[Music] Hello again.

I'm Nicholas Hankins, and welcome back to the painting studio for a little more Bob Ross wet on wet technique fun.

Come on up to the canvas.

We're going to paint a night scene and I want to show you exactly what I've done to prepare this canvas.

So I have an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas.

I have applied some self-adhesive masking paper here to the canvas.

Now, it has a little marble pattern on it.

That's only incidental.

That's just the particular type of paper I found this time so that does come off.

[chuckles] It's nothing we've painted.

Inside of that, I have coated this canvas, just inside the oval portion with the paper on, I've coated this portion with some black gesso, which is water based, and it dries very quickly.

Once dry, I applied a thin coat of liquid clear, and then I've, I've applied some concentric rings of color.

Here I have Indian yellow, have a little Indian yellow and alizarin crimson, and I put a little in into what's eventually going to become the water as well.

I have alizarin crimson.

And on the outside here I have alizarin crimson and midnight black in about a half and half mixture.

And then in the far extremities I have just some midnight black so with all of that explained, [chuckles] let's get started and we'll have a little fun.

See what kind of night scene we can come up with.

I have something sort of, I don't know, kind of tropical in mind, maybe.

So we'll pick up a little titanium white.

Just on a little one inch brush and tap it in there.

And we'll come up right into our, our Indian yellow first and just use some little crisscross strokes, and then I'm just going to begin working outward.

Got to work outward and allow it to pick up all this pretty color that we've planted into the canvas already.

And it will just automatically get darker and darker and darker and darker and darker as you work outward.

And I have not reloaded the brush, yet.

We might.

We might decide that we want it a little brighter or that we want to extend the color out farther, or we might be just tickled to death with what we do the first time around.

We'll wait and see but...

I have not reloaded the brush, and I'm certainly not going to go back into the center once I've got this going.

I can't take a dirty brush back to the center.

That won't work.

It will ruin your little light spot and you'll be upset and I don't want you upset, I want you happy and enjoying your painting.

Let's wash out this little brush.

Just shake out the excess odorless paint thinner, and we'll come over here and beat the devil out of it.

It's a tiny one, so it's, it's not as much fun as the big, the big brush.

Okay.

Speaking of a big brush, I'm going to take the big two inch brush, big, clean, dry two inch brush and let's come back up here, I'm going to start in the light area again.

And I'm just going to start blending this outward, softening a little more.

And I keep turning my brush, turning the darker corner, the darker of the corners to the outside edge so I'm not, I'm not mixing any of that darker color back into the light area.

Again, just using crisscross strokes like that.

Okay.

Wipe that brush off.

And I have, I have a clean one here on stand by.

I have a clean, dry one here on stand by just to sort of soften and remove any unwanted brush strokes like this.

There we go.

Just sort of bring it all together.

Now back to my, back to my clean, dry one inch brush.

I'm going to pick up a little more white.

And I want to reflect some of that color, some of that bright light, down into the water area so with a little white on the brush, I'm going to come down here and just pull straight down.

Isn't that easy?

Just pull it straight down.

Just keep working side to side.

Over here.

Over here.

Just keep jumping back and forth.

It looks a little messy at first.

But watch this.

We'll come back with our, with our little two inch brush.

I'm just going to knock the excess paint off of it and we'll soften this a bit.

Pull it straight down.

We're going to use one side of the brush to pull it down on this side.

Then I'll flip it over and use the other side of the brush that's still clean.

Pull that side down, wipe it out.

Knock off that excess paint.

I'm trying to be lazy and not wash the brush if I can help it.

I don't like to, I don't like to wash the brush a lot when I'm working on liquid clear.

Because the liquid clear and the paint thinner have a very volatile reaction and they sort of, they sort of bleed and spider web and all kinds of interesting things happen.

They're beautiful if you intend for them to happen, and they're kind of a disaster if you don't mean for them to happen so I'm, I'm really making a solid, concerted effort to keep that, to keep that brush quite, quite dry.

All right.

I think that looks pretty good.

I was debating going a little, debating going a little brighter, but I think that's what I want.

Sometimes you have to step back and take a look see at your painting to decide what you want to do.

All right.

Now I'm going to take my, the brush I've had the longest.

Just take my finger here and let's come up right into this bright area.

I'm going to put a little, a little moon in there.

There we go.

Just spin it around like that.

Come back and grab my cleaner of my two brushes and very gently I'm just going to brush over that with two hairs and some air.

Whew, whew, whew, be real sneaky and careful and quiet.

And we'll take a little touch of our white, a little bit of crimson, a little bit of that midnight black that makes a nice sort of lavender plum color.

Just want to prevent it from becoming too dark.

There we go.

That's why I have a little white in there just sort of temper it.

I don't want it so dark that it's sort of, sort of off putting.

And it can be if it gets a little too dark.

So let's take a little fan brush and some of that color.

And I'm just going to decide where I have maybe some little stringy clouds living up here in the sky just floating by.

Kind of like that.

Just making little, little side to side motions that have a little bit of curvature to them.

I'm, I'm exaggerating it right now, but just little motions like that.

And we're going to let some of these little clouds just sort of wander, well, wherever they want to go, really.

Just wander all over the sky.

Maybe there's a little bit right there.

Maybe there's, maybe there's another low one right there.

Just making sure they're not all on the same level.

I kind of want to, kind of want to stair step them like this.

Maybe a little something up there, maybe.

Those clouds are fun to paint.

They're kind of low stress clouds.

You just kind of let them drift and wander.

If you, if you're real, if you're real careful and real sneaky and real clever, we could even, we could even extend that one just out over the moon a little bit there.

Whew, whew, you've got to be careful if you do that though.

Okay.

Now, these are also easy to blend.

Go back to my little two inch brush and I'm just going to graze across them.

Just graze across.

Be real careful over the moon there.

I'm gonna touch that and get at out, get out of Dodge as quickly as I can.

Lest we get in some trouble trying to blend our moon and cloud there.

Okay.

Now, just move that plum color over in case I decide I want to use some later.

And let's take, let's take a little Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna, oh, a little touch of sap green with that.

Got Van Dyke brown, dark sienna and a little touch of sap green.

Mostly, mostly Van Dyke brown, though.

It's very dark.

And we'll come back into the distance back here.

And I'm going to load up a little oval brush today with some of that color.

Just sort of pull both sides through the paint.

[Nic makes "shoo, shoo, shoo" sounds] Like that.

And then give it a little push.

I hope you can see that.

There's a little ridge of paint.

You push, plow into it, and it leaves a little ridge paint on your palette and one just like it on the end of your brush.

Okay.

That's what we're going to paint with is that little ridge of paint.

So let's come on up to the canvas.

Just hold that brush in there and maybe, maybe these are some either little far away trees or or maybe, maybe it's mangroves.

And it can, it can kind of be anything that you want it to be.

That's the, that's the beauty of that's the beauty of this method, really.

That's the beauty of painting.

You can just kind of decide as you go what you want it to be.

And I'm just tapping gently back there.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] Always helps if you make little noises, too.

I'm a firm believer in making little noises.

So is my six year old.

He makes all kinds of noises.

We never have to, we never have to worry too much about where he is at any given time, because we can just, we can follow the strange noises.

[chuckles] But it's comforting.

We know he's, he's around and having a good time and all is well.

There we go.

Just love making those little paintings like this that have kind of wild lighting and silhouettes and, whew, they're pretty.

They're pretty.

There we go.

Just let that get nice and quiet.

It'll drift off and go somewhere off that direction.

I'm not sure.

While we have that color on the brush, though, I'm going to pull a little bit of this dark color into the water.

This is kind of still water.

In my mind, I sort of, I'm picturing like this is a little, little bay and there's some fairly still water in here.

Go ahead and brush across, get a little feeling of a reflection in there, and then we'll decide what we want to do with it further, further, as we go.

Let's grab, I'm going to grab another little clean fan brush and pick up some dark sienna, a little brown, a little touch titanium white with it.

Just brush mixing these as I go here so we get a nice variety.

All right.

Let's come back here and just begin to decide where we have a little land, a little, little beachy area.

Decide how wide it is, how much there is.

Whether we could invest in it and develop real estate.

No.

Not really.

I'm just kidding.

This is, this is kind of forlorn area here.

Probably, probably where they smuggle stuff in.

Actually, I think this, this type of a scene, that's what you call a smuggler's moon.

My good friend Ron told me about those.

Smuggler's moon.

Matter of fact, he's, he's the person where I, he's the one responsible for me having this idea for the painting so we ought to dedicate this one.

Ron, this one's for you.

I hope you enjoy this.

All right, let's take, let's take another one inch brush, another one inch oval brush, I should say.

And I'm just going to pick up a little yellow ochre, a little bit of that Indian yellow.

Maybe just a, just a little tiny drop of the liquid clear.

Whew, not much.

Just a little drop.

Even a little touch of bright red.

There we go.

Got a little ochre, Indian yellow, a little bright red.

And I'm going to push once more.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchook" sounds] Push into the paint.

Let's come back up here, put some little subtle highlights on all of this stuff.

They're far, far away.

We won't see much detail back here.

Lots of paint.

I'm going back to the palette pretty frequently to pick up more paint, re-sharpen my brush and then push it.

Push it into the paint.

Get that little ridge of paint right on the top.

And that orangey moonlight's just casting nice warmth.

Little accents all over these, all over these little trees or mangroves or whatever we decide they want to be.

I don't know.

I don't know that it matters.

Don't know that we care.

Lots of paint and a light touch and it'll pop right off for you.

Here we go.

Then we can kind of play back and forth and I can go back to my, my other brush that has the darker color in it, the brown and the green and you can decide if you want them to, if you want some of these to come on forward, extend out a little farther, maybe.

See, you can change mind just like that.

Just like that.

Maybe, maybe they come down a little lower on this side.

So it's like a little, little peninsula, a little inlet.

Go back to my highlight color again.

A little bit of that ochre, bright red, a little Indian yellow every once in a while just to, just to change the flavor.

There we go.

This is looking more and more like a dynamite place to me.

[chuckles] Dynamite place to have another little tree.

Hang on just a second.

Let me finish those highlights.

I want to go back to my little, my little beach brush here [chuckles] and put a little more land around here on that set of vegetation.

A little brown, a little sienna, a little touch of white.

Very quiet.

Very far away.

Very distant.

Might even take just a little touch of the, little touch of the white, Indian yellow and sienna.

Brighten that just a bit.

Maybe the moonlight kind of strikes a little in a few spots.

Just kind of lights it up.

There we go.

A little over here, too.

And I'm just considering, as I go I'm thinking about, of course, the lay of the land.

I don't want it to be straight across.

It kind of needs to, kind of needs to angle down or pitch down toward the water.

Take a little titanium white, a little liquid white.

I've just got a small knife here.

Let's see, let's add, let's add a little touch of the, a little touch of that bright red to it.

Whew, whew, whew.

Like that.

Come back here and just cut a little shoreline in.

I don't need much paint for this.

There we go.

Separates our land and our water just a little better.

Kind of see the moonlight sparkle a little more there.

Just let it get darker and darker as it works away.

All right.

Let me clean out.... Actually, let me clean out my, my brush I was making the beach with, that little fan brush.

We'll come back and pick up a, oh, just a great big mess of Van Dyke brown, a little, little midnight black.

Make it super dark here.

And let's have, let's have, maybe standing right there, [Nic makes "ssssshhhoooop" sound] we'll have a little palm tree lives right there.

And we'll have another one right, [Nic makes "whhht" sound] right there.

Maybe there's one more right there.

It's up to you.

You can have as many or as few as you like.

And I say the more the merrier.

I like palm trees.

They're pretty.

Let's take, let's take a little phthalo green and a big old bunch of midnight black and mix it together.

Phthalo green and midnight black.

And let's grab... let me clean that lavender color out of my fan brush here.

I'm going to dry it off but I'm not going to dry it real, real, real well, because I want that paint to be just a touch softer than it would be normally.

I'm going to load that brush full and then what I want to do is just come up and kind of decide decide where you want your little palm fronds to live, and we'll, we'll just kind of, at first, tap them on here like that.

You also have to decide is, is the wind blowing real hard when you paint a palm tree.

Because they'll all need to blow kind of the same direction.

But if it's not, you can just kind of let it hang out like this.

Here we go.

I have another one up here.

Sometimes they come down and they cross the, the trunk.

Now, check this out.

Let's wipe that brush out just a little bit.

I'm going to come back and take the corner and just give it a little pull.

That's all you have to do to paint a little palm tree.

Isn't that neat?

Just take that paint and give it a little, little sweep and that gives you all those little leaves on the frond.

Those long, skinny leaves.

[Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] Like I say, you just have to, just have to give some consideration to... How's the wind blowing?

Or are they just kind of hanging out and taking it easy?

Gotta make those big decisions.

But you know that.

If can move mountains, we can certainly decide which way the wind's blowing to push our palm fronds around.

Here we go.

Maybe that when we see both sides of him.

Yeah, something like that.

On the trunks, I want to take just a little touch of my, a little touch on my brown and black.

Again, I don't want this to get too bright because it's, it's a, it's a late night scene.

Got that moon glow in there but it's a late night scene.

Just make a little, little accent color for our, for our trunks here.

I'm just going to take the knife and kind of touch a little bit of that, a little bit of that gray.

Grayish color on there.

Put a little on this one while I'm at it.

We've got to get him some leaves going.

Let's do that.

Let's come back to our, our dark mixture here.

Just a drop a thinner with it.

[Nic makes "wwhhht" sound] Not much, not much.

Just cute little palm trees.

And once again, I'm just going to take the corner of the brush, give it a little tug.

There we go.

A little on that one.

Let's take that old brush and we'll get just a little bit of the yellow, a little cad yellow.

Got to keep this real quiet.

Touch a little accent on just a couple of them so they don't get completely lost into the dark.

Just a little bit.

[chuckles] I get so quiet when I do a little detail stuff.

I wonder if you all do that when you paint, you get quiet and whisper when you do little stuff.

I always do that.

[chuckles] I always do that.

Let's see, we've got a couple minutes left.

Let's take some more of that sap green, Van Dyke brown.

And come down here in the front.

Just kind of close this off.

I'm going to tap in another, another little, patch of vegetation down here.

Whatever it is.

Something's growing down here.

Something's growing down here.

About like that.

Let me get a little highlight on it.

Maybe even pull a little, little cad yellow in there and brighten it up just a touch.

And I want, I want just a little remnant of, I don't know, maybe there was dock out here at one time and there's just, just a couple of posts left hanging on.

We just see some, some little things collapsing and decaying out here.

Take a little white.

Sienna.

Mix it to a marbled appearance and just make them look like old rough, old rough pieces of wood out here, barely hanging on.

They even, [chuckles] they left a little, little rope still out here.

Something like that.

Right.

Finish those off.

We'll set them down in there was some pretty highlights.

Shoot, I think we're about ready to peel the paper off here and see what we got.

There we go.

A little night time scene for you.

I hope that was fun.

I hope you enjoyed it.

And I hope to come back and paint with me again.

Happy painting.

Bye bye.

[Music] [announcer] To order Nicholas Hankins' 68 page book with 13 painting projects or his companion DVD set, call 1-800-BOB ROSS or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]