- If you've ever wanted to paint these graceful waterfowl, this swan's for you.

Join me next on "Painting with Wilson Bickford," As I create "Swan Duet."

(mellow 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.

(upbeat 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.

I'm Wilson Bickford, and I wanna share a nice little swan painting with you today.

I've got a swan couple here.

Swans mate for life, and they're very majestic birds, a lot of people like them, and I thought this would be a great project to share with you.

So I wanna talk about the supplies and the materials we're using today, and then I'll get into the prep work.

If you go to the WPBS-TV website, you'll be able to download this supply list that tells all the brushes and oil paints that we're using.

There's also a sketch that you can use to transfer the design onto the canvas.

I take the sketch and some graphite transfer paper, underneath, and position it on the canvas, accordingly, where you want it.

I like to use a red pen because the red shows up on the black line, so you can tell where you've been, you can track your progress.

Put the design on there.

And then I've prepped this with some acrylic paint that I'm gonna talk about in just a moment.

We'll review the oil paints for now.

For oil paints today, I'm using Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black, Sap Green, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Red Light, and Titanium White.

For brushes, I'm using a 2-inch Scenery Brush, a #10 Flat Brush, #6 Round Brush, #6 Small Flat Brush, #2 Detailed Scriptliner, and my long #2 Scriptliner.

So for the prep for this, I took some blue gesso, you're also gonna need some blue acrylic gesso.

If you don't have a premixed gesso, you can make your own, using white gesso, with a little bit of tubed Ultramarine Blue, and a little smidgen, just a small tad of Ivory Black, or black gesso.

And this is acrylic.

So I've painted both birds the same.

This one's already been painted, but he's already taped out as well.

But I wanted to show you the process.

A lot of you are familiar with that process by now, I do it all the time.

But this is painted with blue acrylic and this- and it's like the sketch.

All the facial features here, his little mask and his eye are all painted black.

Underneath, it'll look just like this.

The black parts are in the corresponding areas.

Everything else where the white feathers are gonna be is blue.

I'm putting in the shadow tones.

and then all I need to do is put the highlights on over the top.

So this one's been taped out, just to save me a few moments here.

I wanted to share with you the taping process, just in case you're not familiar with it.

Maybe this is your first time tuning in with me, who knows?

I hope it's not your last.

So this is just normal, everyday masking tape from the hardware store.

Everybody always asks me about the tape.

It's nothing fancy.

I'm gonna put a little piece right there.

Just block him out completely.

I use a utility craft knife.

Very, very sharp.

Be careful.

You could do brain surgery with this.

And I carefully trim around the outline and just leave my subject.

Whether it's a barn or a lighthouse or whatever.

Today, it happens to be swans.

But I leave the subject covered.

That way I can freely come in and just paint the background over the top and not have to paint around it, which would be not so fun and not so easy.

So see, I just trim away everything that's not the swan.

So I'm gonna finish this up, with the trimming, and I'll be right back.

(upbeat music) When you're using the #10 Flat Brush for your wave movements, it's really important to get it loaded and use it correctly.

I mat the brush together on both sides like this, to a nice sharp, chiseled edge.

You want to come in very straight, right straight into the canvas, using just the razor edge.

And as I sweep across, I press down harder, and then release pressure at the end of the stroke.

And it tapers just like a wave movement.

Put them in, in various lengths and sizes.

No rhyme or reason, have some shorter ones, some longer ones.

Should be no rhyme or reason to it.

The mistake people make is instead of coming in flush with the brush, they tilt it on the corner.

And the minute you press down, you're already getting a wider line than what you want.

So just be mindful of that when you're using this brush to do the wave movements.

I finished taping out the other swan, so he's all ready to go.

So now we can throw some paint on here and not have to paint around them.

That'll make it a lot easier.

I know I've painted a lot of birds for you in the past.

I do a lot of songbirds.

These are just samples to inspire you.

Maybe you can do some of your own paintings.

That's a rose-breasted grosbeak.

I have many feeders in my yard and I feed a lot of birds.

They all come and eat to their heart's content.

There's a couple bluebirds.

I love painting chickadees, as you know.

I've done a couple of these on TV for you before.

These are considered more waterfowl, and I love doing those, too.

Here's a mallard duck.

So I'm just showing you these to inspire you and, you know, make up your own ideas and do your own paintings from them.

Here's some Canada geese.

I like painting the waterfowl, as well as the songbirds.

So I do a little bit of everything.

I thought this one would be a good fit for you today with the swans.

In the meantime, too, when the I was off-air, I put down some White Base Coat, which is oil-based, and some clear glazing medium in addition to my oil paints.

So I'm gonna start in with the 2-inch Scenery Brush, and I'm gonna take some of this White Base Coat.

I'm gonna scrub in a very thin coat.

And when I say scrub, I'm scrubbing.

I'm making a little bit of paint go a long ways.

Don't take the paint like this and put it on like you're painting your wall.

This is what everybody does, is putting it on way too heavily.

The less you have on here, the better, yet still have coverage.

You want the least amount you can get away with.

Are you gonna try this lesson?

I hope so.

It's really not that tough.

I'm showing you everything you're gonna need to know to do it.

(brush scrubbing) I've been very fortunate that we have so many viewers that follow the show now, and I appreciate all of you for watching.

I appreciate WPBS-TV for allowing me to do this and bring this to you.

It's been a fantastic journey.

I can't believe we're on Season Eight.

Okay, scrub that in nice and thin.

Maybe we'll just stop there and call it, "Swans in the Fog," what do you think?

Nah, I heard somebody in Albuquerque and they said, "No, keep going."

All right.

This is for you, Albuquerque, here we go.

Okay, from there, I'm gonna start out with a lighter blue.

Notice this very light blue at the top.

I wanted the effect that you're looking across the water and looking down at the swans.

So you see some of the background, higher on the picture plane.

So this is all still water here, but you're looking out across it and down.

I want this a lighter value and I'm gonna bleed it into more Ultramarine Blue and get darker as I come down.

That's gotta go in first, before I put in all the wave movements and the grasses and whatnot.

So I'm gonna use Cerulean Blue.

Take just a little bit of that, it's pretty strong.

I'm gonna use the same dirty brush with the white in it.

I can actually- if it's too dark, I'll take a little more of that White Base Coat into that.

Don't need a lot of paint on your brush.

And this flavor is totally up to you.

If you wanna go a little darker than what I've chosen here, that's fine.

It's all good, it's relative.

As long as you get darker as you come down, you can start darker up here.

Just keep making it darker as you come down.

I'm gonna start bringing that down a little lower.

I'm gonna take a little more of the Cerulean and go a little darker with the value.

Same color, just using a little bit stronger mix of it.

We'll start getting a little bit darker.

And I really wanna just scrub that in.

(brush scrubbing) It goes on a little easier than the White Base Coat, because now the canvas is wet with the White Base Coat.

But you still have to work it in.

(brush sweeping) Once I get down into about here, I wanna start really changing the flavor.

Which means I'm gonna add a little bit of Ultramarine Blue right into this same color.

The Cerulean Blue on the palette that's there will kind of mute this back and knock it down a little bit.

I don't wanna go too dark too soon.

See, it's a totally different color and different value, I'm going darker.

(brush scrubbing) (Wilson hums) ♪ Whistle while you work ♪ ♪ Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee ♪ Okay.

I got some other animals I'm gonna do in this series, too.

I've got a tiger coming up sometime.

I'm not sure when it'll air, but that'll be one of the projects I'm bringing to you.

Okay, I'm gonna take a little more Ultramarine Blue and just a speck of the Ivory Black.

I'm graying it just ever so slightly.

Be careful, the black is really, really strong.

(brush scrubbing) Notice how it's a really dark blue gray, underneath on this one.

So that's what I'm shooting for.

I'm not caring if I match that color, exactly.

It could go more blue, it could go more gray, but the idea is it's the value, how light or dark it is.

I definitely want it darker down there.

This is exactly how I did that one.

There's no smoke and mirrors here.

It just depends on how I mix them.

See, if I put a lot more black in that, I say a lot more, don't go crazy with it, but if I use more black, it really darkens it down.

And that's what that one had.

Work it in evenly, so no chunks or streaks on your brush.

(brush scrubbing) And I need to just work this in.

Once I base it in, the whole canvas will be wet, and then everything is slick and blend-able.

And I can start laying this water in.

You don't want lines in it.

You notice every now and then I go across the green in this way and then back horizontally.

You don't want a stripe of a light blue, and then a strip of dark blue, and a strip of the gray.

So I'm making sure everything kind of blends together and holds hands a little bit.

(brush sweeping) Hmm, do I or don't I?

I'm gonna go just a hair darker than that.

I was just thinking- did you hear the gears turning?

I was just trying to figure that out.

It's preference.

Any painting you do is preference.

You're the artist.

I just figure I want it a little bit darker down here.

Don't forget, we're gonna have these nice reflections of the swans in there.

We need dark behind them to show that contrast.

Notice most of my blending is horizontal, I'm going with the lay of the water.

You can't go in like this and just leave it like that.

I know, I know.

Somebody in Dubuque was doing that, weren't you?

I caught you.

Don't do that.

All right.

Okay, so much for the backdrop.

I'm gonna start putting in the water.

I'm gonna use the #10 Flat Brush.

I'm gonna start with some of this same dark color I just used.

It may not be dark enough, I'm gonna have to test it and see.

It should be.

I'm not sure.

Now if you chisel this brush up nice and sharply, comes to a razor edge.

You want to come in flat with the brush.

A lot of people will turn it on the corner and the minute you do the brush, it squishes out fat.

I want nice thin lines in here, so I'm using just the end of it.

And I'm pressing a little harder through the middle of the stroke and then releasing pressure on the end.

And see, it tapers on both ends, like a little wave movement.

So basically, I just have to put a lot of these in here.

Down here in the foreground, I want them bigger because they're closer.

That has to do with linear persp- perspective.

I had hard time spitting it out.

Linear perspective.

There we go.

That's a little cleaner.

See, they're there, but they could stand to be a little darker.

That's why I said you never know, I had to test it.

It's like making soup, you have to dip the ladle in and taste it every so often.

So I'm gonna take a little more blue, a little more black.

Oh, bingo, that's the one right there.

That's the one we want.

See how much better that shows up?

It's the contrast.

Contrast is one of the most important aspects of any painting.

I don't care what you're doing.

If you're doing photorealism or abstract, or Impressionism, or whatever, it all boils down to the contrast.

Without contrast, you have nothing.

See, it's getting lighter, cause it's picking up that background color.

So I keep mixing more dark back into it to keep it that way.

And these look really harsh, but I'm gonna blend them.

I tell you all the time, blending cures everything.

And it really does.

I'll get down tight to my bottom of my canvas here.

My easel has a little notch in there that sets into, so I can't quite get right to the bottom.

I'll finish that off afterwards, when I take it outta here.

Now see, as I go higher, I want these to be a little skinnier, not quite as fat.

Tall from top to bottom, I guess you could say.

And I want them to just recess off into nothing.

See, they get fainter and fainter and fainter, the farther back they go.

And I'm not pressing down as hard on the brush.

See, I can keep them a lot skinnier, a lot narrower.

Go right over the swans like they're not even there, that's why I taped them out.

I'm not gonna paint around them.

Life's too short to paint around swans.

As well as other things.

And see, by the way I blend this later, I can actually make those soften in and disappear even more so, just by blending them.

Like I said, blending cures everything.

See how they're a little more distinct down here and they get fainter and more vague, the higher they go.

I want this to look like it's going out across the water.

They're just gonna kind of disappear.

I don't even have to go all the way to the top of the canvas and I'm not going to.

Paint smart, not hard.

Don't do stuff you don't need.

I don't need that.

So I'm just gonna let that kind of fade away and my grass will take care of that.

I'm gonna come down with a little more color and just strengthen some of these a little bit.

They got a little wishy-washy.

Like I said, it's picking up the background paint, so it keeps lightening the value.

So sometimes you have to come back and keep reinforcing it a little bit.

(Wilson hums) Do you know what Mr. Swan said when Mrs. Swan told him she was expecting?

He said, "Well, that's just swan more mouth to feed."

True story.

I don't make this stuff up, guys.

I don't make this up.

Okay.

That's getting there.

I'm gonna swish the brush out.

I have just odorless mineral spirits here in this bucket.

I'm gonna rinse that out.

You'll notice in this one that I have some lighter values in there, too.

I've got some of the Cerulean Blue in there from this area of the water.

You have to think that the sky is above and it's reflecting into that water.

So I'm gonna take Titanium White, a little bit of that Cerulean Blue.

Go with a lighter value than what I've been doing.

This will go in between the dark ones that I just put.

I'm gonna try this.

This might be a little too light, I'm not sure.

Eh, I kinda like it.

I'm gonna go with it.

And these go in the spaces in between.

And I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "That looks not right, Willie.

What are you doing wrong?"

Well, I'm hoping I'm not doing anything wrong, but like I said, the blending is gonna help immensely.

Right now, it's unblended.

See, my color's getting contaminated cause I'm picking up the background paint.

It's the evils of working wet on wet.

So I'm gonna mix a little fresher batch here and get some of the crud outta my brush.

This is gonna be a two-part lesson because I want to be able to slow down and take my time with it to instruct.

There's nothing worse than just having me sit here and go wizz, wizz, wizz.

I could paint this in a half an hour if I had to, with swans and all, but I would not have time to slow down and show you anything or talk about it.

So I figure the reason you're watching is because you want to learn.

So I'm gonna learn you.

Okay, I'm even gonna come in a little bit lighter, maybe some almost pure white.

I wiped the brush off, but I didn't wash it.

And I take white, picks up a little bit of the dirt out of the brush, but it's a lot lighter.

And I've got some few lighter ones in here.

A good place to put those, if you're gonna do it, is put them near the center of the canvas, cause they act like a magnet to draw the viewer's eye into your painting.

See, if I put them in the middle, if you look at my canvas, your eye is going right there, right around my subject, right where I want you to look.

A magician don't have nothing on me.

I got my own little bag of tricks.

It's all part of the composition, part of the process.

Something you wanna think about.

Okay, I think we've gotten there.

Close enough.

If not, I can touch it up a little bit in between now and next time.

I'm going to come back to Big Daddy.

Big Daddy's coming back in off the bench.

This is dirty, I'm not gonna wash it, don't need to.

I'm gonna take a paper towel and really wipe it off.

And I'm gonna come in and blend this.

Start out with a lighter pressure till you see what you're getting.

Don't come in like a bull in a china shop.

Just go lightly at first.

See how that smudges and softens everything right together?

It waterizes it.

And yes, that's a word.

It's my own word, but it works, right?

Up here, I'm blending a little more firmly.

Like I said, if I make that a little blurrier and softer, it emphasizes the depth and the distance, pushes it out into the background a little more.

I squint at it with my eyes half shut so I can tell.

I'm looking for anything that looks like a hard edge that needs to be softened.

And if I see one, I tweak it.

And if I don't, I'm pretty much done with that step.

But that'll give you the idea.

That's the same way I did that one.

This one's a little darker overall.

It's just the way I mix the colors.

I'm using the same exact colors.

Nothing different there.

You mix them accordingly to how you feel and what you want.

I'm gonna take a fan brush now with Sap Green and believe it or not, a little bit of this Cad Red Light.

Cad Red Light, any red, is complementary to the green and it will dull and darken the color.

I'll put just a little smidgen of white with that.

I said a little smidgen, Willie.

Look at how much white I got, I got too much now.

Oh, well.

Get a color that you like.

I'm gonna actually sneak a little bit of Ultramarine Blue in that.

As far as greens go, I like a blue-green, not a yellow-green.

There we go.

Now I'm a happy guy.

Notice I'm gonna tap the bristles open like this, spread them out.

I want the effect of grass standing up through the water.

So I'm just lightly gonna touch in and pull up.

(brush tapping) Don't be a stamper.

This is what a stamper does.

A stamper comes in with the brush and just goes once, twice, thrice.

And you can count every brushstroke.

Notice I'm not doing that.

I'm weaving them together in longer shapes and I'm kind of bouncing all of over, so it doesn't leave a footprint of the brush as far as the width and the size.

(brush tapping) Can I paint and read at the same time?

I don't know, but I'm gonna try it.

I got some facts here.

I pulled up some information on swans, just for the heck of it.

Swans mate for life.

And black swans are native only to Australia.

A male swan is called a cob and a female swan is called a pen.

Who knew?

Not me.

Swans can fly as fast as 60 miles per hour.

That's pretty amazing to me.

I did not know that.

That's pretty awesome.

Who knew they could go that fast?

Swans are highly intelligent and remember who has been kind to them or not.

So that should be something you want to think about right there.

Always be kind to your swan.

They're gonna remember you for it.

Okay, so I'm just gonna kind of fill this in a little bit.

I want rough grass reeds sticking up through there.

I'm gonna swish this brush out really quickly.

The clock on the wall is winding down.

I'm gonna rinse that out.

I'm gonna take some yellow and white into my green, and notice that I've got this little brighter spot.

Remember, I talked earlier about putting the white in the middle to draw your eye.

It's the same with the grass.

Notice how that kind of draws your eye in there.

So I'm gonna take some white and yellow into my green and brighten it up.

So it looks like you got sun hitting in here, once in a while.

I'll go even a little brighter than that.

But adjusted accordingly, you can use a color value that you like.

Don't do it everywhere.

But see how that's kind of drawing the eye into where the swans are?

And the clock on the wall is ticking down.

I've gotta say so long for now.

Catch me next week and we'll finish up these swans.

Until next time, stay creative and keep painting.

- [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.

(upbeat 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.

- [2nd Announcer] 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.

(mellow music) (upbeat music)