 Once again, you're in the studio with Kitty Lynn Klisch. This is the second part of our program. As I said before, the geese are flying over, the leaves are turning, and fall is definitely in the air. I'm painting an oil painting, a fall scene, just for you. And so without further ado, let's just get right to it. During our last segment of the program, I had sketched in and I had talked about my tools and everything, and so now we'll just get right to the painting part. But this is where we left off. The painting was secured with acrylic after it had been sketched on with charcoal. Now I'm just going to take a simple paper towel, wipe off the charcoal, and pretty much what we have left is the drawing, such as it is. You're probably thinking to yourself, oh dear, how is she going to make something look like anything out of that? Well, every time you start a painting, you know it's a 50-50 chance, a mess or a masterpiece, so hang in there, we'll see what happens. Okay, now I always start with the sky, because I like to work from the back forward on a painting. That's very important to me. I feel that in order for something to look three-dimensional, that you have to approach it in a three-dimensional manner. So therefore, if you start at the back, working forward, layering each thing on top of the one before it, then you're going to have this feeling of distance. Okay, so now first of all, we're going to mix up some sky color. And as I had said before, I am doing the sky in the photograph, the upper left-hand photograph. It's kind of a violet at the top, and then I see a rather a cerulean blue and an ultramarine blue in the sky part. So I will take the cerulean blue and I need to gray it. Now, what you'll find, first of all, let me show you my color wheel and how I determine the colors. When I am doing a painting, I always go by the color wheel, and I will take, and I will find the color that I see the most of in the photograph or in the scene, and that will be my dominant hue. So I'll turn that to the top of the color wheel. And then the very bottom of that, what's directly across, that is the complement. So in order to have a really well-balanced, harmonious painting, we want to have most of the colors all right in this area here with just a little note of the pure complement, and these two little colors on the side. Now, that is what is called a discord. When you're listening to music, and if you heard the sound by itself, the note by itself, it would sound sour, but when you hear it with the rest of the music, it helps to flesh out the music to make it sound more beautiful and fuller. Well, that's what the discords and painting will do for us. Just a little dash here and there will help the rest of the colors come together and seem fuller and more harmonious. Now, this is the system that I always work with. This is called the analogous color system, and to me it works very, very well. I always am concerned about a nice harmonious painting. Now, if you noticed on that color wheel when I was showing it to you, in the center of the color wheel, the colors were more grayed, and around the outside edge, they were pure. So everything in nature, whether it be man-made or natural, is not a true bright color. It is grayed slightly. So I'm taking with a cerulean blue and I'm adding just a tiny little bit of cadmium red light. Now I've made a nice dark mixture here. Now I'm going to take this, put it to the side, add some white and lighten that up. Get my thumb in here where it belongs. Okay. Now, this is a nice color for right down below the red in the trees and right behind the white of the clouds. But as it goes up, it becomes a little bit bluer. So I'm going to take a little bit of the ultramarine blue and put in there and make that just a little truer blue as it goes to the top. Now you see I'm mixing all these colors. It's important to mix the colors on the palette. Don't be mixing on your canvas because then you have the chance to over mix and that's not really good. Wipe that knife off. Notice how I have my paper towel right here. It's handy for me. It works really good that way. Okay. Now I want, before I start, I want all the colors that I see in the sky to be mixed. So this is the sky here. Then I'll take, I want to make that little bit of violet that's on the top. So I'm going to take a little bit of Viridian and a little bit of Alizarin crimson and mix the two together to gray them. This is kind of like magic when you mix these colors together and you see what they can do for you. It really is. My students are always asking me, how did you come up with that color? How did you know to mix those two things together? Well, I guess it just comes with practice and the doing of it, you know. It really does. A little bit more green. I want this to be kind of a nice gray. All right. Now, here we go. Now then, if I take the white, put it over here on the side. See this beautiful violet I'm getting? And that's the color that I see that's up there in those clouds. See? I love color. I love the way, I love the consistency of the paint. It's like whipped cream. Okay, now then, the only thing I have left are the whites and the clouds. Now, the clouds are pretty, you know, they have some gray tones to them. Everything has values. They have light values and dark values. And so you have to be concerned with that. You can't just start putting white up there and think, well, okay, white clouds are all white. You've got to have some value in there. So I'll take a little bit of this dark blue and put in here for the bottom parts of the clouds. Now, I'm talking about the white clouds that are closest to the trees now, not the violet ones that are up on top of the photograph. Okay, and I'm going to have to put some more white out. You know, I always buy the white in the really big tube because it goes the most. It just really, really, you use a lot of white. So the rest of the tubes are the smaller ones but the white is always bigger. Alrighty, here we go. Okay, let's put some more white in here. Now, okay, so that's kind of nice for the under parts of those clouds that I'm seeing. I might put just a little tiny bit of black in there to gray that down. Now, this is where I'll use the black because I want to gray that and dull that but I wouldn't just mix black and white to make the gray. I would put a little color in there because the color gives it life and that's very, very important. Okay, now I think that's looking pretty good. And then one more pile here for the sky and that is some sun kissed spots for the clouds. So I'm going to take a little bit of, I think I'll take a little bit of orange. Just the tiniest little bit on my knife mix in with the white. Whoops, too much. Okay, that happens. Let's just take a little more white, put it in here, and here we go. All right, now that's going to be the warm part of my cloud. The warm, light part. Now, if I just use pure white, it would be okay, but as an artist, we have the chance to use all this color and really make something come to life to give it our interpretation. We don't have to just copy. Being an artist isn't about copying, it's about creating and putting yourself into your work. Now, there's one more thing I have to do and that is, is get the liquid out. Now, liquid is a medium that I paint with. It helps to dry the painting a little faster. It is also very good because it makes the paint flow and it gets a nice, even finish. So I'll just get a little pot of liquid going. There we go. Now, it's always good to have proper ventilation when you're using these products because they're not really good for you to breathe, so it's not a bad idea to have a fan going. I always use, and here I have terpenoid. It's odorless, and it doesn't give you headaches and things like this like some of the other products do, but even at that, you really should have good ventilation when you're using any of these products. And don't smoke or eat when you're painting because you're supposed to be painting and it's not good for you. Now, what I'm going to do, I think what I'm going to do first of all is I'm going to lay the blue in because when I look at that top picture on the left-hand side, that sky that I want to put in here, the furthest thing away, in my thinking, is the blue in the sky. So down on the... down on the... closer to the horizon here, right in here, it's light. This is rather light right in there. Now remember, I've got that C for the clouds, okay? And down here is the T for the trees. Otherwise I would get so confused. It's crazy. There we go. And then this is coming down right here. Okay. Now as this goes up, it's going to get a little bit darker. So now here's the opportunity to take some of the ultramarine blue mixture and start coming in with that. And we go right on back here. Yes, I'm going right on over this tree. I have to do that because I have to paint through. The sky is behind that tree. There. Now, and I like to pull those clouds. The sky, I pull that... my brush in a downward motion. The reason being is that I feel that you get more of a sensation. If you look out at the horizon line, you'll see that the sky literally looks, because the earth is round, the sky literally looks like it's going down. The movement of the object is going down behind the horizon line. So if you paint in a downward motion, I believe that you will help, that will help you convey that the sky is indeed going down behind something there, the trees and everything in the clouds. Okay. Now then, we're getting up a little higher. It's getting a little cooler. My whole idea here is to show atmosphere. Now, I know I'm going right through my tree here, but that's okay because the line still kind of show up for me. So that's not really a big problem. Right on over in here. Now that little bit of light right down there, see that helps to show distance. That's why that's there. Okay. Now this pole section in here is where the purple is, so I don't want to put any more blue in there. Okay. Now maybe the atmosphere lays in layers, so I must be very careful that I put the layers in there, that I don't make it go up and down with my lights and darks, that it's all softened all the way across there. Okay. Alrighty. Take this out to the side here. Bring up those white clouds a little bit. I don't know, it's my sky. And who knows, I might just bring them up a little bit there. There we go. Now up at the very top, right up in here, it's even cooler. So I'm going to add just a little bit more of the ultramarine blue to my mixture. A little tiny bit of my medium. A little more blue over in here. Soften this in. Now this is kind of a scrubbing stroke that I'm using, and I use it a lot when I'm laying in because this is not the most interesting part of the painting, and I want to get this on here for you so we can go on to other things and you can see how I handle those. This corner right in here. Now you can take a nice soft brush if you want and get a really nice effect with the sky to really make it even look softer and further away by taking a nice soft brush and just like this brush right here and just come down. All you're doing is just knocking the direction of the oil. You're not changing the brush stroke underneath. You're just knocking it down and it'll give a nice effect like it's really and truly going down behind there. Now we need to get into our purple clouds that are up there. I'm going to take a little bit of the very darkest and put, first of all I have to wipe out this area. I went up too high. I'm going to wipe this out. See, this guy is so handy. Just wipe him across there and he takes the stuff right off. There we go. And then there's some coming in here too. We want that to come out here a little bit too. Okay. Now then using the same brush, I'll just go in here and start laying in that dark of that cloud. Underneath there, he's pretty dark. Now this is darker than it's going to be but because I'm going to, I'm laying in my dark value first and then I'm going to come back with the lights. I love the way the sound of the brush, the way that sounds when it hits the canvas. I love that. Something very hypnotic and peaceful about it. And yet it's forceful at the same time. A little dark underneath here. And I've got to get that, because of the wipe out tool, I have to get that shape back so that it looks like clouds and not just a straight, stiff line. And then there's a little soft thing over in here. Okay. Now then. There, that's good. All right. Now then we need to wipe the brush off quite good and start thinking about putting the lights on there and making this come into, making this start forming clouds. And I think I'll take just a little softer brush now at this point. I have favorite brushes and I use them over and over and over again. And what happens is I wear them out. Let's try this one. If it doesn't work well, we'll try something else. Okay. Here we go. It's a nice violet. Now possibly I'm making this look a little too ominous. We don't want to make it look too dark and too dramatic and make people think that they're in danger. I like to tell myself stories when I paint. I make up stories about a place, what happens, what happened there and how the people might feel about it and who lived in this, or who owned this little barn and what did the house look like. You know, the house is no longer there, but what did the house look like and who lived there and how long did they live there and what happened in their lives. I amuse myself with telling little stories like that as I'm painting. It passes the time. It also makes the painting much more personal to me. When I was first drawing this, I had the, my little silo was all crooked so you can see that I made some corrections on it. But, oh well. It's what they mean when they say a work in progress. That's what this is. Perhaps I want just a little bit more of a violet in those clouds. I think I do. I'm going to take just a little tiny bit of the alizarin crimson and put in here. Oh, too much. Just try to get those underneath parts to look like they're, okay. Now that might need some white on it, a little bit of light and I'll just put just a little bit, perhaps right in here and lighten that area up and a little bit right in here. Now if we can't get it to look like we want because there's too much paint on there then we just wipe out a little bit. Pick a spot where we want to lighten it up. Wipe that area out and then come back in with the white. Not white, but our pale violet. There, now. Because we wiped out what was underneath. Now we can get that a little bit lighter so it doesn't look quite so threatening. And this right up in here I want that to be a little bit lighter. There we go. Okay, now then I think we'll leave those alone and start with the clouds that are down on the bottom, those white ones. Now, okay, let me see here. It's kind of a gray right in here. Now these clouds are going to be quite light to cover up my sea. Quite light on the bottoms there and on the tops. So we're going to make this be. Oh, and this needs to come over here too. Let me see here. I think we need some violet in this area. And then that's kind of coming down right into that. All right. Now if I take this brush again and just kind of soften those guys in a little bit then they'll look a little bit better. Kind of mess them up a little bit. Put them on and mess them up. And then that helps to soften them in because they're not supposed to look like they're going to come out and get you. They're just supposed to be nice and soft and gentle and just be there. Just have a presence in the painting. Okay, now then we want to go into the white into the nice lights. And I think we'll use this. Go right into this and we're going to start right in here. And we're just, now you notice I just do this and kind of like a little forward circular motion there and just soften it all in. Whoops. We're losing things here but that's okay because we're busy and we don't really care. We're totally immersed in our painting in our process. This is going to, yeah I like the way that looks. That looks good. I like that. Nice and soft and billowy. It's like this is like danger and this is like the promise of a new tomorrow. And then we've got a little bit right back in here. And I think this is looking, I think I want to bring this up a little bit higher. I like it better when it has a little, I don't like there to be so many straight lines in something, you know. As you can see by now I really have fun creating. I don't let the way something looks dictate the way I'm going to paint it. If this was a portrait of a person then of course I'd have to be very careful to get their likeness. But it's not a portrait of a person. This is just a painting that I wanted to do because it's of a place that I used to visit quite often when I lived in Gibbsville. And I love that little place and I always wanted to paint it. And so now I'm painting it and I'm painting it just for you. And I hope you're enjoying watching this because I certainly am enjoying painting it for you. This is, I think I'm at my happiest when I have a paint brush in my hand. When I'm in the classroom with the students and I say, oh, let me sit down here and show you what to do and then the next thing I know I've gone too far and they always laugh and tell me I would rather paint than eat but I guess that's true. Although my figure doesn't show it but now I'm liking the way this looks a lot. It's really nice. I think though that I still want to lighten this up just a wee bit more. Just a wee bit more right up in here. Make a little change in here. And just so that you know, every cloud has a silver lining. Well, maybe this one just needs a little spot of hope for good weather in it. There we go. And then, yeah. Now we're not going to have the clouds go behind there. We're going to have the trees actually come all the way up there and maybe they'll come right over that too and that there. I like the way all that looks. Okay, now in this spot right in here I think I want a little more light in. There we go. Right there. Now then I have this sky is done. I'll just do one little one little softening business here to kind of like get these guys so they don't look quite so. There we go. There we go. Very nice. Now we have the sky in. So now our next thing that we would be doing then would be the trees. We'd be laying in the trees. So this pretty much concludes this portion of the show. I want you to be sure and be with me, Kitty Lynn Klisch for our next segment when we'll be addressing the middle ground. We'll be painting the barn and the field and the trees. So please be with me next time. Once again this is Kitty Lynn Klisch in the studio. Bye now.