(upbeat electronic music) - Today, we make the outlines first, then finding our deepest shadows and block them out.

We'll find and save our highlights 'cause it's our money in the bank.

Hi.

All ready now?

Good.

I bet you thought we'll never get to the actual thing and you are not really painting, but let's see what you have been doing with your still life.

Fine, fine.

Next time when you make your composition or any one of you, try not to make bing, bing, bing and all in the same.

One of them, when you look, it's there too, bring it a little higher, makes for more interest.

You see?

This, again, your old tricks.

You made already too much.

Also, you didn't dust it out.

Now, you see, dear friends, if you make too much at this point over black charcoal, you already will get a color instead of the freeness of the just plain light ochre.

Do you understand what I mean?

- I do.

- The dark of the charcoal goes into your paints, which doesn't matter terribly much, but in the beginning, you can avoid that.

All right?

Next time, remember.

And that's fine.

Oh, you did a beautiful thing here.

- Thank you.

- I can show everybody about that.

Now, when you take your brush, take your brush when you do these fine lines from the very skinny side.

In other words, always keep your palette incidentally like so.

This is your piano key.

You don't play like this, you know?

You play like this in front of you.

Always have it comfortable, as close as you can.

Now, when you do that, take the side, the fine side of the brush, make your lines very light, very light.

And where's your middle?

Very good.

This is your middle, yeah?

- [Artist] Yeah.

- Okay.

Don't make middle like this.

Again, two little soldiers.

Find the difference in it, even if it is hard sometimes and you have to look twice.

This is what makes your painting interesting.

Now, also, when you get here sometimes, and all of you will go through that.

I did too.

You have too much paint on your brush.

What you get, you get too heavy a thing.

So be sparingly.

Take this in the white, mix it.

And if necessary, just wipe it a bit, you know?

And then you will not have that much because the next step, when you really go into a little further, you will find it's easier when you have less paint there.

But that's fine.

It's very, very good.

- Thank you.

- You went a little bit ahead, but that's fine.

You learn.

Next time, you'll know.

I'll show you what we'll do now.

Also, oh, you are just marvelous.

Look.

Never, never put your palette like this because what happens?

You reach, your paint goes bing, bing, bing, bing, and bing, bing, bing, bing.

And before you know it, instead of a plain dress, you have a colored dress.

Now, if you don't want that to happen, what you do is you simply have it like so.

I'm so pleased you did that.

You know, I did it the first time too, so.

We don't realize, for instance, when I'm a painter who has experience and sometimes I'm thinking, how dumb of me, I should have said that before.

I don't realize that people who never paint before, for them, everything is exciting and new.

And so I'm so glad when you remind me.

Another thing while I have you, and you're such a goodie, and you give me all these occasions, don't have things in front of you.

When you play the piano, do you have bananas in front of you?

Do you have apples in front of the keys?

No, because you can't play.

You gotta have that cleared.

I don't care where you put it.

Put it on the chair, put it on the floor away from you.

Do not clutter.

These are your tools.

They have to be at your beck and call.

And all you need is that one brush which you use and that's all.

This has to be clear.

All right, now, I will show you the next step.

Before I do however, I want to rehearse with you since there are so many what we do.

For those of you who forgot, I promised you in the very beginning that I will show you step by step, not to worry about forgetting because I'm a good old trooper, and I'm a good mama, and I will tell you over and over again.

Our first step is our composition to set up, to make it as attractive as we can.

Our second step is we walk around, we find our right light that it looks best for us, and we set up our easel almost straight remember, and so that we are comfortable.

We have comfortable shoes on and we watch where we find it most attractive and start with charcoal and our canvas.

The next step, when we like it, step back, look at it, come forward, set up our palette.

We already have a tiny bit of turps.

Remember, not too much.

And we take our number one brush.

That's the smallest one.

Don't dip it in turps as many people were tempted to do because that wets it already.

We don't want it wet yet anyhow.

Oh, a very important thing.

That turpentine.

Goody goody coming up.

That turpentine is only for cleaning your brushes.

It's not, as some of you might think, for using it with your colors because in this technique, I don't use anything.

Just my brush, my paints, and the turps is just like someone who helps me clean up the mess of the brush.

In between each color incidentally, you clean your brush.

And don't think you waste time when you dip it several times and make sure that it is really clean.

Otherwise, you get a color which you don't want.

And you have to be the master of your painting, not it the master of you.

Now, we have taken the next step, and we dust it off, and we dipped our brush with a little bit ochre, a little bit white, mixed it.

Take the side of the brush and lay in very lightly our forms and shapes, show our direction, which can stay til much, much further in the picture.

You don't have to worry.

You won't even see it later and you will see why as soon as I show you.

And now, you are ready for color.

You look for your deepest dark.

If this would be what I would be looking for, that flower somewhere rather in the petals would have something dark.

The green, wherever a shadow is, would have something dark.

Wherever it's not exposed directly to the light, the thing will be dark.

In other words, it doesn't matter if it is an apple or a person you're painting, or a flower, or landscape, or a tree.

Some place is dark, which is away from the light.

And that dark place, we are looking for.

Now, here, you have to squint like so.

I always used to have a hard time squinting.

One eye always would close with the other one.

However, squint and see where's the darkest.

You take the color you think is red.

In this case, we know an apple is red.

We are not too concerned of each little detail.

How red, if it is a little blueish red.

We just take in this case, I think it's a red, so I take my red.

And since I'm not very sure what it is, I wipe my brush because I don't want a whole big splotch on it.

So take a little red and I make my form again.

You go right next to the next form.

Put your landmark in.

In this case, it's the little top of the apple.

Here too.

There's something coming like so.

Never hurts to have a landmark someplace.

When you go in a forest, it's always good to remember how you got in, 'cause eventually, you want to get out.

As you notice, I go not exactly over the lines, but I find better lines what I see because now I know a little bit more.

I'm a little truer of myself and so I can switch and change my design as I go along.

I also see I'm a little too even, which is not true because if I hold my brush again straight from me, I see it's from my angle slanting a little bit.

So You find that slant and you get your apple a little bit lower.

Notice how many lines I make.

I'm not the least bit concerned about how many lines.

I'm making just the design here, which I see.

There's something peek-a-boo in the back.

Well, right here.

Go right over your shape because otherwise, you come out on the other side.

I have to tell you a story about that.

You know, when you are starting to do people, well, I started to do a lady with a skirt and I was a very inexperienced painter at the time.

And everything was fine.

Her head was on right.

Her shoulders, her arms were fine.

And then it came to the skirt, and suddenly, lo and behold, her legs were over there.

Everything was fine, but the legs under the skirt were slightly over.

So remember, in order to avoid that, you see, what you do is you go right here.

You know?

When you have a vase with flowers, same thing.

If you have a whole vase, for instance.

Where is my good friend here?

Let's say we have a vase here.

Here is my vase.

Whoops.

And my flowers are here, here, here.

And let's say my flower stem comes here and this one comes here.

Isn't that funny?

It's gotta go in the water.

That's what we have the vase for.

Okay.

Remember, in order to avoid that, it's this stage you go right through your design.

Make sure that it's sitting right.

This one goes a little higher there.

Change your mind.

You can always change your mind.

If you see, this one is a little bit squarer and fatter on the top and it becomes a little slimmer.

All these things are wonderful things to observe.

Forget they're apples.

Think of them as shapes.

Now, you have that and you wipe your brush and you wash your brush.

Unless you're rich and you have other brushes and small brushes, then take another one.

But if we don't, we use the same.

We come to the drape and we ask ourselves, which of these parts is the darkest?

And also, what color?

What is it?

It's beige.

We don't know quite what it is.

Take a little bit blue, put a little bit of white in it, and wipe it because you don't want too much on your canvas.

And we go and redo our design.

Don't retrace that again.

Each time when you start new, what you'll do is your eye and knowledge pulls from there.

You see?

It's a constant working process and I promise you you'll be tired after each session, but oh boy, you get also excited about it.

Now, you block out whatever parts you think are dark.

If this is not correctly exactly in color, well, we don't worry about things, you know?

You just take, if you think it's a little greenish, take a little bit of green use a little white.

'Cause you're not sure, always use white with it.

Take a larger brush now because whenever you make bigger spaces, you use a larger brush.

Now, we have that big mass of dark here and we take the nearest thing we think is right.

Maybe a little green, a little bit of our good friend ochre, and we rub it in only the little part we blocked out.

There, goes right on here, only where my large shadow is.

Let me ask you, did all my darlings understand or do you have questions at this point?

This has to be done very slowly because once you know this, you know anything almost, you see?

Yeah?

- What color did you choose at the beginning to go into the dark places?

What did you choose?

- Well now, since this is sort of a beige mass, I'm not looking at the light, mind you.

I look at my folds.

It's the dark part of the folds.

And you mix.

What do you think is in it?

Let me ask you.

- Blues and grays.

- Never mind gray.

Blues.

Let's take a little blue.

You see a little blue.

Now, we know very well if we put that blue on here, it's not really blue.

So we use a little white with, and we try it out.

Just the part which you blocked out.

Here too.

We have another fold here.

Block it out.

Only the deepest dark.

Now, you said blue.

You take a little blue, put it right in.

It goes through here, put it right in, but only the part which you want, because remember, you have the control.

Did you get that?

- Yes, thank you very much.

- Good.

We come to our darkness here.

Now, watch.

Stop for a moment and just watch.

You wash your brush again.

You know, it's a deep red.

So we take the deep red.

And since we are a little bit concerned, we don't know yet for sure, wipe it.

We take our red, and we squint, and we look for the highlight because we know from this direction here, the light hits it.

Any part which is very high in light, you block out wherever you see a highlight.

And all the rest, you rub your color in.

Don't be concerned that you're too meticulous.

You just rub it in, but only the part which is dark.

I'll tell you marvelous secret.

The highlight is your money in the bank.

Remember, when you have money in the bank, you always feel a little bit safer and that white will keep your painting alive.

You leave that to the almost very, very end.

Joanne, did you get it?

I don't want you to forget it.

I mean, if you forget it, it's all right, but I'll remind you, but this is very important.

Now, let's do the other one.

Take my dark, squint, block out those parts which you see which are highlight.

Again, wipe in only that which is dark and leave your money in the bank open.

Martha, did you get it?

- I think so.

I'm not sure.

- Well, I'll come around in a minute.

I just wanna make (indistinct) of my children here.

It's this point I would like to tell you that every part of the canvas is important, not just one part.

It will show how much understanding of painting you have, how much knowledge you have, and it will also be more beautiful because they're all like your children.

If you have four children, let's say, you don't feed one or two and leave the others go hungry.

So these are all your children, each part of that canvas.

So you take equal care of each one of them.

Let's go to the other one.

When I squint, what I see here, this here part, there is a highlight right here where the biggest part of the belly of the apple is.

See?

Light's coming all from this direction.

Immediately fill that part which is not exposed to the light all over.

I see peek-a-boo behind, there is another apple.

Well, another shape.

Here we are.

Do you understand?

Yeah?

I don't want you to wait.

I want you to ask any question.

There isn't such a thing as a dumb question because a question will go give you a start ahead.

Never worry about asking questions.

Now, you wipe your brush because we are going back to our drapes.

Wipe it well because you don't want red where you want green.

Now, let's try some green.

Use a little white with it.

You're not sure.

Wipe your brush.

Now, block out there is a shadow.

This is a heavy form that throws a shadow.

If it's too green and you see it right away, try a little blue right into it.

Put a little white to it and wipe it a bit.

See what you come up.

There.

There's a shadow behind.

Here.

Look out, make your design of the shadow first.

What is it?

It's a little deeper.

Talk to yourself and see what you come up.

Here's your shadow.

Right here in that fold, that whole shadow mass.

Don't think of little nooks and crannies, but just the whole mass is from my angle here in shadows.

Take a little blue, maybe little ochre, maybe a little white.

We don't know.

We are playing with colors.

That's part of the fun, you see.

Wipe it right in.

And you wipe it incidentally in with that part of your brush before.

When we construct, we take the fine part of the brush, the skinny one.

But when we get into the actual heavy painting that is all over and large masses, you use a wide brush and put it flat.

Can you all see?

Your brush flat and rub it in.

Again, don't rush.

Take your time.

Some of you will find you're slow.

Some of you will be too fast.

Some, I will have to stop from being too fast.

Well, we'll see.

Here too, that material which is right here, what is happening?

Whenever you're in doubt, ask yourself what's going on.

If necessary, stop for a moment, go over, see what's happening.

Now, that material builds something round.

The roundness is heavy and throws a shadow on the thing underneath.

Now, we'd see it better right here.

When I take this material and I bunch it up and build it here, that part here will throw a shadow further down.

Do you understand all that?

There's always a reason, in other words, for something happening.

Nothing happens just by itself.

And it's up to us as the artist to search for the reason and find that reason, you see?

I promised you you'll become detectives and archeologists.

Yes?

- I have a question about the highlights.

When I look, I see more smaller ones than larger ones as you have.

- Yes.

You're perfectly right because it hits it on the heaviest part.

Why I have done that is simply in order to show those people who have never painted before, it's better to leave a large mass open.

And in order to learn, you start small.

Details come much later, but you see, it's like ballet dancing.

If I start with trying to go on my points and making big jumps before I even know all the position, or the plies, or whatever goes into it, you know, or I try to play piano, a whole beautiful piece without even knowing how the scales go.

You can't do it.

So what I have done is show you as simple as I know how so you can do it too, but you're perfectly right in your observation.

Now, at this point, I was going to show you when this is built up and we want to show the person who will look at it that that's bunched up and that throws a shadow.

We have to show that shadow.

It's not just anything.

It has a shape here.

We block out our shape.

If you're not sure, wipe your brush.

Wipe it in.

The moment you do that, you make that three dimensional.

If it's too blue, try a little bit green in it, try a little bit white over it.

Wipe your brush, go right over.

If it still is too much blue and you don't see it, well, we go to our great marvelous grandmother.

That's our light ochre.

And that will always pull you out when you have something which just punches you in the eye and you got the wrong color.

Always go to your light ochre because that will subdue, and it will calm, and quiet everybody around, and make peace again.

There.

You go right over it.

And your white too, a little bit white.

And you'll be all set there.

Now, you retrace your steps once you have that and refine that process.

Namely, if you see it a little deeper wherever the shadow is right here, lock it out again and you will see each time, you will see a little bit more.

You see, that's what's so exciting about it.

Don't have to strain and do it all at once.

Put in a little bit more color wherever you see it.

Only your darks.

By that time, when you get through that very carefully and slowly with lots of fun, you will already seem to see something three dimensional.

Right here, only my dark.

You build it up this way.

Now, let me walk around and see what you have done so far because this is something we have to do very, very slowly.

Very good.

Very good so far.

Go on and don't use too much paint.

You're starting to use a little too heavy paint and then it's harder to go over.

You cannot paint wet on wet.

So use a little, instead of holding your brushes here, it's a good idea never to clutter yourself.

Take your rag on this hand and one brush here.

- [Artist] Thank you.

- Yes.

Oh, I'm so glad, Sandy.

Don't start one point, go jumping on another, go another place.

When you start with your forms of red, let's say, your apples, then have blocked that out.

That's fine.

Now, may I have your brush?

You have to go over the whole thing now.

Just leave your money in the bank out.

See?

All the rest has a tone.

Here too.

So this might be a little bit lighter, a little bit more orange, try a little bit orange.

Wipe your brush, wipe it in, but the whole part, not just the little titty bitty, and leave just your money in the bank.

You see?

And that you leave open canvas.

Don't do anything with background yet because that, I want to show you next.

Very good for the beginning, except what will happen here, you will confuse yourself.

You have too many things going on and I will show you what we'll do with it in a minute.

That's very good too.

Again, you are confused by too many things going on.

And here too, both of you, all of you, as a matter of fact, I will show you what we will do, which is a very exciting thing.

And next time, you will be able to do it yourself.

We reconstruct.

We simply take the color we see, red for the apples, and we make a stronger outline but construction.

Here too.

You look at that.

You can still change your mind, make it fatter or slimmer, whatever it is.

And you give that substance and make it a shape and form.

And this is where you pull it together when you lost something.

You see, you're never lost.

You can always pull it together.

When you come to the next color, well you're using either green or a blue with white.

Now, I'd like you to practice something.

I'd you to take your sketch pad and do nothing but the light ochre.

Lay it in, and put in your shadows, and wipe them in.

You can do it incidentally just with charcoal.

I will show you that because charcoal or paint, it will teach you.

Let's say you have a shape here and that shape.

Keep that free.

Wipe in that part which is dark and just leave that part open if it is a shape like an orange or so.

When you fresh practice that a lot, you will find yourself next time very, very much smarter because you'll know a lot more.

Now, this is something which you will use for everything.

So there, I would suggest you really, really practice it.

One or two forms will do.

And that will give you the push you need for next time.

So long.

(upbeat electronic music) - [Narrator] For a free booklet containing a list of supplies used in this technique and a program outline of each show in this series, Ilona's Palette, SCETV, Drawer L, Colombia, South Carolina, 29250.

(upbeat electronic music)