The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

I have my little friend Falcy here again today.

We've got so many cards and so many people have called in wanting to know about this little devil.

Thought I'd show him again.

This little rascal is just absolutely gorgeous.

He's a Kestrel.

Look at him.

Isn't that something?

See if he'll eat a little something here.

There you go.

See you were given a little bit of beef heart.

And that's what he'll have for lunch today.

Want a little more?

Mhmm.

There.

He is absolutely precious.

Some places I mentioned earlier they call him Sparrow Hawk.

But he's just gorgeous.

Let's see if we can make his wings go up so you can see how he looks.

He's a little baby.

There.

He's just learning to fly.

Alright.

And you notice I have a big glove on here.

He has some claws that are absolutely unreal.

Alright, I guess we'll set him down here in just a second.

Tell you what, while I'm setting him down, let's have him run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us today.

And while they're doing that, why don't you come up here and let me show you what I've got done already.

I have my standard old 18 x 24 inch canvas.

And we've today took and made a little oval out of contact paper or any adhesive backed paper and we've put that on and just got it stuck real good.

And then we've covered the entire canvas with a thin even coat of the liquid white.

So it's all wet and slick and ready to go.

So now we can take off and we can just have fun.

Alright.

Let's start out today.

Maybe we'd just have a happy little scene.

Something that gives a feeling of desert.

I'm going to start with a small amount of the Indian Yellow.

Just a tiny little bit.

And maybe go right up in here and just use little criss cross strokes and we'll just drop in some yellow color.

Right along there.

Something like that.

And without cleaning the brush, I'm going to go right into a little yellow ochre.

It's sort of a golden color.

Very nice beautiful little color.

I think you'll like that one.

So we have just a little bit of the, the gold color right above the Indian Yellow.

Okay.

Now then once again without cleaning the brush, I'm going to go into a small amount of Alizarin Crimson.

Doesn't take much, just a little.

And we'll go right up above that and just drop in a little crimson.

Still using the little exes or the criss cross strokes.

Whatever you want to call them.

There.

So we can take it all the way to the top.

It doesn't matter, wherever we want it.

Something like that.

Okay and we'll just blend this until you can't tell where one color stops the next color starts.

And maybe right down there, I know what we'll do.

Let's take some crimson, the crimson and a little bit of the Phthalo Blue.

Just mix together a little crimson, a little Phthalo Blue, make sort of a lavender color.

Okay let's go back up in here.

Maybe our horizon's going to be right below center here.

We'll take a little of that lavender color and just sort of, lift it in one direction like that.

Just sort of pull it.

Sort of curve it upward.

There.

And you can even tap and make the indication of some little, little stringy clouds.

Just going right on along.

Something like that.

And down there we just clean the brush off.

Doesn't much matter down there.

Let me wash my old brush.

That's the fun part.

That's the fun part.

Shake off the excess.

[laughing] And just beat the devil out of it.

Now with a clean dry brush, I'm going to gently start here and blend this.

Like so.

And the rest of it we'll just blend a little bit to take out some brush strokes.

Now then.

Let's mix up a little more of that lavender color.

I want to take Like we'll have some fun.

I'm going to take some Phthalo blue and Alizarin crimson and mix it together.

Proportionately, much, much more crimson than blue.

I need a bigger pile.

There.

Might as well mix up some.

Okay.

Something about like that.

Let me clean the old knife off.

Now then I'll just grab a, we'll use a fan brush today, what the heck.

Put a little bit of that color in the fan brush, and maybe we got some big old clouds that live right up in here.

So we're going to make a stroke that's, I'm exaggerating.

Let me really exaggerate.

It looks like that, only smaller and not quite as much angle.

But that'll give you an exaggeration, an exaggerated view of what it is.

There.

See?

Just, just sort of overlap all these little strokes.

Like that.

Sort of like you're doing an ocean.

And maybe there's a little doer, hangs out around here.

Sometimes It's nice just to make maybe very lightly, there's a little, little fluffer cloud that just floats around here.

Little fluffy one.

Okay.

Let me grab a clean dry - be sure it's dry - two inch brush.

And then I'm just going to blend that cloud right in.

Watch here, though.

Just blend the bottom of it right out so it just sort of, just sort of blends right into the background except for the top edges.

Because I want this little cloud to be very quiet and subdued.

He's just sort of hiding back there.

And then we can take, and in the foreground, then, we can put another little cloud.

And it'll look distinctly like it's in the foreground.

That's the reason I wanted to blend that one back.

There.

And who knows maybe over here there's even a couple little stringer clouds that hang out over in this area.

Just sort of let you imagination take you wherever you want to go.

Enjoy.

Painting should make you happy.

If it does nothing else, should make you happy.

Alright.

Clean dry two inch brush once again.

And let's begin blending the little clouds we've made here.

Another thing that painting will do.

It'll make you see and appreciate nature every day.

Every single day, I receive letters from people that say that if painting had done nothing else for them, it's made them appreciate some of God's creations.

[chuckles] I never will forget, I got a letter from a lady one time.

Told me she had lived with a tree in her front yard for 25 years.

And until she started painting, she had never actually seen it.

She'd looked at it.

Over and over she'd looked at it.

But she had never seen it.

And painting will make you see things in a whole different light.

There.

See how you can just make it look like a big old mean cloud laying up there?

That easy.

Okay.

Good.

Let's wash that one.

I just like to wash brushes.

We use odorless thinner.

Odorless paint thinner.

Shake off the excess.

[laughs] And cover the whole room.

And that's really a nice way to redecorate your whole house.

You can do it in about a heartbeat if you, if you beat the brush like that in your living room.

You're certainly going to become very unpopular if you do it.

I suggest you get your little brush beater rack.

Let's take, we'll use that same little lavender color.

Maybe I'll put a touch more blue in it, get it to the blue hue.

Or the blue side of lavender.

Maybe, we're going to have like a little deserty type scene.

Maybe way back in here there's maybe just a little mountain that lives.

I'll just use the corner of the fan brush.

And just sort of pull it downward.

Can you see what's happening there?

Just sort of pull it downward.

Make all those beautiful little shapes and designs that you have on some of those fantastic mountains out there.

Arizona and New Mexico, all the way down into Old Mexico.

I've been spending a little time in Old Mexico here lately.

Oh my God is that gorgeous.

That is so beautiful.

We recently did a show where we went to the floating gardens and painted right outside of Mexico city.

It's one of the most gorgeous sights you've ever seen.

If you get a chance, you oughta see that.

Whew!

I never knew it existed.

But I'm certainly going back.

There we are.

And we just sort of bring it right on down here.

There.

And let it work out.

And this one's far, far away.

We don't want a lot of detail in it yet.

Don't want a lot of detail.

Let me grab a, let me grab, we'll use a two inch brush.

What the heck.

Grab that and pull it.

Just pull it.

There we are.

So it all blends right into the painting.

Sure hope you like that little bird.

That little Kestrel is one of the neatest little birds.

But I'm not kidding.

You certainly, [chuckles] certainly have to wear gloves when you work with him.

That son of a gun has some talons on him that's unreal.

Even though he's small, and that one's, that one was just a baby he still can get you.

And I borrowed him from Diana Schafer, the bird lady here in Muncie.

There.

And she'll raise him till he's just a little bit older.

He needs another couple of months.

And then she'll release him and let him go back and, and start his own family.

Because there, they're a very protected bird so we have to take care of them.

Let's have some fun today.

Let me clean off a little spot to work.

I'm going to make a nice green and brown, green and crimson mixture, I mean.

Alizarin crimson and Sap Green.

Let's just mix them together.

And I really want to mix these thoroughly because I want to make a beautiful, beautiful brown color.

This makes one of the nicest browns.

But you have to mix it pretty good.

Normally we leave our paints marbled.

But in this case, I want to mix it up quite well.

Proportionately, it's about equal.

About equal.

Let me wipe off the old knife here.

Now we can take a two inch brush.

Just put a little of that beautiful brown color right on the brush.

Okay.

And let's just begin applying some of it right in here.

Very lightly at first because as things, as things get closer to you in a landscape, they should get darker and darker in value.

So back here we just want to, a light brown color.

I don't want it to get too carried away yet.

Darker and darker as it comes forward.

And to make it darker of course, all you have to do is add a little more paint.

There.

Okay.

Down here toward the base, a little bit darker even yet.

But already, just by the difference in values, it'll give you the indication that it's going further and further away from you.

That's what helps create that illusion of distance in your painting.

There.

Alright.

So right on back.

But isn't that neat how that works and causes you to have the feeling of distance?

I tell you what, let's get crazy today.

Let's get crazy.

Maybe there's a big old stone right there.

I like to do big old stones.

Show you an easy way to do it.

We use that same brown color.

Use the knife.

Pull it out flat, cut across, get a little roll of paint.

And that little roll of paint should live right on the edge of the knife.

Okay, let's go up here.

And maybe, I don't know.

Maybe we got a big old stone lives right there.

And just begin with a basic shape.

There.

Grab a little more paint.

There, see?

But just decide how this old stone looks and how it was formed.

It's up to you.

If you look around, you can find a stone just about any shape that you want it.

Just about any shape.

Alright.

Okay, a little bit down in here.

And all we're doing is just blocking this in or, or filling it up full of color.

Okay, maybe, maybe there's a little projection back here too, I don't care.

Just whatever.

As I say, stones can be about any old color we want them to be.

Okay.

There.

Now then, let's take, let's take, we'll use some bright red, a little bit of that brown we made and mix it together.

Get a little white.

There.

There are some of the most beautiful colors in the desert so you can go really wild with your palette.

Let me wipe off the old knife.

You can go crazy with your knife, I mean with color when you're doing desert scenes.

Cut off our little roll of paint and no pressure, absolutely no pressure.

just like we're doing a mountain.

Mountain is only a stone that has grown up.

Just barely touch.

Just let it graze down there.

There, here it comes, watch.

Look at all those little things just happening and you could turn the knife.

There we go.

But just barely, barely graze the canvas.

Barely graze the canvas.

There, mm.

And the paint breaks, in other words, it has all those little holes there, little openings.

And that's what really makes it outstanding.

Outstanding.

There.

Come right on down through there.

Something like that.

I don't know.

However you want the old stone to be.

Rough and ragged looking.

It's had a hard life out here.

There we go.

I'm going to leave that quite dark in there so it'll look like a recessed area.

Little creatures gotta have a place to get in there and hide too.

We gotta take care of them.

Gotta take care of them.

They're my friends.

There.

Okay, we'll just make that old stone come right on out here.

Something like so.

And you can just keep on until this little old patch of rocks here will take over your whole painting.

And that's okay.

That's okay.

There we go.

Take a tiny little bit of that color.

We'll make this one a little flatter, so we'll just put a little something on the top only.

And you take the knife, let me get a little color here, just pull down.

Allowing the least little touch of that color you have on top to come downward.

It'll create the illusion of a nice sharp edge right there.

And maybe then we'll bring this one right on down and through so it will push that one back.

It's just playing games.

Painting is nothing but games of illusion.

There we go.

[chuckles] As I say, I really hope you liked seeing that little bird.

I have always my whole life, enjoyed little critters.

I never will forget when I was very young, I worked at a big department store close to Orlando Florida where I was raised.

And instead of paying me off in money, they, they paid me off in creatures.

And they told me I could take whatever kind of creature I wanted that they had in the store.

And back in those days they used to still sell alligators in Florida.

And there was a little alligator in there about two feet long.

So I told the store manager, I said, "Well I want that alligator."

Now everything was fine until I got home.

And I remember I went into the living room.

I must've been about 12, 13 years old.

And I had that old alligator in a cloth bag and I dropped him out on the floor.

And my mother just about came unglued.

I thought she was going to kill me.

But we finally made peace and she allowed me to keep the little alligator.

But he never was one of her more popular pets around the house because he tried to bite me the day I got him.

He tried to bite me the day I let him loose, which was about, must've been close to a year later.

And I turned him loose in one of the lakes in Orlando.

Now he's [chuckles] probably ten feet long.

There we go.

I'm just going to pull the base of this out a little bit.

Just let it blend outward.

Okay, good.

But I don't think an alligator makes a very good pet.

I don't believe you could tame one in 50 years.

He's always going to be a pretty mean old critter.

But they're not near as dangerous as you think they are.

I'll tell you let's do, let's have some fun.

Maybe, [chuckles] maybe, you know me and maybe.

Maybe there's a little, little path goes out behind this rock and just sort of comes forward.

And I'm making a little motion like that.

I'm exaggerating.

But, so it looks like this path has been wore down.

And this may have been animals that traveled up and down this path in front of this old rock.

Or it might have been people.

I don't know.

Maybe back in the old days the old wagon train came in this direction.

There we are.

Maybe it's just a nice place for the little coyote to go.

I don't know.

Make up little stories, though.

And we'll blend the light color back into it just by pulling it in one direction.

Just to bring it back together.

So it sort of sets down in there.

Now we can go all the way across, very gently, Two hairs and some air.

There.

Maybe there's a , maybe there's a little weed that lives right there.

Push upward with a, with a fan brush.

Just a happy little bush.

There.

Okay, now then, take another little fan brush a little bit of that lighter dirt color.

Just grab the bottom of it, pull it out a little so it fits right in there.

There we go.

Now, liner brush, we'll use that.

A little paint thinner.

Go into that same old brown color.

Maybe there's an old gnarly bush that lives there.

I don't know, I haven't spent a great deal of time around the deserts, but maybe this is, maybe this is going to be a future tumbleweed or something.

I remember tumbleweeds from when I was young and used to listen to the cowboy shows.

And they were always talking about the tumbleweeds going across the desert.

That was back in the days when we used to listen to shows on radio, before TV was invented or before it was popular enough for people in my neighborhood to have one.

There.

I would never tell anybody but I used to listen to some of the shows and it'd be sad at the end and I'd cry and I'd threaten my brother if he told anybody at school that I got sobby-eyed over some of these things.

I think he told everybody.

[chuckles] And he's a policeman today and bigger than me so guess I won't hassle him too much.

Alright.

I'll take a little bit of the, a little bit of the liquid white, put a little bit of that same brown color into it.

Okay.

Let me clean the knife.

So I have a very thin paint.

Then I'll take old filbert brush.

A little bit of the brown on both sides.

Okay, down here now.

Just stay there, I'll find you.

There.

Pull one side through that.

I have dark and light.

Okay, maybe there's just a little stone or two.

Lives right out in here.

See, you can just put a little happy little stone here and there.

There, maybe over here on this side there lives a little stone.

Wherever you think they should be.

But by loading the fan, or the filbert brush, both sides like that, you can double load the brush and these little rascals are so easy.

So easy.

Just pull a little bit of that base color into it so that just blends right together.

I tell you what let's do, I'm going to take the, the sticky back paper here off.

And let's see what we have.

This is, this is what they call the moment of truth right here.

And then if you want to get crazy, [chuckling] and you know me, always can't be satisfied and have to do one more little thing.

Let me just, quickly here mix up a little more of that brown.

Sap Green, Alizarin crimson.

Just mix it together.

Alright.

Okay.

Maybe outside of our oval, just to break it up a little bit.

Maybe there's a, maybe there's a little cactus living out here.

I don't know.

I don't know, maybe there's an old cactus and he lives right there.

Big old strong cactus.

And we'll make him, make his little top here round.

There, no square cactus.

They, they seem to bother people.

Alright.

Just fill him in.

Let's give him an arm.

You always think about cactuses having an arm hanging out.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] At least one.

Maybe, maybe this one's got two.

Who knows.

You put as many arms on your cactus as you want.

And down here, maybe there's just going to be some little bushes down here.

I don't know.

We'll have a little place for him to sit so it don't look like he's just hanging out there.

I'm going to take a little bit of, let's take a little white, a little midnight black mixed together.

Make a nice sort of gray, maybe put a little bit of that brown in there.

Oh, that's nice.

Cut off a little tiny roll of paint.

And we go up here and just begin touching.

Just touch the edge.

I want to make it look like there's little ridges.

Cactus have ridges.

There we go.

See?

Just by touching the canvas.

Just touch it.

The canvas will take off what it wants and give you back what's left.

There you go.

Okay now maybe this arm is on this side and the other arm is on the other side.

You have to make that decision.

So that's what we'll decide in our world.

Let me get the little knife.

I'm going to get a little knife for getting in these smaller places.

It's hard to make a round cacti with a square knife but we can do it.

Because we can do anything, as long as we believe we can.

[chuckles] And we believe we can do that.

A little bit on the other side.

Shoot.

It's not too bad looking old cacti.

And we can even take a, I'm going to put a little touch of the sap green on the other side so when you look close, you'll see a little greenish hue.

But I want him to be mostly silhouetted.

Just a little tiny bit of green.

Ooh, oh that's good.

Just a little here and there.

Not too much.

Okay, good.

Hope you can see that.

There is some green in there.

I don't want, I don't want a great deal.

Let's take a little bit of brown and white.

Make it look like a little soil right down there.

Something like that.

Take a fan brush.

Use a little Yellow Ochre, a little bit of that brown mixed together.

Just go up in here and pop in a few little highlights around the foot of that little cactus.

There.

Hope this gives you an idea of how you can make some super little paintings very, very easy.

Because it's a lot of fun and you'll enjoy this one.

I'm going to take a little, the brown with the liner brush.

And maybe there's old weed or two growing around the bottom.

Might even be an old stick.

Just sort of whatever you want.

There.

Shoot, I think we about have a finished painting.

As I say, hope you give this one a try, you'll enjoy it.

And from all of us here I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God Bless, my friend.