 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 Klisch and we're going to journey across our canvas today. But first of all, I want to talk to you about the painting that I was doing on our last episode of Painting Journeys. And thank you for joining us. That's great that you tuned in. I hope you like it. Okay, here is what I was painting on our last show. This is Springtime in the Garden. As you can see, I've made a few changes. I changed my background a little bit from what it originally was. I think I had something a little more lavender in the background and less leaves. And in my home studio, I punched up some of the colors and with a gold frame on it, I really like it. I think it looks like spring in the garden. Great. So anyway, I had the occasion to go to Suamico, Wisconsin. Now that's north of Green Bay. There's a zoo there. It's called the New Zoo. And they have quite a few animals. I was particularly taken with the giraffe. In fact, I think on our next show, that's what I'm going to paint is a portrait of the giraffe. But as I was leaving the zoo and getting into my car across the street, I looked out beyond the parking lot and here was this beautiful view. Well, I had my paints with me and I thought I'm just going to do a monochromatic sketch. And then I'm going to finish it on painting journeys. So this is my monochromatic sketch. This is the photograph I took afterwards. I'm not in this exact same location, but that doesn't matter. The subject matter is still the same. But this is what I painted on site while I was right there. And I did it all in shades of brown and white. And this is called a monochromatic wash. I have all my subject matter in. I don't have a lot of detail, but that's okay. So now from my photograph, I'm going to paint color over this. I know where my darks are and I know where my lights are, my water, everything. So it's all right there for me, ready to go. So this is my palette. It's the same palette I usually use, basic colors. I think I did add today, for today's segment, I did add a little bit of this cerulean blue. And you have two choices when you work with cerulean blue. They have a cerulean blue hue of which is not as strong. The tinting power is not as strong. But this is true cerulean blue, so it has a very strong tinting power. Just to show you what I mean, I might take a little bit of it right here. I hope you can see that. And I'm going to add a little white to it. See how pretty that is? Really pretty. And it's a great start for our sky. So today we're in Suamico, Wisconsin, north of Green Bay. We're just outside of the new zoo and we're in the parking lot. And we're going to, actually we're here in the studio, the station. But we're like on a journey in my mind. So let me get back into this. Alrighty, let me mix up a little more paint and away we go. It was kind of a cloudy day. As you can see from the photograph, there was a lot of clouds back there. But I think I want it to be just have some of this real pretty true blue. I am going to put just a touch of green in it. Just a touch of the Viridian. Warm it up a little bit. I like a warm sky. Springtime here in Wisconsin. And so as you can see, your evergreens are nice and green. But the rest of the trees haven't quite leafed out. And the residue of what was left over from last year in this patch of natural grasses here, it hasn't greened up yet. I would imagine within the next few weeks that's all going to change drastically. Alrighty, I see a little bit of this blue right in here. Oh boy, look at how pretty that looks when you just pop that right in there onto that brown. And I'll probably be eliminating things as I go. I like to do that because you don't want to show everything that's not necessary to show everything. As you know, I like to start in the back with the sky and come forward. Sort of a layering effect that makes you feel like if you're painting like three-dimensionally, then it has a better chance, I feel, of appearing three-dimensional when you look at it in the, when the finished work is, you're looking at the finished painting. Oh, I'm liking the way this looked, kind of a marbled look there, where the lights are in there mixing with the darks. That's very nice, I like that. So anyway, let me tell you about this giraffe. What a character. Well, actually there was two of them, a male and a female, they were a pair. And they come right over and they eat right out of your hand. It's the craziest thing. And they will like beg for food. There's like a high place that you can walk up to kind of where you're at the same level as the giraffe's head. And you can purchase food and give them this food. When I was there, they were feeding them kale and vegetables, which is very good for their diet. So the fellow that was the volunteer that day was telling me how the female giraffe had already had two baby giraffes right there at the zoo. And they didn't want her to have any more. So they actually have her on birth control medicine so that she can be in there with her mate. And there's no problems. And I was kind of astounded by that. I never thought about an animal being put on birth control. But it made sense because he said that all of the zoos in the country all have plenty. There's enough giraffes to go around and why let them give birth to more than what are necessary. So I thought that was pretty nice. Now I'm going to echo this sky down here in my water. So anyway, the giraffes, you know how like some animals, when they come up to eat, they'll try to push each other out and crowded and be first. Not these two. It was the way they wound their heads around to be fed. And they were all entwined. It was almost like one giraffe with two heads. It was really kind of wild looking. They were very, very sweet, gentle. I love giraffes. And then a good friend of mine sent me a video online about a hotel in Africa. Well, it's an inn in Africa, you know, resort. And where you can actually go and the giraffes stick their heads in the windows and dine with you. And I thought to myself, a giraffe isn't my favorite animal. I love giraffes. They're always sticking their heads out and I love that anyway. So there's this resort where you can actually be sitting there having your lunch or your breakfast and the giraffes are standing there with their heads through the window begging. I think that's so cool. I would love to see that. I think I died and went to heaven if I could go there. Well, if I went there, we'd have to do a painting journey segment on it. That's for sure. So anyway, all right, I'm getting a little bit of that. I want this a little bit darker down here, getting a little bit of that in there. And you'll see how I handle the water a little later. You see how in the picture I've got all of this reflection into the water where I stood and as I did my mock up here, I didn't see all that reflection. I must have taken this either earlier or afterwards because it does look a little different. But that's OK. We can work with that as we journey across this canvas. So there weren't too many animals that were up and around at the zoo. The day I was there, they have a goodly amount of animals. But it was a very hot, one of the very first really hot days we've had this spring. And most of them were asleep, called the big cats and everything. There's a darling little groundhogs that all stood up and watched me. We had attention. They're so funny, little critters. See, I think I'm a little bit right in here, right there, OK? All right, now let's get some of this green in the background here for these trees. Well, first of all, I want to make the brown that is behind. It's a soft, all these soft branches that you see back there. That's very soft, so we're just going to suggest that. Kind of suggest it like I had done when I did the monochromatic onsite. OK, mixing up a nice, soft kind of a brown. Going to lighten it up a little bit with some on my sky. Turn kind of green. OK, what can we do to make it more brown? I'll put a little bit of blue in it. OK, there we go. You have to pardon me while I talk myself my way through this. It's a work in progress here to sometimes get the color that you want to show up. And then you never know until you put it on the canvas. When you put it on the canvas, sometimes it's too late. Then you have to take it off. OK, we've got a clean brush. That's not the right one. Let's use this one. OK, now I just want to go up in here. I'm going to blot this off. I want to go up in here. And I just want to suggest these other trees and things that are up in there. Not anything that's real. I may put some trunks and heavier branches on them. But for right now, it's that look of trees that are in the distance that haven't leafed out yet. So they're not really green, but they're back there. They're back there behind those fir trees. Spring is such an exciting time in Wisconsin. The season is so beautiful as things start to bud and bloom. When I first moved here from California, I wasn't real crazy about spring. Fall was my favorite season because it's the most colorful. If you're just looking at just scenery outside. But now that I've been here for a few years, well more than a few, and gone through the winters and everything, I realize the importance of spring and how wonderful it feels to see the new buds and the new growth and the completion of the cycle, the death and then the rebirth, the death during winter and then the rebirth in the springtime is so wonderful. I'm just going to put just a few little trunks on these and a few little branches so that we know that they're there not too much. Just trying to give the effect or something in the background a little bit here. There we go. You need a small brush for this and just little quick narrow strokes that are very light. There we go. Now we have the feeling that there's some trees back there. And they all are about the same height. I'm going to bring this one up a little bit though because it's kind of redundant to have everything the same height in your painting. So we raise that one up and we'll put a little more stuff up here. You probably can barely see this, but it's not supposed to be very dark. It's supposed to look very far away. Now then, yes, okay, that is what I wanted. Now then we're going to put the green. Now the trees in the background are, they're lighter and golder. They have the yellow highlights on them. They're actually lighter than these over here that are closer to me. And I think that's because the sun is hitting probably right in this direction, what sun there is. This is not a shadow. This is a window that they open up I think in the summertime. That's not a cast shadow there. So I have to take that into consideration and try to remember, now where is my sun coming from? And I see this shadow here and the reflection coming down here. So yes, I'm right. The sun is coming right like this. Okay, so the sun is hitting these big time. All right, so then we need that to be just to have a little bit of a brightness to it back there. Well, everything in the distance is going to be just a little lighter, a little bluer. Okay, I'm really glad you joined me today. This is, this is so such a wonderful treat to be able to share my little journeys with you. And we'll put a little dark in there to give it a little more punch. Then there's a little one right in here. And he needs a little yellow on him. Okay, and then we have another one right here. Now you see what, by, when I start putting these in, you can see why it was important to put those trees in the background in. It was so funny. I drove all the way up to the zoo. I thought I'd paint in the zoo. I come out and I see this little scene in the parking lot and I decide to paint that instead. Oh well. I think what captured my imagination was the covered bridge. You know, covered bridges in the United States are becoming a thing from a bygone era. There aren't many of them anymore that are in good shape intact. And even though this one looks in very good shape, I don't know if it was refurbished or, you know, fixed up if it was an old one or if it's a relatively new one. It's kind of hard to say. But I was still enchanted with it because it was a covered bridge. And I know that they're going the way of the wooden barn soon there. They will not be. I won't see any more of them. Okay. Darn it. I don't want my trees to get too Christmas tree-like. So I've got to get a little messier here. Get down in here with some darks. And that one needs to be a little bit darker. As you can see, I'm not real, real careful to paint things exactly as in the photograph. You know, if I wanted to look like a photograph, then I've got a gorgeous photograph right here. I'll just look at that. I want it to be my interpretation of it. And we do have a little baby tree right in here. He looks like he's a little darker. Now that looks like we've got tree on top of tree. And over here, we just have its trees and they're just sort of, we have to get those in and then we'll have to use our wipeout tool and wipe out where this dead, well, I don't think it is dead. I just don't think it is butted out yet. But maybe it is dead. I don't know. But I thought it was kind of interesting. And this right over in here, you can't see it on the photograph, but it was really a little inlet of water. And so these are the reflections down into the water that this cast of which was really kind of neat. So, all right, let me see here. So we are going to have, whoops, oh, we don't want that red. What are we doing with that? So I want to paint, try to paint behind this a little bit. And two, this is in here, another tree back here. Now I'll probably come in with the sky and poke some holes in this. Right now, I just want to get the idea that there's dark behind the light here. These dark trees are behind the light so that I can show the lightness of the broken looking stuff here in the foreground. Marguerite, bear with me. I know you're probably thinking, gee whiz, kitty, that's taking you forever to get that. But this is all what we have to put in before we can, you know, start working with our stuff in the foreground. My camera girl today, his name is Lacey. And Lacey is going to let me know what time, how much time I have left and keep me on task. So that's a good thing. All right, a little bit of dark in here and in here. All right, now, that's looking pretty good. We'll make this more tree-like later, maybe. And then maybe not. Okay, let's see here. Okay, so now then we've got some more of that brush lake looking stuff right in here. We're in here. Here. Let's see. We'll put our little building in. Let's see. It's kind of a gold. Let me see here. You know, I really thought that this would be really very easy to come over this. That's not orange enough. And paint over the, over what I have here, I thought, oh, this is going to be a piece of cake. It's not. It's not. Everything always turns out to be a little more difficult than you think it's going to be. I think my door needs to be a little bit bigger here. I know it does, okay. So that's going to be some nice dark. This and then down. Now we would put a little light in there because we have to show that we can see in there. Let's get that rough on. Rough is kind of a brownish. You ever do that, you ever drive along and go someplace and you have a dense destination and you think that all you're going to find there is one thing. And you come across something that absolutely captivates you that you weren't expecting. That's the way I felt when I saw this scene. I just thought, oh, this is just beautiful. I want to paint this. I want to share it with you, my viewers. And I do hope you're enjoying today's show. Sawamako. Isn't that an unusual name? So many of the names in Wisconsin are from the Indian, different tribes of Indians named the different towns are named after them. I think that's really interesting. Just like in California where I'm from, so many of the missions are named after the missionaries. Light on there. Now we have to get in here and get a little dark and make a little shadow right under here. Be careful here. Now we'll soften this edge right in here a little bit because we don't want anything to be too hard. We don't want the hard edges. I like things that are nice and soft and more painterly looking. This is coming down right here and it's going across. Boy, my hand church can't draw a straight line. I have people all the time come up to me when I'm painting in public and say, oh my goodness, I couldn't draw a straight line. Well, you know what? I can't either. I can't and I can't paint a straight line either. But there's always a second chance where you get to go back over it and try to fix it. That's the wonderful thing about painting with oil paints. You can fix them. They're fixable. Okay, let's see here now this dark little window thing right in here. There we go. And I think it could be just a little darker right there. Usually when I say okay and I think and then I go back in, that's when I goof up. But does it stop me? No. Okay, there's our covered bridge. That's good enough for now. Maybe we'll put a little highlight on it right down in here. Now this is dark underneath it there. So I have to get that dark again and go right under there with it. The water is actually going underneath this. So it's really quite dark as it's coming down right in here because the water is going under there. And then we have some slate right back here like rock that's right in there. And we've got kind of a golden brown. Let's see, that's better. Talking to myself, aren't I? I know. Working hard, working fast. I want this to be just so for you. And this is coming around over here. Ready? Now then darker right in here. And it's darker right down where it touches the water right back in here. Very dark. And right in here. We just kind of bring that up a little bit to kind of make that look like the water line. Okay, now we'll go back to the bright orange of our shed as it reflects into the of our covered bridge. As it reflects into the water. And so that's going to be right in here. It's not going to be quite as bright. It's going to be coming down right there. And then we have the dark right in here. Right, and then this water over here is a very dark. It looks like it's a very dark green. I better add some blue to it. Okay, a little blue on top. No, orange. We've got that reflection of the of the grass is coming down in here. And then here we have the reflection of the trees coming down into the water. And it's going to come down just a little bit more into whoops. You need a darker green kitty. There we go. Come down into here. Okay, now then we're going to take a clean brush and we're going to move our water to make it look like water. And back and forth stroke gives us the feeling of the of the water right on the water. Okay, right in here I believe we need a little bit of the water color. And it's probably a little, let's see here. Let's make the water just a little bit bluer right in here as it's coming in. There we go. Okay, all right. Now this right here is a little piece of land that's coming out. It's kind of a violet color. So we'll get that in there. It's a little lighter than that. Let me see here. Boy, the time is really, really just racing by. Let's see here. Where do we want to go next? Well, let's just do this. Let's just get these guys in here. So we can at least see that part of it. If we don't get this done today, we may have to make this a two-part show. There's nothing wrong with that. You'll tool back in I'm sure to watch me finish. Alrighty, let's see. And this is, we're just going to let this come right here like that. And this is coming up here. We've got one going up there. And it's coming down here. Now you can't see that because I'm over here more on this side to the left of the photograph. When I was painting this, there was some pretty good sized trees right in here that I put on my value study for you, so you can't see it. But I do know that they were there, so I'm going to put them in. And there was one right in here. And he was kind of crooked. Everything seems to be kind of like gnarly and crooked back in there. Now this, of course, has got a lot more of these little things sticking off of it that need to be put on. Now we're going to try to get some of the grassiness in there. And that's really quite light. Okay, that's back there. This is back here. Oh, that's too light, kitty. Too light. Let's see here. Let's try this instead. There, that's a little better. We've got a lot of stuff that's growing up. And this is all back in here, and it's growing up. Some dark water coming right in here. When I was there, there was this lovely little family of ducks sitting right on this area right here. In fact, you can see them still in the water here. Anyway, they were sitting right there on this little area that's kind of like a little beach-like area that was jutting out. Okay, now we've got lots of the yellow down in here. It would really be nice if I could get the, oh, I didn't do this water here. Okay, that water is quite dark. Let me get a bigger brush here. Yeah, that water was quite dark in here, especially right under here. Let's see here. All right, Lacey just told me that I have ten minutes. I really don't know where the time has gone today because I certainly have not been wasting any time. I've been working full out, and yet the time has totally gotten away from me. Then we'll just finish it and bring it back, and you can see it at the beginning of our next episode. I will have the completed covered bridge in Suamiko to show you. On our next episode, I don't think I'm going to have to do a two-part show. On this one, it seems to be close enough that you can kind of see where things are going here. This is supposed to be the reflections in the water. Let's get some dark in here, right in there. A little dark over in here on this side and in here. That gives it a little more definition. I always like that definition there. There we go. We'll clean that up later. Okay, now we'll take this and we'll make the water just ever so lightly. We have to suggest that the water is kind of moving so that it doesn't look so... Okay, let's see here. Well, we didn't do this right here. I know that it's really getting close. By golly, I'm going to get this covered if it kills me here. There's our road. Okay, now then, we have the grasses and more grasses, more green grasses, some reds and some oranges. Have you ever seen anybody paint on television when the camera has been speeded up and you think, oh my God, there's no way they can paint that fast? Well, that's me. I've got the speeded up brush right now. Okay, so I think I'm just going to finish it up with a little bit of this blue and green water right in here. And because I know I am running out of time, so I can always put those reflections in there later, but I just want to give you an idea of what that's going to look like. We have a little bit of a thing coming here. Okay, a little sandy business coming there. And okay, I just got the five minute signal. This is like a race. Who's going to win me or the clock? Hmm. Well, I think we're coming along pretty good here, though. I think we're going to be okay. I think we just need a little definition here for our sand. And then we'll go ahead and put in a couple of those. I think I want some real, real bright blue right up here in the foreground. Nice, clean blue right in here. Touch there. Whoops. See, one touch too many kitty. Go back to your dark and make that darker right there. A little light. Highlight the little roof. Just a tad right there. And as I said, we were in Suwamako. That's north of Green Bay, right outside of the new zoo. And next, our next show, I'm going to do a portrait of that gorgeous male giraffe that I saw at the zoo that day, because he was really something. And I want to share him with you. So I think we're getting really close to the end here. A little light right there. Just a little too much. Okay. Well, you know what? We have to be done for today. But I really and truly hope that you've enjoyed the show and that this very, very fast rendition or journey across the canvas has made you feel good. So once again, this is Kitty Lynn Klisch. The name of the show is Painting Journeys. And thank you for being with me. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye for now. Thank you.