The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Well here we are with the last show of the 26th series.

So let's have a lot of fun today.

Tell you what, let's start out today 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 done up here.

I have my regular old pre-stretched double primed canvas and today, I've painted the entire canvas with black gesso and allowed that to dry completely.

After the gesso was completely dry, then I've covered it with liquid clear, just a very thin coat of the clear.

And on top of that, we've just applied a very, very thin coat, not a whole lot of paint, a very thin coat of midnight black and Prussian blue.

The entire canvas is absolutely covered with it.

And with that, let me show you how to do a fantastic little painting.

Let's just start out today with a small amount of the titanium white on the old two inch brush.

Do just a very quick, simple little sky up here.

I think maybe today, I think maybe, we'll do a, just a happy little waterfall.

I like waterfalls.

There we go, so I'm just going back and forth.

Making sort of little crisscross strokes but using the brush this way.

Something maybe like that.

As I say, in this one, I want a very simple, quick little sky.

Just something to throw in a little background color, and then we can get on to the serious business because I want, I want to play with the big waterfall.

Alright, let's clean our old brush.

I just really like cleaning the brushes, you know.

There.

Shake it off.

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

Now then, clean dry brush.

All I'm going to do is just blend this.

Just blend it, about like that.

There, because I'm going to put things way up into the top of this, and I'm not looking for a lot of color, maybe just a touch more right there.

Not looking for a lot of color in this sky.

Something like that.

And that should be enough for us.

Now way back in the background here, I think we'll have some little trees that live way up on the side of a hill somewhere.

So we'll take blue and black and oh, maybe a little more black than blue, but pretty close to equal proportions.

Pretty close.

You just sort of decide in your world which way you want it.

Now you'll probably have to put a little white with it if you want to really check the color because it's impossible to tell if that's towards the blue side or, or the opposite direction toward the black side.

And I'm just going to tap down.

Maybe in our world, way back here, I'm going to put the least little touch of white on one side of the brush, see.

Now I want to start, I want to start getting the indication of just little trees that live way back in there.

Alright.

A little bit of white just on one side of the brush.

Just on one side.

Maybe, I'll tell you what, these trees maybe just go right on off the canvas, I don't know, don't know that it really matters.

It's up to you.

It's completely and totally up to you.

Whatever.

There we go.

But all we're doing here is just tapping downward.

It's really all we're doing.

Okay.

Something like that.

These black canvases are so fantastic, absolutely love them.

I could do a whole television series with nothing but black canvases because they are, I think, my absolute favorite.

Color shows up on the black canvas so much better than it does on a white canvas.

Tell you what, let's take, we'll take our two inch brush and I want to create the illusion of mist here.

So I'm just going to begin tapping this, just tap it.

Go into the least little touch of titanium white, oh the least little touch, least, least little touch.

Tiny, tiny bit, and I'm just going to pop in some little indications of some little, little floaty clouds up here.

This is so high up, maybe there's some little clouds in here.

Takes very, very little color though.

Very little color.

There, something about maybe like that.

There we go, wherever you want them.

Now we can take our little blender brush, very soft little blender brush, and I'm just going to soften these little clouds, just gently, gently soften them.

Something like that.

There they go.

Just let them float around up here underneath these trees, just have a good time.

Now the more you blend these, the more it's going to pick up that blue and black color that's underneath, and the more they'll disappear.

So you take them to any degree of brightness that you want, or softness, it's up to you.

Now, let's go back to our little brush.

There we are.

And let's have, yep, how about right here.

Let's have a few trees right over on this side.

And we'll just let them come right down, right on down, maybe they just go right on down into here.

I don't know, doesn't much matter.

You put them where you want them.

There, something like that.

Alright, maybe right there.

This is just some background foliage.

Just so we have a place for, for our little river to come from.

If we're going to have a little waterfall, we need a water source, in other words, a place for the water to come from.

There we go.

So we'll just do it like that.

If you've never painted on a black canvas, you really ought to try it.

You'll be amazed at what you can do.

Absolutely amazed.

Going back to my two inch brush, and just soften this.

I know that may be difficult to see because it's all black, but believe me, when you do this, it'll work for you.

It'll work for you.

There we go.

Now then, let's start coming forward in our, in our little painting here.

I'm just going to continue to use this same old color.

We're going to use it continually throughout this painting.

Load the fan brush full of paint, a lot of paint.

Let's go right up in here.

Now maybe, see I wanted this cloud here, because it's a little lighter, and when we come back and we begin putting some little trees in here, there's just enough contrast that they'll show up.

Just enough so they'll show up.

Maybe in our world there lives a little tree right there.

And, and, and, and, and there's another one.

There's another one, you knew.

You knew.

If you've painted with me before, you know I love to paint trees, and bushes, and mountains, and all these kind of things.

There we are, that's really where I'm the happiest, is in a landscape painting.

There.

Alright, maybe, oh what the heck.

Let's make a forest out here.

It's our world, we literally can put anything in it that we want.

Anything that we want.

Okay.

Maybe there's another one over here, too, then.

This painting will give you a lot of practice doing some gorgeous little trees.

There we go.

We have to start making some decisions here.

Have to start deciding if we're going to have the little, if we're going to have a little river in here, we've got to start deciding where it comes from.

I'm going to take some of that black, blue, a little white, something like that.

Looking for a bluish-gray color.

Cut off a little roll of paint that lives right on the edge of the knife there.

And maybe in our world, our river bank is right about here.

I don't know.

See, it takes almost no paint here, almost no color just to do all these fantastic things.

Get a little more paint.

There.

And all I'm doing is just rubbing with a knife.

I'm just literally rubbing color right on there.

And here and there I'm going to give it a little upward push just so it blends with all that is already on there.

I don't even know where that goes, don't know that I care right now.

Now we can take a clean fan brush and just grab a little of that and pop it up, make it look like, see, looks like little bushy things.

[chuckles] Sneaky, huh?

There they go, there they go.

Just wherever you want them.

Wherever you want them, wherever you want them.

A little bit of that dark color.

I need a little dark edge there.

I know you can't see that, but it's there.

And I know it's there, I need it because I'm going to put some water right along in here.

We know it's there.

There we go.

Something about like that.

Alright.

Now, let's take some white, I want a lighter color I'm going to add white.

So there's white, blue, and black.

But it's much lighter.

Once again, cut off that little roll of paint and we'll go right up in here.

Got to make a big decision.

Where is our water coming from?

There it comes, there it comes.

Maybe a little lighter so it shows up better.

Yeah, there.

There it is.

It just meanders down right along through here and comes around.

We don't know where it comes from.

And maybe it gets out here and-- Uh-oh.

[chuckles] Somebody pulled the cork right out.

Somebody pulled it out right there.

Right there.

There, here we go.

It's coming down again.

This is almost down and then it get's over here and [Bob makes "shoom" sound] See there.

And there's the base of our waterfall, right there.

We just made a big decision.

This is where our waterfall is going to live in this painting.

There, and sometimes it's fun just to paint the whole waterfall with a knife.

Shoot, maybe we'll just do that.

Sometimes that's fun, too.

Take a little of that white color and here and there, just sort of highlight a little bit so it shows up a little better.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] There.

As I've mentioned before in this series, you can do entire paintings using nothing but the knife.

This knife, once you make friends with it, it does take a while to make friends with it, just like anything else in life.

There.

Now, see we have a little background color.

Maybe, let's take, let's take pure titanium white, I want to get a little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife, just like before, but this is just pure white.

And I'm going to come right in here and just, let it break.

Whew.

Let that color break, let it break.

See there?

Just go over.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Don't overdo though.

This get's feeling good.

[chuckles] And you don't know when to stop.

But something about like that's all we're looking for.

There.

Isn't that a neat little way to do a watery fall?

You can do a watery fall just, just using the old knife.

And we can take our two inch brush and very gently, real gently, or you can do it with a blender.

Just pick it up and sort of blend that together a little bit.

See there, now we have water just spilling right over the edge.

And down here at the base of this, certainly with all this much water falling, there'd be all kinds of beautiful, misty areas that are just floating around down here.

Float right on up, who knows?

All kinds of things.

Wherever, wherever.

There.

Go back to our little blender, because it's so soft, we can just get in here and blend that.

Something about like that, just blend it, blend it, blend it.

And take a little color right on the blender here.

Get a little more.

There, we can just paint in all kinds of little clouds and little fluffy things that are living in here.

Isn't that neat?

Something like that, wherever you want them.

There we go.

Boy, that water is churning and raising the devil down there isn't it?

I love waterfalls, I could paint waterfall after waterfall.

I think they're so gorgeous.

I lived in Alaska, I spent a great deal of time just watching waterfalls and photographing them.

Oh, they're gorgeous things.

Maybe down here at the base of our waterfall, maybe there lives, does now, some great, big old stones down here.

We'll just use that same color because that's all we have.

And maybe there's a little hidden one back here, and you just can barely see it, I don't know.

Another one over here.

Wherever you think they should be.

Now then we can take and very gently, very gently, just bring some of that misty area right on down in there.

Very soft though.

And this is where you really need that soft brush, if you're going to pull this misty all over the rocks, you really have to have a very soft brush so it doesn't cut the paint.

There, we just let the back of that stone just disappear right into the mist.

[Bob makes "whoosshhh" sound] Alright.

Make little watery sounds when you're doing this.

It helps.

Let's take, I'm going to dip the brush into a small amount of the liquid clear, go into the titanium white.

The clear is in there only to thin the paint a little bit.

And maybe sneaking right out of here [Bob makes "shoom" sound] comes a little old watery falls, comes down and splashes.

[Bob makes "tch" sound] The water's beginning just to creep out of the mist here.

There it comes, a little more paint.

Just let it sneak right out of there.

[Bob makes "toom" sound] We can take the knife, bunk, put another little stone here and there.

Just the least little touch of highlight on some of these stones.

Don't want much, too dark down here.

I want to save that beautiful contrast.

And then here, water comes, maybe it comes right over the top.

[Bob makes "tch" sound] Little splashes going on.

I don't even know where this is going.

Doesn't much matter at this point.

There we go.

Alright, we need to close up the waterfall somehow.

Need something on the sides, keep it contained so it doesn't just run right out of the painting.

Maybe, yep, how about right there?

Let's have, maybe there's a nice tree that lives right there.

There he is.

And, and, and there's another one.

There we go.

A little bit more color on the brush.

[Bob makes "tch, tch, tchoo" sounds] Hope you can see those.

Maybe I'll add the least little touch of white to it.

There you go, now you can see some of those little shapes.

Sometimes it gets so dark here it's hard to see them.

Maybe, yep, here's one.

Put a little detail, some of them I'm just making, just little pully down trees.

Some of them I'm putting some detail in.

Just up to you, whatever you think should be there.

Whatever you think should be there.

There comes one.

Boy, this one has quite a view, doesn't it?

Just leans right over the old waterfall there.

What a view.

Gets plenty of moisture in its life.

There.

Maybe all kinds of little things living right down here.

Just wherever, wherever you think they should be.

Now then, I'm going to create a little mist down at the base of this.

So I'll just take a little of that lighter color, a little titanium white, tap in some nice, soft, misty areas.

I'll show you why I want that mist down there in just a second.

Now then, let's go over here on the other side of the old painting.

We need something to contain the other side.

Maybe there's a big old stone that lives right out here.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] It comes right down.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] Just comes right on down, disappears right into that mist.

We don't even know where it goes.

A little light color, [Bob makes "tchoo" sound] put it right on there so it has something on top.

There we go.

I'll going to grab just the least little touch of it and pull it down, just enough so you can see it a little bit.

There we go, our little blender brush.

I want to blend this right together so you can't tell where the mist stops and the rocks come together.

Just blend it all together.

Back to our little fan brush.

There we go, a little white on it so it shows up against-- There we are.

Just a few little, few little things that live right in there.

There.

Something like that.

And maybe up here, let's have, yep, a big tree.

And he lives right here.

There.

Big old tree.

I really hope you can see that.

I'll put some highlights on.

We'll put a little green on it, maybe that'll help.

These dark canvases, on TV, sometime don't show up as well as some of the other ones.

There we go.

But they are gorgeous.

What's neat about these, if you're doing these in public, show them to people with the light on them, and then show them the same painting without the light.

It's unbelievable, the difference.

Unbelievable.

There we go.

Put the indication of a few little trunks here and there but not much.

Now then, let's take a little bit of sap green, a little bit of, tiny little bit of yellow.

I want this to be very dark, very, very dark.

Very dark, little, little color on there.

Okay, let's go up in here.

Now then, maybe we can see them.

I don't want them to get too bright though.

That, that bothers me if it gets too bright.

Just enough so they'll stand out a little bit, like so.

And as I say this is the last show in the 26th Joy of Painting series.

My gosh, there's 300 and, geez, almost 340 shows now.

I'm going to put some over here, too.

There, isn't that fantastic, though, that Joy of Painting has produced that many shows?

And made an old man's dream come true.

You know, somebody asked me the other day, they said, "What should I do if I hadn't got a chance "to see all the shows?"

If you haven't got to see them, call your local station, just let them know.

And if you want, if you want this show to continue, give them a call.

Let them know that you like it because they, they only know if you tell them.

There we are.

Put a little green down here, too.

What the heck, not much though.

I really don't want too much of this green in here.

Just enough to sort of flavor it.

There it is.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Let's go back to the fan brush.

I'm going to put some things right in here, a few more trees.

Need a little lighter color.

All we're doing here is just playing with values, back and forth, making it a little lighter, a little darker, back and forth.

Put a little mist down here like that.

There.

Just a little misty area.

Something about like that, soft little area.

Okay, now then.

We can go back to our brush that has the black and the blue on it, or blue and black, [chuckles] whichever your favorite is.

And we go in here, and then we'll put some little trees that live back in here, there they are.

There's one.

We'll put a little green on him, too, just to get him to stand out a little better.

But see those little misty areas that you put in, that's the only thing you have to separate.

It makes your painting look very, very dark, and very deep.

Those little misty areas, they separate, they separate, they're your very good friend, take care them.

There.

Alright.

Our brush that has the green on it.

We'll put the indication of a few highlights on some of these trees.

Darker, darker, darker down toward the base.

There's one.

Alright.

Shoot, I'll tell you what, I like to make trees.

Let's make a couple over here in this misty area.

In our world, there going to be one right here.

Now once again, see this mist right here?

Watch, that's the only thing that separates.

But with that in there, you can put a dark tree right up against it, and it separates for you.

There.

And it makes your painting look so deep.

So deep, and you've done such a small amount to it.

Shoot, sometime, maybe you can just take the fan brush and make a little bush that lives right here, that's okay.

Something like that.

There.

Now we have the old fan brush that has the titanium white on it.

Let's make some big decisions here.

And we have to sort of decide where, there going to be a river coming off here, we have to decide [chuckles] where it's going to go.

Maybe it's going to go right on out, something like that.

Doesn't much matter.

Wherever you want it.

Let's make the water shiny.

But to make it shiny, just pull down a little bit with a little touch of the white And then go across.

[Bob makes "ssoop" sound] That easy.

Isn't that neat?

[chuckles] It's one of the neatest things that happens in this whole technique.

There we go.

All kinds of little things in there.

Something like that.

Tell you what, let me take the little filbert brush here, dip it in some paint thinner, going to make a thin paint.

Got paint thinner going right into blue and black.

And I'm going to go over here and pull one side through a light color so it's lighter on one side, so you get it against there, and dark on the other.

And maybe in our world here, maybe there's just gobs of little stones that live right along in here, like so.

Just wherever you want them.

All kinds of happy little stones.

There.

Over here, here's a few more.

And some of them are out here in the water.

I hope you try this painting.

It's one of the neatest little paintings.

It is so easy, and it's a lot of fun.

And when your friends and neighbors see it, they won't believe you done it.

And that truly is the joy of painting.

When your paintings can make other people happy, then you truly have experienced the joy that comes with painting.

I want to thank you for inviting me back into your home for another series of painting shows.

The 27th series is already under production, and I look forward to seeing you very, very soon.

Thank you again.

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