The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, certainly glad you could join us today.

I thought today we could just do a fun little painting and have a good time together.

So let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us at home.

While they're doing that, let me show you what I got up here.

I have my standard old pre-stretched, double primed canvas, and I just covered the entire canvas with a very, very thin even coat of liquid white.

So the canvas is all wet, and it's slick and ready to go so let's just do it.

Today, let's start out with this little bitty two inch brush.

We'll go right into a touch of the phthalo blue, a little phthalo blue, we don't need much, just a little.

There we go.

And let's go right up here.

Let's just start up here on the top, and just make little crisscross strokes.

And we'll just work all the way across the canvas.

The color's continually mixing with the liquid white, so it gets lighter and lighter in value as you work down.

And that's exactly what we're looking for in a landscape.

There.

Something maybe, I don't know, about like that.

We'll leave a little area open.

Maybe I'll put a cloud there, what the heck.

Maybe we'll put a little cloud in there.

There.

Something like so.

And that easy we've got just a happy little sky laid in.

When we use this big old two inch brush, it really doesn't take too long to, to paint a canvas.

And now, the most fun part of the whole procedure, and that's washing the brush.

We have odorless paint thinner in the can, scrub the brush, shake it off.

[laughs] And just cover everybody in the studio.

Alright.

Now then.

We'll take the old two inch brush and I'll go right into a little bit of the titanium white.

Just load some into the bristles, like so, maybe.

Be right back.

Put the least little touch of pink into it, a little bit of bright red.

There we go, let's go up in here.

And we'll make a little floater cloud today.

Just by, just by tapping like so.

Let me get a little more color on the brush.

There, just a little floater.

And all we're doing is just tapping, tapping a basic little shape.

That's all we're looking for.

Something about like that.

Just let it float around.

There.

Okay.

Now that don't look too good yet.

But we'll come back with another two inch brush, that's clean and dry, and very gently, look at that, look.

See there, that easy.

You can create gorgeous little clouds and you can pull them.

Once again, the liquid white's under there, the canvas is wet, you can move paint right across the surface.

And that's one of the nicest, easiest ways I've ever seen of making some little clouds.

Okay, now then.

Let's take, today, I'll take a little bit of the alizarin crimson, we'll just mix these on the brush, it doesn't matter.

A little alizarin crimson, a little phthalo blue.

I'm looking for a, oh maybe a little lavender color.

Be right back, I'm going to reach down here and get a little white in there too.

Ooh, isn't that a pretty color?

Just tap, okay, let's go up here.

Maybe in our world, there lives some little trees far back here in the distance, and I'm just using the top corner of the brush, and with that we'll do just indications.

I don't want, I don't want a lot of detail, too far away.

Too far away, just little distant trees that live back here and have a good time.

These are just happy little trees, fun little things.

There we go.

All you're looking for is basic shape and form, very loose.

Something maybe about like that.

Then we can wash the brush, I just want an excuse to wash the brush.

There.

Shake it off.

[laughs] Back in business, clean, dry brush.

Now I'm just going to tap the base of it, to create the illusion of mist.

I want it to be very soft down toward the bottom, very, very soft.

There we are.

Now then, I'll just use the same old brush.

Take a...

I'm going to take a little sap green, a little bit of cadmium yellow, a little yellow ochre mixed together.

I'm looking for a nice... Ooh, that's what I'm looking for, just a nice green there.

Okay, let's go up in here.

Now then, maybe there's another layer of little bushes.

Nah, want it to look a little greener, add a little more sap green.

Yeah, yeah that's better.

So, if you're not happy with something, change it.

Because this piece of canvas is truly your world.

And you can do anything here, anything, that your heart desires.

There we go, see there?

Just indications of other little bushes that live in here.

Something like that.

And then with a clean brush, once again, you're going to tap, create that illusion of mist.

Very soft, very gentle.

Quiet little place.

And we'll go back to that brush that had the green on it.

It's alright.

Go right into the dark sienna, a little van dyke brown, but mostly dark sienna.

And tap it again, just tap.

And right back up here.

So, I'm creating, I'm creating different planes in the painting, different layers.

Just want to create a lot of depth in the background, something like that.

There we go, maybe it comes right on down.

I don't know, wherever you want it to go.

See, already we have three different layers of little things.

Take a liner brush, a little bit of paint thinner, and you can just here and there, don't want a lot, it's too far away.

Put the little indication of a few little sticks and twigs that show.

But not a lot, don't overdo, it's too far away.

Too far away, something like that.

Something like that, there.

Very gentle, okay.

Now.

Got to decide what we're going to have down here.

I think, I think down here... Let's put, today, some very, very dark water.

Very dark, I'm going to go into pure midnight black and Prussian blue, as dark as I can get it.

Then I'm going to go up in here, and just... Whew.

[chuckles] Dark water, Prussian blue, and midnight black.

Just really, really, really go in there.

Don't be afraid of it, because anything we don't like, we just cover with paint over it, no big deal.

It's one great thing about oils, oils are the most forgiving medium there is.

The most forgiving medium.

When I was in college taking art, I took classes in watercolor, for example, it's a gorgeous medium.

But college taught me two things.

First of all, it wasn't my medium.

And secondly, a super, super respect for those who can do it.

I stuck with oils because they are so easy.

And as I say, they're very, very forgiving.

And I need all the forgiveness I can get.

[chuckles] Alright, we'll go into van dyke brown, a little dark sienna, I'm just mixing them together, but mostly van dyke in this case.

Our little roll of paint, we'll go right up in here.

And maybe, yep.

[Bob makes "ssshoo" sound] Maybe, maybe there's a little bank that lives right here.

Just a little old bank, river bank.

There.

See there, just drop in a basic shape.

Oops, dropped the old knife.

That's alright, got another one right here.

Just keep right on going.

Alright, now then.

Find a brush here.

Get one that's got a little bit of, a little bit of sap green, a little bit of the... a little touch of cad yellow, going to get a little more of that sap green.

Like that, just load it full.

Just load it full, let's go right up here.

And maybe up here, we'll put just the indication of some little things that are growing.

Right up in here, little grassy areas.

Little tiny grass areas.

I'm going to add a little bit of paint thinner, a little bit of paint thinner.

Now then, I want to make this look like little banks that are hanging over.

So to do that, we just sort of bring that around.

Just like so.

There, get a little more paint.

There.

But that creates the lay of the land back here.

Alright, about like that.

Okay.

Take a little white, a little bit of that brown color.

There, we'll mix it up so it's sort of marbledy.

And here and there, we can put the indication of a little stone or whatever that lives back in here.

There.

Now then, let's get crazy.

Maybe there's a... big bank that lives out here.

I want to create a lot of planes in this painting.

Sort of lean back, take a look.

Take a deep breath and jump in there.

Don't be afraid of it.

[Bob makes "tshoo" sound] You know, the worst thing that can happen, when you're painting with oils, is that you have to scrape it off and paint it again.

But that's not a big deal.

As I said earlier, oils are the most forgiving medium.

And if you make a mistake, you just take it off, use it again, go on about your business.

There.

See?

All we're doing here is just putting in a lot of good dark color, good van dyke brown, dark sienna mixed together.

In fact, you could have probably done this painting using the black gesso and had all this area done in black.

It would have worked just as well.

Just however you want to do it, it's up to you.

[Bob makes "ssssoo" sound] There we go.

Got a hair right there, we'll get it off.

Very gently.

Think about how you want this embankment here to go, though.

There, just...

I'm going to put some grass on it too, but I want it to look like it comes over.

Maybe in some places it'll comes almost straight down and then pull out, it's up to you.

But very little pressure on the knife, just let it, just let it sort of bounce, so it hits here and there, and there and here.

Maybe a little touch of the bright red.

Whew, ooh, I like that.

Like that, just enough to give it a little flavor.

All right.

You know what we need back here on this big bank?

Let's have a few trees.

I like to paint evergreens.

So, let me clean off a spot.

We'll take Prussian blue, midnight black.

I want some of that phthalo green.

I like phthalo green in evergreens sometime.

Crimson, a little van dyke, mix up a pretty good pile of color though because we're going to load some brushes quite deep.

There, wipe the old knife off.

Let's find a once inch brush.

Alright, load the bristles full of color, wiggle them, that wiggling pulls the color down to the end of the bristles.

Just pulls it down and sharpen it.

Alright, let's go up here.

And maybe in our world there lives a little evergreen tree right there, right there.

Let me load the thing back up again.

[Bob makes "toom" sound] Now just take and give it a little upward push, working from side to side, see, there it comes.

Just push upward.

Give it a push.

All right.

That's one of the easiest ways there is, of making a nice little tree.

And we're not worried much right now, except about basic shape.

We're going to come back, I know we're worried about the top at that, we're going to come back and put in all kinds of little highlights.

But right now, all we're worried about, is just the outside edges and stuff that will show.

Good dark, rich color in there.

[chuckles] That's fantastic.

Maybe, shoot, maybe there's a big one up here, we don't even know where it goes.

To find out where it goes, we'd have to nail another canvas on top of this one.

All right, there it is.

It goes right on out like that.

Okay.

Maybe he's got a little friend right there, wherever you want him.

Okay.

Let's have one more, just to fill it all up there.

Let me load the brush back full of color.

And we'll go right in here.

There.

See there?

Now we got a whole forest sitting back here.

And in your world, you put as many or as few trees as you want.

It's up to you, totally and completely up to you.

Okay, I'll just use that same old brush.

I'm going to go right into a little of the cad yellow, yellow ochre, Indian yellow, making a green.

Load the brush the same way.

Let's go back up here.

Now we can come back in here, and begin putting a few highlights here and there.

There.

Just a few highlights.

I'm going to add a little paint thinner.

So it'll stick a little bit, oh yeah.

See, now it comes off a lot better.

If you have trouble making the paint come off, then just add a little paint thinner.

This one needs a little thinner.

Leave some of these dark areas, don't kill them all, darker, darker, darker.

Ooh, this old big boy, he goes right on off into nowhere.

Something about like that.

There he goes.

Darker, darker, darker down here toward the base.

This one back here, almost nothing.

We want him to stay way back in the background.

There is one.

There we go.

All right.

Now then, let's wash the old brush out.

[chuckles] I just don't get to beat on these little brushes very often, and they're just about as fun as the big ones, not quite.

It doesn't do as, it doesn't do as much to get the cameraman as the other ones do.

Okay.

Now, maybe in here we got some nice bushes.

So, let's mix up a color.

And for that, we'll just pile it up here.

We may use that later.

Let's take, oh, we'll use some phthalo blue, and alizarin crimson.

Proportionately much, much more crimson, much more crimson than blue, or maybe a little bit more crimson there.

Alright, then I want to add a little white to it.

Whew, ooh, that's nice.

Okay, take the brush and dip it into liquid white.

Because you know our rule, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

The liquid white is only there to thin it.

Pull the brush in one direction.

Load it full, let's go up in here.

And maybe back in here we have some gorgeous little lavender bushes.

Maybe I'll make them a little brighter so they show up a little better for TV.

There.

Okay, there it is.

Look at that though.

Mm, I like these little devils.

There.

Maybe a little one lives right there.

Okay.

Maybe, maybe in our world.

Yep, let's have another one right over in here.

You just put them wherever you think they should be.

It's up to you, totally and completely up to you.

Put some little tips out here.

I like to use the liquid white to make little tips so they shine.

Darker, darker, darker.

We'll go into a little bit a phthalo blue and maybe got a little bush right here, that's got a little blue in it.

Just something to break up the flavor.

Okay.

Maybe take a little yellow ochre, and maybe we have right up here, maybe right in here there's a, yep, just a pretty little bush that lives right there in a different color.

Boy, this is turning into a very colorful little painting, I like that.

We'll use our little two inch brush, [chuckles] and let's have a little green on it.

And let's just put some little grassy areas that come right down this embankment.

See there.

See there.

Have them come out almost straight and then come over, let, let some of these things just hang over the side.

Get a little bit more of that sap green on there.

Just let them hang right over.

All kinds of things going off in here.

About like that.

Okay, we can scratch in a few little sticks and twigs just using the knife.

See?

We can lift them up, pull them down, it doesn't matter.

Whatever makes you happy.

There.

Okay.

While I got that old knife let's take, let's take some white, I'm going to put some phthalo blue in it, just to make a nice gorgeous blue.

Phthalo blue is such a beautiful color.

There, something about like that, tiny little roll of paint.

And maybe we've got some little, little things that are happening right along in here.

Just barely graze it, let it just slide.

Just barely run, barely touch it.

I want that paint just to pull off the knife, and make it look like watery things that are happen all down through there.

There we go.

Alright.

Shoot, we need something over here on the sides.

Isn't that a neat way though of just, just making some nice little watery areas.

Maybe over here, let me grab some more brown.

Yep, you're right, over here, maybe there's a peninsula, or a little point of land that comes right out.

[Bob makes "shoo" sound] Like that.

Just right on out like that.

And we'll take a little brown and white just like we used here.

Just let it travel right down.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Let's use a little bright red in there too, just to make it look like old dirt, rocks, stones, whatever is out here, we don't care.

Maybe there's a, maybe there's some little grassy areas right out here.

I don't know.

Let your imagination go, take you wherever you want to go.

There, just some little happy things live in there.

Take a little touch of the liquid white, go in some greens, some yellows.

Let's have a, yep, a little bush, lives right there.

Little tiny bush, cute little devil.

There.

All right.

I like that.

Tell you what, let's do.

Take a little more of that blue and white, and let's just bring it right around the edges here.

See there, let it come right on around like this, water is just traveling right on down.

There.

It's a very, very easy way of making some effective water.

Let's use some green, some brown, a little bit of blue.

Going to have a bush right here.

So to do that, you need to put some dark color in.

About like that.

Maybe it comes all the way on out.

I don't know.

Okay, we'll go into a little bit of sap green, a little yellow.

There we are.

Okay.

Put some highlights on this little rascal.

There.

You know, we travel all over the country and we do shows for PBS stations, and they're call brush and brunch with Bob.

Recently I did one, I think I was in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I met one of the cutest young fellows [chuckles] there, and he came up on the stage with me and, and he whispered in my ear and he said, "Bob, Bob."

And I said "Yeah?"

He said, "Beat the devil out of it."

[chuckles] He was probably about, oh I don't know, seven or eight years old, just the nicest young fellow, think his name was Owen.

But just, super young guy, I enjoyed meeting him very much.

But if we get to your town doing one of these brush and brunches, please come out and see us.

I'd love to meet you and talk with you, and most importantly, it helps support your public television station.

And they need your help.

Okay, tell you what, let's do... Let's have some fun.

Let's take some brown, put a paint thinner with it.

And I'm going to mix up, real thin.

I'm going to make a nice thin color.

So that's just van dyke brown.

Then we'll take, oh, we'll use some brown and white, what we had up here.

Put some paint thinner with it.

So they're both quite thin.

We have one dark and one quite a bit lighter.

Take the little filbert brush, go right through the dark color, load both sides.

Then I'll go through the light, on only one side.

Then we'll go up here, and we'll put the indication of just all kinds of little stones and rocks.

Maybe some live out here in the water.

I don't know, wherever you want them.

Over in here, maybe we've got some big ones that live out here in these... See them?

It's a nice way of, of making a lot of stones very rapidly, because you can make them in one stroke.

Just drop them in.

There.

Maybe, maybe there's a whole patch of them here.

There we go.

However many you think there should be.

Shoot, while we got that old brush going, let's put some van dyke brown on it.

Maybe up in here... [Bob makes "sssoo" sound] Get brave.

We'll put a nice little tree that lives right there.

There he is.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] Grab my little liner brush, put some arms on him, tree needs some arms too.

There.

Just give him a few little arms.

Just a happy little tree that lives up here, overlooks this little stream that just flows by.

Maybe, maybe he's not doing so good and he doesn't have any leaves on him.

So we'll just let him look right there, he's sort of a naked tree.

All right.

Maybe over in here, just a couple of little ones.

There, just very quiet little trees.

I think with that we've about have a finished painting.

Hope you've enjoyed this one, it's one that you can do, and I'd like to hear how you do with it.

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