The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

I thought today we'd do something that's really cold, so you better get out your big coat and put it on.

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

While they're doing that, let me show you what I've got going.

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

So, it's all wet and ready to go, so let's do it.

Let's start out today with the old, the old two-inch brush.

We'll go into a small amount of midnight black, a little Prussian blue, and just mix them together on the brush here, mostly black, though.

I just put the blue in there to flavor it a little bit.

Alright.

Let's just have some fun.

Very little color here.

I'm just going to go in here and just barely graze the canvas and put in a little background color.

Just a little.

Just a little.

I don't want this too be too dark because I think I'll put some clouds in here.

This is my background color.

But the clouds will be the same color, only darker.

There we go.

Something about like that.

Just enough to flavor the canvas a little.

Before we get too dark, tell you what, let's have some water in this one.

If you've painted with me before, you know I'm crazy about water.

Probably just crazy, but I'm crazy about water.

Same color.

And, I'll go right down in here, and just pull from the outside in.

I'm going to lay in a little color that eventually, if everything goes right, will be water.

There, about like that.

And, very lightly, we'll just go across the entire canvas.

That little light area stays in there, that's what we were looking for.

Now then, let's have some fun.

Black and blue, mostly black, though.

Once again, the blue is in there just to flavor it a little bit.

Alright, alright, let's go up in here.

Now then, let's have some big old clouds and we're just going to tap these in.

I'm just going to use a whole two-inch brush and just tap in some very basic cloud shapes.

Maybe it comes down, goes up, I don't know.

Wherever you want them.

Just tap them in.

There, a little more color on the brush.

There we are, just tap it in.

Something about like that.

And you make your own mind up where you think your cloud should live, because, we all see, we all see nature through different eyes.

So, I want you to paint what you see.

There, alright.

Something about like that.

Maybe, maybe a little more over here.

Okay.

Today, tell you what.

Going to show you a new brush.

Today, I'm going to introduce you to a little blender brush.

This is a very soft, little blender brush, and we can just blend right over the top of all of that.

Very, very soft brush.

It's much, much softer than the normal brushes we use.

There.

And, this one's fantastic, because it's thicker than most of them, and most important, it has a round handle.

And, a round handle allows you to actually paint with it and spin it.

There we go.

See how you can just blend right over all those beautiful little things?

Lookie there.

Now then.

Now then, we'll just wipe that on a paper towel.

I want to come back with a knife, take some pure titanium white, and I want a bright area right up in here.

So, I'm just going to take that titanium white, and, as my son, Steve, says, we're just going to smoosh it right into the canvas, like that.

Okay?

Like the sun's maybe behind that old dark cloud there.

So, we're just going to smoosh it right in there, just really press it in there firmly.

There.

Then, we go back to our little blender brush, and this is where this brush is so fantastic.

You can just blend right over that, that easy.

And I'm going to tap the corner of this brush into a little white, just a little bit of the titanium white.

So, we're actually going to paint with this blender in places.

And with that, then we can go up in here, and, just spinning it around, we can make the indication of very soft, little fluffy clouds that live in there.

There, it'll make it look like there's a few rays coming out through there, you can just pull it.

Those might not show up very much, but, in your painting, you'll see them.

And, you can make them as distinct as you want.

And, that gives us a pretty good old winter sky, it looks sorta dreary and cold and, whew.

Looks like there's a storm coming already.

As I say, you better get out your heavy coat.

Let's take Prussian blue, midnight black, put some Alizarin crimson in it, maybe even a little Van Dyke, a good dark color, predominantly blue, though.

Pull it out as flat as you can get it, cut across, get a little roll of paint goes right on the edge of the knife.

And our world, maybe, yep.

We'll just put us a big old mountain lives right up here.

Just decide where you think it should live, and drop it in.

And, the only thing that we're worried about in this particular mountain is the top.

We could care less what's happening below it.

Just that nice edge, it's all we're looking for.

Take a two-inch brush, grab it and pull it.

Because we have liquid white on the canvas, we can move this color.

There, now see, the [Bob makes "zoop" sound], let it go.

Make a big old mountain that just lives right in there like that.

Come back with our titanium white, pull it out as flat as we can get it, cut across, while we have a little roll of paint.

And we just go right in there.

And with that, just put some nice highlights on this mountain, big old snow-covered mountain, whew.

I lived in Alaska for almost a dozen years, and we saw a lot of this kind of scenery.

Gorgeous place, absolutely gorgeous.

There we go.

I'm going to take some white, a little Prussian blue, mix it together.

And with that, we'll make a nice little shadow color, just blue and white.

There, good cold color.

Cut off a little roll of paint again.

And, we go up here, touch, no pressure, whew, just let it flow.

Grab, now we're going to push that little peak back, go right through it.

See how I pushed it right into the background.

There, no pressure, though.

We want the paint to break like that, to have those little holes in it.

That's what makes it so pretty.

Makes it actually look like something's happening in there.

Little white, let's break up this straight edge.

It bothers me that it's so straight.

There, we'll come right in here.

Put a little shadow under him.

Shoot, we got a little mountain going right there.

Clean, dry two-inch brush, we're going to create a little mist.

Tap the base of it, lift upward.

Always follow those angles that are in the mountain.

There we go.

Now, today, let's have a little fun.

Let's, let's do two ranges of mountains, just to show you how you can put one mountain in front of another.

Maybe over here we have a huge mountain, wherever you want it.

Big, strong old mountain, maybe there's a bump there.

Something about like that.

See, you have to make these big decisions in your world.

Where does all these things live?

You decide.

And then, just drop them in.

That's what's so fantastic about this style of painting.

You get an idea in your mind, and, before it escapes, you can just put it in.

You can drop it right in.

Back to our two-inch brush, we grab it, and we pull.

There we go.

This does two things.

First of all, maybe most important, it removes excess paint so that it's easier to put the next layer on.

Secondly, it blends it downward, creates that soft, misty look at the base.

And, when you're painting mountains, that's what you're looking for.

Alright.

Back to our titanium white.

We'll put some highlights right out in here.

There it is, see, wherever you want them.

There, maybe right in here.

See, there's one.

Here comes one.

[Bob makes "tsshhoo" sound] Just let it go right on through.

Just make big decisions, drop it in.

You have unlimited power here, because, you know you can do anything that you believe you can do.

Anything that you believe you can do.

There we go.

Right up into here.

Shoot, look at that.

Big old strong mountain.

There.

Just wherever.

Something about like that.

I love mountains.

I think they're one of the most fun things there is to paint.

And, of course, none of us are interested in selling paintings, but if you are, it still seems to be the thing that sells better than anything else.

It's just great, big old mountains.

People love them, they fit in almost any decor.

Don't think there's anybody that doesn't like mountains.

Well, maybe there is.

There we are.

Just bring it right on down.

And here and there, and there and here, you can go in, figure out where you want a little, little projection, put a little shadow behind it and automatically it'll stand right up in your world.

Okay, take your nice dry, clean two-inch brush.

And, we begin lifting, working, tapping, always follow those angles, though.

I want to create the illusion of distance here.

So, you create that misty effect down at the base.

Now then, sometimes, Sometimes, sometimes we'll just take that old brush, go right into some mountain color, a little bit of white.

Maybe a touch more white.

There, just a little bit of color in it.

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

Maybe there's some little areas right here that grow right up the side.

Just tap them in, wherever you think they should be.

And that, we're going to lift upward, and make it look like little trees that are growing back there, little trees that grow right up the side of the mountain.

I like that, that's a neat, very easy way to put in an indication of a lot of little distant trees.

See them?

Shoot, that's where you'd ski, is right down between those.

Hopefully, not into them, but beside them.

[chuckles] I'm not a very good skier.

I'd probably run right over them.

There.

That's the reason I took up painting, it's a lot safer.

There, just lift upward, like that.

Now then, while we got that old color on the brush, let's just come right in here, [Bob makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] pull it straight down.

Same color, same color, just pull it straight down, like that.

And then, go across, and we can have instant reflections.

If you want to put a highlight, take a little titanium white here and there.

Don't overdo this though, you'll ruin the effect.

Just a little, here and there.

But then, go across, just enough to wiggle it a little.

See, it makes it look like light shining in there.

But, don't overdo it, don't overdo it.

It, it gets feeling good sometime and you don't know when to stop.

[chuckles] Take a little of the liquid white, cut across it, and we'll go right up in here, and just put in a little, a little tiny, little tiny water line lives right there.

This is just a light area between the two darks, it sort of separates.

It also looks like little places where snow's laying out in the water.

There.

There we go.

That nice?

Maybe there's a big old thing out in here.

Whatever.

It's up to you.

Up to you.

Alright, let's have some fun.

[chuckles] Time to get crazy.

Let's mix up some Prussian blue, some back, crimson, whew, a lot of color there.

Dark, it should look black, but it has a blue base to it.

I'll even put a little brown in, to keep it dull.

There.

Let me wipe off the old knife.

And, we just wipe the knife on some paper towels.

Let's grab a fan brush.

Load it full of color, a lot of color.

And, let's do us a, let's do us a little evergreen tree.

Now, I'm going to be going over a lot of snow here, so I'm going to dip the brush into a little bit of paint thinner, just a small amount, because, you know, our golden rule, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

So, it'll make it a little easier when we go right over all this, it'll stick a little easier.

Here comes a nice tree.

[Bob makes "doot, doot, ta, doot" sounds] There, see?

There he comes.

Maybe a little of his trunk showing right there.

I like to do trees that have a little, little bit of trunk showing, a little naked spot on them.

Sometimes, that's sort of neat looking in a painting, because trees grow that way.

They're not all perfect, they're like us.

There.

Or, at least, like me.

I got a lot of flaws.

Whew, boy, do I have a lot of flaws, I'm not even going to talk about them.

There we go.

Have another little tree right there.

And maybe, who knows, maybe there's a, another one that's hiding, maybe he's behind back there, I don't know.

Maybe, yep.

In your world, you decide how many or how few trees live there, and just drop them in.

Just drop them in, wherever you want them, that easy.

Let's give him a friend.

He's sitting over here by hisself, shoot.

He'll get lonely.

You know me.

I think everybody should have a friend.

Alright now.

If this is water, maybe we'll end up reflecting these down into the water, so I'll just sort of do a real, a real basic little shot here, backwards, just to put the indication of a little something in the water.

[Bob makes "Doo doo, ta doo" sounds] See there?

We don't care if it's not perfect because we're going to take a big brush and just sort of go right over it.

Let me find a nice, clean brush, very lightly, one hair and some air.

Just enough to disturb it a little bit.

See them old trees?

Now we've got to give them something to set on.

Right now, they're just sort of... [chuckles].

These are floating around out there in the water, so we have to put some land in there.

Tell you what, while we got the old tree brush going, we don't want this side left out.

Let's put a big tree over here.

Just a big old tree.

I like this kind of painting because it'll give you a lot of practice, a lot of practice with a knife, and with the fan brush.

But the old knife, if you'll spend some time learning to use that son-of-a-gun, you can paint entire paintings with him.

On some of the earlier shows, we did paintings using nothing but the knife.

It's a little hard to do in the time frame we have, but try it.

It's a little slower than using brushes, but you can get some effects that you cannot get using a brush, absolutely cannot get.

I want another tree there.

There we go.

See him, there he comes.

There.

And, if you learn to make one tree, shoot, you can make a million trees.

That's all it takes, just get them right out of your brush.

Tell you what, let's take a little, we've got a little blue and white here.

Since this is such a cold-looking painting, I'm going to just use that color to make the indication of a few little trunks here and there.

There.

Normally, we'd use brown, but I want this painting to stay cold, real cold.

There.

Now, let's take another fan brush, I'm going to dip it into a little bit of the liquid white.

Titanium white, I put it in liquid white just to make it a little bit thinner, then a little bit of the, little bit of the Prussian blue.

I want a nice blue color.

A little darker.

See, you can make it any flavor you want.

I want it a little darker, okay, let's go up here.

Now, with this brush, we're going to come in here, and put the indication here and there, not much, though, of some gorgeous little highlights that live right out on these trees.

Not much, not much, don't overdo.

Keep this dark.

It's contrast in this painting that makes it so pretty.

Keep them dark.

There, see?

Alright, on the other side over here, we'll do a little here.

Don't want this tree left out.

And, these threes will get mad if you forget them, ignore them.

Had one chase me all the way across the studio here one day.

Hah!

There.

I'm a little weird, huh?

I go out and talk to trees and animals and stuff like that.

But, that's okay.

That's okay.

I have more fun than most people, too.

Alright.

One-inch brush here.

Let's put in a little bush here and there.

I want some nice little snow-covered bushes, so, we'll just do this.

Alright.

Let's go over here and put one in here, too.

[Bob makes "tchoo, too, too" sounds] There, lookie there, here it comes, here it comes.

Where's it going?

You knew, didn't you?

There we go, you decide where they live.

Now then, let me wash that old brush out.

Just shake it off.

[chuckles] Beat the devil out of it, and off we go.

Let's see here.

Let's take a little bit of white, come right back into here.

Put the indication of a little bit of snow under here, just a little snow.

Got to have something for all this to sit on, it's just sort of hanging out here in the lake right now, or stream, river, whatever it is.

Dip the brush into liquid white, and then, I'm going to pull it in one direction through the titanium white.

The liquid white is there only to thin the titanium white.

Pull it in one direction, then we're going to carefully turn it over.

Okay, let's go up in here, and, with that, then we're going to come in here and put some gorgeous little highlights on these little rascals.

See them?

Little snow-covered bushes that live out here, whew, because this is cold.

There they are.

Let's give them a little friend.

And, you put them wherever you think they should live.

There we go.

Go on the other side and put some over there, too.

Don't want them left out.

There's one.

But don't let the brush slide when you're doing this, just give it a little oomph, a little push, bend those bristles a tiny bit, tiny bit.

And, if you start picking up that base color excessively, you're always going to pick up a little, but if you pick it up excessively, then your paint on your brush is too thick.

Add a little touch more of the liquid white to it.

There, ooh, it looks cold.

I think the temperature here where we're painting has dropped 10 or 15 degrees just since we started this.

I like to paint.

Paintings like this, gorgeous.

Alright, now then, tell you what.

Let's get crazy today.

Maybe in our world lives a little house out here, because I, I'd like to live in a place like this.

So take your knife, scrape out a basic shape.

That just removes excess paint.

We'll take a little of Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna mixed together.

We'll put the back roof in first, back eve, like that.

That's all there is to it.

And we'll put the front in.

[Bob makes "swoo, swoo" sounds] And, all we're doing here is blocking in color, it doesn't much matter.

You can do this any old way you wanted to.

Just blocking in color.

Then, we take some, a little white, a little dark sienna, a little Van Dyke brown, mix them together so they're marbled.

Cut across, and very lightly,[Bob makes "pshew" soun] barely touch, just like you're putting snow on the mountain.

Barely touch, just touch it, pull.

Maybe a little more over here so it shows up.

Ooh, that's nice.

That's so nice.

Take a little dark color, just make it look like old boards.

[chuckles] A little of the Van Dyke.

[Bob makes "sssoo" sound] Got a little door.

A little touch of light color, sort of outline it, so we know where the door's at.

Shoot.

Now, all we need is the other half of the roof, so he doesn't freeze.

[Bob makes "sshoo" sound] So, we'll take a little bit of the titanium white, just put it on [Bob makes "sshoo" sound] right there, ooh, like that.

Now, we need a little over here, so it looks like the snow's deep on the roof up here.

Okay, now.

We'll just take a little touch of snow, put it right down here, wherever.

Right on across.

See there?

But, pay attention to angles.

You want that to flow, because chances are, if there's water out here, it's in a recessed area.

Normally, water always is in this recessed area.

So, alright.

We can come back when we find my brush that we was making bushes with.

Come back, a little liquid white, titanium white, and let's put some little bushes all around here.

Look at them, see?

They about to eat up right around the front door there.

Alright, a little bit, maybe this guy's like me, he didn't cut his yard very good in the summer, and now the bushes are growing right up, right up like that.

We could even take a little touch of, a little touch of blue and white, let's make an indication of maybe a little path that comes right out here.

So, he's got a way to walk out.

Take the knife, scrape in a few little sticks and twigs here and there.

Something like so.

Put a little bit of the liquid white, put a water line under here.

Something about like that.

I like these kind of paintings.

As I say, they give you a lot of practice with the old knife.

And, that's what you need.

That's what you need.

A few little sticks over here.

Just scrape right through the paint, let the canvas show through.

Alright, I think we got a finished painting here.

Hope you enjoyed this one.

Give it a try.

Send me a photo of what you do.

From all of us here, I'd like to wish you, happy painting.

And God bless, my friend.