from this I know like I said if I would have used my knife it might have made it better okay I may go over it when I get it to my home studio I may go over it with the knife a little bit and tighten up some of those areas and see this is coming down in here and it's where I can see the red peeking through down in here and the red peeking through down in here okay my little cameraman 15 minute sign of which means that I have got to really kick it okay so let's see here um I think we'll make that green for those trees almost an olive green not a very pretty green okay now there is a tree right up in here well I better get a little darker color for him put that right there and come back and take another brush and make that little guy just a little bit darker there he's coming right up in here and a little bit coming out there and bring on down into the side of this business here this is much lighter along in here where the sun is hitting this area here that's a little lighter we want this to be softened back here really it's supposed to be behind okay let's see here a little red in the tree here let's see there we go now it's just coming right on down into the dark right there so it's all dark right in here hmm I see something here interesting it actually looks like blue there's like a blue sage brush type tree that is coming over here I want to get this covered so I'm just going to go for it in here and then we've got some light stuff coming out there some light stuff right down here this really really needs to be more purple dog on it that's all pretty purple right in there and coming down here and then there's some areas where it's really light nice and light right right in here coming right there and right in here and then it just kind of softens into that right there let's go in there and we'll take the violet put that violet around there okay now we're going to get that blue tree and lighten it just a bit paint down just a tad alrighty and then we're going to come he's right about in here and he's a real pretty kind of a blue color and so when I mix the blue with the red it just kind of just shows just a little bit of what he looks like right down in there and then it's dark on the base where he's coming out of the out of the land there this needs to be going in a direction like this okay and he's there now there's some yellow greens that are growing down in here and some right in there or you can tell now when I'm all over this pallet and my brush is moving fast you can tell that I'm getting panicky because I'm trying to get my paint my canvas covered I want to at least do that for you violet's coming down we've got some little green dealies that are coming up in here it's a little too bright don't like that boy it's that cameraman from Madison he's making me work so hard today alright right in here let's see can we throw a bunch of trees in here let's see if we can just kind of scumble some on and make this makes some sense we're going to do it anyway whether it makes sense or not the hour has come and now the station director he's going to come down from the booth and he's going to take one look at this and he's going to say now kitty it looks fine just like it is leave it that way and I'm going to look at him and I'm going to say you know what you're full of that's okay everybody's got an opinion that's a thing about art you know some people like certain things and other people like other things but a world without art would be like how they say that a world without heart or something I don't know anyway it wouldn't be a good place to live at least not for somebody like me that thrives on it hey you know what we did at kids we got this canvas covered when you think about that huh looks pretty messy it's kind of hard to understand but we did it and so three cheers for us right and three cheers for you because if you stayed with me as I traveled across this canvas and tried to get this to look like something three cheers for you too you deserve it I just hope you've enjoyed enjoyed my challenge today of trying to get the Grand Canyon on here in an hour how many millions of years did it take God to make the Grand Canyon and I'm trying to paint it in an hour oh well that's just the way it is some people are kind of foolish and others have got no sense at all let me see here I don't like that silly tree I just put there I don't even know where I did it there it's gone there we go well let me see what do you think it's not too terribly bad you know I mean I've done worse just one more little stroke in here and I want to tell you thank you so much for joining me today my name is Kitty Lynn Klisch you've been watching painting journeys and I hope that you will catch our next episode when I will show you the completed painting of the Grand Canyon and then I think we'll go on out to California and we'll go to the beach so be sure and catch the next show thank you so much for joining me today bye bye for now