[Music] Hello friends and welcome back to the painting studio.

I'm Nicholas Hankins and I'm going to share a great big mountain scene with you today so come on up to the canvas and let's get started.

I've got an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched, double-primed canvas as I usually do.

And I've covered the top portion of the, of the canvas up there with just a thin even coating of the liquid white.

On the lower portion, I put a little liquid black on there and just blended them together.

And now I'm picking up on the, on the good old two inch brush, some alizarin crimson and we're just going to jump right into the, into the middle area up here with our little crisscross strokes and we'll just add a little pinkish glow to our sky.

Make it interesting, give it a little color.

There we go.

And I'm just going to let that sort of float and dissolve into the liquid white, above and below.

Something like that.

Let's go next into a little bit of phthalo green.

Might sound like a strange color for a sky, but in, in small doses it's pretty.

I'm even going to put it on, kind of wipe a little off my brush, and then work it into the, into the sky.

You won't wind up seeing too much of this when the painting's finished, but I like that sort of turquoisey look you get in the sky sometimes, maybe early in the morning or late in the evening.

It's pretty.

Let's grab a little phthalo blue next and just a little tiny touch of bright red.

So I've got phthalo blue, just a tiny little touch of the bright red there.

Alright, we'll take this up to the top.

We'll just stretch that right across there.

Like so.

And we'll let it blend down.

Just sort of shake hands with that green and it'll, it'll consume part of it.

And that's okay.

There we go.

Alright, let's wash one of these brushes.

And as you well know, we wash our brushes in odorless paint thinner.

Shake out the excess and give them a, a vigorous drying.

[chuckles] Alright.

Let me grab, I'm gong to take a brush here that's nice and clean and dry.

Just soften some of that together.

And I'm going to keep it handy because I'll need that to blend later.

How about, how about, I'm going to take a little, little fan brush and just to touch a titanium white.

I've got just the tiniest little drop of liquid white in here as well.

Don't need much of that though.

I'll load that brush full of white and let's have up here in the sky just kind of floating around and having a little wander, having a little wander through the sky up here, some little, little meandering clouds.

Maybe these are the kind of clouds that just, they're like me, they take life easy.

Try not to get too concerned with things.

Isn't that how you want to live your life?

Just taking it easy, not be too concerned.

We can, we could all stand to be more like clouds sometimes, I guess.

They just have a good time.

There we go.

That one's, that one's a little puffy.

It's a little bit bigger.

So we'll blend it, we'll fluff it up, brush across.

I'm just going to brush across those little floating clouds too - the little, the little meandering clouds.

Get a little more, a little more of that and maybe there's another one kind of wanders in front of that one.

Whatever you want, you get to, you get to make the decisions on this piece of canvas and that's the wonderful thing about it.

Alright, speaking of making decisions, we've got a big one to make now so time to commit.

Let's mix up a big batch of, I'm going to take some black, some Van Dyke brown, a tiny little touch of blue and crimson too, but mostly black and Van Dyke brown.

I'm going to paint a great big, great big stone mountain and we'll see what we come up with here.

Alright, cut off a little roll of paint, just like that on our knife.

Now, where's our mountain live?

Mine's going to be, yeah, about right there and it's going to wander across.

Let's see, over to about, about there, I guess.

Yeah, I wasn't kidding.

This is a big time mountain.

We are not messing around today.

Maybe this just sort of slides on down like that.

And I'm scraping very firmly.

I want to be sure that I remove all of that excess from the canvas.

I want to really work that paint down into the fabric.

See, I'm going to even scoot this thing over a little more.

I want a great big, broad mountain top up here.

And then we'll let it kind of wander out and down.

This would be, this would be a very, very western mountain.

Maybe, maybe it's one of those Pacific Northwest type mountains.

Big old, big old dude.

There we go.

And I'll just, again, work some of that color into the fabric.

There we go.

Now back to our, back to our big brush.

And we're just going to grab that paint, pull it.

And because we have the liquid white, as you know, on the canvas that enables us to mix and blend and stretch this color out.

We can actually grab it and move it, make it do all sorts of neat things.

If you didn't have that liquid white on this; this, this is when you would be experiencing agony city because it just won't move like that for you.

Alright.

Something like so.

Okay, now.

Put a little highlight on this mountain.

Here's what I want to do.

I'm going to take a little bit of the, the mountain mixture and I'm going to combine that with some of the titanium white.

We'll see what we come up with.

I'm just looking for kind of a nice, like a slate gray.

And that's not too bad, that's not too bad right there.

Now, I'm going to take some of this and just cut off a little portion of it and move it to the side.

And then I want to add a little more black and just a touch of blue so we have a cooler, darker version of that same paint.

We kind of have two different, two differing variations of that same color.

All right, now.

Clean that off.

I think, I think I want my highlight color just a touch, just a touch lighter.

Eyeballing it.

We'll try it out and see.

Alright, we'll cut off our little roll of that.

And now I'm going to come up here and just find this face of the mountain.

Now, this is where we want to use very little pressure.

Just, just touch and let it float and let that paint break.

You get all those neat little breaking effects in there.

Touch it and just let it float.

And you follow the contour of your mountain.

Decide which way it's, it's flowing.

And all of this side's coming this way.

Then on the other side, I'm going to take some of the darker, cooler color and we'll just, just put a little texture on this side.

There we go.

Now, up on the top here, it's still, it's still cold so we're going to put a little snow up on top.

Take a little of our titanium white.

I'm just going to kind of wipe it across that, that upper plateau or that upper shelf up there.

It kind of has that flat look on top and I think that's really neat.

I really like that look.

Maybe it kind of wanders over like that and kind of comes over here and it just kind of, [Nic makes "whoo" sound] just kind of drips down.

Something like that.

Even, even within our snow, I need a little, a little shadow color for that so let's mix up some, some white and a little bit of the phthalo blue and a touch of the black.

And we'll come back and just kind of decide where this, where this snow comes down and then it hits the shadow side of the mountain and it wanders out that way.

And that way.

just let it wander all over.

Alright.

My paper towel's getting dirty.

I'm going to have to get a fresh one there.

I keep wiping my knife off and it was staying dirty.

[chuckles] Doesn't do me any good.

Okay, now let's come back to our original dark mountain color.

And I want to come back, I want to come back up here and just play a little bit.

Let's have, let's have another little bump in the mountain, maybe right about there.

Something like that.

And then again, we can, we can take a little bit of our highlight color and just kind of pick out, just pick out some contours and angles.

You can come back and maybe add a little, little more snow back there behind it.

[Nic makes "whoo, whoo" sounds] There we go.

Just let that wander around however you want it to go.

A little more of our shadow color.

We'll pick out the darker backside of that slope.

There we go.

You can just, you can play around with mountains all day long.

And if I had all day to do it, I probably would.

They are so much fun to paint.

Tell you what, I'm going to grab the smaller knife for just a second here.

Let's take, let's take a little more white maybe right about here, we've got a little, we've got a little valley.

Snow's kind of laid up in that valley right there and it kind of drips over an edge every so often.

Maybe, [Nic makes "sssoo" sound] yeah.

And maybe it, maybe it wanders over that way.

It's all, it's all just a game of angles with the mountain and that's the fun part.

There we go.

Maybe a little kind of leaks out onto the face of the mountain there.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Alright, let's take our, take our two inch brush here and I'm just going to kind of tap and soften some of that texture and then give it a little sweep to take the tap marks away.

Something about like so, and I'm not finished playing yet.

[chuckles] We're going to have another little bump in our mountain right there.

I told you that, I told you this was going to be a big mountain.

I wasn't kidding, was I?

Alright.

Once again, let me grab that and sweep it out, sweep it down.

[Nic makes "thchoom" sound] Make a little noise as you do it.

I don't know that it actually helps with the method, but it is more fun that way.

I can make you that promise.

It is more fun that way.

All right, let's have a little, little bit of highlight on this little mountain down here.

Maybe, maybe, it kind of comes right on down into the valley like that.

Get a little shadow on the backside.

[Nic makes "sshoo" sound] There we go.

Let me take the little edge and just kind of, just kind of fuss with some of those, some of those little ridge line details.

Now, here's a fun thing to do.

Let's just scoop up some of that paint that we've got left over, the whites and the blacks and the browns and the grays and the blues.

Just all that mountain color left over, at least all the highlight anyway.

I still have some of my dark there.

Although I will add some of that dark and a little sap green to that color so we'll have a nice, nice distant tree line color.

There we go.

Wiping that knife a lot today.

[chuckles] Alright, let's grab a little one inch brush and we'll, we'll load it up with some of that kind of an olive green, I guess would be the right, right description.

And we'll just have some little, little tree line, timberline areas that are sort of working up the, the mountain here on the, in the lower areas.

Just crawling up there.

Then you can grab the little tops and just give them a little pull up like that and it'll create all, thousands of little trees growing on the side of your mountain back there like that.

Just leaving a little misty, light area in between them.

Maybe one of these comes up and crawls up the base of that little hill.

Maybe one of them, maybe one of them walks up and goes clean over there.

Kind of makes it to the other side.

And again, I'll just grab that paint, pull it up, pop it up, create the impression of all those little tree tops.

There we go.

If you want to, you can even take your, your big brush and soften it just a little more.

Really settle it down into the mist like that.

Okay.

Now.

Back to that same tree color.

I'm going to darken it once more.

Here's a little more of my mountain base mixture.

Here's a little phthalo blue and just a touch of phthalo green that we'll mix in there with it.

Yeah, that looks a little closer, a little more evergreen green.

And we will grab, yeah, we'll grab a little fan brush here.

Actually this is a big fan brush.

I don't want to lie to you.

That's not a little one.

Little compared to the two inch brush though, I guess.

And we'll come back here and just tap in some little distant trees far away there.

I'm just taking the brush with the top corner up in the air and I'm just tapping and kind of letting the brush crash.

So these are tap and crash trees.

I think I've said it before, they're a lot of fun to paint as long as you don't crash and burn.

And you won't.

Just be casual and be loose and have fun.

Painting's supposed to be fun.

If you take it too seriously, it loses, it loses all its charm.

Painting's supposed to be fun so let it, let it be fun.

Just enjoy yourself.

It's not something that you have to worry about or take real seriously.

Just get in there and have a good time with it.

I'm picking up a little, little tiny sprinkle of titanium white on my brush as I tap there just to kind of give that a little more, yeah, a little more misty look.

There we go.

Now, way back in the back here... I'm going to abandon that current green color and I'm going to mix up with the remainder of my mountain mixture, a little more blue and green, some alizarin crimson, maybe even a little brown while I'm grabbing, while I'm grabbing colors, let's just grab everything.

There we go.

Mix up a big batch of super dark color.

And I'm going to grab my, my other fan brush, my clean fan brush.

That green had some titanium white in it.

I want this to be very dark now because it's closer.

And I'm going to load both sides of that brush to a nice chiseled edge and we'll just pop some closer little trees back here.

Maybe there's a couple right there.

And I'm going to take the corner and today I'm going to press up and make some little upturn trees, little upturn branches.

People, people I find tend to, tend to like to paint the little evergreen trees with, with either upturn branches or downturn branches.

And they, they tend to have a favorite.

I think my favorite's probably the downturn branches and occasionally I have to remind myself to paint some that have branches that face up like this.

I love them too.

I'm just sort of drawn to the others.

I don't know why.

I guess that's an aesthetic thing.

Have a little one or two back here.

Maybe there's some closer little trees standing right there.

And in front of those trees.... Let's see, we can go ahead and cut a little, little indication of a tree trunk in them maybe.

I don't want to get too detailed because they're, they're far away still.

But I do want to kind of establish where some of the, the ground in front of these trees live.

So I'm grabbing a little touch of the sap green, a touch all the yellows actually on old two inch brush here.

And I'm going to give it a little tap like that and tap up a little ridge of paint.

And let's come up here and we're going to cut these trees off and kind of push them back into the background back there.

And because I have a little liquid black down here, I already have all this nice dark and I don't have to worry about it.

We don't have to come in there and sock in a bunch of color.

We're just going to let that work for us.

Isn't that pretty?

Must be springtime down in the meadow down here.

Ooh and I tell you what, if it's springtime, sometimes... let me grab another clean brush here... sometimes you'll see... let me get just a little touch of the liquid white on the end of the brush.... sometimes you'll see some little flowering things.

Like here's a little, maybe a little alizarin crimson and bright red with some white.

And this would be kind of fun.

You can take and maybe there's little patches of flowers back here just mixed in amongst all your grass.

Isn't that pretty?

You can do that in multiple colors.

We may, we may still, before it's all done.

But I want to make sure I've got a little meadow down here for everything to settle into before I get too involved with all of that.

You get, you get to painting and you get excited and you get ideas and you want to just sort of punch them all in all at once and it's hard to contain the enthusiasm sometimes.

There we go.

Well, let me jump back here to my... tell you what, this would big good time take our little brush we were using for our tap and crash trees and just add a little liquid, liquid white to it and I'm going to add a few little highlights to these distant little evergreens back here.

Make them jump out and stand out a little more.

They don't need too much though.

Like I say, they're, they're back in the distance, but they'd get a little, they'd get a little light on them.

So here and there and there and here, we'll pop a little highlight on them like that.

Now back to my, back to my big, big fan brush that's got that super dark color.

Let's come in here and we'll plant some more big old trees.

Maybe there's a big one right there.

Lives right there on the edge of the painting.

He lives on the edge.

He's not like those little clouds we painted.

He's not taking life easy.

He's out here taking a, taking a chance, living on the edge.

But he's got a nice view.

I keep adding ... I'm just adding a little drop of paint thinner to my paint as I go to help it stick over some of this thick, thick paint in the background.

So we've got a, we've got a heck of a mountain back there and that paint's kind of piled up on it.

Some more of these little evergreens living up toward the front.

Maybe, yeah, there's a big tall one right there.

There he goes.

Down in here, you don't have to be too careful.

[chuckles] You just need it dark.

We're going to have a, we're going to have a stand of several trees here.

Actually, it's not a stand.

I think it's, I think it's called a copse when you have a bunch of trees or a group, group of trees together.

It's called a copse of trees.

Funny story, my high school principal took a painting class with me a few years after I graduated and I was trying to come up with that word and she told me about that.

Learning never stops, does it?

Put a few little tree trunk indications in our, in our closer, closer trees there.

A little Van Dyke, brown and white and I'll just kind of [Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] give them a little, little TLC there.

Matter of fact, I've got that on the knife, we might even see a little exposed rock and dirt down here.

I don't know.

Make use of that while we've got it going.

We'll get a little, little highlight indication on some of these trees too.

Just don't cover all your dark.

That's the most important thing.

These big trees, they need, they need, they need that dark.

That's their main objective or their main goal to have those big, dark framing elements or ideas.

Need something to frame in all that pretty stuff we did in the back.

There we go.

Alright, tell you what, down in front here,[chuckles] I'm going to have a little fun.

I'm going to grab a one inch brush and I'm going to go back into that, into that color we had going earlier.

Maybe even it add a little blue to it.

I talked about having some little wild flowers down here in the meadow.

Maybe this is a, maybe this is a lupine meadow, and we've got some little, little flowers in here.

I'm just taking a one inch brush, kind of loading it, sort of to a chiseled edge and just pushing it.

You can even change the flavor as you go.

Here's a little yellow, a few little lupine, lupine flowers in the meadow.

Hope you enjoyed that.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.

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