Paint Along With Nancy Kominsky; 118; Wind on the moor

Hello, I'm Nancy Kaminsky. Today we're going to paint wind on the moor. It's a lovely little cottage on a wind-sweb pill in England between Cornwall and Devon. I've taken the liberty of staying in the canvas, now we're going to put the grids. Incidentally, the canvas was stained again with umber and a kerosene, it's a wash. And the grids are the same, only a little darker. I'd be very careful with your grids in this painting because it's very important. We have that little devil called Perspective. There we are. The usual quarters first and then subdivided, fine. Now as usual, you start in a landscape from the bottom or just about anything, a seascape

or a landscape to set your houses and your trees correctly. That figure doesn't it? Let's put the horizon in first, which is at the middle in this painting, or ordinarily it would cut the painting in half, but because of the little hills and the road, it doesn't. Let's start the road right here, and first of all, let's put a little dot here and one here, like this. Actually, let's put it here, that's it. This is very important, the perspective of this road, because you don't want the road standing straight up in the air, and this goes all the way down like this. People have your curve there, don't have it too steep. There we are. I remember you can always adjust, so don't panic. You'll panic plenty while you're painting. I was just reading about Salvador Dali this morning, he said that most errors in painting

are our mystic and intuitive in nature, I think he's right, and the best thing that can happen to you at times. There we are, we've got our road in. Now let's put our house in. I think we'll put our little hills in, we have little blue hills here, let's put this down like that. This is up on a hill, be very careful, don't have it going down in the steep part here, don't have it going down too steeply, you don't want to fall over. Now we have little pale blue hills like this, very nice and very charming, and of course it helps the painting quite a lot, it anchors the painting. Fine. Now, and putting in this house, which I think is terribly important, again you remember we start everything in a box, and this is even more important in painting this house to have a box, not too large because I would like it way up there on the hill, so I just as soon have it smaller, and set it right up against this hill like that, not too large

please. I would like this little higher. Now, this is the way we're going to do this, I'm going to erase this incidentally, this is a good way to show you how to use your damp background and tissue paper to correct to wipe out mistakes, now we have a box like this, we cut this corner off, and we put a triangle here on this corner, cut this corner off like this, now we're looking up into the house so the roof goes up this way like that, you see, like this, I still think I've gotten the house a little too large, I'll cut this down a bit, because I want to look far away, now don't get it too narrow because actually they aren't very tall, they aren't very large, but the one room that they do have is quite large, the house itself isn't too

large, let's go like that, now let's put the little shed, it has a little shed here, I'm going to clean this up, little shed here like this, it comes out like that, I'm afraid that's a little dark, you see, I've done the thing that I've told you not to do, do not get too much paint on your brush or too much kerosene, I'm glad I make these mistakes because then when I do, first of all you know that it can happen to you and secondly you know that what to avoid, there we are, bring this out like this, now we have a marvelous stick fence that goes over like this, and this is the side of the hill like this, I'm going to use this to shade, I'm going to wipe this out so you can see what I'm doing,

I'm going to shade it in any case, this is the fence like this, I'm going to put score it this way so you know that it's a fence like that, and there again the perspective is important like that, there's our little house, there's a little window here like that, now we have two marvelous trees that set the mood of the painting along with the brooding sky, they are here, now as usual we don't draw them in, so don't worry about them too much, I do want you to put them in like that, find, little chimney I believe up here like this, there's a little bit of a house here, little house behind the big house, I'm sure you have an idea what that is, and it's like that, it's just a little bit of a lean-to or something right here like that, that goes there, fine, now we have God forbid

rocks, loads of rocks at this point, I just hate to tell you that those little rocks can do you in but don't despair, please we don't want them looking like little loaves of bread, or a little chocolate drops you know, now you can put as many or as few as you like, frankly when you're starting I suggest not too many, because you become oh dear I don't want to say it rock happy but that's exactly what happens, you get too much of thing of a thing like this and if it's not too good it will ruin your painting, so while you're learning less said the better, I had a few in the road, now the most important thing is to have this line coming down the center of the road like this, why is your perspective, now I'm going to raise this back here, I've taken a little extra time on the drawing because it's terribly important in this painting, when you paint flowers you

can you know be a little more free and a little more careless but with this you cannot, so you must take your time and get the perspective correct, or your painting will be valid, there you are, now as usual we're going to shade it and the light is coming from the left, so we're going to shade the painting on the right like this, don't worry about the fence we'll get it in like that, on the side a little house here like that and the rocks are shaded on the right and bottom like that, don't fuss them too much because I actually will paint most of the amount while we're working, a good gimmick in painting is to always have the foreground darker, that gives you a painting depth and always have your light inside the painting, so that your eye travels along the road, way into the painting where the light is, that's a visual gimmick and it's very important, of course you will change

it as you paint but for now I think that's an important thing, it gives you a painting authority, if you're not confident, your painting will look confident, alright we'll shade the hills lightly, don't worry about the trees remember, like that, and we have very dramatic sky and frankly I would like you to put in the simple outline of the clouds like this, because I don't want you getting lost, there we are, very lightly, okay, that's it, we should get right to the painting because after all that's what we're talking about, that's a drawing, now we're going to start with the painting, we're going to start with the sky as usual and always work at the horizon with the light tone like this, now in mixing

the sky tone we made an extra light tone which are four colors instead of three, by adding extra light and extra naples yellow, around the house like this, the house and this hill will bathe in light, it creates a marvelous feeling of the house being surrounded by light but all the brooding clouds above, don't get down to the fence, no need to, you lose your house, just scratch it out, don't worry about it, although I do want you to think about it because it is important, fine now let's put the light tones in first like this, we're going to work from extra light to light, always the three values remember, this is a very passionate sky and they're very satisfying paintings because even if you're not a very

good painter and you create something exciting, it looks very very good, but please no tornadoes that can be very useful, the house is terrible you can say it was swept away in the tornado and knock it off, one of my students did do that you know, they have marvelous ways of getting out of things, the dark tone then goes in between like this, clean your knife, constantly clean your knife so that your colors remain pure and clean, if you muddy them, forget it, because you lose all the values that you tried so hard to create, like this, and we're going to put a few light tones in the middle, but get a few dark tones in like this, that's really a wild one isn't it, it's terrible storm, let's put our light

tones in between that, like that, now don't worry about it, it looks horrible, it's going to be beginning, now let's leave that for the moment, actually it will look better than you think when you get everything in so don't fuss with it like I'm doing, let's leave it alone, alrighty now let's put our house in, we start with the dark tone, now the tone to this house, we've mixed peculiar color called dark gray green, and on the side we're going to paint that with purple, now purple is a Lysian crimson or rose matter with ultramarine blue, which creates a very lovely color, and it's also a graying agent which we use in all paintings, instead of umber which I thought had to be when I was learning, I thought that you had to use umber to darken your color, which of course

create a very muddy, bad color, let's use this dark tone on the fence for now, we're going to do other things with it, but put this on for now, now let's go to the front of the house, incidentally put the side of your little entry first, it's in shadow also because only the light is hitting the front of this, you sure you outline your house, constantly outline it, so you don't lose it like that, right, we're going to use a light tone for the front of the house, interestingly enough it's the light tone of the sky, not the lightest, the light tone, because the light is hitting the front of this house, creating a marvellous light, oh so the edge of the roof at the top, like this, like that, and also a little shadow at the bottom of the roof, like that, now remember this is an old

shack, it's not a two bedroom duplex or whatever, so you can make it as old and decrepit as you like, but it must be a correct decrepit house, now let's get a light tone over here like this, right in front of this, like that, and on the little roof like this, outline it in purple, so you don't lose it, and outline the roof in purple, and we're going to put a bit of a chimney and do it right now, there we are, like that, this goes on an angle, this is straight, this is on an angle like that, let's put a doorway, there again please

not a definite doorway, take a little purple and just put it in the wet paint like that, an impression of a doorway, a doorway I think can be defined a little bit more, fine, now let's go on, let's start with the road, we have a beautiful light tone up here, don't have the roads floating in air or standing straight up, we work our strokes like this, horizontally, this is terribly important, or you will have a road that will stand up in the air, I'm going to put a little color back here because these hills are dark so that we don't lose that, or I don't want to curving high up into the air, remember that, this is terribly important, keep that curve flat, line it up with the top of the canvas like that, fine, keep going like this, cross the road like that, we go to the darker

tone here and a little darker tone at the bottom like that, I do not want yellow roads, I know that dirt is yellow, but we're working with an effect here, now we can go back to that, I just want to put it in and reaffirm it, and we'll work it out later as we work in the rest of the painting, now be sure that your strokes do not slope, which tells that the road is sliding, I'm sure it's not in very good condition, but like that, or leave that for the moment, and let's go to our little hills, which are dark on the right side, like that, do the dark side first, you notice we're using actually the sky tones,

but we're working the dark tones down where the light tone is, and we're going to put a little medium tone and light tone over there on the right side, because the light is coming from the left, I'll leave that for the moment, I would like to soften those just a wee bit, like that, the sky looks a little wild, I know it's wild, but I think it's getting a little, I would like to reaffirm these clouds a little bit, they're not quite distinctive enough there we are, now let's do our hill, we start with a light tone, at the top, like this, you see we use the same colors over and over again in this painting, which creates harmony,

and yet we have a difference, let's pick up our darker tone, like this, I'm going to add a little lighter tone by adding a little white and Naples yellow, because I feel that it's not quite light enough on top of this path here, so I would like to add a little more light tone to create a feeling of beautiful light there, so I'm going to put that on right now, fine, now there we go, keep working down, this is the light tone, now these are grasses, but remember that this is a very bad day, and the greens are not very bright, we're creating a mood, so you don't paint what you know, you paint what you see, always remember that, what you see, and what you're actually seeing here are not bright green grasses and what have you, because the sun is not out, so you have what I call gray

down or cool colors, because it's that kind of day, a lovely little stroke over and down like that, and you see I've lost the rocks, but don't worry, we'll get them back, no problem, we get very dark down here like this, like that, there again we use our dark tone at the very bottom, traveling upward, both in light and in line, that's perspective in color as well as in line, I'll have to go back a little, I think my road is sliding, there, I would like to see you add little purple at the bottom like this, and along the side of the road, remember it's not a paved road, it's a road, it's a country road, and so it's redded, it's uneven, so let's make it uneven like that, now we have the other side

and the light is hitting right in front of the cottage, I would like to see another little light tone right there like that, fine, we put the light tone in front of the cottage like this, there again the strokes go this way, horizontally, we fade to medium and dark in a corner like that, and what it does, it seats the house like this, it's flat, when we pick up the dark tone, it looks like that, be very very careful about that, and something you must really study, and once you do it you will see the wisdom of it, this is the beautiful part of England and I loved it, it's just as mysterious as this painting, very quaint, actually it's actually like weathering heights, which I'm sure you're all familiar

with, let's get down there like that, alright, we'll leave that for the moment, now let's put in our trees, right here, these trees are very important, because they're telling us that first of all, something is happening there, a storm or a terrible wind, and so we want the trees to look as though they are being blown in the wind, like this, we have another tree, not too much, and not too many trees, just to give the feeling and create

the mood, I've got another color there which I didn't intend to, I remember the branches evolved one from the other, no telephone poles, alright, let's leave that for the moment, let's go to our rocks, I would like to add a bit of red down here like this, now the rocks purple on one side, and a few here like this, there again use discretion, don't have piles of rocks, after all it's not a rock pile we're talking about, we're just creating a rocky mood here, that's an area that we're trying to talk about, which has rocks, but it's not all rocks, now they get smaller as they get further away, like this, remember they're

larger in a foreground because we're right up against them or in front of them, closer, but they get smaller as they go up here, like this, now on one side of the rocks we have lice, the light tone is on the left, put a little shadow underneath, we must get our highlight on our rocks, which go like this, this is a marvelous thing, you just go one way on the right, and then the highlight goes in the opposite direction, this way where the light's coming from, like that, we have one here, like that, now let's go back to the fence which we have neglected, oh incidentally has some lovely toll grasses, so take your

knife and sort of scratch it like this, this gives a feeling of actually a deserted place, toll grasses and so on, be very careful you don't get carried away so you have huge stalks and looking like poles, there's a feeling of grass there, let's go back to the fence, let's put a little highlight on the fence here, and score it with your knife like this, please don't try to draw in little twigs or whatever this fence is made of, it's made of wood, and then we put our little lines like this, let's tell us that it isn't perspective, that's very important, don't neglect that, I have just about one more branch here, and I believe we had some birds, oops I got an eagle there, I'm sure they have eagles but for now let's

not resist the temptation, there we are, well that's our painting for today, now for our signature, goodbye for now. This program was made possible by a grant from Commercial Union Assurance Companies.