- As you know, I love to paint birds.

Cardinals are among the favorite species of birdwatchers and bird lovers.

Join me next on "Painting With Wilson Bickford" as we paint feathered friend.

(light 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.

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Online at jmmcdonaldfoundation.org.

(mellow music) - [Announcer] In rural New York State ordered by the Saint Lawrence River in the Adirondack Mountains is a sprawling landscape with communities that offer self-guided tours for the creatively inclined.

Learn the stories behind the barn quilt traditions, family, agriculture, nature and beauty.

St. Lawrence County.

Life undiscovered.

- Hi, thanks for joining me.

Today, we're gonna paint a cardinal on a well pump.

Where I live, there are a lot of old farms still around and a lot of these farms have well pumps.

I can drive within a 20-minute radius of anywhere around me and find 10 of these old pumps or more, probably more.

People still have them in the yard.

A lot of them are functional, they don't use them anymore but they're just a hearkening back to days gone by.

So I like to use these in my paintings.

They have a lot of character and tell a lot of story to some of the older generations like me anyway.

So, sometimes, I like to perch a bird on them.

I've done them before with chickadees sitting on them and just anything different.

So I hope you enjoy this project.

I'm glad you tuned in for it.

We're using oil paints today but I had done some underpainting on this first and some prep work.

If you go to the WPBSTV website, you'll be able to print off a supply list, which I'm gonna go through the supplies here in just a moment.

But you can have the list of materials that you'll need to follow along with me and there's also a sketch that I've drawn for you for those of you who feel that you can't draw as well.

You'd simply take your sketch, put some transfer paper underneath it.

I like to use a red pen because the red pen shows up on the dark line so you can track your progress.

Put the image on.

From there, I took a number six small flat brush with some black acrylic gesso and I painted the whole pump.

Now, this one's been taped out.

Underneath, this is painted with black acrylic and when it was dry, I've taped everything out.

The cardinal was drawn on but he wasn't painted at all.

He just drawn on.

I actually masking tape.

If you've watched me before, I'm sure you're familiar with my process somewhat.

I took tape and put layers of tape, single layers.

Notice, I overlap them just enough so you don't get bleed between.

Don't put it on five or seven layers deep.

Just makes it hard to cut through, hard to see through.

I've covered it with tape.

I took a small sharp utility craft knife with a number 11 blade and I carefully trimmed away everything that wasn't the bird or the pump.

So those are completely blocked in.

So now, I can just freely paint the background over the top and I have to try to paint around everything.

And since I'm using oil paint, I don't have to wait for everything to dry before I can finish.

So this is my process for doing that.

For oil colors, today, I am using cadmium yellow pale, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, ivory black, burnt sienna, sap green, emerald green and cadmium red deep, titanium white.

I also have some white basecoat and some clear glazing medium that I will describe how I'm using those.

I also have a small border around here with some tape.

I don't always take my edge.

You'll notice that this one was inside the frame.

You can see that little white strip.

It just kinda helps it pop out from the frame a little bit.

And basically, when I'm filming for you guys, it makes it easier When I'm coming off with grass here on the bottom.

It makes it much easier to do that, otherwise, I'd have to take my canvas down off the easel to get it out of this little channel that holds it and I can't get it cleanly off the bottom of the canvas.

With the tape, I can come just above that.

Makes it a lot easier for you to be able to see it, so.

When I get all finished, I'll take that tape off, there'll be a nice crisp border on it.

So, I'm gonna start in with some white base coat over this whole background.

I'm gonna use this two-inch scenery brush and take a little bit of this base coat.

You wanna scrub it in very, very thinly and make sure that when you have taped your design out that you get the edges of your tape pressed down very firmly so you won't get any bleed underneath.

If you do, it's fixable.

It's just a more the process of having to fix it.

More of an annoyance than anything else.

It can be fixed.

If you press it down firmly, you won't have to worry about it.

So I'm gonna scrub this in very thinly.

I call this one "Cardinal in the Blizzard".

Looks pretty good, don't you think?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

Very authentic.

It looks like a cardinal in a blizzard.

Or maybe "Cardinal in the Fog".

Okay, scrub that in very, very thinly.

That's gonna give us a nice soft edges and the sky tones and in the clouds and then those background trees way back.

So I'm gonna start with a little bit of cerulean blue right into my dirty brush.

I've got residual white left in there.

I wanna grade the sky so it has depth.

I'll take a little more of that base coat on my brush.

It felt a little dry.

I want a very light blue tone way low on the horizon, way down in here.

That's the sky that is far, far away.

That might be so pale You can barely see it so I'll darken it down.

I can see it here but maybe on camera, it's not translating well enough.

Do you believe we're into season seven?

I can't believe that.

My goodness, where's the time gone?

I appreciate everybody watching.

I've gotten a tremendous amount of emails and phone calls and Facebook messages and whatnot from you viewers out there who are enjoying the show so I really appreciate that.

Thanks for writing in.

So I'm gonna go with a pale blue down here.

I'm gonna come with a darker blue down into it and marry them together.

So this is ultramarine blue now.

I can mix it right in on that little puddle of color I had just to see room on my palette.

Work it into your brush evenly.

You'll have to decide how dark you want this.

I wanna go dark enough so my white clouds will have some contrast.

And you may know and you may not but the word on the street is that blue is my favorite color.

So forgive me if I use a little extra blue.

I likes me some blue.

All right.

I'm gonna go a little deeper right there.

Now, as I bring this down, I wanna marry into that previous cerulean blue.

So they just gradually changed value from light to dark.

This will make the sky have depth.

Next time you're outdoors, if it's a nice clear blue day, go outside and look you'll see the sky above you is much bluer, off on the horizon as far as you can see, it'll be much paler blue.

It's just because of the distance that is aerial perspective.

Anything in the distance will be a lighter value and that goes for the sky as well as a treeline or a mountain or anything else.

So say I'm just gonna melt these two together and I use a criss-cross.

Works pretty well just to bring them together.

Essentially, I'm kinda pulling the dark blue down and the light blue back up.

See how it grades from light to dark.

It makes your sky have more depth.

All right, that was easy.

From there, I'm gonna take a fan brush and quite a bit of titanium white on the brush.

I'm gonna fluff in these clouds.

Notice the clouds have a more distinct top.

The bottoms are kind of faded away to nothing.

It makes them look like they're rolled away from the viewer, rolled underneath makes them look rounded and it kinda helps anchor them to the sky.

So I'm gonna take quite a bit of this white on my brush.

This is titanium white.

I've still got some base coat here, I'm gonna put just a little bit of that with it.

It'll thin the consistency of that titanium white down just enough so it's gonna stick more easily to my canvas.

Notice how much pain I'm putting on that brush.

There's quite a bit.

So I start by just kind of dabbing.

What you don't wanna do is be a fan brush stamper.

A lot of people will take a fan brush and they just stamp with the end of it and it looks like eyebrows.

And they'll just try to tap in their clouds like that and you see eyebrows right through it.

That's what you don't want to do.

So I kind of use the corner and I'm gonna scratch this in on my canvas.

Watch this.

I don't know if you can see this line, I'm removing some of the paint a little bit.

There's a little bit of a scratch there.

I'm seeing that shape in my mind, in my mind's eye so if I see that shape, I just take the corner and I'm kind of dabbing and pulling down.

And see now, I don't get those eyebrows of a fan brush.

I don't want everyone to look at my painting and say, oh, you did that part with a fan brush, didn't you?

If you are leaving a footprint of the brush, you should rethink how you're doing it.

You don't want it to be that noticeable.

At least I don't, so I'm gonna bring this over right in behind the pump a little bit So the cloud looks like it's behind it, which will give me depth.

Anytime I can overlap one thing with another, it gives me more depth.

And see down here at the bottom, I'm just gonna fade that out and it kind of ties it right into the sky just like I wanted.

Now, my brush is getting a little bit dirty here.

I can see a little tinge of the blue on my brush and my white here.

Not too bad, it's not enough to where I have to wash the brush yet.

You might reach a point where you're gonna have to break down and wash your brush depending on how much background color you pick up.

See, this is a pretty simple sky today, so.

I don't have to get too concerned with that as long as it's light enough to do the job.

This painting is about the cardinal in the pump, not the sky, so.

All right.

Birds are favorite subject of mine and people love birds.

Not just me, people love birds.

So if you're painting.

I'm gonna put another cloud.

I didn't have one here, I'm feeling it right now today.

I'm gonna put another little cloud section down here.

Why not?

It gives me layers, it gives me a little more depth.

People love birds so if you're interested in selling your paintings at all, birds are good sellers.

I can remember when I was a kid in grade school, second, third, fourth grade, they'd send us down to the library to take out books and while the other kids were taking out the "Dick and Jane" books, books I was lugging home these great big John Audubon books home full of all the bird illustrations and I'd open those and I'd look through them and say, oh, I could tell they're paintings, they weren't photos.

I think somebody actually painted that.

That is so awesome.

And I think that's where my love of painting of birds came from.

I got a broken brush bristle.

There's a fluff off there.

I'm just gonna lightly take the brush.

I've wiped it off.

I'm just gonna fluff this edge out a little bit, soften it.

Makes it look a little puffy.

And see this very light behind the birds so he's gonna really jump off that canvas.

I guess he won't jump, he'll fly but he'll pop off that canvas.

I can smooth out the brush strokes by doing this.

I'm gonna suggest some background greenery in here.

It's out of focus, it's blurry, it's far away, I don't wanna get too detailed with it.

For that, I'm gonna use sap green.

A little bit of the ultramarine blue, maybe a speck of the burnt sienna just to gray it down and that's pretty dark, darker than I want so I'm gonna bleed a little bit of this white from my clouds into that.

I've got white laying right here next door.

The best thing I can do is come up and just check it and see how it reads and see if I like it.

That's pretty close.

That's pretty close to this tone.

It doesn't have to be.

You can mix whatever color you want.

I'm gonna bring it in around the bird.

I like to leave a little dip of daylight in this little notch.

It just kinda opens it up, it gives you more depth than just filling the whole thing in solidly.

Well yeah, back to the bird books.

I was taking those bird books home and I was pouring through those and checking everything out and I would get out my pencils and I would look at those illustrations and I would try duplicating some of them and drawing them and that's where I got hooked on drawing and art in general and my love of birds.

I still have probably 12 bird feeders in my yard.

I watch them all the time.

I get all kinds of birds, all kinds of species.

I'm an animal lover anyway and that carries over to birds than anything else.

Okay, so I'm just scrubbing this in with the corner of the brush.

And see, I'm thinking trees in the distance so I don't wanna put something like this, just a hard line.

Notice I'm kind of rubbing and I'm rounding it off, shaping it like far off leaf trees.

I'm not doing fir trees.

And I'm gonna come back and fuzz this edge out.

It looks a little rough, a little harsh compared to that.

I'm gonna come back and blend it out.

So something like that for a start.

Notice it's a little darker down here.

I graded it and made it a little darker the lower I came so I'm gonna take a little more blue, a little more burnt sienna, maybe just a speck of black this time.

Last time, I used the burnt sienna to gray 'em.

I'm gonna use just a little bit of black.

And down in here, I want it a little darker.

See, all I need is coverage right now.

I'm just scrubbing it in there covering it.

It's gonna look like a train wreck.

I have to come back and melt those together, so bear with me.

Most paintings start out very rough and you find them as they go.

I need to put some of that on this side but I really don't have any paint left so I got to mix up a little more.

Don't you hate when your run out?

I know, I do too.

That's a little darker.

I'll throw some of it in there and pretend I meant it.

That's like if you're in a band and you play in music, you hit a wrong note, you hit it again just to make everybody think he meant it the first time and you call it jazz.

That's how that works.

Let's see if it's this a darker, I'll bleed some over in here and nobody will be the wiser except our camera crew here.

They're onto me.

I have a fantastic crew I work with, so, I say I work with.

They were they work with me as like a...

They are really good at what they do, very non-judgemental, very encouraging so I've got it made.

Okay, that's a basically what I wanna get for a start on that.

I'm gonna rinse this brush out.

I have mineral spirits, this is odorless mineral spirits in my pale over here.

And if you're the type that's sensitive to paint thinners and whatever just put the lid back on.

Nothing to it.

I've rinsed this brush out, I'm gonna dry it off very thoroughly.

And I wanna fluff this edge.

Kinda like I did the clouds, I wanna soften this edge and see, I just take the corner, I'm just doing little circles with my wrist.

And just fluffing that out a little bit.

I want a softer edge.

Soft edges recede, hard edges will come forward.

By leaving this background all blurry, it really brings that pump and that cardinal very close and in sharp focus.

I'm gonna try to leave that little rim of daylight in there and not pull us up too far.

So I want a little open spot in there.

Like I said, it kinda gives you a little more depth.

You got a feeling of openness there instead of just blocked in solid.

Notice I'm wiping the brush off as I'm going because I'm picking up a lot of green.

So rather than just keep spreading paint around, I wanna wipe it off.

I wanna be blending at this point.

I'm sure you've heard me say that if there's paint on your brush, you're painting and if there's not, you're blending.

Right now, I wanna be blending.

All right, that's out pretty well for what I want for the background.

I'm gonna start putting in some of these taller grasses around.

Like I said, a lot of these pumps are kind of neglected so a lot of people don't use them anymore.

I see one little brush bristle up here.

Good idea here, I'm gonna show you a good little tip.

There's a broken brush bristle.

This is a brand new fan brush.

When they're new, they tend to shed like crazy.

I tell everybody, if I took you by the ankles and rubbed your head on the floor of that hard, your hair would break off too but they shed like crazy when they're new.

So I'm gonna take this brush here, just pluck that right off.

See if you put that little hair underneath your pillow tonight, you'll have a brand new brush in the morning.

That's how that works.

A lot of people will go in there with their fingernail, try digging at them.

If you just pluck them off of the corner of a brush, that'll pick them right up.

Okay, so I'm gonna come in and start putting in some of these little grass blades here.

Like I said, a lot of these pumps are neglected so it isn't like people use them all the time so stuff grows up around them and they just let it happen.

They don't go down trim it all out and all that, so.

I can start right here with the same color I just used because I want something in that same family, a foliage green, grass green.

So I'm gonna add more sap green, a little bit of the blue, maybe a little bit of the sienna just to darken it and I'm gonna chisel this brush up like this on two sides.

Get it nice and sharp.

And then I'm just gonna start adding some grass blades in here randomly.

Now, if your paint feels thick, you can put a little touch of this clear glazing medium with it.

I've just got to mix up a little more paint.

I don't quite have enough.

You see, to vary the width of the blade, I go in with the chiseled edge and straight like this and as I pull down, I turn the brush slightly between my fingers and then I turn it back.

That's how you get that width on it and get that differentiation.

Notice I've got one behind the spout of the pump because it's an overlap.

It's always good to have one thing overlap in front of another, gives you more depth so I'm gonna make sure one goes in behind there a little bit.

Now, eventually, I'm gonna highlight these as well.

So you just put these wherever you think you want them and you're working on top of wet paint so you're always at the mercy of that wet paint underneath.

So, if it happens that it doesn't quite cover, you can go over them again.

See how this one's a little weak?

It's because it picked up the light background paint as I applied it over the top.

So I'm just gonna go over it again with another brush load and it'll fill it right in.

So you can just put those wherever you want.

Likewise, I've got one over here behind the pump handle.

I'll move it up here a little differently this time.

It doesn't matter.

It's all good.

And maybe something over here.

They'll go behind the pump.

I'm running out of paint again so I'll mix up a little more.

The nice part for this is it doesn't have to be the same exact color.

So if I get something a little greener, a little more bluish green, a little darker, whatever, it's all good.

I'm gonna highlight these here in just a second anyway.

Hm, maybe I'll put another one over here.

Just make sure your grasses aren't all spaced out evenly like teeth on a comb.

I don't know, I'll put a short one in here somewhere, maybe one here.

Just whatever looks natural to you.

Definitely need a few more on this side.

You can also pull them out this way.

You just have to release pressure on the top of the stroke.

I'm wanna put one here bent over, watch this.

There.

Okay.

Put a few in here that are kind of just, they're not quite as dominant just to take up some space a little bit.

All right, I can always add more of those later too so I think I'm done with that part of it.

I'm gonna rinse this brush out.

Notice these have more of a lighter yellowy green highlight on them.

So I'm gonna switch that brush out and I'm gonna start with titanium white, some cadmium yellow pale, just a little bit of straight sap green, not the stuff that I grade down.

I want something a little richer, more vibrant.

Chisel it up Just like we did before.

This is gonna be a pull away stroke so I'm gonna start at the top of the blade of the grass and coming down and as I pull down, I pull the brush away.

And see that one's blending on my background too much so I'm gonna go just a hair lighter.

I'm gonna add a little bit of white to that, some white base coat would even work because it's thinner.

And make this a little lighter against the background.

There we go, just so it shows up.

There we go.

Not that I want it too white but I had to lighten my yellow.

So you don't wanna do every one.

That gets very predictable and boring and repetitious but certain ones I'm just gonna add a little bit of highlight to.

This one right here where it flops over would be a good one to give me a little more depth against that blade behind it.

See how that gives the grass more dimension?

I guess I don't do every single one of them.

This one here needs to be in a little more so I'm gonna wipe the brush and just kind of help it along trying to smooth that into a softer transition a little bit.

Sometimes, it doesn't always work the way you want.

That was right there was a classic example so I've got to go in and help it along a little bit.

Okay, that's better.

Painting is nothing but a series of adjustments.

You're always adding light against dark, dark against light, hard edges, soft edges and it's just a balancing act of all the above.

Okay, I'm gonna stop for just a minute and I'm gonna take this tape off and I'm gonna put a thin coat of clear glazing medium on the pump only.

I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm just finishing up applying a thin coat of clear glazing medium to the pump.

This will make it easy to blend all the nice green tones and our highlights on top of that pump in the next episode when we finished this up.

I didn't put anything on the cardinal, he's still the way he was, nice and dry and we'll take care of him accordingly with oil paint.

And in the meantime, be thinking of maybe how you'd wanna design your own painting.

I started out copying other people's designs but I soon learned that it was more rewarding for me to come up with my own ideas so a lot of times, I will just try to think of new ways to put birds in a setting rather than just simply setting a bird on a branch all the time.

So sometimes, I like to play around with different options.

It's fun to come up with your own ideas so be thinking about something that you can do with your own designs.

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.

(mellow music) - [Announcer] In rural New York State ordered by the Saint Lawrence River in the Adirondack Mountains is a sprawling landscape with communities that offer self-guided tours for the creatively inclined.

Learn the stories behind the barn quilt traditions, family, agriculture, nature and beauty.

St. Lawrence County.

Life undiscovered.

- [Announcer] All 13 episodes of "Painting With Wilson Bickford" season seven 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 sunset lake with the in-depth "Paint Smart, Not Hard" series of Wilson Bickford instructional DVDs.

Includes the bonus episode, "Don't Be So Koi!"

Additional titles available.

Order online or watch or download directly to your computer or mobile device.

More information at wpbstv.org/painting.

(lively mellow music) (light mellow music)