Live Painting Session Transcript
Jun 1, 202
Introduction
Hello, this is a live video from last year. There's a lot of these on the members area of my channel. Just thought you might enjoy it. It's from December of 2024.Hey, how you doing? Do you want some beret action? We're professional here. It's branding, yo!This reference, I've made a painting for it. I actually gave it to someone - I think it turned out all right. It's got issues, but it's got some cool stuff too, though. Let's talk. I need to clean my brushes first.
Analyzing the Reference
This is from a couple days ago. We want trunk there - that's a main problem. Also, the distribution - look how much this is really wide. We want more of that. This little hill here, you'd be better off over there. Other than that, these shadows could be interesting. The clouds are very inspiring. And I think we're going to make a really good painting from it. However, you have to watch those things.
Setting Up Colors
This is a five-by-seven. Sometimes I like to just plop some burnt umber on my little palette. I'm not going to top everything up right now. Sometimes when I'm working on the red like this, I like to juice it up with some umber. That's my pro umber right there in a Lizard Crimson. That's nice. It has purple overtones - more kind of neutral, more a little more red, but in a neutral way. That's more supportive. So that's just giving us a kind of juicier, redder sort of burnt umber.It's early in the morning - well, not that early. Eight o'clock. It would have been even earlier when I was chatting with a friend here. But we've been getting up kind of early in summer. It's brighter in the morning, so we've just been getting up and feeling like we've had enough sleep.
On Book Writing
I'm thinking about the second book going all right. I've lately got two books from guys that had a successful first book. Now, was my first book successful? Well, yes, for me it was. I've sold like 200 of the things through my little means and methods. I think for now, that's good.It'd be even cooler if I had a regular publisher, but I wasn't able to figure that out too well. When I looked into it, it's like if you want to write a book about some sort of political or sociological thing, they're going to publish it. But who wants to read that? I don't want to read that stuff. I had a conversation with a friend recently - he's talking about sociology and I go, "Yeah, I don't care about that." I'm not saying it ain't true, I'm just saying I don't care.
Composition Notes
I do think we'll have to rise a little bit. I think we might benefit from the one-quarter thing. That's just a preference of mine - I feel like the space is divided. That's just a little bit higher than in the reference, which you would see. The seascapes aren't really going up in the channel because I paint every day for the summer season, and right now I'm getting in some small things.It's a general rule for you: if you don't see a trunk in your reference, you've got to make one up. It doesn't have to be extremely clear, necessarily, but you need to have some kind of trunk. Otherwise, it's just a big mess.
Color Mixing Philosophy
I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you because I'm always honest with you. For my last book, I did create some elements from various places, but I didn't steal from only one place. Which is good - you don't want to steal from one little place because then you're just copying some dude. That's not good.That said, in my music at times, I will just appropriate chord progressions. But I don't appropriate melodies. Chord progressions are not copyrightable. It gives me a structure that I can then use to create my own art. Very similar to when I'm ripping on a master - it's the same sort of thing.
Mike's Gray Recipe
I use this as a cheap titanium white, which has a bunch of zinc in there and other stuff. All I ever use is making Mike's gray. It's pretty close to 50/50, but I'd rather have to go too dark than too light. 50% is good, 60% is okay. Once it gets to 70% dark, then it's too dark. 40% light is our sweet spot.
On Painting Philosophy
I'm always harping on it - you got to paint more, you got to care less. Paint, do your best, but don't be attached to outcomes. Now, that sounds counterintuitive, but you can do a good job without caring too much about outcomes.The difference between rendering and painting: painting does require you to draw, but the type of drawing should be mass drawing - shapes and relationships, not little tweaky details. Some painters are like that and that's fine, but not for me.
Mike's Green Formula
What I like for Mike's green is the acrylic yellow - specifically PY74. You can see that a lot of times a tube of paint marked "Cad yellow hue" will be PY73 or PY74 - they both work. When I use this up, I have a big tube of Cad yellow hue from Daler Rowney, which I'll switch to and get very close results.No one taught me this - I've been passing it on for 10 years now. If I was really successful and had a full-time assistant, I would have whole tubes of Mike's green mixed up. But with Mike's green as a foundation, you will already be well on your way to having more congruent paintings that look more natural.
Final Thoughts
The book is 13 years of collected tonalist painting knowledge. 60 bucks US, international shipping included. We've sold quite a few, mostly just through this channel to the people that have been coming around here. I've had nothing but positive feedback about the book.Take good care, stay out of trouble, God bless you and your family.This transcript captures a live painting session demonstrating tonalist landscape techniques, color mixing philosophy, and insights into the artistic process.