Valley Waterfall

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today, because I thought today we'd do something that's a little different, and I, I believe you're really going to enjoy this one.

So let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us.

And they'll come right about there.

Why they are doing that, let me show you what I've got done up here.

Today I have my standard old pre-stretched canvas.

And I've taken a little bit of black gesso, and I've painted the whole bottom black.

And up here I've just put a few designs, so I know there's going to be some trees up in here.

And the sky.

Other than that, I don't really care today.

And today we're going to cover the part that's black here with a mixture of Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green mixed with Liquid Clear.

Now the clear just makes it very, very thin, and you can cover this easily.

And up here we just have Liquid White as we normally do.

And you [chuckles] caught me sort of putting this on.

But one of the neat things about this is you're putting on this thin paint.

This is just Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green.

Just sort of let it go right on up into the sky area here.

And it's a super easy nice way of making a beautiful little sky that quick.

So we start out, and already we have our sky just about done.

Just by doing something like that.

And we just let it blend right on down.

And that's about all the sky we're going to need for this particular little painting.

I think I'm going to just going to have a very plain sky in it.

And we'll work on some, we'll work on some pretty things in here.

What the heck.

Today's such a fantastic day here.

I thought we'd just do a little painting that'll that really makes you feel good when you, when you paint it and when you look at it, and when all your friends come and view what you've done.

There.

Just really scrubbing that on.

But it is quite thin, and you might just touch it and make sure that everywhere you touch it you get a little bit of blue on your finger.

The blue-green color.

And don't allow this to dry before you start.

You want this to stay wet.

We only allow the black gesso to dry.

This remains wet.

Okay.

Let me wash off the old brush here.

[laughs] If you've painted with us before, you know that's the fun part of this whole technique.

Just washing the brush.

Just washing the brush.

[laughs] And covering the whole studio.

When I leave here, they just bring in a bulldozer and clean everything up.

Okay, I'll tell you what.

Today, let's, let's have some real fun.

Let me clean off this thin paint.

Get it out of our way, because we're going to use a very thick paint.

We'll just set it up here, I may use it.

I may use it later.

All right.

Now then, let's take... Let's start with Midnight Black.

Just plain old Midnight Black.

Pull it out very flat.

Take the knife, cut across, and get a little roll of paint that should live right on the edge of the blade.

Come right up in here.

Maybe we'll have a big mountain today.

And it lives right there.

And let's just put the top of the mountain in.

There it is.

Something about like so.

And I'll take a little Titanium White, pull it out the same way.

And I want to come back in here and just put the indication of a little highlight on here.

Just Titanium White.

And no pressure.

Barely, barely touching.

Just let it graze that.

And I'll mix up a little bit of, ah, we'll use some, we'll use a little Phthalo Blue and white.

What the heck.

That's a nice color.

This is going to be a very bright little painting.

Once again, our little roll of paint.

See, when you do that, pull out flat and just sort of cut across.

Small roll of paint.

And we'll come back in here, and we'll put a few little indication of some shadows.

I don't want a lot in here.

It's too far away.

But just enough to create that illusion.

Boy we've got a floating mountain up there now.

And we can take...

I want to put a lot of snow right in here.

So we'll take just Titanium White and come right across.

[Bob makes "Zoop" sound] Got to make those little noises though.

Just come right across.

Be brave.

Be brave.

Right up here in the sky.

Just drop this in.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] And you can leave a little of these areas showing through.

Let the paint break.

Allow some of those little areas to show through.

Here I've used a little of that shadow color, Phthalo Blue and white, so it'll look like a little shadow right along that edge.

And back to my black.

And we begin putting in something to hold this up.

We'll put in - there.

Like that.

And, tell you what.

Maybe.

Maybe, yep, right there.

There we go.

Just put in all kinds of little things.

Let them fade right down into nothing, basically.

And I'll tell you what let's do.

Yeah, right in here.

We'll have all kinds of little things that just live there.

Because we have some black gesso here, we know there's going to be a tree.

So I'm not too worried about putting a lot of stuff in there.

We're just going to have some little stones that live in there.

Something maybe like that.

Like that.

Then over in here, the least little touch of the Titanium White, so we can separate all of these little stones and rocks and all these beautiful little things that are happening up here in this mountain.

No pressure.

No pressure.

Let it float.

Just let it float.

A little touch of the Phthalo Blue and white.

Give us a little shadow indication.

And I really don't want a lot.

I want to keep this quite dark.

Just a little here and there.

Something like that.

That's a rough-looking mountain already.

Then in here, maybe this comes right on down.

We don't know.

Wherever, wherever.

Take a little bit of my shadow color, the blue and white again, and very gently put a little touch of it just coming down the side of this mountain.

Like that.

A little touch right up in there.

Now.

Let's take a nice clean and very dry, be sure it's very dry, two-inch brush, and I want to create the illusion of mist right down through the base of this.

Like that.

So we'll just tap.

Be sure to follow the angles.

Follow those angles.

And then very lightly, very lightly, lift it upward.

Lift it upward.

I want a little misty area down here at the base.

And this is the way we create that illusion.

That's the way.

There, a little bit over in here.

Not too much here, because we're going to have trees here.

We don't really care.

It doesn't make much difference over on this side.

And maybe... [chuckles] We're having so much fun making mountains.

And I've got several letters of people wanting to know how to do mountains that have a lot of rocks in them.

So this is a nice way.

Maybe there's another rock, [Bob makes "tchoo" sound] that lives right there.

Just wherever you want to put it in some black.

And we'll come back with a little touch of highlight color.

No pressure.

I know you get tired of hearing that, but probably that's the biggest problem that most people have when they're trying to make mountains.

Is they apply too much pressure, and then it just "mushes together," as Steve says, my son.

And you become a mud mixer.

So, try to, try to... Just practice letting it float across there with no pressure whatsoever.

No pressure.

Now we can bring this area right on up.

And just sort of let it go right in there like that.

Think about angles.

Let it play, let it play.

There it goes.

And we'll just let it come up in here.

Somewhere, we don't care where it goes.

And all this I'm going to just mist right into nothing down here.

So it can just go wherever you want it.

A little bit showing over here maybe.

Now.

Good clean, dry brush, and I can't say that enough.

If you hit this with a wet brush, you're going to be in agony city, and you're going to talk bad about me.

And I [chuckles] really want this to work for you.

I really want it to work.

There, and you can do this.

There really are no secrets.

There are no secrets here.

We try to make this where everyone can do it.

And every day, every day I receive letters from fantastic people all over the country, and it's working for them.

And that makes all this worthwhile.

Just the fact that it works for people.

Because it opens new worlds, new doors, things that you never believed you could do.

You can.

Look at that mountain that you made.

[chuckles] And it's so easy.

That's a very simple little mountain.

But when people see your painting, they'll think you worked for a month trying to do that.

Let's take some black, some Prussian Blue, I'm going to grab some of this Phthalo Green.

I like Phthalo Green in trees and stuff.

And maybe a little touch of Alizarin Crimson.

And we'll throw all that in there together.

And I mixed up a pretty good pile.

We're going to use that color throughout the painting, maybe.

I think we'll use it throughout the painting.

Let's have a fan brush.

And we'll load it full of that dark, dark color.

This color should look black on your palette.

It should be very, very dark.

Very dark.

All right.

Now then, let's have some little trees that live way back here in the distance.

Little indications.

And we'll put those in just by tapping downward.

Just drop them in and sort of tap downward.

That's why this misty area right here is so important.

Without that little misty area, they would just disappear.

So that misty area right now is absolutely your best friend.

Take care of it.

Treat it like you would any good friend.

You care about it.

Treat it with respect.

And it'll always be there when you need it.

See?

And it's the same here.

Maybe a few of these trees you can make out a little more details.

We use the corner of the brush.

There.

See that little tree?

You knew he was there, didn't you?

There we go.

Give him a little friend.

Maybe, maybe this one right here.

You can just pick out a couple here and there that you want to put a little extra detail on.

Okay.

And we can take another fan brush.

I have several of them going.

Touch the bottom here with a little of the light color.

This is just a little blue and white.

But whatever.

It just happened to be there.

It's the shadow color from the mountains and lift upward.

It'll make it look like little trunks and stuff that are back in there.

And a little... Once again though, it creates that illusion of a misty area.

And as we talked about, the misty area in painting a lot of times is absolutely your best friend.

All right.

It's time to get crazy.

[chuckles] Let's take the old two-inch brush.

And I put a little bit of that background color on the brush that we made earlier.

What we made the evergreens out of.

And I'm just going to tap that into my Cad Yellow, my Yellow Ochre, Indian Yellow, and occasionally some Bright Red.

And we'll just vary those colors.

Load a little paint right on the brush by tapping.

Just tap it.

Let's go up in here.

Now then, we have to make some major decisions already.

Look how that stands out against that dark, dark background.

Color just comes alive on here.

Just absolutely comes alive.

I love these black canvases.

This black gesso is one of the most fantastic things.

It makes your painting life so much easier.

It's almost unreal.

There.

Just tap it.

I want it to get darker toward the bottom.

So just by working and tapping it, it'll mix with that color that's underneath, the Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green, and automatically, automatically it'll get darker and darker in value.

There we go.

Sometimes I sneak in here and get the least little touch of Titanium White.

And just in my mind, the light's going to come through there and just zing right across that little hill.

[Bob makes "zoomm" sound] And a little bit of white there will make that stand out.

Just beautiful.

Just beautiful.

You ready to get crazy?

Okay, let's have some fun today.

I'm going to take a little bit of Liquid White, and I'm going to go into that thin color that I saved.

It's a... That's just Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green and Liquid Clear mixed together.

Let me get a little more Liquid White here.

I didn't get quite enough on my brush.

Whew, isn't that a gorgeous color?

Now then, let's go right up in here.

You know me, I love water, so today I thought we'd do just something.

Lookie here.

All you've got to do though is just work that brush a little bit.

And just pull it across.

It makes all these beautiful little water things.

And you can do this with a fan brush.

It'll give you a little more detail.

It just depends on what you have handy, and what you want to use that day.

There.

And the water's just running along here having a good time.

It's a wonderful day.

It is having a super day.

And it comes right along here, and son of a gun, somebody pulled the plug.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] And off it goes.

There.

See, it comes straight, [Bob makes "toom" sound] and then falls.

Just let it fall.

But it's mixing with that color underneath, and all of these beautiful tones and values will happen automatically.

And we'll have a big waterfall today.

I like waterfalls.

I like waterfalls.

They're a lot of fun to paint.

And people who view your paintings will just absolutely love them.

But there's a little Liquid Clear in there, and that Liquid Clear makes that slide on there so much easier.

Now, I'm going to start at the bottom and pull upward.

Quite firmly.

And this'll blend it into the color that's already on the canvas there.

There we go.

Then smooth it all out.

And while we have that going, I'll just tap the corner of the brush into a little Titanium White.

And let's begin thinking about all the mist that would happen down here.

If you had water falling this far, you would have a lot of mist, because it would hit and splash and churn and carry on.

Probably would make a lot of noise, too.

But just by tapping on the top corner of the brush, we can create the illusion of little clouds of mist that are floating right down at the base of it here.

Something like that.

Something like that.

There.

Now, let's have some fun.

I'm going to take, I'm going to take Liquid White.

Liquid White.

I'm going to take some Van Dyke Brown and Dark Sienna both and mix them with Liquid White.

I want to make them very, very thin.

It's just a thin color.

Let me clean the old knife here.

A nice thin color.

Then we'll find a Filbert brush.

And we'll run it right through a little bit of the black.

And then I'll come up.

There we are.

Put a little bit of brown in there.

I want a very dark color.

Okay, now we'll go over here, and that thin color I'm just going to pull one side of the brush through.

Light on one side, dark on the other.

Let's go up here now.

Maybe there's a lot of little stones and rocks and stuff that live right along here on the edge.

They sort of hold the waterfall in so it didn't get away.

There we go.

And by loading the brush that way, we can make both of these little deals at one time.

The highlight and the shadow.

And you can put just as many or as few little rocks in your world as you want.

Maybe there's some way up in here.

I don't know.

Wherever you think they should live.

And sometimes it's even fun... Maybe there's one that lives right out here, and the waterfall plays right around him.

He has the best view of all of them.

Maybe except this one [laughs].

We're not going to, we're not going to leave him out.

So we'll take a little bit of our waterfall color on the fan brush and just clean the edges up on the rocks.

[Bob makes "shoom" sound] There you go.

Now we have water that's just coming along and falling right over there and having a fantastic day.

Let's go back into our dark tree color.

Very dark.

Mostly black, Prussian Blue, a little crimson.

And a lot of Phthalo Green.

Now let's begin making big decisions.

We have a tree that lives right there.

Corner of the brush.

Just the corner.

And there we go.

There he comes.

See, he lives right there in that brush.

Just sort of shake him out.

Sometime you have to sort of really scare them out.

Give them a little push.

That old tree lives right there.

Right there, and he's got a little friend right there.

[Bob makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sound] Down there we don't care.

We'll separate that with a little highlight.

And maybe there's a big one that goes right on off the canvas.

We don't know where it goes.

We don't know where it starts.

We'll have to tack another canvas on the top to find out where that one lives.

There.

All right.

But see if you don't hit every bit of it.

It doesn't matter because you have the black gesso back there.

Let's go on the other side and put a little tree over there, too.

There.

If you haven't tried this black gesso, you should really try it.

It is one of the most fantastic things.

I know I talk about it all the time.

But I really like this.

It has made painting so much easier.

There we go.

And we just drop in the indication of a few little trees.

Maybe there's another big one on this side.

We don't want it left out.

But once again, we're not worried about a lot of detail.

It really doesn't matter, because you can't see it against that dark color.

But we'll take that brush, the same brush, and go right through a little bit of the Cad Yellow, and immediately we have a nice, nice, dark, dark green.

And that's what we're looking for.

And with that, we can come up in here and just put the indication of a little highlight here and there on some of these big evergreens that are looking out over that mountain.

Darker, darker, darker as it works down.

Yeah, there we are.

A little bit back in here.

[Bob makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] Let's go back to this old big one.

There he is.

There he is.

Darker, darker, darker.

Till it gets almost to where you can't see it.

We don't want this one left out.

There.

Right on down.

There he goes, there he goes, there he goes.

Same thing in here.

Sometimes when you're putting these highlights on, it gets to be nice, and it's fun, and you get carried away and cover up all your dark.

Shoot, this would be just a super place.

These trees for my little squirrels to live.

I've got to show you my little squirrels again.

You know in one of the earlier series I showed you these little rascals when they were tiny little babies.

They looked like drowned rats.

And here just recently we turned them loose.

And they moved far, far away from home.

There's a big tree that hangs right over my back door, and they built a nest right in the tree that hangs over the back door.

So every time somebody walks out, there they are.

But aren't those the cutest little devils?

That's two little boy squirrels [laughs].

They're my friends.

I really like these little rascals.

And we can come back in here and begin putting in all kinds of little grassy areas.

Oh, I'll show you.

I'll show you something that's fun.

Take a little white, a little bit of the browns.

Both browns.

Cut a little roll of paint off, and then we're going to see how delicate your knife can touch.

Just barely touch and sort of pull it down here.

Now see it?

Like that.

Something like that.

There we go.

Just here and there.

Here and there.

And maybe over here on the other side there's a little... [Bob makes "shoom" sound] Because the black's there, once again, all you've got to do is just drop in the highlight.

There, I'm going to get darker down here toward the base.

Something like that.

Then we'll come back and let's take the old two-inch brush and let's have all these little grassy things that just sort of hang over here.

There, they just sort of hang around.

Like that.

They go everywhere.

There.

If there's this much mist and water here, you're going to have a lot of ferns normally and stuff like that.

Very nice hangy-down type things.

And they're very easy to make with this brush.

All you've got to do is just sort of tap them.

Let's go on that other side and we'll do the same thing.

We need some over here.

And just let them sort of drip right off there.

[chuckles] Right off there.

There they go.

Something about like that.

There.

But see, you just leave some of these little areas showing, and they look like rocks or big cliffs in there that are showing through.

Now let me grab my old knife again.

Maybe in our world, there lives another big rock right there.

And that's all you have to do.

The black gesso gives you all your dark colors automatically.

There, maybe that comes right down.

I'll tell you what.

Shoot, maybe that rascal just comes right on out here.

I don't know.

Wherever.

Let me grab a fan brush here.

A little bit of the Liquid White.

A little bit of our thin color.

And maybe right in here.

[Bob makes "vroom" sound] There's a little watery fall right in there.

Like that.

It comes right down and splashes and carries on.

And off it goes.

And you can get crazy.

Maybe there's a stone that lives right there.

Take a little bit of our brown and white.

Put a little highlight on it.

Then we go back in here and here comes our water again.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] Right over.

Got to make those little noises.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] But you can just make all kinds of little things that are happening down here in our water and then just sort of slide the brush around.

And it's mixing with that color, once again, that's on the canvas.

And it'll just make all these beautiful effects almost automatically.

Something like so.

Now we can go back and let's begin, let's get crazy.

Let's bring that right on out, like there's a big overhang here.

A great big overhang.

Take a little touch of our rock color.

Maybe there's a little rock right there.

You don't need much though.

Don't need much.

But we'll bring this one right on through.

See?

And now you can tell there's a cliff there, but you didn't have to hardly do a thing.

Sometimes it's nice just to tip the brush into a little blue and white and use that for highlight.

Whew, isn't that gorgeous?

I like to do that.

Just put a little cool color on there.

Just sort of surprises the senses.

There we go.

And begin filling all of this in.

Just tap it and work it.

And as I mentioned earlier, the more you tap and work on this, the darker it'll become because it's picking up that color that's on the canvas.

There, and you can do this till it's as smooth as velvet.

It looks like silk.

The more you tap it, the softer it becomes.

There.

And you have to make the decision.

Maybe you want it a little rougher or a little softer than we have it here.

It's up to you.

However you want it.

There.

Maybe let that hang down.

Maybe it hangs clean down into the water.

Over the water.

You have to decide.

Shoot, I think we about have a finished painting.

Maybe we'll sign this one.

Take a little bit of the paint thinner.

Some Bright Red.

Let's sign it right up here in the bushes.

I really hope you've enjoyed this one.

If you have time, send us a picture when you try it.

I'd love to see what you're doing.

And from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless, my friend.

[announcer] To order a 256 page book of 60 Joy of Painting projects or Bob's detailed 3 hour workshop DVD Call 1-800-Bob-Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]