- We established the background in part one and now it's time to move forward and develop the old rustic bridge.

Join me next on "Painting with Wilson Bickford".

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Support for "Painting with Wilson Bickford" is provided by the J.M McDonald Foundation, continuing the example modeled by J.M McDonald by contributing to education, health, humanities and human services.

Sharing since 1952.

Online at jmmcdonaldfoundation.org.

(upbeat music) In rural New York state bordered by the St. Lawrence River in the Adirondack Mountains is a sprawling landscape with communities that offer self-guided tours for the creatively inclined.

Learn the stories behind the barnacle traditions, family, agriculture, nature and beauty.

St. Lawrence County, life undiscovered.

- Welcome back and thanks for tuning in again.

As you recall in episode number one of "Bridging the Gap", we dropped in the background, I had the background trees and sky established, we put in the water beneath the bridge, we put in the path, I've added a few stones, lights and darks in there, just to give the path a little more interest and detail.

Now we're gonna start doing the grass and we'll move on to that bridge.

Are you ready?

Come on.

Let's do it.

We don't have any green on our palette.

What are we gonna do?

We gotta make some.

If I take my ultramarine blue and some of the cadmium yellow pale, now basically, you're mixing a secondary color here from two primaries, blue and yellow, so you can lean it either blueish green or a yellowish green.

I'm gonna start out with something kind of a blueish green first, more blueish than yellowish 'cause I wanna baste it in dark with a shadow tone.

So see, I'm gonna get something like this and I'm using that ratted out fan brush I talked about before.

See how ratty that is?

It's perfect for doing this texture versus using a new brush that's so precise.

So I'm gonna take a little bit of burnt sienna into that just to mute that down a little bit.

Don't be afraid to go good and dark with it.

I'm looking at the amount of paint I've got here.

I probably don't have enough.

If I don't, I'll mix more up.

So I'm just tapping.

I'm gonna cut in right tight behind the bridge here.

And remember earlier on in the last episode, I mentioned that these stones were gonna get covered in the foundation.

I'm gonna lose some of that.

I wanna overlap it just enough, but if you wanna leave some of that showing, don't bring it over as far.

As you need to do is encounter it and just touch it so it looks like it's connected in there.

I'm gonna get down to my water.

I will probably have to come back and touch up the top of my water there 'cause probably my brush will hit.

Maybe lady luck will smile on me.

So far, so good.

Notice how I'm using the brush this way so I can look underneath it and I can see my line.

If I come in like this, I don't have a prayer, I'll never do it, but if I use my brush this way.

See, I told you I have a lot of tricks up these short sleeves.

I told you that in the last episode.

So I'm just being careful to corner that.

By golly, I made it and I didn't make a mess on my water.

Good job, Willy.

I'll give myself a pat on the back, how's that?

(chuckles) Now I'm gonna come up here and I wanna cut in tighter around the path as I do this.

You can actually hear my brush crunching.

It's a stiff bristled brush and I'm really kind of tapping with quite a bit of pressure, medium pressure.

Like before, I had mentioned earlier in the last episode, we didn't put base coat down here.

I didn't need it.

I'm running out of green, so I'm just gonna mix some more up.

So I didn't need the base coat down there, so it's not changing my green and altering it, making it too light.

This might be a little darker.

That's not a bad thing.

It's good to have some different flavors in your grass.

We're gonna highlight over the top of this anyway.

Now see, it just takes a couple minutes here to get this all filled in.

You know the only thing worse than watching paint dry is watching somebody like me tapping it on there.

So this is gonna take me a couple more minutes, so rather than bore you, I'll be back in just a minute.

I'm just gonna fill this in and I'll be right back with you.

(upbeat country music) There.

I have baste in the grass with my dark shadow tones and now I'm ready to apply the highlights.

I have washed this brush out and dried it off.

I'm gonna come back in with some yellow tones, nice, bright yellow-greens, especially around the area of the bridge.

Notice where all the brightest tones in the grass are.

They're up in here.

It's kind of drawing the viewer to our focal point.

I don't have a lot of bright yellows down in here.

I have some yellows, but they're not nearly as bright and dominant and as eye-pulling as those yellowish brightest tones.

So there's a method to the madness.

I'm thinking of the composition.

I'm going to take titanium white with some yellow and just a little bit of ultramarine blue.

I'm gonna go more yellowy, lighter, brighter.

And notice how I'm loading this brush.

I'm tapping the bristles and there's quite a bit of paint in that brush and you can actually see a raised, dimpled texture on my palette.

If you're seeing that texture on your palette, you will see it on your canvas.

Now this is not the lightest tone I'm gonna go.

I'll probably go a little lighter and brighter after this.

But to make these little hills and mounds look rounded, notice I've got light on the tops of them and they fall into shadows, they round off.

I'm giving the land shape.

So I'm gonna start up here and let the color bleed away as I come down over the hill so it just gradually changes into shadow.

And a little bit up here.

(whistles) ♪ Whistle while you work ♪ ♪ Otherwise it gets boring ♪ (hums) Eventually, after I develop the bridge, I'm gonna have to come back as well and pull some of that up in front of the bridge a little bit and tuck that in.

Might have to wait 'til the bridge is uncovered and developed.

See, if you leave a lot of that dark showing through, look how much depth that gives your grass.

Don't cover everything up.

Just yellowy-green.

I know that yellowy-green's kind of pretty and everybody wants to just add more, more, more, but I'm very consciously trying to make an effort to leave some of that dark green showing through there.

Down in here, I just put a few little random hills and gullies like this.

And see the nice texture I get?

It's because I'm using this older brush.

Like I said, don't ever throw away an old fan brush.

I have cans here with dozens of used fan brushes.

They're all varying degrees of wear and tear and the really ratty ones work really good when I'm doing something like this that I want texture in.

I'm gonna swish this brush out only because I think there's just enough dark in it where it's gonna really pollute my next color and I wanna go a little lighter and brighter.

I'm thinking sunshine.

So I'm gonna take more white again, more yellow and just a hint, hint, hint of the blue.

Now see, if I compare the colors, notice I'm mixing all my colors to the grass right here.

I can compare them.

So I kind of know how far I've come by the time I go up to my canvas.

Paint smart, not hard.

Put it right next to where you're working, get a plan on what you're gonna do.

You can check it before you're ever committed instead of having to fumble around, keep checking it, checking it, checking it.

I can check it right here and know whether it's right or wrong.

A lot of paint on the brush again and I'm really gonna put some sunshine in here.

It's a nice fall day, but the sun's out.

I live in Northern New York, so I get to see a lot of these fall colors.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm a country boy, I like the North country, I've lived here all my life, I like the change of seasons, I love to see fall and I really am one of those people that really don't mind the winter that much.

I'm not the type that likes a lot of heat.

I could never live in a tropical atmosphere.

I would melt.

I don't like the heat.

But I like to see all these fall colors, different moods.

Mother Nature's pretty remarkable.

I'm gonna bleed a little of this down here and just let it slowly disappear.

I'm going to really emphasize this area right by the bridge.

I'm gonna take even a little more white and yellow and just make sure I got a nice, bright contrast right there.

This is gonna be the important spot right there to lead me right against that dark of the bridge.

So this is a smaller area, so I'll have to carefully kind of use more of the corner of the brush to get in here.

We're gonna really zing that spot right there.

And then I'm gonna come down.

I want the land to look like it's kind of sloping this way, so your brush work will suggest that.

So I'm going with the lay of the land a little bit the way I want it to lay.

That's coming together pretty well.

In this one, I put a few little touches of burnt sienna just to break it up, make it look like you got some grass that's dried out and brownish.

I could either wipe this brush off and take some burnt sienna.

I've got this burnt sienna stuff right here.

I don't even know what it is.

What did I use that for?

I guess it was part of my path.

Earlier on, I had mentioned that I just paint with the garbage on my palette a lot and I really do.

I can just use some of that and put a little more paint with it if I need to.

And this is an option, you don't have to do it, but it kind of helps tie the background to the foreground.

You see the little bit of the orangy color in the grass as well as the trees.

That kind of unifies everything.

That's called color harmony.

And I don't wanna overdo it, but just a little bit.

Looks like we got some dried grass or some other sort of vegetation in there once in awhile.

This one's got a little more.

I'm gonna do a little less right now.

I just feel like doing a little less.

Every day you paint, you'll paint differently and you'll paint in whatever mood you're in right then.

Right now, I feel like less of that, so I want just enough to say so.

That's working for me.

Is that working for you?

If it's not, put more on.

You can put more on your own painting.

I'm gonna take just a moment here to remove this tape and I'm gonna apply a thin coat of my clear glazing medium to the bridge itself and I'll be right back.

I've removed the tape and I used my number six flat brush to put a thin coat of clear glazing medium over the whole bridge.

I did the roof as well.

I don't really need it there too much, but it's easier just to do the whole bridge, so the black portion and the white portion, all of it is covered with a thin coat of clear glazing medium.

Now I'm gonna take my detail script liner and I mixed up a little bit of a gray tone here.

You can go grayish, brownish-gray, whatever your choice.

This is gonna be the barn wood color.

I'm not gonna go as light as I possibly wanna go.

I wanna build this up on this corner eventually and have more of a focal point on that corner.

We need to find some lines in here.

I need to find the corner of the bridge.

So I'm just gonna put a little indication, a little sketchy line right there.

And I need to find the doorway.

Obviously, you want the sides of the door about the same, so you can just make that however big you want to, but just remember, it needs to be symmetrical.

Notice I'm not putting real hard, heavy lines.

I just need a little bit of a ghost line there just to help me out where I know where everything is.

And this has got one of those angles like this and then across and down the other side.

Viola.

That's French for holy cow, did you know that?

It is.

Now I'm gonna take this brush, I'm gonna flatten it out on two sides a little bit.

So we're gonna pounce it open and it's kind of a little bit spiky.

I'm gonna use more of a dry brush approach lightly and just drag it and let some of the black show through.

And I'm trying to leave a little bit of a suggestion of a crack between boards, so I'm trying to leave a little space in between.

There's a dark shadow up underneath that eve.

I can try to paint around that and if I put a little bit of a line here like that, very sketchy, I can probably leave that.

I can also touch it up with black paint if I need to.

Now, that would be the oil paint on my palette.

You can't go back to the acrylic that we used originally.

Now see that?

Falls right off your brush.

Look at the gnarly, rough, splintery texture on that.

It works great with the black underpainting.

You can feel the splinters with your eyes.

Look at that.

And see, my little sketchy line shows.

I'm not worried because I'm gonna put a molding around that anyway.

Don't sweat the small details.

Don't worry about stuff that's not gonna matter.

And bring that down like that.

I might as well do that right now, that molding.

So I'm gonna go around the edge here just to tidy that up.

I'm not talking because I'm holding my breath 'cause this is touchy stuff and I have to steady my hand.

I got my little steady stick laying right here in my lap if I need it when I get up here, but I haven't needed it quite yet.

I'm gonna do the other side over here.

I want this side to be lighter overall, so I'm just gonna take this gray I'm using.

I'm gonna put a little bit of this white base coat with it.

You can use the thicker white, you just have to thin your paint down a little more.

Having said that, I am gonna put like a drop of paint thinner with this as well.

I'm gonna start with one tone, then I'm gonna build it up lighter on that corner.

See, if I just use a light touch with the brush kind of frazzled out, it's almost like a rake brush.

I have a rake brush that I use once in awhile for certain things.

On a bigger scale, if I was doing a bigger canvas with a much bigger building, I probably would use the rake brush.

On something this small, this one works just as well.

See, that gives you that nice, grainy texture.

Very simple.

Now see right there, the values are too close.

I can't really distinguish the corner.

And I knew that was gonna happen, but I wasn't worried.

That's one of those small details I wasn't worried about 'cause I know I can build it up.

I'm gonna go lighter now.

I'm gonna take some white, a little bit of sienna.

It's your choice, dealer's choice right here guys, whatever you want.

I'm gonna take white and some burnt sienna, maybe a little bit of yellow.

That one, I put a fair amount of yellow.

Looks like the sun's beating right in on it.

I might go that yellow and I might not.

I'm gonna start with something like this with burnt sienna, white and a little bit of yellow and I'll just see as I go what I like and what I don't, see if it's enough.

'Cause that's definitely gonna pull that corner out and separate the light side from the dark side.

You want that sharp corner there so it looks like it actually turns a corner.

I'm still doing the dry brush technique.

See how the weaves of the canvas even shows through it?

See how nice and rough?

Like I said, you can feel the splinters with your eyes on that.

Did you know that Michelangelo's famous statue of the David, it's pretty much the most important sculpture ever, made out of marble?

Some people take it for granted, though.

You didn't know that, did you?

Well, I'm here to tell you.

I'm gonna put that in like that.

That's looking pretty cool.

I can live with that.

And see, on this one, I used the brush rolled more to a point so the boards look a little narrower.

They're skinnier.

On here, I just went a little wider.

I'm feeling wider boards today.

Don't ask me why.

I'm gonna put a little window in there.

I'm taking black with some thinner.

Put a little window on this side.

That's where you can walk halfway through the bridge and look out the window and throw pennies in the water and make a wish.

Here comes the cool part.

I've gotta come back and do that roof, I know.

Notice how it looks like there's cracks in between the boards on the backside and you're seeing the background through it.

I've swished this same brush out.

I'm gonna take some of the orange and the burnt sienna.

These are my colors that I used way back when in the foliage.

I thin this right down and I'm just gonna put a few lines of this orange in here so it looks like you're seeing the fall trees through the cracks.

Very simple.

Don't overdo it.

A few like that is good.

And then I'm gonna take some black and it looks like you're seeing some of the structure of the inside of the building with the beams and the trusses and whatnot.

So then I'm gonna go across like this.

And I just hit the molding on my door, so I gotta touch that up.

Don't you hate when that happens?

Oh well.

It's an easy fix.

See how that makes it look like you can actually see through the barn, or the bridge rather?

I'm gonna go back to that gray and I need to touch this up where I overshot with the black.

Easy fix.

But I wasn't worried.

Now we gotta do the roof.

I'm gonna take some white base coat, and again, I'm just using the same brush, white base coat, a little bit of this blue from my sky, maybe a spec of sienna to gray it.

I want kind of a blueish tone like a metal roof.

So I'm just gonna fill this in.

Don't get it too close to your sky color.

Don't get it too close to your sky color.

But you want some of that blue tone in there a little bit.

And then I'm gonna put a little bit of rust on there.

The rust kind of gives it character, it ties in with all the orange we got in this painting anyway.

It's a really nice touch.

This is just straight burnt sienna and starting at the top, I'm gonna go across like this and let it kind of bleed down and run down.

It's easy to overdo it.

Usually something like this, less it more.

I don't want the whole roof rusty.

Just enough.

I'm gonna go just a little bit darker on part of it.

I'm gonna add a little black to the burnt sienna.

Notice how it's a little darker at the very top.

Then it's lighter as it ran down.

It just breaks it up, makes it so it's not so much the same, makes it more interesting.

Holy cow, I think that's looking pretty good.

And I think I've got just enough time... Now this one, I added a few birds.

I just used a blue-gray.

I think I've got enough time.

This brush was not on your supply list, so I'm ad-libbing here, I got just a few minutes here to burn up.

I was hoping I was gonna have enough time.

This is a number two long script liner.

This is great for doing long, flowing, skinny lines.

I'm gonna take some of this black mixture with a little bit of burnt sienna.

I'm thinking of a tree branch.

Watch this.

I'm gonna give this painting another layer of depth and a whole different feel.

I'm gonna thin this down and I'm gonna say that there's a tree over here somewhere, you're not seeing the trunk, but you're seeing some of the limbs hanging in.

And see, I release the pressure as I drag inward, which makes the line taper and get skinnier like it should.

Now see, this just gives it another layer of closeness.

Don't have them all be parallel to each other.

Let one dangle down like this a little bit.

It's okay to go right in front of your background trees.

It pushes them back.

Those are the limbs coming off the trunk.

Now we have branches.

The branches are gonna be finer and skinnier.

Noticing I'm leaning one hand on the other here, being careful not to push down too hard.

The brush pressure is the most important thing at this when you're doing work like this.

See how that gives it a different feel and it gives it more depth?

You can tell that this branch is much closer and it pushes everything into the background.

Now I'm kind of rushing here.

You take your time.

Get nice, crisp lines with this.

Like I said, this is the number two detail, or number two long script liner, which is not on your list.

You could do it with a shorter brush, but the longer one actually works better.

And then I'm gonna go back to my detail script liner, which is the one I've used for most of this class, this lesson, and I'm gonna take some of the cad red light, a little bit of the burnt sienna, flatten the brush out a little bit and I can randomly dab on a few little leaves.

Now, probably a lot of them have fallen off since it's autumn, so you don't have to get too carried away.

We can just add some of these in here like this.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'm hoping you're gonna give it a shot.

I'd love to see your version of it.

You can send me a photo on Facebook or find my contact info, my email and whatnot, and my website wilsonbickford.com.

I'm gonna add just a few darker ones in there.

I'll take a little more sienna just to balance this out.

And give it a shot.

We bridged the gap.

Until next time, stay creative and keep painting.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Support for "Painting with Wilson Bickford" is provided by the J.M McDonald Foundation, continuing the example modeled by J.M McDonald by contributing to education, health, humanities and human services.

Sharing since 1952.

Online at jmmcdonaldfoundation.org.

(upbeat music) In rural New York state bordered by the St. Lawrence River in the Adirondack Mountains is a sprawling landscape with communities that offer self-guided tours for the creatively inclined.

Learn the stories behind the barnacle traditions, family, agriculture, nature and beauty.

St. Lawrence County, life undiscovered.

- [Woman] All 13 episodes of "Painting with Wilson Bickford" season seven are now available on DVD or Blue-Ray in one box set for $35, plus $4.95 shipping and handling.

Or learn the techniques used to paint sunset lake with the in depth "Paint Smart, Not Hard" series of Wilson Bickford instructional DVDs, includes the bonus episode "Don't Be So Coy".

Additional titles available.

Order online or watch or download directly to your computer or mobile device.

More information at wpbstv.org/painting.

(upbeat music)