- The Beach Boys said ♪ Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world ♪ Well, I'm no surfer by any stretch, but I do enjoy painting the mood and movement of the ocean.

Join me next as I paint "Catch a Wave."

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(mellow music) In rural New York state, bordered by the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains, is a sprawling landscape with communities that offer self guided tours for the creatively inclined.

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- Hi, and thanks for joining me today.

I'm gonna show you how to construct a wave, a crashing rolling wave.

I get more requests from people wanting to know how to paint those turbulent, crashing, rolling ocean waves.

So on today's lesson, and this'll be a two-parter, I'm gonna break it down so I can slow down and actually teach you this.

If I just gloss through it, you're gonna get lost in the shuffle, 'cause it's kind of confusing.

I'm going to show you the anatomy of a wave and how to construct one.

So this one is called "Catch a Wave."

It's in oils, and I'll run through the materials here in just a second.

There's no sketch, no tracing to this.

And we're just gonna go on and lay it out with brushes, and go right after it.

You ready?

Buckle up, here we go.

If you go to the WPBS-TV website, you'll be able to download a supply list that tells you all the brushes and paints that we're gonna use, and I'm going to go through those here in just a second.

There's also a drawing in there.

This is not meant to be traced on, like some of my lessons where I have a template and the tracing for you.

This isn't meant for that.

This is just to remind you of the direction.

We're gonna talk about the direction of all these lines in the wave.

That is the critical point.

And it's the part that most people mess up when they try to paint these.

So this is just for a reference.

You can print that off to have it right at your station to look at as you paint, but it's just to keep you refreshed on the direction and the movement of that wave.

So for oil paints today on my palette, I am using cerulean blue, ultra marine blue, sap green, dioxazine purple, ivory black, cadmium yellow pale, burnt sienna, and titanium white.

And I'm also using some white base coat, which I have already applied a nice thin coat of that to my canvas, with my two-inch scenery brush.

And speaking of brushes, I'm using a two-inch scenery brush, a number three fan brush, a number 10 large flat brush, a number two long scriptliner, a number two liner, and a large mop brush to do some blending.

Okay, so as I said, I've already applied a thin coat of white base coat, so this is all wet and ready to blend into.

I'm gonna start by taking some cerulean blue.

We have to establish the sky first, before we ever start working on that wave.

So we're gonna work from back to front.

I'm gonna take a little bit of cerulean blue.

I wanna start with a lighter tone down here on the lower horizon, and go darker above, which will grade the sky from dark to light and give us depth.

And I don't wanna try to split this to close dead center to the middle, but it's gonna be close to that.

And like I said, this is more about the lesson.

Yes, this is a nice painting, but compositionally, if I was painting it for something to sell, or entering a show, I would never split it equally.

And it's a no no, typically known as a no no.

Some people will tell you otherwise, but it's all depends on how you feel about your composition.

But basically, most people try not to split anything right through the middle.

I want a lighter value in the lower sky here.

So I'm gonna brush this on, and I'm going to melt a darker blue down into it.

This is cerulean blue with white base coat.

Now I'm gonna take a little touch of the ultra marine blue.

They don't make a bad blue I don't think.

All the blues are good, blue's my favorite color.

I love it.

I'm gonna take some ultra marine blue, work it into your brush evenly, so there are no chunks or streaks.

And I'm going to put this in.

I'm gonna leave it a little blotchy.

We've got some atmosphere and some cloud movements in this.

I didn't actually add clouds, I'm leaving some white behind that will be construed as clouds.

I've done a lot of lessons with you where I've actually shown you how to do clouds.

So I thought I'd forego that today, and concentrate more on the wave.

I'm gonna go a little darker than that in a couple spots.

That way I can spend time on teaching the wave, and not so much time tied up in the sky.

All right, see, you get a sky pretty easily that way.

It's convincing, it's quick, easy.

All right, then I'm gonna take a paper towel, and just wipe this off and blend this out.

I can do just circles or ovals like this, light pressure.

Since I wiped the brush off, I'm doing more blending than painting.

I'm not laying paint down, I'm just blending what's on the canvas.

It doesn't take much to dust over it, just to smooth it out.

All right, easy peasy.

I wanted to share with you, too, I've got some paintings here that I have done, featuring a wave like this.

This is a midnight one, but notice there's an eye, you can see the transparency of that, what's called the eye of the wave.

And we'll talk about that eventually.

Eye of the wave in that one, that's the part that everyone wants to see in your painting, is that eye.

Here's another one I did, I dunno, back a few months ago.

I did put some clouds in this one, and then lighthouse off in the distance.

Different layout, kinda similar to what we're doing today.

And you may recall this from an earlier series back a couple of series ago I had this one, that was actually one of the lessons.

If you missed it, hopefully we'll be able to catch it on a rerun on TV, or you could buy the DVD through WPBS-TV website.

And this was called "On the Rocks."

This doesn't have the big crashing ocean wave, but had a lot of foam, and movement in it.

So I don't really live near the ocean, but I've been there several times.

And I like the ocean, who doesn't?

So it's fun to paint it every so often.

There's my sky.

Now I'm gonna switch over to a number 10 flat brush.

I'm gonna start bringing some of the ocean, the distant ocean down.

So I'm going to take just some of this paint that's already on my palette.

I mentioned all the time, a lot of times I just paint with the garbage on my palette.

That's what I'm doing, I'm taking some of this to start, and I wanna get a nice straight line across here, as straight as I can get it.

Phew, that's pretty close, pretty steady for an old man, isn't that?

Not too bad.

I gotta straighten it up a little bit, but I'm getting there.

Oh, well I was (laughing).

But you want it as straight as you can.

So I keep going back and refining it, and I'm gonna blur that out of focus, to shove it backwards anyway.

There we go, that'll work, that'll work.

Okay, now I'm gonna start coming down, and you will have to decide what color you want in your water.

The ocean takes on many different colors, depending on where the world you are.

You can go more bluish, you can go more greenish.

And I've mocked this up prior to the cameras rolling.

This is cerulean blue with white, added some ultra marine blue, I added a little more ultra marine blue.

I bled a little sap green into it.

All those colors are acceptable.

Depends on where in the world you are.

This would be more of a Caribbean feel probably, the greenish water, and in some places it's gonna be more bluish.

So it depends on what you want.

Make sure this is kind of horizontal, and parallel across here.

And as I come down, I'm gonna add more paint.

I'm just gonna take a little more of that base coat, since it's right there, I can use the thicker white.

It's fine, it doesn't matter.

I'm gonna take some more ultra marine, maybe a speck of the burnt sienna, just to gray it down ever so slightly.

The burnt sienna is basically classified as a dark orange.

So orange is the complimentary color to the blue.

See how it grayed it down a little bit, and darkened it at the same time.

I'm just trying to get away from my line, and I'm gonna come back in with my big brush.

I was kind of skeptical coming in with this big brush, trying to get that nice precise line.

So I'll bring it down about there.

And then we wanna take the large brush, I'll go back to this one, it still had my sky color on it, which is fine.

I'm gonna take more blue now, maybe a speck of the sienna.

I was going for kind of a gray blue, and definitely something darker.

I'm gonna put this on like this.

See, it's already starting to look like the ocean, isn't it?

Just gotta put the waves in there.

Hit my frame over there, I'm notorious for painting my frames when they're sitting that close.

Okay, now just for the sake of it, I'm gonna put a little bit of green in this.

Add a little bit of green, so it kind of gives it that oceany feel.

Okay, maybe little more green, little more blue.

Maybe a speck of black this time.

I definitely want it a little darker as it's coming lower on the canvas.

Yeah, I like that color.

All Right.

Easy so far, right?

Yeah, you can handle this.

I'm gonna go just a tad darker.

I like that shade, and once I melted it into the base coat, it lightened back just enough where I feel like I wanna darken it down a little more again.

So, I'm just taking more green, a little more blue, a little more black.

It's green, but I don't mind it, it looks good.

This one's got more blue in, is all.

No big deal, flavor it the way you like it.

And I just wanna blend these together, so it doesn't look like I did strips of color, blue, green, dark green.

So once I get 'em all on there, then I can do a crisscross, like this, and just kinda tie it all together, so it's kind of a seamless change.

All right, now I need to lay out the basic design of the wave.

I'll use some of the same color right here, on this number 10 flat brush.

Basically speaking, this is what's known as the crest of the wave, right here where it dumps over is called the dump of the wave.

And this is the eye of the wave.

So I wanna lay this out here, just so I have a reference, where I know where everything's gonna lie.

Maybe something like that.

I'm gonna, I'm just drawing this line.

Just trying to base it in and get the general layout of where it's gonna be.

Then I'm gonna come back and do this top line, where the dump of the wave is.

All this splash over here, I don't need any of that.

I can add that later.

So basically that's all you need for your shape.

All the wave is is just a tube, it's a round tube that's rolling, and then crashing over.

Okay, once we've got that in place, I'm gonna go back into the background water.

I'm gonna take some white and blue, and some of the same green stuff that I've got.

I don't want it quite as dark, so I'm gonna lighten it back a little bit with some of the base coat.

And we chisel the brush up nice and sharp.

And back here, I'm just going to put some random little wave shapes.

Make sure you're not lining them up one after another, right in a row, all right.

They just need to be kind of in there randomly.

See, it's already starting to look like water And by the way, these are the same exact colors I used for this one.

This one's got more of an overall blueish tone.

I'm going a little greener today.

It's all good.

I could have achieved that just by using more blue and less green.

So just so you know.

All right, get some of this in behind here.

These look pretty coarse right now, I realize, but we're going to soften them.

Okay, I just sit back and I squint, and I make sure that I don't have any big gaping open areas, with nothing going on.

I'm gonna go back to this big old two-inch dirty brush, believe it or not.

And I'll just wipe it off a little bit.

I'm lightly gonna blend over this, just to kind of blur them out of focus a little bit.

And you'll see that it calms them down, they look a little more watery, and more like wave movements in the distance.

Okay, nothing to it, right?

Yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna set that brush over to the side, and I'm gonna take my number three fan brush.

I'm gonna put a few white caps in the distance.

I don't want to get too crazy.

This is way off on the north 40, but I'm gonna take some titanium white like this.

I'll put just a touch of that base coat with it, to thin it a little bit, it feels pretty thick.

So I'll thin it down a little bit with that.

And I'm gonna chisel the brush together like this.

And then this is what I call back bleeding.

I'm gonna push back into it, and I get a little berm right on the end of the brush.

That's a white cap.

So if I come in and just touch lightly like this, it gives me some foam.

I try to target the tops of some of these darker waves, where it's gonna be dark underneath.

And then the wave, the foam, the white cap is on top.

Don't have to do every single one.

This is all just background filler, to get us up to that big wave.

Okay, like I said earlier, this is more about the lesson, and if I end up with a painting, that's fine.

I don't really care so much that I have a painting.

This is all about teaching you how to do those waves.

So, all right, that's enough of that, that'll work.

Okay, now we're gonna move ahead into this area.

I wanna put the eye of the wave in.

So basically what I do, the eye is where the sheet of water comes up very, very thin.

And it's almost transparent enough, where you see light through it.

It is transparent enough where you see light through it.

I'm gonna wipe some of this paint out.

And I'm gonna go back to this number 10 flat brush.

I will wash this out.

I'm gonna go in with a yellowish green.

Yellowish green, so if I take some titanium white, and some yellow, and just a little bit of green, the sap green, maybe something like that.

I'll check it up here and see what I think.

Eh, it's not bad, I think it needs to be a little bit lighter.

So I'm gonna add a little bit of white to it, and brighten it up somewhat, right up in that little rounded corner, right there is where the eye is.

And then I'm gonna take a clean fan brush, and feather that out, down into the existing green below it.

Got a lotta dirty brushes laying around here.

Oh well, dirty brushes is a sign you're being busy, right?

You betcha.

Okay, so if I take a clean fan brush, and I just kind of pull this down and feather it away, it leaves me that transparent eye.

And I might come back eventually, and adjust that, and even make it a little bit lighter, right at the very top most part, we'll see.

I have to balance it out against everything else.

So there is where the eye of the wave is going to be.

The dump right here is gonna be based in with some darker tone first, then I'm gonna put some, a lighter highlight on top.

So if I take some of this green that I used previously, I'm gonna put a little more bit of blue with it, a little more green, maybe a little bit of black.

I'm gonna tap the bristles open, like this, spread 'em out, so it's kind of really spiky.

And right here, I'm just gonna pull over and down.

It's gonna come kind of at an angle, and a rounded curve.

Something like this, where that tube of water is going that way, and it's rolling and splashing over.

Well, like I said, this end is gonna be enveloped in all the foam.

So we don't have to worry too much about that.

Notice I'm leaving some of the light in it.

You want that movement, don't fill it in just solid dark.

This has movement to it.

From there, I'm gonna rinse this brush out.

I'm gonna take some white, probably titanium white, and just a little speck of the base coat.

I use the base coat to thin that really thick paint down, so it sticks a little easier.

And again, I've loaded the brush the same way, right here on the top.

I'm just gonna kiss that with a little bit of a highlight.

I'm following the same curvature of my previous stroke that I put on there.

Okay, that's coming, it's coming along.

Okay, now down in here, I wanna start getting darker.

I'm gonna go back to the number 10 flat brush.

You hanging with me?

I know, I'm throwing a lot at you here.

Like I said, these are, you should have a certain anatomy, and you have to follow it, that's what confuses everybody.

I'm gonna come in with some darker tones down in here, and some wave movements.

So I can actually go right back to the same little pile of garbage I got on my palette.

I'm gonna take blue, green, maybe a little more black.

Chisel the brush up.

Right here, I'm gonna have foam on the top of that crest, so I want something dark there, that's gonna show like a shadow from the foam.

There's gonna be foam underneath this part, or above this part, so there'll be a shadow below it, excuse me.

I know what I meant, I just said it backwards.

There'll be foam above, shadow below.

So I'm just mixing up more of the same color.

The beauty of it is because it's ocean water, you don't have to hit the same color every time.

It can be a little bluish here, a little greenish there.

It's all good.

I'm gonna put some shadow underneath there.

And then I'm gonna start doing this.

I'm gonna put some little wave movements in here.

It's kinda like that one I showed you that I did in the previous season, previous series, "On the Rocks."

We did a lot of this maneuver here, with these little choppy wave movements.

It's coming together, do you see it?

Sometimes you have to look hard, but it's there, it's coming.

I'm just mixing up more paint, when my brush goes away down here, I'm just mixing up more paint.

I'm gonna try to get a little bit darker even yet.

You know that song, ♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪ That's never been more important than when you're painting.

You need your darks in there, to show your lighter tones.

And I know you're all thinking, "Why didn't you put the land in?"

I'm gonna wait until I get this color mixed up for my rocks, and then I'll backtrack and do it, do it all at once.

Saves me time and effort.

I'm painting smart, not hard.

And that's how I like to do it.

There, see that water's getting pretty turbulent now.

All right, and I know just from past experience, a lot of times the shadow underneath, where all this foam is gonna be, it gets washed out.

So I wanna make sure that's pretty good and dark to start, before I ever get there.

So I'm gonna reinforce that right now.

I know I'm throwing a lot at you guys, so if you have to, it might be a good idea to just get a little pad and actually write some of this stuff down, take notes, believe it or not.

I'm gonna take my fan brush, and where this goes up into the eye, I wanna just kind of soften that together.

I've got a mop brush here too, which would work.

Same thing, whatever, something to blend with.

A mop brush works fine too.

Just want a nice, soft transition from one to the next.

But that's gonna give us a pretty good start.

When I come back, we can start really working on getting the elements of the rest of this wave in here.

I've got about a minute left, and the clock on the wall tells me.

And I'm thinking right now, before we start next time, I wanna brighten that eye a little bit, just like I said I probably would.

I've already figured out I want to.

So I'm gonna take more white and yellow, and I'm going to just brighten right up at the very top of that eye.

And that'll put us in a pretty good spot to finish up for next time.

So I hope you're hanging with me.

Don't get discouraged, stay inspired.

It'll be worth it in the end, once you learn how to do these.

All right, I'll catch you on episode number two.

Hang in there, 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.

(gentle music) In rural New York state, bordered by the St. 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.

- [Narrator] All 13 episodes of "Painting with Wilson Bickford Season 7" 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 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.

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