Western Expanse. Painting #67

Here we have painting #67 painted on my 11th Twitch stream. Powerful clouds, rolling hills and winding river waters — It was completed using mostly just a palette knife.

The reason I painted this one was because I was about to take a little work trip out west to New Mexico. So I chose a western themed Bob Ross episode to stream on Twitch. I also thought another knife only painting would be cool to try.

If you wanted to try this painting, you can follow along as I did in The Joy of Painting S6E11. 

Colors

• Alizarin Crimson
• Bright Red
• Cadmium Yellow
• Dark Sienna
• Indian Yellow
• Midnight Black
• Phthalo Blue
• Sap Green
• Titanium Hwite
• Van Dyke Brown
• Yellow Ochre

Equipment

• 2 Inch Brush
• Large Palette Knife

What I like about this painting is how impressionistic it looks. I had fun painting it with mostly the palette knife. Palette knife only paintings are great because there’s way less clean up. Now, Bob always loved beating the devil out of the two inch brush, which is fun, but he also had a way better set up. If you don’t have a big open space and a stand up easel to beat your brush, it takes way more work to clean brushes and way less fun.

This painting also looks a bit trippy with those large clouds. I think it’s because the perspective might be a bit skewed. That’s just a happy accident. I like how the grassy parts in front of the mountain range turned out. The different colors make it a bit interesting and I think add some depth.

Challenges in this painting were achieving depth in the distant mountain range. This is because you don’t have the liquid white to help you blend the layers out before beginning a new layer. You have to work just a bit harder to get the shading right in each layer.
Reflections are more of a challenge as well since you don’t have the liquid white to help you move the paint easier.

Tips: Here’s a lesson learned for sure. When you tone the canvas with the blue and the thinner, make sure you have a big open space because that paint/thinner mix will splatter. I learned that the hard way. That mix also dries quite fast.
Watch it when you’re putting in the clouds with the knife. Because they’re painted in a certain direction, you have to make sure they’re a bit smaller towards the back and bring them a bit larger as you come closer. This will give it some perspective. Either that or start the mountain range a bit higher on the canvas and in front of the clouds. That should push them back a bit more. If you have any other questions about this unique Bob Ross style painting, let me know in the comments. Have you tried this one? How did it turn out?

I did put this on on YouTube as a time lapse. Check it out and you may catch a few bits on how I did things. These time lapses aren’t as fast as a lot of them out there so you might actually see some details.

As a reminder, this one and others are available to buy in my Art Shop.

Happy Painting!