(bright music) - They say you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

Today, I'm gonna use only a painting knife to make impressionistic flowers.

Join me next, right here, on "Painting with Wilson Bickford."

(bright music) - [Announcer] 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.

(bright music) The View Center for Arts and Culture is an Adirondack exhibition and performance space featuring in-person and online classes for creatives of all ages and abilities.

Open calls, events, and class schedules online at viewarts.org.

- Hi, thanks for tuning in today.

For some reason, I have such a headache.

I had a dream last night.

I was dreaming about this big brush, and I just can't get it outta my head this morning.

(Wilson laughs) Well, maybe I can.

I'm glad you joined me today.

This is "Painting with Wilson Bickford," and we're gonna do a nice, little scene using only a painting knife today.

So I can get that brush out on my head.

Sometimes thinking about brushes gives me a headache.

Today, we're only gonna use a painting knife.

This is a knife painting lesson.

I get so many people asking about knife paintings, and I've done some for you in the past on the show.

I know we did one with birch trees one time, I did a barn one time, but I get a lot of people asking about florals.

So today, we're gonna do a floral painting.

This is a two-part lesson because I wanna be able to really instruct and show you guys this, 'cause I know there's a lot of interest in it.

So if you go to the WPBS-TV's website, you'll be able to download the supply list.

It tells you all the colors we're using.

I'm gonna recap 'em here for you, just here in a moment.

And I'm only gonna use the small painting knife today, like I said.

I have taped the edges of the canvas just because I'm gonna be throwing around a lot of paint as compared to with a brush.

And it gets pretty messy on my easel here.

So I've taped the edge, I did on this one too.

You'll notice there's a border.

But I just taped it just for convenience sake, just so it's not quite so messy to handle.

And I've taken a pencil and started with a sketch on here.

And I'll talk about that in a minute.

For oil paints, today, I am using cerulean blue, burnt sienna, dioxazine purple, emerald green, red rose deep, cadmium yellow pale, and titanium white.

This is an alkyd-based gel medium, kinda like the clear medium that you see me use on some of the other programs, which is more of a liquid form.

This is more of a paste, almost like toothpaste, very thick and heavy.

It's good for building up the texture in your oil paints.

So for this, I took a pencil, and I lightly sketched on my vase or my vase, depending on how you feel about it.

Put that on.

I did draw a line across here to represent the backside of the table.

So there's no sketch provided for this.

I knew you guys could handle this easy enough.

Just the basic outline.

One thing I want to mention is you don't want to overpower your vase.

And by that, it's easy to get it out of proportion.

This obviously is way more vase and two little flowers.

This one is just the opposite.

It's not much vase, but a lot of flowers.

You wanna balance it out somewhere between these two extremes.

So where you got a nice full bouquet in there, but it's not top-heavy so it looks like you got so many flowers, the vase can't even stand up.

Just something to look for.

And a lot of times, I paint flowers realistically, I can do that when I choose to.

I've got some samples here, these will help inspire you, but I wanna get the point across the difference between brush painting and knife painting.

This is with a brush.

And these roses are with a brush.

They're much more realistic.

And I can do that sort of work when I choose to, but sometimes it's just plain, old fun to take the knife and throw some paint on there, and push it around until it looks good.

That's what I tell my students all the time.

Knife painting is just putting paint on, moving it around until it looks good.

This is a knife one that I've done in my classes.

Everybody really likes that one.

Here's one with some geraniums, same idea, but it was all just this little knife and just gobbing pain on, just like I'm gonna show you today.

This is one I just did recently, not too long ago, maybe last month, very similar to what we're doing today.

And I hope you enjoy this lesson.

I'm glad I'm able to bring it to you 'cause we have had a lot of interest in it.

So I'm gonna start right out with a bang.

I'm going to (tape zipping) make life easy using my Paint Smart, Not Hard approach.

Would I have to tape this off?

No, but does it make my life easier?

You bet, so I'm gonna tape off the table line.

And I'm even gonna tape off the edges of the vase.

(tape zipping) Would I have to, again?

No, I wouldn't.

But it's gonna just make life a little simpler to drop the background in.

Since they're nice straight lines, I can just use good, old masking tape.

It makes my life easy.

I don't have to fight to get those straight lines.

I'm gonna have to do it when I put the vase in anyway.

So I don't wanna have to do it twice.

This way, I can just drop the background in with no problem.

And since the canopy of flowers is gonna take in the top, I don't have to worry about too much at the top here.

I'm just gonna leave it around and leave space for the flowers.

Okay, I'm gonna start down here, on the lower portion of the background.

The rule of thumb with the gel medium here, and that's known as butter, painting butter is the slang for it.

I usually typically put about 1/3 as much butter into 2/3 of paint.

So I'm take some cerulean blue and white.

Little bit of the dioxazine purple, it's very, very strong.

This is kind of a bluish, purplely gray that I have going here.

You can use any color you want.

I'm not gonna knock myself out trying to match that color exactly, I can get close, but these are the exact colors that I used when I did this one.

And see, this one's quite a bit lighter.

This one's got more blue and it doesn't matter, not really, but I'll put a little more blue, a little more purple in it.

Get a color that you like.

Put some butter with it.

Like I said, I usually mix up my paint, and I'll look at that as 2/3 of the whole amount that I want, and I add about 1/3 of butter into it.

Okay, I'm gonna try this right here, see if I like it.

Ooh, that works for me.

Now, see, the whole point with knife painting is you don't wanna finesse it too much.

If I wanted it slick and smooth, I would've painted this with brushes.

So a lot of people tell me that this is like frosting a cake.

I've never frosted a cake.

I've eaten some cake in my day, believe me, but I've never frosted one.

And I kind of leave some of the integrity of the knife strokes in there.

See, just, that's the fun part.

It's more impressionistic.

You have to think more Van Gogh and less DaVinci when you do this.

And see, I'm literally just gonna take this paint, and I'm gonna push it around till it looks good to me.

Don't be intimidated with this.

Don't be afraid to give it a try.

A lot of people really like the look of this, but when I tell 'em I use nothing but a knife, they think, "Mm, well, that's good for you, but I don't wanna try it."

Most of my students, I'll be honest with you, most of my students who come to my class and do one of these, love them.

And then, they want more, and more, and more.

Now, I'm gonna grade this so it gets a lighter value as it goes upward.

So I'm gonna take some white and add into what I've got left here.

I don't have much paint of that color left, but I got just enough I think.

I'll throw a little more butter in there to extend it.

And I'm gonna bring some in on either side.

And I know I'm gonna have a big canopy of flowers in here, so I really don't have to put much of this color in that particular area.

Why put it there if I don't need it?

This is the loosest, freest type of painting you're ever gonna do, and it's fun.

(knife patting) Now, right here, I'm just gonna mingle these two together a little bit.

And see, I just, this is what I call pat, drag, and smear.

I'm just kind of patting and smearing a little bit, and turning the knife every which way.

And I just want a gradual transition from light to dark.

I'm wiping the blade off in between because as you know, if there's paint on your brush or your knife, you're painting, you're not blending anymore.

So I'm just gonna loosely work those together a little bit.

Not looking for perfection.

I use a lot of towels when I knife paint.

We're using so much more paint, it gets all over the place.

So I tend to use a lot of towels.

As I go higher, I'm gonna go even lighter.

So I'm gonna take more white, just a little bit of this straight cerulean blue here, just to brighten it up, lighten it a little bit.

You wanna tingle the viewers' retinas, give 'em something that's brighter and eye-catching.

That's why I chose that particular green for that vase, it really stands out.

So this is just white with a touch of cerulean blue and butter.

Whoa, I picked up a gob there and threw it right down here.

Look at that.

I told you I was gonna throw some paint around until it looked good.

(laughs) Doesn't look so good there, but I'll scrape that off.

That's easy.

Hmm, I thought a bird flew over for a minute.

No, I guess it was me.

Okay, I'm gonna get to the edges here, and make sure I don't stick the knife under the tape.

It's easy to get goin' here and pry underneath your tape, if you have a taped edge.

So try to lock that edge down, and not pick it up and put paint underneath it.

Then, you'll have a messy border, which can be corrected and cleaned off with some thinner, but it's easier if we don't have to do that.

Okay, I'm looking at the space I've got versus the canopy of flowers.

I just gonna bring this in tight enough.

I want the background to go behind the flowers a little bit.

So I'll bring it down a little lower than I need to, but I don't have to fill in that whole area.

Paint smart, not hard.

Why fill that in if I'm not, with this color, if I don't need it there?

It's just extra paint, extra time for really no good reason.

Okay.

I just felt my knife dig under that tape just for a split second, just like I told you not to a minute ago.

So we'll see when we take that tape off at the end, I might have a little discrepancy there, but if I do, I will fix it.

I need to scrape that off there.

Take a little bit more of the dark and put it in there.

See, that was an easy fix.

That's a good thing that happened to show you how I fix it.

All right, now, this one's a little darker maybe, it's hard to tell in here, but this one might be a little darker down here, it's fine.

I used the same colors that I used for that.

I'm doing the same exact thing.

It's always gonna come out different, depending on how you mix them personally.

So get colors that you like.

I'm trying to get this in tighter than my taped vase there.

Okay, drum roll please.

(Wilson imitates drum roll) (tape crackles) See what the tape does for me?

(tape crackles) You gotta love that tape.

Okay, I'm gonna start in on the table.

I want it to kinda look like a lighter-colored table.

I don't know if it's a tablecloth, maybe or maybe not, but just a lighter surface.

Notice that it's a little lighter back here, and it grades a little darker down below.

I don't want it all the same color, obviously.

So I'm gonna start with white.

And I'll pick a clean spot, here on my palette.

I'm gonna take white and just a speck of burnt sienna, just to make an off-white, slightly off-white, enough to say so.

I'm gonna put a little bit of butter with that.

And right in the background, right along that edge of the back of the table, or shelf, or whatever it is, I'm gonna come in like this.

I need to put a cast shadow over here eventually.

But I do wanna put some of this color in there, 'cause it'll give me something to soften it into.

And see, because the lines of the vase are square, and the edge of the knife is square, it makes it pretty easy to cut in here.

(Wilson humming) Why is a flower like the letter A?

Because a B comes after it.

(laughing) Oh yeah.

Okay, I'm getting lower, I wanna go a little bit darker.

So I'm gonna take a little more of this sienna.

I just don't want the whole surface to be white.

It's gonna look like it has more depth and dimension to it, just to change the value.

Got a chunk of dried paint or something in there, there we go, scrape that outta there.

And see, I'm just putting it on.

I'm not agonizing over every little ridge and edge of paint in there.

I wanna leave some of that.

That's what knife painting's all about, is the texture.

And you actually hear my knife kind of scraping a little bit.

Sometimes I'll have a excess amount in a certain spot and I'll scrape it off there and move it over here.

I'm even gonna start going just a hair darker yet.

I'm gonna put just a touch more of sienna into that.

I'm running out of paint.

So I'm gonna add a little more butter.

The butter will actually just extend your color and make it go farther.

So if you get right down to the point where you're running out of paint, you can just add more butter to what you've got left, and it really buys you a little more.

And see, down here, I'm working away from the tape, trying to lock that edge down.

(knife scraping) (Wilson humming) ♪ Do, do, do, do, do ♪ You're gonna give this a try, aren't ya?

Oh yeah.

It's just as easy as what I'm showin' you here.

Don't agonize over it.

Everybody thinks it has to be perfect.

I did when I started, even before I ever tried painting with a knife, just with my brush paintings.

The biggest trap that people fall into, they think everything's gotta be so slick and perfect.

And a painting doesn't have to be perfect, and it shouldn't be, it's art.

You see, I'm really running outta color here.

So I gotta take a little more butter, and just a hair more of that.

I was so close, and I extended that with a little butter, but I just didn't quite have enough, but there we go.

Look at that, easy fix.

I knew what I did to get that color, so it was easy to remix.

Okay, get down here in the corner.

Okay, I'm just gonna look at that, I'm squinting at it, making sure there's not anything of too hard of an edge in it.

That's lookin' pretty good to me so far.

I need to put this shadow in.

It's kind of a purplely, gray color, which is a good shadow for something on a light surface, like white like that.

So I'll take some white, a little bit of the dioxazine purple, maybe a little blue into that.

So it's leaning a bluish purple.

Purple is made a two primaries, blue and red.

So it already has blue in it.

So you can lean it like a teeter totter, a blueish purple or a reddish purple.

I definitely want more of a bluish purple.

And see, before I'm ever committed, I can kind of hold it up there and check.

That's kind of what I'm looking for, but I want it just a hair darker.

So I'm gonna put a little more purple, a little more blue.

The purple by itself is really strong, so it's almost, almost overpowering.

So I'm trying to dull it with the blue a little bit too.

That's not too bad, I think I could live with that.

Just so you know, if you wanted to calm that down, you could put just a speck of the burnt sienna into that.

Burnt sienna is an orange, basically a dark orange, which counteracts the blue and the purple, 'cause they're complementary.

Okay, I'm gonna take some of this color here, and put that cast shadow in.

I'm just working it in 'cause I have white on the back of the knife in there, I can see it.

SO I'm gonna, it's not blending in off the edge of the blade.

It's stickin', okay, there we go.

Now, I'm gonna put this shadow in from the vase.

So I'm gonna start here at the edge, and I'm gonna compare that, Now, see, that's kind of getting lost almost, in the background, which tells me I should lighten it a little bit.

So I'm gonna put a little more white.

I always tell you, painting is like making soup.

You have to dip the ladle in and taste it.

I just tasted it and it's a little too bland.

So I need a little more salt or something in it.

I need to change it.

So see, if I make that just a little bit lighter, now it's showing up against that background.

Even though they're two distinctly different colors, kind of a blue-gray and a purple, they are this same value, which means the lightness or darkness.

So you have to worry about your contrasts and your values, not just the colors.

So I want a nice kind of crisp edge there.

And then, I've gotta work around the vase a little bit.

I'll probably get some down here where I don't want it, but that's good, I can show you how to fix that.

This will anchor the vase down, like it's sitting, by having the shadow in there, just establishing the line here.

And see, even though I'm using just this same old knife, I can turn it different angles, I can hold my mouth just right, say a prayer if I need to, and I can pretty much do anything I want with this one knife.

They make a lot of different styles that I'm gonna share with you here in just a little while.

You'll wanna check out my quick tip for this lesson.

You see, I can go in and kind of clean this edge up.

I have nothing on the blade at this point.

I'm just plowing some of that lighter tan color through there to clean that edge up.

And then, I bring the purple down to meet it, just to get more of a definitive edge a little bit.

And because it's a shadow, I want it a little softer.

So I wipe the knife off cleanly, and I just kind of blend right over it.

And the two colors kind of hold hands and like each other there a little bit, so it softens it.

Okay, now, eventually, I'm not gonna do it now, because it's dangerous.

I could put some purple, a little bit of purple underneath there for the shadow too, but it's better to do the vase first.

And then, I'll put that shadow in last, if I don't forget.

You're gonna remind me, right?

Yep.

That'll be in part two.

Okay, so that's pretty much the background, and how I did that.

Pretty simple, really, once you get used to it, and get right down to the brass tacks, that's pretty simple.

I'm just literally putting paint on, pushin' it around, and taking what I get and just, you know, everybody's gonna have a different threshold.

Some of you are gonna wanna blend it a little more.

Some of you are gonna leave it a little chunkier.

It's all good.

If you leave it a little chunkier, you're more of a Van Gogh than that.

Van Gogh's paintings were really textured.

He didn't necessarily use knives.

He used big, old, thick, stiff oil brushes, and just kind of patted it on, but very thick texture.

(bright music) For today's project, I'm just using this one knife, because I'm used to it, and I can do pretty much anything I want with it.

But if you start looking around at some of the art supply stores, they make a variety of all different styles, round, square, flat, you name it.

This is just a very small, random sampling of what's available out there.

So you might wanna check around and find a knife that's gonna work better for your purposes.

Okay, I'm gonna start putting some color on this vase.

I've got a couple of minutes left here, but I can start basing some of this in.

I'm gonna put this in with, I'm gonna start right here with white and butter, right where that highlight is.

I want that really good and bright.

So I'm gonna take white and butter, and figure out where that's gonna be, maybe right about there.

And then, I'll work around it.

I kind of want it the brightest right there, but there's a highlight throughout, right there.

From there, I'm gonna take some of this emerald green.

Don't forget to add your butter.

I'm gonna take emerald green, a little bit of white.

And if you don't like this flavor, I could change it by adding blue to it.

I'll show you, you don't have to.

I don't think on that one I did.

I really don't remember.

It's a manmade object, you know?

It's a ceramic, or metal, or whatever it is, but it's a manmade object.

Man can make anything any color.

When you're working with nature, you have to kind of stick with the rules, and you can only get away with so much.

Anything is a manmade, you can really use some brighter colors, 'cause man can make any color.

So see, I'm going right next to that white.

And I have to be a little careful down here, but I can scrape that off and repair it if need be.

I'm not scared.

Only of snakes and spiders, I'm not afraid of this.

Now, see, when I get to the outer edge, I'm gonna have to come in and really tighten that up.

And the clock on the wall is telling me that it's time to go.

(bright music) We'll wrap this up in part two.

Don't miss it, you're gonna wanna check this out.

Thanks for tuning in today, until next time, stay creative and keep painting.

(bright music) - [Announcer] 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.

(bright music) The View Center for Arts and Culture is an Adirondack exhibition and performance space featuring in-person and online classes for creatives of all ages and abilities.

Open calls, events, and class schedules online at viewarts.org.

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

Or learn the techniques used to paint "Sundown Beacon" with the in-depth "Paint Smart, Not Hard" series of Wilson Bickford instructional DVDs.

Additional titles available.

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

More information at wpbstv.org/painting.

(bright music)