Don't be a teeter-totter artist where you only rise when another artist is pulled down.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Let me say one thing before I go to the canvas, and that is the title of the painting could be "The Piano Player and Star Shortstop."

If you look at the completed painting, you see a little hat on the bench.

Don't you?

And that's C for Cincinnati, and then we go over to the left, and you see a baseball sitting up there.

So this fellow has plans after his practice, but it's just like me.

I have on a baseball, softball shirt.

After my painting, I'm going to be playing.

It's exciting, but I enjoy the painting just like he enjoys playing the piano.

Now the other thing I want to point out the C, Cincinnati.

That means what to me?

Buck is going to be pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, but pitching paint, that is!

You just wait and see.

Okay, so you heard about Moses parting the Red Sea?

Buck "arting" the red "scene!"

Oh, that's a little play; I hope you get that.

All right let's go over to the canvas.

We have primed, it's a little bit of Raw Sienna and yellow just sort of scrubbed around.

You can see it's not evenly placed on the canvas.

Just so you have some light around his head and maybe a little bit on the shoulder and so on, but really it's immaterial.

You just have some looseness, and it just lends itself to the finished project, which has kind of a looseness around.

We'll start with acrylics, of course.

This has been primed with that yellow and Umber, and it's all dry, and then a drawing is placed on which makes it possible to retain the drawing as we go with this, and of course, your DVD comes with all the drawings on it.

So that's good.

All right, I'll start by taking some Umber, Burnt Umber, and we'll put on his head.

When I say his head, I should probably say we'll put on his hair.

Boy, wouldn't it be easy to make some money, just-- we can put hair on your head that easy.

Oh gee!

I would probably do some myself!

Now as this is placed on, I want you to notice that there are little brushstrokes in there, which I like, because it gives a little feeling of hair movement like that.

That's great.

Okay, now I'll come down.

We already have it quite light around the head.

So we'll wait a minute on that.

Let's take the same Umber and put just a little Raw Sienna in it and we'll come down on the back, the shirt.

You get the feeling of what he's doing by looking at him from behind.

You're trying to guess what he's feeling as he's there, and you look at the baseball and the baseball hat.

Each of you can have your own little story.

I dip into the water periodically and then put on the Umber and Raw Sienna.

And this is similar to what we did on the hair.

It has kind of a scrubby look.

[soft scraping] Down there, like that, and I don't mind a little bit of the underneath playing through, which means it isn't covered, and I'll take a paper towel while I have the chance and just make the, well, let's wet it.

And then you can have where the little folds are.

We'll put paint on there eventually, but this gives just a little help in doing it, And then, of course, the two lightest places on the shirt are the shoulders.

While I have it, I'll just take this and go up right on the neck, even though in the finished product the neck has a little reddish tone on it.

We'll see if we do that in the acrylic stage or not.

Down on the pants, I've just Raw Sienna.

I think I'll do the same thing, add just a little Umber with it.

Like that.

Okay, that gives us a good start on him.

All I could see us doing at this point with him, and let's go ahead and do it.

Let's take Raw Sienna and White, and I'll put this on the shoulder.

Did you hear me say 'ers?

Should-"ers."

And I'm going to take that same Raw Sienna and come down just a little bit as an extension of that arm, not on this one, and while I have the Raw Sienna on my brush, let's just go ahead and put a little bit of the folds, lightening them a little bit more than just the wiping out of them, and then there's a pretty good chunck of the Raw Sienna and White right on his hip.

This was a picture that a good friend of ours gave to us, to my wife and myself.

Her piano student, Zachary, she described him and all that and the neatest person he was.

So I just asked if I could paint a portrait of him, and I painted a portrait like this and then gave it to her.

I think she then just gave it to him, but anyway, it's a nice story.

I received such a nice letter from him thanking for it.

Okay, I want to come on the keyboard, the piano keyboard.

This is yellow and White... and I'll start right against the sleeve.

Put it on strong, and then as I go over I want to make sure that I can still see the keys through it.

Both sides.

If I were at home, I'd turn it upside down, being right-handed so I could come close against that, but if I am careful, it'll work.

And I was careful, and it worked.

On this side, I'll take and wipe just a little bit there so I can see the keys.

We'll eventually go quite light in that area.

While I have the Yellow Ochre and White, it would be a little helpful to begin a little bit of the impact around the head.

Yellow Ochre and White, and as you might surmise, looking at the original and this, the light is broken up.

When I say broken, it's not a solid blend.

It's sort of broken, and it gives a little bit of vitality to the area.

When we come with oils, we'll put a little bit of yellow in the mixture too.

Go right up above there.

Oh, I like him already.

We can stop right there!

No, we can't.

So we're going to come down next with Yellow Ochre, and we'll come down on the piano bench.

Where'd your hat go, son?

Well, we'll see.

We'll see.

And then on this side a little bit as well.

You know what's neat?

I used to play baseball, I was a pitcher, but I could hit too.

The older I get, the better I used to be!

Isn't that great?

Because there's so few people around now that ever remember seeing Buck pitch.

This is still Yellow Ochre.

We'll come on this side.

I'm leaving just the smallest spot.

Well, let's go ahead and just kind of block it in a little bit for the cap.

We'll have about like this.

Love those Cincinnati Reds!

They didn't have a great year in 2015, but you wait with Buck on the team.

You watch for 2016!

And for the time being, I'll just bring the visor down like that, and then we'll put some blue in there later.

Good, oh you know you have to be large enough!

So I'm going just a little larger.

That's a sizable head that it's going to go on top of.

Okay, let's now take some dark, and when I say dark, I'm looking at maybe a mixture of Umber and black.

We'll take it out here, just kind of equal parts, and I'm just brush-mixing it.

So I don't desire it to be totally blended.

This is a nice brush.

It's a large bristle brush, and you can scrub quite well without having to have too much liquid on it to do it.

And this goes over to the left, and then there's the smallest little leg that shows right in here.

So let's just go with this for now.

Okay, then the little leg we'll take, this is Alizarin Crimson, a little Yellow Ochre, and just-- you don't quite connect at the top, because it's being shaded.

You just come down underneath.

We need to go a little wider.

It has to be substantial to kind of hold that up.

All right, on the other side, Payne's Gray and Burnt Umber.

I saw that light there, and I thought, do I save that?

No, that comes very dark against here.

Okay, Zach, we're getting you ready.

Just play a little longer, and then you can go out and play shortstop.

[soft scraping] It sure is helpful to have that initial priming.

Now here, I went up just a little-- oh, that came off nice-like.

What about under the bench?

Just a little bit under the bench.

See, I spent so little time on the bench that I don't know what a bench looks like.

That's super?

You be the judge.

Judges sit on benches.

Okay, Raw Sienna on the front part of the bench, a little red with it.

And I'll use that same color and just go up a little bit of a cast shadow from him sitting down.

So you ask yourself, where's the light coming from?

Well, it looks like it's not from here, and then you see all that light.

Well, what it really is, he has a light above the piano that is shining down.

So it works that way.

Let's take again the Raw Sienna, a little Umber, maybe just a little red in it.

When I say red, this is Alizarin Crimson.

And this comes down suggesting a leg on the piano down there.

So much of the same color just used throughout.

[soft scraping] And come down on the side of the keyboard.

What goes up here?

That looks like that's about a Raw Sienna, and I have a little bit of Cadmium Red.

It's called Naphthol Red.

Naphthol Red and Raw Sienna looks like a good, oops-- that's too much.

Let's go more Raw Sienna.

It still has kind of a reddish flavor to it, which is fine.

Right down there, and we'll do it on the other side.

What I quite like is the fact that as you put the paint on the way it was primed, a lot of the little things showing through, I can see that over there.

It makes it a very accidental look, very pleasing.

[soft scraping] Come down a little bit on there, go across there.

Now let's take and put just a touch on the baseball.

We don't want the baseball to be perfectly new.

It's been used before, and I remember at that age when I was playing ball, we used to sew some that came apart and we'd sew them with, would you just say fishline?

Is that what it is?

Boy, that was great that we could do that and save them.

When it comes to acrylics, we'll put the little red stitching.

That's the word, stitching.

Okay now, let's do this.

Let's see, I have up on the background, I want to have a little bit of casualness.

We'll take some of Yellow Ochre, maybe a little White, and a little bit of the Naphthol Red.

Let's see what happens with that.

It just gives some nice warmth to it.

Don't put the stitching on yet.

I'll take a paper towel and with acrylics I'll just dampen it, and then just kind of roll this around, which doesn't necessarily remove it all, but it thins it out, makes it look like a blend a little bit.

Okay, at the top, I'm going to go a little bit Alizarin and Umber over on the sides like this.

A little more Umber.

Oh, I see a line that we need to have too.

I'm taking the Burnt Umber, and if I go along here, it just divides up that board a little bit.

Oops, it'd be nice to go straight wouldn't it?

Gee!

If you can't drive right, we're going to have to get somebody to replace you.

Any volunteers?

[chuckles] Okay, taking a little paper towel and just wiping the top of that line a little bit.

You know, the good thing about that, having to wipe the line a little bit, it softens it, and it should be softer.

Let me point out the original.

You are softer as you meet the shoulders.

And that's a great principle.

When two lines meet, you soften the edge of the distant one.

Now, that should happen down here, here, it should happen at the pants; maybe it doesn't.

We'll practice our own preaching on the new one.

Okay, so we have that on.

Let's put just a little red light on the edge of the cap.

Okay, I can't come any lower than that.

We'll put a little Yellow Ochre and White, which gives us a good light right against the cap.

That's a very strong point right there.

Maybe strengthen that light a little bit on his leg.

This is all the acrylic stage.

I'm repeating that to you.

So that we'll go lighter and, you know, just a little variety as we come to the oil stage.

Okay, we have a little light that goes right there.

I have my Yellow Ochre and White... both sides.

On these, you want to be very careful.

As I've said, I would turn the canvas a different way to put these on.

How would I put this on?

Well, I find I can draw quite a straight line when it's vertical.

So I maybe turn it on its side so I can make just a straight line down, but since we're doing this, we'll do the best we can.

Right?

Okay, this is still Yellow Ochre and White and we want to have a good light that's right there.

That shows a little top edge of that ledge, and then on the other side, I'm turning a little bit so I can see it.

Now, one thing that I notice that I want to correct, so I'll make some Yellow Ochre and do it, and that's the dark outline on his neck.

So if I come with the Yellow Ochre, I can do that, and at the same time that will make the neck look just a little bit more narrow.

And while I have it, I'm going to come up a little bit so he doesn't have quite as long a year-- an ear!

Both sides.

So when you outline something with acrylic, be a little cautious on what you're achieving with the size.

Okay, I have Alizarin, maybe just a little Umber and Raw Sienna just to put a little bit on the ear.

Ears, you heard me say "ears."

And while I have that kind of reddish tone, I'll just check the neck a little bit more.

We don't see his hands.

I see some of the reddish tone that I've just put up there, I see some of it down in here.

Just a little stroke, it doesn't give any character.

It just gives a little vitality to what you already have there.

It always surprises me when I put on a strong light, let's say with the Yellow Ochre and White, and then after you go around, work other places, you come back and you think gee, that doesn't look as light as when I put it on.

I'm going to take this same color, this reddish tone that I've been putting around there and just-- I want to soften that edge of the hair just a little bit.

Okay, we're getting down to the end of the acrylic stage.

I hope you've enjoyed this.

I hope you have learned from it, and I'm kind of learning as I'm doing it.

So it's fun to see something develop under your hands with correct knowledge, but always an openness to inspiration, that you do some things maybe you hadn't planned to do.

Be open to that so you're not just a mechanical toy.

[sighs] See you next time.

Bye-bye.

[piano plays in bright rhythm & tone] ♪ ♪ (woman) Funding for "Painting With Paulson" is made possible by...