 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 once again we're going to journey across the canvas. I'm going to take you to the West. I think Wyoming. Yeah, the Grand Tetons. How does that sound? But first of all I want to show you what we did on our last show. I had visited the Green Bay Botanical Gardens in Green Bay, and a red, brilliant red, tree peony, caught my eye, and I decided to just make it the start of the show, the start of the painting last segment. So I hope you did catch that. This is how it turned out when I took it back to my home studio and did a few little finishing touches on it, and little darks here, a few lights in some of the places on the leaves especially, and framed up of course it always looks really nice. So that was the tree peony from the Green Bay Botanical Gardens. And now today what we're going to be doing is when I traveled to Wyoming to the Grand Tetons, I was on a, I had actually gone to Yellowstone first, and we're going to visit Yellowstone on our next segment, but anyway I took a little bus tour, and the bus took me down, a little coach, 15 of us I think it was, and it took us down through Wyoming and all through the Grand Teton National Park, and when I was going by I saw this picture and I thought, oh my gosh, it is so desolated and so foreshadowed by these huge mountains that are up above it, and I thought I want to paint that, I want to paint that, I want to bring that to life. Now as you can see in the photograph the colors are not very good back in here, so and I'm not really crazy about this pale sky, so I'm going to act like a true painter, and I'm going to put some paint on and get some color in there, and I'm also doing something else a little different today. I am using bristle brushes instead of the fine sable ones that I usually use, and the reason is that I want to get just a little more of a painterly feel for this particular piece. When you travel to the west it's a whole different atmosphere, it's a whole different feeling out there. It just makes you want to paint it in a looser, rougher style than what you ordinarily do, so that's what I'm going to try to do, and like I always say 50-50 chance, 50% chance of a mess or a masterpiece, so we'll go for it. Okay, I'm glad you're with me today. I'm really truly, truly glad you've joined, and I'm hoping that as we travel across this canvas that this will be an enjoyable journey for you, and a successful one for me in that I am able to bring all the things that I have in my mind and in my heart to fruition on my canvas. I think I want this a little more violet. I'm working with a rather limited palette today also, and that's not something that I normally do. I usually have more colors on my palette, but I'm trying very hard to tighten up a little bit, tighten up in some areas and loosen up in others. I want some color back there in that sky behind those mountains, and so I'm just right now bear with me please as I'm mixing up some different colors here that I would like to see in the sky. Let me see. It's a lovely trip going through the, I think we were on highway 89 coming down and the scenery just kept changing and changing, and you'd see long flat areas of like almost like what you would imagine high desert would be, and then you'd go through very forested areas, and of course there was the lake, Ginny Lake. That was a very pretty place, very, very pretty. We just, we traveled down, we actually went through three states. We started out in Idaho and went through the bottom part of Montana and then down into Wyoming where the Teton's are. So that was a lot of traveling when you think about it, three states in one day. I'm going to be with you in just a second here. I'm getting it, getting it just how I want it. You know normally I say that the most important part of the painting is the composition. Well as you can see I have the composition on here, and that was very easy to do of course because the composition is already laid out for me in the photograph. Now the artistic part comes in putting in color to bring it to life. Okay so let's see here how we're going to do this. I want a little bit of blue. I'm sorry about that knocking sound. I can't go in with a little bit of a lighter. It's just a bit too dark. Tighten this up a little bit. You know you always think you're really ready to go but there that worked. It helped. Good. That's always encouraging when something works. Alrighty and then we're going to go over here and we're going to go a little faster here. I just want to get this masked in because I have a lot of detail on this painting and I don't want to get waylaid with you know making the sky perfect. I just want to block it in and then I'll come back and now I'm going to take my paper towel and I'm going to wipe some of that off. I'll just throw that over there. Missy missy girl. All right let's see here. Let's get a little pink in here and perhaps a little bit of orangeish or reddish. There we go. I know you don't see that in the picture but like I said I want to put color in this. I want to make this sing. I don't want this to be all blue. Now I'll come back with my blue brush and I'll soften that a little bit so it doesn't look so garish. Now with those mountains in front of that that'll look really nice I think anyway. Yeah there. So who knows what's going on back there. It could be the sunrise. It could be the sunset. It could be a reflection of something happening on the other side of the mountains. Who knows. We don't care. Our goal is to just give us a nice painting that has some oomph to it. I like that. Okay now these mountains are really dark and when you see them in person I'm going to talk to you about that now a little bit. You know I have a photograph here of the of a closer view of the Tetons and they are very dark almost like it's they're almost like a slate gray and there's usually snow on them all somewhere in little pieces little places there's usually snow on them year round they're they're so tall they the altitude is so high the snow never seems to really completely melt so they are very dark and I have to stay true to that but I will put highlights on them to try to show you form the form the mountains themselves are stark and they look they look almost like they they're forbidding looking I would never want to go hiking on them there's just something about them that looks very forbidding to see here get this a little light maybe we'll have just a little bit of blue in here and as you can see now there again I'm trying to work fast my goal is to get this canvas covered for you today I want to get it covered so that you can at least see where I'm going I don't think this little top there is quite high enough there we go like this right in here this you probably can't see that but there's dark spots coming right in there there's one coming right down here it's a little darker and then this is a little darker on this side here okay and now then we are up on this one here it's kind of a bump and then as I follow him around and I'm not sure if those are trees up there or not I I believe that there is a line where the trees won't grow any higher when it comes to really tall mountains so don't think those are trees up there there I think they're just little rock out croppings and I do see ever so lightly a little bit of snow in some of the places here so I'll put just a little a little snow coming right in here and you see it's it's not it's not really white it's just kind of a lighter a lighter gray has a little softer look I've got to soften up those edges as I come down you know that photo that I showed you of the of the teatons you can see that they're quite intimidating at least I felt that they were okay now I'm seeing a little bit of a kind of a rusty look down in here it's coming up it's coming right in here it's even a little lighter almost a little like a pinkish look right there and darker behind it take a clean brush and put some of that snow on there in a couple spots let's see we've got some right in here and they're coming down there there's some in here now this is this is softer right in here and then it goes up and it gets darker it's getting darker and there's some outcroppings right in here and this one has got some funny shapes going on to it they're so unusual I don't know if there's any place in the United States that has mountains that look like these amazing and what is really amazing is the fact that somebody would actually you know be able to live out there because down in this area here it's almost desert like high desert with these big mountains in the background and you think my gosh how could somebody make a living I mean what did they what did they do what did they there it's all forsaken now abandoned but at one time or another families thrive there and live there what did they do they they must have had cattle of course and did a little farming and ranching but I mean I you know to think of people having the fortitude to sustain themselves in this type of of environment is just amazing to me that they could do that I'm in here on this one here too a little bit of green in this I think I've seen a little bit of green down in here there we go and this is lighter over here this comes down quite dark under here I guess I'm getting the feel that I wanted with these brushes they're kind of scratchy to me but I think I'm getting the feel there we go okay now we have and I'm I really am sorry but I don't know the names I was reading an article on this and I don't I don't remember the names of these different areas that that layer that come forward from the actual mountains to the what I would call foothills you know I don't know I know that each part of the mountain range has scientific name but I don't know what it is I usually don't know the names of things that I paint I'm not I'm not gifted with in you know a scientific type mind where I remember those sort of things I just remember how it made me feel when I saw it that is the my greatest reminder of where I've been is how did it make me feel what emotions did it make me arise in me because of what I was looking at okay all righty let's see here now this down in here that's got a little more green in it and it's green going down in here and I'm going to change brush and go to a brown brush make up some brown with my green and my red I love the nice burnt sienna look I can get by mixing equal parts of sap green and cad red light but I need to gray it so I better add a little bit of the blue gray it down a little bit because that's quite a ways away it's not like it's something that we're seeing up close so we we have to keep it you know distance so that it stays far away needs a little more red okay there we go all right here we go here and then this is coming down here and then I see where it's getting even a little bit lighter in here it's getting a little bit lighter and goes that goes up there and then this is kind of coming down here maybe that's too dark let's see here let's take some blue and put over it lighten that up a little bit there we go that's better mm-hmm and that's kind of coming down and then this is this is coming like so and then we have this this light thing right there and then the mountain is coming this way get the dark brush and go back into the dark and right in here we have a looks like a kind of a little outcropping comes like this and goes like that and then there we have some green dark green darker green much darker right in here okay a little more dark green in here too all right and then we have some green patches so that's we'll add a little blue to the green and they're coming down in here and right up in here nice I do believe that those look like little groups of trees but right now I'm just looking for shape I want to just put the the the shape on and not worry about the give you the impression of trees but not worry about making individual trees going for the larger shapes over here we have a little a little brighter green right in this area right in here and then that's coming down into here and then it goes darker I hope you can follow along with me as I'm sort of talking my way through this at the end of the day well it wasn't really the end of the day I guess it was pretty close to lunch time anyway we had made it to um Jackson Hole Wyoming and what an enchanting little western town that is I you just you wouldn't believe all of the the how how western I mean it's just like something right out of a movie it is just so really really unique and unusual compared to to what we our towns look like here and there was all these places selling saddles and and boots and you know all kinds of things that the Cowboys would use you know they have a a park there city park I've never seen anything like this in my life the whole the entrance way to the park each entrance way was made with an arch a huge arch I'm showing you the picture now it's a huge arch of elk antlers and that they have woven into these arches that are so huge that people can walk right through them and it's it's just amazing it's just it's really amazing and then in the center of the of the park is this is this statue of Knight his name I don't remember his name um but kind of escapes me but anyway I get I think he was one of the founders of the town but this statue was just gorgeous bronze and it had to be this you know like maybe two people high I mean it was just huge and beautiful and they had some other statues around town but that one was my favorite so that's why I wanted to show that one um to you there we go all right I don't know looks like mountains to me okay now then and this is trees so let's get those strokes going in a different direction so that we can have trees on there now we have some of this beautiful green that light green that we made we have some more of that over in here on this hill I cannot believe it my very handsome young cameraman just gave me the 30 minute signal meaning that we're halfway through the show already and I can't believe that but then I guess well I'm almost halfway through the picture so maybe I'm not too far behind I get so wrapped up and gabbing with you and painting and thinking everything that I lose all track of time so they have to watch me so they give me these little signals and uh and I have been known not to see them too so sometimes the poor guys stand in there with this little sign that says 30 minutes for a long time before I even notice I have a really good crew of guys here that work with me or that I work with however you want to put it okay maybe a little later right in here I'll take a smaller brush and I'm going to take some really dark make a really dark blackish green and make some little trees in here we see them everywhere and now there again now see I'm falling into the detail and you know that is a trap that a lot of artists will fall into they see that detail and they want to do the detail instead of working on those big shapes and getting their canvas covered but I want to give you something that is going to look a little like it's going to look before we leave so I'm going to go ahead and break the rules because rules remain to be broken that's where we have them isn't it so that we can break them I hope so I do all the time all right um okay now we have this very dark mountain that is or foothill that is covered with a lot of of trees it's a pretty dark mass I can't make it too dark because I want it to to show up um a little lighter because of the all the light that I have behind it there so I'm just going to come in here and just go and hopefully these will look like trees to you that will look like a I'm going to get starker as it goes down because we have the light against the dark I'll be putting some lights on there and that'll make those look a little more like trees put some darks in between there we go now these trees that are sticking up here I'll have to take my wipe out tool and wipe those out so that I can get them back on there working fast no because I want to get this covered still in with a dark green trying to create a look of trees behind here multiple trees growing the odd thing about this was and I wonder I wonder if this was like a place where ranchers would go out and stay when it was in use because there was no house no house no barns no other excuse me sign of civilization at all except for this one loan little you know and it could have been it could have been a place where horses were kept it could have been in place where people stayed inside and that was that was um that was it and and that's so surprising I mean so the only thing I can think of is that the house must have been behind a hill or something and or the ranch and this when they went out and rode because I you know they had some of those ranchers out there they have thousands and thousands of acres of land it's just amazing how much land they own and it's all open and undeveloped and they've just put a big fence around it and and made it so that they can let their cattle go out and graze you know and even at that how do you take care of the cattle you know I mean what a life I can't I can't imagine living that kind of life I would never have made a good farmer's wife or a good rancher's wife I'm just a softy what can I say I've never been able to slaughter the animals and I know that's a necessary thing but I don't even care that much for hunting I know some people love it but I'm probably making a lot of enemies right now but you know you do what you want to do and I do what I want to do I'm I'm I believe in hunting as long as it's for for a reason it's the trophy hunting that bothers me just to kill an animal for because you want its head on your wall I think that's really sad to take that life all right it seems to be coming along pretty good okay so now then down here we have a lot of of still more green but it's mixed now and it's a little redder and in some places and a little greener it's more of a grayed green it's not a bright green like we see here in Wisconsin that's for sure everything out there is a kind of a has kind of an orangey reddish cast to it so now I'm going to come behind here and I'm going to create these these trees that are in the foreground whoops it needs to be lighter kitty create these trees in the foreground here and there they go it could be a little bit greener let's see here maybe we'll try a nice different shade of green a little cooler green in there see if we can get some variation going here there we go all right and then this here there's darks in there and over in here we have some some bushes that are really rather purple other violet colored mixed in with the green that's real pretty anyway while we were in in Jackson Hall this I'm walking along and looking at all the sights I must have looked like a real true city slicker I you know was pretty amazed by it all and so this fellow comes along and he's got a state like a stagecoach I'll show you a picture of that too he was kind of cute and he thought I was kind of cute and so he was flirting and that was kind of fun but I no matter how much he flirted with me I did not get on his in his stagecoach I did not go for the okey-doke but they do they ride up down the streets hoping to get people to take rides on the stagecoach you know like I said it's a touristy type place but it's fascinating at the same time you've got to calm that purple down a little bit that's a little bit too much okay now it's all yellow greens coming in and I think probably the most frightening one of the most frightening things that ever happened to me happened to me on that trip the driver of our bus was a very um he was an elderly gentleman very kind very knowledgeable about the area and as we're driving back he would stop at scenic overlooks you know places picture opportunities in fact that's how I got all my pictures and so he stopped at this one place overlooking this big gully that must have been at least 150 200 feet down and it was there was a river below and he was telling everybody this is where a lot of people really like to take photographs and we all got off of the bus and we're all standing there taking photographs and the gravel on the side of the road was very loose and I just stepped there was somebody in front of me and I just stepped a little bit to the right onto this gravel and it was so dry and it was such a drop off that I swung around on my foot slipped and I swung around and I was going over the side of this canyon okay head first on my back and the other people that were taking pictures they were you know screaming and trying to help me and they just before I went completely over they grabbed me by my ankles and I'm not kidding it was like this and I was going fast you know I thought this is it I'm gonna go all the way to the bottom into the waterfall on my head you know and but these people grabbed me and like two three people because I mean can you imagine pulling somebody my size up like that and so anyway they grabbed me and they pulled me up I was really scraped up pretty badly but I and I you know the breath was taken out of me I was I was frightened I was very very scared um it was you know it was something I'll never forget and a lesson big lesson so anyway enough of that enough of my adventure I do have my adventures when I go places I don't know how it always happens but I do have my adventures now let me see here so needless to say there was a nurse along and so she dressed my wounds and they gave me some water to drink and they made me all the way back on the trip so everybody was very kind and I just I was so grateful to them that they were that they that they cared you know that they were watching that they saw what happened and that they reacted like they did because it was so scary and I did not go very close to the edge the rest of that trip even when we were in Yellowstone you know you just you forget you forget that you're out of your element okay I think this is looking it's looking okay I think some bright yellow on the tops of these right in here you show that they're coming down in here dancing around this little cabin I better not put it off any longer I just got the high sign that we have another 15 minutes so let's get that in there now I know it's a little redder than this and but I'm going to add that when I add the the look of the of the boards and and everything so I'm hurrying fast now I'm I don't want to waste any more time here I want to get this canvas covered you think I can do it huh I think I can do it I think I can do it I will do it I will get this canvas covered the show won't go over I have to get this canvas covered ready and then we've got some bright yellow green in the back right in here where this window is and there's a little light in here and there's a little board going across there okay that's good enough we'll make some little tree tops in here make it look a little more now then this right in here that's quite dark there um I think right here we've got a nice dark bottom for this tree right here lay that in this in on top I'll have to make some branches and stuff in there and see here I don't know if I've had the 10 minute or not have I had the 10 minute okay thank you who we're really counting it down now okay and then we have a really kind of a dried you can tell I'm going like crazy now we have some really dark trees coming out of here I don't think that's going to work you know what we're just maybe going to have to leave these dark trees out of our painting I don't think they're going to work maybe we'll have to make them lighter works better and I want a little more of a yellow green in the foreground here okay and then we had some little fence posts and so there was one here and here whoops too wide there and here and here okay and we'll go here and here and then there and there okay and then we'll put um a little bit of sage brush or whatever that is against the house right in here whoops oh no not that big gob put some little sage brush things in here and maybe there's some more over in here well I think I have certainly captured my intent of adding color to the scene we have some really bright yellow green right down in here it's probably some sort of sage brush or something okay and then maybe right in here and then this right behind the house looks like it needs to be a little darker right back in there yep there we go there we go okay and these edges aren't looking too good but that's okay and maybe I'll take just a little swipe of the the green and put it across here like so and all right maybe we'll take a little bit here of I want to just thin that down a little bit that doesn't look very nice like that okay and maybe I'm going to just take a little tiny bit of this and just kind of try to dance it around here to make this tree look just a little more alive okay and in here too right in here a little bit a little bit down in here more and a little bit over in here right I think that I better call it a day because they're all making signals at me that I need to stop and I don't want to I'm having way too much fun well there it is my journey to the Grand Tetons with a little lost um building I'm not sure what I'm going to name it you know overshadowed still waiting half gone whatever I'll think of something listen thank you so much for joining me on painting journeys and until we meet again um goodbye and take care this is Kitty Lynn Klisch with Painting Journeys we'll see you next time bye