The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

Hello, I'm certainly glad you could join me today.

You got your paints out, ready to do a fantastic painting?

Well let's get started.

Tell you what, let's have them graphically run all the colors across the screen that you need to do this painting with me.

While they're doing that, let's go on up here, and let me show you what I've already done.

Have our standard old 18 by 24 inch canvas.

This is a double primed canvas, pre-streched, and on this canvas, I've completely covered it with a thin, even coat of the liquid white, which makes it wet and slick and it's all ready to go.

So let's go too.

Tell you what, let's have some fun today.

Let's do a little winter scene.

So I'll start out with a touch of Alizarin Crimson, just a touch, and we'll work it into the old two inch brush just by tapping it.

Just tap it, just like so.

Let's go right up here.

Now when I paint winter scenes, I like to have a little bit of warmth in 'em.

It bothers me, I don't like winter scenes that are so cold that you have to put a coat on to feel comfortable when you look at 'em.

So I like to put a touch of warmth in my winter scene, but when you paint yours, you paint 'em any way that you want 'em.

Any old way.

Everybody's different, and everybody sees nature in different ways.

So you paint it the way that makes you happy.

And while I have that on the brush, maybe we'll just throw a little bit right down in here.

I'm gonna have some snow, I think down in, yeah, we'll put snow down here.

A little of that color maybe will reflect right into the snow.

So, just lay it in.

Now then, without even cleaning the brush, let's go into a little bit of Prussian Blue.

Now Prussian Blue is so strong.

It's very strong, you don't even have to clean the brush because it'll just absolutely eat up the Alizarin Crimson that's left on there.

Load a little bit of that in there, and let's go right up in here, and now then, let's just sort of let the brush just dance a little color in here.

Just, sort of like little X's, but just let it just sort of dance and play and just have fun.

Leave little openings in your sky.

Little holes in the sky.

We'll come back and we'll put the indication of some little soft clouds here and there.

There, a little bit more of the blue.

There.

See how easy that is?

Just sort of let your imagination go and just drop these things right in, wherever you want them.

Now be careful right in here, because this blue is so strong, it'll eat up your little pinkish color.

It'll eat it up in a heartbeat.

I'll just add a little bit of that same color down here in what's gonna be snow, we don't, as I say, we really don't care right now.

There, now we can wash our brush.

We wash our brush in good old odorless thinner, shake off the excess, and this is the fun part.

(brush thuds) (laughs) Just beat the devil out of it.

Okay, now with our clean, dry brush, go right on back up here.

And just start blending the sky a little bit.

There, I've probably painted an excess of oh, 20-30,000 paintings, and I still get a kick out of cleaning the brush.

Of course, they don't here, when they have to clean the studio up.

There we go, all I'm doing is just lightly blending here.

I don't want to over blend.

I don't want to lose little spots like this in the sky.

Those are very pretty, and they give your sky character.

Especially if you're doing a winter scene.

(brush thuds) Now just beat the excess paint off that brush.

I'm gonna go right into some Titanium White, and just pull that brush right through the white.

Just load it full, look at all the color.

Lot of paint in the brush, okay?

Let's go up here.

Now, I just want indications of little clouds today, so I'm not gonna overdo this, just sort of put them in.

Put them in, just want little indications.

This is just sort of a misty little sky.

Oh, you know it's cold.

You know it's cold, it has to be.

I lived in Alaska for a dozen years or so, when you saw a sky like this you'd be getting the old parka out and your muck-lucks, there.

Just some little things happening here.

Just blend them together, just like so.

Okay.

Now then, I have several of each brush going, so, (brush thuds) take a clean, dry, two inch brush, and I'm just gonna mix this up and blend it a little bit.

Now you don't wanna blend too much, or it'll go away and leave you.

Just go away and leave you all by yourself.

There.

There you go, okay.

And we can sort of fluff it a little.

Like so.

Then very lightly, very lightly, just barely caressing the canvas.

Make some long strokes to blend it all together.

And that easy, that easy, you have a fantastic little sky.

Okay.

Let's put a bunch of evergreens in this painting.

(brush thuds) Evergreens are a lot of fun to paint, and they're quite easy.

So let's take, we'll use Prussian Blue, I'll put some Midnight Black in there, some Van Dyke Brown, shoot, some Alizarin Crimson.

Whatever.

Whatever, looking for a dark color.

Now we'll pick up some white.

There, because we put the Prussian blue in there, it's so strong, this color will be predominantly blue.

Maybe I'll add a touch more of the crimson to it.

There we go.

Still predominantly blue.

Okay, and you might as well mix up a pretty good pile of paint.

Let me clean the knife off, and grab the old fan brush.

I'll tell you what, let me show you an easy way to do a lot of trees.

Take the old two inch brush, and we'll just pull it right through a little bit of color here.

Now then, the big thing here is just to apply some color to the canvas.

So we'll just put, we'll just put some color wherever.

Once again, I don't want to lose all that pink.

Most of it's gonna go away, but I want to save just enough to keep it warm.

There, all we're doing is looking for paint on the canvas.

Could really care less what's happening.

Just tapping, just tapping.

Okay, now then, let me grab the old fan brush.

And we'll go right into this color we've made.

There, just load it full, a lot of paint.

See there, a lot of paint, both sides.

Let's go ahead up here.

Now then, begin picking out individual trees.

Take the corner of the brush, just work back and forth, back and forth.

Back and forth, and see down here we don't care.

It'll all just sort of come together.

It saves you a lot of time, it's easier than painting each tree individually.

And you can make, shoot, you can make a forest back here.

We could also make these trees with a one inch brush, two inch brush, a palette knife.

Palette knife makes beautiful trees, there.

There we go, see?

Already we got the beginnings of a little forest.

Little squirrel has to have a place to live, he comes up here and grabs him a pine cone.

Gotta take care of the little creatures.

There we go.

Okay.

Let's just take these all the way across, wherever.

There.

As I say, the squirrels gotta have a place to live.

I call squirrels "tree urchins".

That's sorta my little name for, I make up little names for all my little friends.

Where I live, I have hundreds and hundreds of birds that come everyday, I gotta spend all my money buying birdseed and putting out for them.

In return, they let me watch 'em, sometimes I get to raise one or two little ones.

In fact, I think the last series, we showed one of the little birds we were raising.

Maybe a little later on in the series, we'll show, let's show that little bird maybe a little later I'll show you what happened to him.

We had so many letters and cards asking what happened to the little bird we showed.

I'll get Sally to put him up on the screen, we'll look at him later.

Okay, that'll, that'll get us some trees, there we go.

That easy.

Now then.

(Brush thuds) I wanna create the illusion of little bit of mist out here, so I'll just take a clean brush, and just tap this a little bit, just a little.

Just a little.

There, lift upward.

Just lift it upward, upward, upward, upward, upward.

Okay, now then, I wanna put another layer of trees that look like they're closer to you.

So I'll show you how to do that.

Same color, only there's no white in this color.

This is just pure color.

We can do the same thing.

The same old dark color.

But don't kill all that mist, you worked so hard to put it in there, don't kill it.

See, and we'll just put in, just put in this is just base color.

We really could care less.

Same as we did back there.

This is just a base color.

There.

Black and blue and little brown, little touch of Alizarin Crimson, all together here.

See there?

This will save you a tremendous amount of time.

And I'm a lazy painter, I always look for easy ways to paint.

There we go.

Now then.

Let me wash that brush off and get the light color out of it.

Just wash it off, and then all we do is just wipe that brush against a paper towel.

Now we can go right in to our dark color, that's blue and black.

Grab some brown, touch of Alizarin Crimson.

Load that brush full of paint.

Okay, now then.

Right along in here, let's bring some trees that are darker, and therefore they'll look like they're closer to you.

See there?

You don't have to paint all this bottom.

Really will save you a lot of time, when you have a multitude of trees together like this.

Now if you're doing just one tree at a time, you wouldn't want to paint it this way.

I thought today we'll do a bunch of trees, thought you'd like that.

Now see how it's pushing those lighter ones back?

Did you know you could push a whole forest back, that easy?

You can.

You can do anyhing, anything, at least on this piece of canvas, you can.

There we go.

Now then, maybe, now let's put two or three tops in like that.

And then just come along and give them some little arms.

Wherever you want 'em.

That easy.

Okay, maybe oh there's a nice one, he got a little more sunlight, he's a little stronger.

He just grows right on up there.

There's one, there's one, there's one, wherever you want 'em.

Make big decisions and drop them in.

On this piece of canvas, you are the creator.

You have absolute power.

Absolute, you can make any kind of world that you want here.

Any kind of world that you want.

That's part of the, get a little plug, that's part of the Joy of Painting.

Is the fact that you can create your own world.

And painting, painting should make you happy.

If it doesn't make you happy, you're doing the wrong thing.

There.

Okay, maybe and another one right about, there he is.

Now if you do this painting along with me, by the time you're finished, you will be an expert at making evergreen trees.

No doubt, you'll have those down.

You'll never again have a problem making evergreen trees.

Now then, I'm just gonna take a clean knife, nothing on it, just here and there, just sort of pull through, and it'll make the indication.

I'm cutting right through the paint.

It'll just make it look like tree trunks here and there.

We don't want a lot of detail, but makes it look like little tree trunks and there's some here and there, like that.

Can you see the amount of distance between these?

Just by varying the color, it's exactly the same color, except back here, there's a little white in it.

Same color, but it helps create that illusion of distance.

That's so important when you're doing paintings.

Distance in paintings are what make, it makes a difference between a painting that's just so-so, and a painting that when you look at it, it does wonderful things to you and you get excited from watching.

And that's what it is, it's this distance.

Depth in a painting.

There we go, okay.

Now we said we were gonna have some snow in this one.

So let's take the old two inch brush, just load it full of white paint.

This is just straight old Titanium White.

Lot of paint in the brush, lot of paint.

Okay, now then.

Let's just sort of reach right up in here, and grab some of this.

You want to pick up some of this color, I'm trying to pick up the bottom of these trees, because that's gonna end up being my shadows.

It's gonna create shadows under these trees.

It'll happen automatically, you don't have to worry about it it just, it happens.

There we go.

There we go.

Isn't that super, and it's so easy.

You can change the angles and make all different planes in the painting, and by planes, like see how this one overlaps that one.

Just like that.

Just grab that bottom and pull it.

Pull it hard, get tough with it.

This is where you take out all your frustrations.

Just grab it and pull.

Look at there.

And you can sneak back in there and grab little pieces, pull and you can create as many or as few shadows as you want.

If you want the indication of a few little, little happy grassy areas coming out of there, you can just lift upward.

Give a little upward pull.

It makes all kinds of little things, and sort of cleans up your edges there.

Okay.

Shoot, while we got that on there, let's just...

I think we'll have all this snow, so we can just add white here all over.

And I'm leaving some of these little pinks and blues that we put in there.

Don't kill all of those.

I'm just adding a little white here and there and letting some of that show through.

Now the paint that we're applying is extremely thick, it's very, very thick.

That way we can put layers of thinner paint right over the top of that without creating any problems.

If all the layers of paint are the same thickness, then when you try to put one layer on top of another, you're gonna be a mud mixer.

Then you're gonna be mad at me.

So don't want that to happen.

Tell you what let's do.

Let's build us a little cabin out here.

Shoot, it's cold out here, you'd need a place to live.

Now one of the easiest ways to make a cabin here, is to take your knife, decide basically where you want it, and scrape out an initial shape.

Ooh, there goes our tree.

But you can just grab it, and scrape it out.

This does several things, most important, it removes the excess paint off the canvas.

It makes your next layer much easier to stick.

See?

But it also allows you to lay out your cabin, get the perspective the way you want it, and you're not committed.

You're not committed at this point.

So, you can't make a mistake here.

If something goes wrong, you just drop your trees right back in, do it again.

As you know, we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.

There it is, maybe, tell you what let's do.

Maybe in this cabin, let's put a chimney.

So, same thing, you take and just scrape in a basic shape so you know about where that chimney's gonna be.

We'll have it, see, up and over so it looks square.

Come down, sort of remember that, if you cover it up, you remember where it's at.

Then your roof's gonna come down.

Shoot, we might even put a porch on this one.

If we have enough time, we'll drop one in.

Start off with Titanium White.

Pull it out very flat, cut across, and we get our little roll of paint.

Right on the edge of the knife.

Now then, big decision time.

See here, let's start and begin laying snow, right out here on the roof.

Angles are very important.

Very important, just pull that rascal down.

Now, out here if you wanna make this edge nice and sharp, you can come along that way, see?

Then come back and smooth it out.

Sneaky, huh?

Then just smooth it out like so, there you go.

Now then, that's part of our roof.

I'm gonna go into a little bit of the Van Dyke Brown.

Get the little roll of paint, and we'll do this back eve here.

For that, we just want to pull it over.

Like that.

Then we'll take a mixture of Dark Sienna and Van Dyke Brown, and just sort of mix it a little bit, not much.

Just don't over-mix it, cut off a little bit.

Once again, that roll of paint, so important.

Now then, let's take that and just begin pulling down.

Remember we have a chimney here, we're gonna put a chimney in this one.

Remember that.

So you can sort of save a little spot there for your chimney.

We don't want this old guy that lives out here to freeze to death.

Same color.

Right out there, see that?

That's all there is to it.

Now, that gives us a basic shape.

Now then, I'm gonna take some white, a little bit of the Titanium White, touch of the Dark Sienna in it, and maybe the least, least little touch of Bright Red.

Dark Sienna, touch of Bright Red, that's so strong, and white, a little more Dark Sienna, I want that darker.

See, you make the decision however you want it.

There, see leave your paint like this, don't over-mix it.

Get a little roll of paint, and all those colors are right there in that roll.

Let's go up here, now then.

You can touch, no pressure, no pressure, no pressure.

Pull down, pull down.

Let it break, let them holes there.

The'll give the illusion of age.

Looks old, like me, there, see there?

Now then, on the other side of this little cabin, I want to be much darker, much darker, so same color, I just added brown to it.

See here, same color, but it's much darker.

So there's a distinct difference.

Distinct difference, now.

Take some brown, let's put our little chimney up here.

We'll come right up in here, and it came down like so.

See, slight angle.

Down, down, like right on across.

I'll tell you what, I'm gonna get my little knife.

My little knife is so good for these little places.

And we'll go right in here, and want this one to sort of go upward.

Upward.

So it gives the illusion that this chimney is square.

Little bit right down through there.

Because most of that chimney's inside the house, we won't see it.

I'll take some Bright Red, some Bright Red, and a little bit of Van Dyke Brown, and we'll mix it together.

Maybe these are bricks.

So easy way to just make indications, just touch and just sort of let the knife bounce as you work down.

(makes bouncing effect) Now if you don't make that little noise, it won't work.

Gotta have that little noise.

Gotta have it, and maybe just a few over here.

But show the difference in angle, that way it'll, it'll make it square.

And, tell you what, right along the top up here, maybe there's a little snow laying up here.

There we go.

Just a touch of snow.

Clean off my knife.

And talking of a, speaking of a touch of snow, on this side of the roof over here, we need, we need a little bit of snow on that side of the roof.

Now, now then.

Said we might put a porch on this one, so I think we're doing alright for time, let's do it.

Take some, little bit of brown, and just sort of come right out here.

I'm not using much brown, just a little.

Cause I want a little bit of it to show through.

Right into the white.

Bring the porch right out like that.

See there, that easy.

That easy, now we need a floor.

So, same thing into here.

Bring it out, roughly the same angle.

Like so, a little touch of highlight would sneak under here.

Not a whole bunch, cause it's gonna be pretty dark under there.

Pretty dark.

And then we'll give it a little distance.

That easy.

Boy, you know what, you know what?

We need something to hold this porch up.

So let's just put a rail or two in here.

Just like so, see there?

That easy, that easy.

Got a little rail, and since our light's coming from this direction, put a little light on those.

There.

And we can put the indication of a board or two here, just using the dark color.

That simple.

If you wanted a window, you can just scrape in a couple windows.

Isn't that easy?

I knew you could do that.

Now then, I'm gonna do something a little different.

I'm gonna go into Liquid Clear.

Liquid Clear, and then right in to the Titanium White.

I use the Liquid Clear to thin the paint just a touch.

Alright, now let's go right up here, and let's begin adding all kinds of little things.

This Liquid Clear makes the paint flow, cause it's thinner now.

Flows right over there.

You can just really bring these things right along.

See there?

And when this dries, the areas that you put this clear in will shine, they'll have a luster to 'em.

It's very nice.

Very nice.

Maybe, maybe, right up in here, let's do this.

Maybe there's a little thing right here.

Just a little brown and white.

Maybe we'll pull that out, we'll make a little bump.

Little bump right there.

Maybe at one time, maybe they had a little snow fence up there.

You just take a little brown, see here, it just sorta adds to the painting.

Put a little fence that's sorta laying over.

Little white on the knife, and just wiggle it.

Just (hums music), and put some little wires on there.

Like that, take your fan brush and grab some of those create a very nice little effect.

Now then, tell you what.

Maybe, right here, right here.

There's a little bush that lives right here.

We'll just pop him in, just pop him in.

We don't want him to get left out, so we'll put one right over here.

And all I'm doing is pushing upward with the fan brush.

Push very firmly, push upward, like so.

Then our brush that has the white on it, and a touch of the clear, the Liquid Clear, you can grab that and pull it.

Once again, you allow that dark color to become part of the shadows.

Very desirable, don't fight it, don't fight it.

Let it happen.

There we go, look at that, isn't that super?

(laughs) Now you know me, I'm a tree nut, I like trees.

Let's take the old fan brush and go right in to Van Dyke Brown, a lot of it.

Yep, I'm gonna have a happy tree (whistles) Lives right there.

I don't want him to be lonely, we'll give him a friend.

Just like so.

And then we can take our liner brush, go into some brown, and you just drop on a few little limbs.

I've thinned this with thinner.

See here, you can put on a few little limbs, wherever you want them.

Drop in as many or as few as you want in your world.

Okay.

Oh, take the knife, grab a little of the white.

Tell you what, let's make these birch trees.

Just by pulling around, you can create a happy little birch tree.

Just give it a little round pull, just zip, zip, zip.

And I think with that, we about have a finished painting.

I hope you've enjoyed this one.

Think it'll teach you a lot, show you how to do a beautiful little winter scene.

And I'm gonna call this painting complete.

From all of us here, happy painting, and God bless.

("Interlude" by Larry Owens)