The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hello, I'm Bob Ross and I'd like to welcome you to the 24th Joy of Painting series.

If this is your first time with us please allow me to extend a personal invitation for you to drag out your brushes and some paints and paint along with us each show.

And if you've been with us before, allow me to thank you for inviting us back for another series of painting shows.

Tell you what, lets get started today and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us at home.

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

I have my standard old 18 by 24 inch canvas but you use any size that you want.

This is a pre-stretched double primed canvas.

And I've covered the entire canvas with just a very thin even coat of liquid white.

Now, liquid white is an oil-based paint that allows us to actually blend color up here on the canvas rather than working ourself to death on the palette.

Just makes painting easy.

So, it's a fantastic day here, I thought we'd just do a very warm little scene that makes you feel good in here.

So let's start out with the old two inch brush.

The little tiny one.

Take a little bit of the Indian yellow.

Just a very small amount on the two inch brush.

Load a little color on the brush and let's go right up here.

Maybe we'll have a beautiful little sky that's just full of warm colors that, as I say, sort of makes you feel good when you look at it.

So making little x's, little criss-cross strokes.

Go all the way across the canvas like so.

Just about like so.

Maybe we'll have a little water in here.

I love water, I think it's so gorgeous.

And it's very easy to paint in this technique.

And we'll reflect a little of that color right down into the water.

And then, then...

I'll tell you what, without cleaning the brush let's just go into a little bit of the, of the yellow ochre.

Once again, we do not need a great deal of paint here.

Just, just a little paint.

Go right above the yellow.

Still making our little criss-cross strokes.

The little x's.

And, just like that we'll lay down a little bit of the yellow ochre.

There, yellow ochre is sort of a nice gold color.

It's beautiful, beautiful little color.

And, we'll reflect a little of that into our water.

There, mm, [chuckles] shoot.

Time to get crazy.

Time to get crazy, let's go right into the bright red.

And still we haven't washed the brush.

Just a little bit of the bright red.

And right up here, making our little x's, our little criss-cross strokes we'll add a little bit of that.

And red's such a warm color.

It just, it just makes you feel good when you look at it.

Makes you happy.

You almost can't help it.

Just, just sort of warms up your whole day.

But too much of it will set your world on fire so all we want is just a nice pinkish reddish glow up here in the sky.

That's all we're looking for today.

And while I have that on the brush, we'll just add a little of that down here too.

In the water we're going to reflect the same basic colors that we have in our sky.

Something about like that.

There.

Now then.

Still haven't washed the brush.

I look, I look for ways that are easy.

In technical terms that's known as laziness.

There.

[chuckles] We'll take a little bit of the blue and alizarin crimson, mix them together right on the brush.

And let's go right up in here.

And with that color, sort of a lavender color, we'll just, we'll just fill in the top of the sky.

Phthalo blue and Alizarin crimson and you can take, you can this to the blue side or the red side.

Just sort of depends on your mood and how you feel.

That's strictly and completely up to you.

Maybe...

Shoot, maybe, I'll tell you what, look here.

Add a little bit more color to my brush.

Maybe in our world there lives... Yep, you're right.

Just a happy little cloud up here.

We can, we can make the indication of a little cloud just by tapping.

There he is, there he is.

A little cloud, a little cloud, oh big cloud.

See, you can just let it go.

Let your imagination take you wherever you want to go.

But all we're doing is just tapping in some basic little shapes here.

Maybe we'll put one on the other side.

We don't want him left out.

Something like that.

Now then, while we have that lavender color on the brush - the blue and the crimson - we'll just come down here and fill in the whole bottom of this.

Once again, all we're doing here is just reflecting the colors from the sky into the water.

There we are, now then.

Let's take and wash the old brush.

We wash our brushes with odorless paint thinner.

And I really suggest that you use odorless thinner or you'll become very unpopular around the home front.

There's a screen down here in the bottom of the bucket that I scrub the brush against and we'll shake it off.

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

That really is the fun part of this whole technique.

Just cleaning the brush.

Now very lightly, three hairs and some air, we'll go right over those, just blend them.

And it will make instant clouds.

And the more you blend them, the softer they'll become.

And you can continue to blend them until they absolutely just disappear.

It's up to you, up to you.

All right.

I think maybe today in this little painting let's build us a little mountain.

For that we'll use some black, a little Prussian blue, a little Alizarin crimson, maybe some Van Dyke brown.

So we have black, Prussian blue, Alizarin crimson, a little Van Dyke brown.

Pull the paint down as flat as you can get it.

Really get tough with it.

Cut across, get our little roll of paint, lives right on the edge of the knife.

Now you have to make your first major decision.

Where does your mountain live?

Maybe in our world.

Yep, does now.

Our mountain lives right there.

With a very firm pressure Just literally push the paint right into the fabric.

Right into the fabric.

This is a chance to really get tough.

Take out [chuckles] all your frustrations and hostilities and whatever.

Maybe there's a, maybe there's another little peak right there.

Wherever you want it.

Wherever you want them.

This technique is so fantastic because it allows you individuality.

We use no patterns, no tracings.

We just, we just want to show you technique and turn you loose on the world.

Because the canvas is wet you can move this paint.

You can pull it, it'll slide right on top of there.

Just like so.

Now if we had a dry canvas, [chuckles] at this point you'd be in, well, you'd be in Agony City because the paint will not move like it does on this wet surface.

And that's what the liquid white does.

It allows us to actually blend color right up here.

Blend color.

And it's also an excellent way here of laying out your whole mountain.

By pulling it in the direction like this, downward, you can begin laying out all the different ideas for highlights and shadows in your mountain without being committed.

There we go.

Now then... Let's put a little highlight on that mountain.

Today, let's take Titanium white.

I'll reach up here and I'll get a little of the Midnight black, I want a grayish color.

So, just black and white like that.

There, just mix it a little.

But I want to leave it sort of marbled so there's a lot of things happening in there.

Pull the paint out.

And once again, our little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife.

Touch, no pressure.

[Bob makes "shoom" sound] And just follow right down the mountain there.

But no pressure.

Absolutely no pressure.

There, if you've painted with us before you've probably heard me talk about when I was teaching my son Steve to paint.

I used to tell him just to pretend that he was a whisper that just floated right across the mountain.

And that way he understood how delicate of a touch.

So maybe that's a good analogy.

Good way to remember.

Just be a whisper that floats across here.

Very delicate.

And by applying no pressure it allows this paint to break.

In other words, it leaves all these little holes in it.

And that's what really makes it look neat.

Makes it look like a mountain.

And it's very simple.

There.

Now let's make us a shadow color.

For that we'll use a little white, oh, a little bit of the, a little bit of the Prussian blue.

Maybe just a touch more.

I'm going to add a little Van Dyke brown, maybe even a little black in there.

What the heck?

Even put a little crimson, ooh I like that.

Like that.

That's a nice color.

Just sort of decide what, what color you want your shadows to be and that's what, what they should be.

Our little roll of paint.

We can go right up in here.

And now we can begin putting in the indication of all kinds of little shadows in there.

I'm going to add just a touch more blue to my color, just so it shows up a little better and you can see it.

There.

There.

A little touch in here.

Every highlight needs it's own individual shadow.

If it doesn't have it's own shadow it just sort of lays there dead.

It won't play with you.

There.

Something like that.

And you can sort of play back and forth.

Maybe you want to go back in here and just change the shape of this a little bit so it has a little more character to it.

You can do that because on this piece of canvas you have total and complete power.

You can literally do anything here.

You have ultimate power on this piece of canvas.

Shoot, when I go home I don't have power over anything but the garbage but here, [chuckles] this is my world.

And I can do anything here.

I can move mountains.

Can move mountains.

Change the course of rivers.

Anything that I want to do.

There, put a little shadow right underneath there.

Okay.

Maybe here and there a little something like that.

Now we'll take a clean, dry brush and just tap, I want to diffuse the base of this mountain so it looks like it's laying in the mist down here.

But always follow the angles.

Follow those angles.

There and then lift upward, just enough to take out the tap marks and to blend everything together.

Like so.

There, see there?

That's all we need.

Tell you what.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun.

Let, let's do this.

You begin seeing things here.

I like to have a lot of depth in my paintings.

We'll just put another little range of mountains right here.

Just drop them in, same way, and watch how it pushes that first range back.

That simple.

Just put them in same exact way as we did the others.

Scrape off the excess paint, blend them out, there we go.

Something about like that.

Back to our little highlight colors, the gray color.

[Bob makes "ssshhoo" sound] Same thing.

Follow those angles.

[Bob makes "poom" sound then chuckles] You've got to make those little noises or it just doesn't work.

Maybe this one, yeah, it comes right down like yeah.

See, we can pull it over here and blend it together.

But notice the angles.

Angles are very important if light's coming through here it's only going to strike at a given angle.

So most of your highlights will be in the same basic angle.

And most of your shadows will be in the same basic angle.

Depending on where your light's coming from.

There.

Something like so.

Clean dry brush.

And once again, just tap this a little to create the illusion of mist down at the base.

And lift upward.

All right, now, let's have some fun, shoot.

Tell you what let's do.

We'll use that same old brush.

I'm going to take a little of the white, a little bit of that mountain color.

Mix them together, and I'm just sort of pushing the brush.

Get a little color on it.

Maybe way back here in the background there are some little foothills.

And the little foothills can be made just by doing something as simple as this.

Just tapping downward.

Just tapping downward.

There, that's all there is to it.

Gently.

Little quarter inch strokes.

Very small, lift upward.

It'll make it look like little trees that live way back here in the distance, far, far away.

Pulling straight down, straight down.

It's most important to come straight down.

And then gently coming across.

We'll make the indication of instant reflections.

Sometimes it's fun to have several layers here.

And you can do that just by doing it the same way.

There, tap in some basic little shapes.

Pop it up, make it look like little things far away.

And then we'll put in another little reflection.

As you come forward, each layer should get a little bit darker.

A little bit darker.

Shoot, I tell you what, let's have some real fun here.

Maybe there's another one that comes way out, way out - there.

Something like that.

Something about like that.

Once again, we need our little reflections so just give it a little, little downward pull.

Go across.

And...

Wherever, I don't know.

You sort of have to make up your mind.

Each one of these, though, will create another plane in your painting and help that illusion of distance and depth.

I'm going to take a little sap green, a little yellow, just tap the brush the same way.

And as things get closer to us we begin to see a little color.

So we can just...

I'm using the same old dirty brush, just add a little yellow to it and some sap green.

We can just begin tapping in the indication of little colors that you can see.

And things are far away from you.

It's difficult to see color.

Maybe just a hint of green back here.

There we go.

Now, take a little touch of the liquid white, put it on here, pull it out very flat and I'm going to add a small amount of the bright red.

Very, very small amount.

Cut across.

And we go right up in here and just act like you're trying to cut a hole right in the canvas.

There.

Take out, really, all your hostilities here.

Just really get tough with it.

Just back and forth like you're trying to saw a hole through there.

This will create the illusion of a little water line.

It also is a nice light area between the darks.

It separates, makes everything really stand out and look good, okay.

Maybe, [chuckles] let's have some fun.

Clean off a spot to work here.

Let's take some black.

We'll use some Prussian blue, Phthalo green, Alizarin crimson.

There we go, we just mix up a pile of color.

All right, let me grab an old brush here.

Maybe we'll, maybe we'll just use a little fan brush.

You could do this with a one inch brush, fan brush, whatever.

Just use a little fan brush today.

Load a lot of color onto the bristles.

And let's have in our world some happy little evergreen trees.

Just use the corner of the brush and as you work down the tree push harder and harder bending the bristles.

Down here, ooh, we're really getting tough.

We're just bending it all the way down to the furrow.

Get tough, show it who's boss.

These little evergreens live right in your fan brush.

You just sometimes have to really get forceful and push them out.

There they go, here comes the other one.

And you decide how many trees you want.

You decide, really all we're trying to do here is show you technique.

We use no patterns or no tracings.

Strictly up to you because you can learn to compose as you paint if you'll just practice.

If you'll just practice a little.

But if you like to use patterns there's certainly nothing wrong with that and you can trace your pattern on here put liquid white over it and the liquid white is still transparent enough that you can see the tracing through it if you like to do that.

Personally, I enjoy the, the freedom that comes with not having a pattern because you can literally, as I mentioned earlier, you can learn to compose and create your paintings as you go.

And you look at them.

Things... You, you begin to see things.

And with practice you'll be able to see more and more.

After you've done a dozen paintings or so you won't believe what you can do.

Every day I get, I get letters from fantastic people all over the United States and several foreign countries and they're sending us pictures of, of paintings that you wouldn't believe.

And they've never had an art lesson.

All they've done is they've watched the TV series and they've learned.

And you can too.

Okay.

Let's grab an old one inch brush.

Maybe we'll have some bushes down here at the base of these trees.

Just sort of push upward with the brush and make the indication of some happy little bushes that live right down here.

[chuckles] Watch here, turn the brush over and we'll tap in a little color underneath.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] I know, you're saying "Bob, you've really messed it up this time."

But you watch.

One of the most fantastic things about this whole technique is the fact that we don't make mistakes.

We have happy accidents.

Because very soon, very soon [chuckles] you learn to work with anything that happens.

And it takes all the fear out of painting.

There.

We'll just tap some of that into there too.

As you've probably figured out by now, this is going to end up being some gorgeous reflections that live right underneath that tree.

So we just take a two inch brush, grab, and pull straight down.

Very gently, just pull it straight down.

Over here, straight down.

And then go across.

And we have instant reflections.

That easy.

Now.

I have several of each brush going so I don't have to spend all my time just washing brushes.

Dip the brush into a little liquid white.

Be right back, grab a little sap green, a little yellow.

Let's go right up in here and let's just put some sparkles out here on these bushes.

Lookie there, the sun's playing through there and it's just zinging through.

A little yellow ochre, here and there, a little Indian yellow.

Occasionally the least little touch of the bright red.

And just vary your colors.

Vary your colors, [Bob makes "dooom" sound], there we go.

And work in layers.

Do one little bush at a time.

Don't get greedy.

[chuckles] Sometimes it starts working so well we decide to do all our bushes at once.

And then there's no separation between them.

No depth.

Poor little bush just gets lost there.

There.

A little heavier on the yellow ochre.

Just enough to change the flavor a little bit.

Make it stand out as an individual.

There we go.

Now on the other side we'll do the same basic thing.

Sap green, Cad yellow, Indian yellow, yellow ochre.

There, grab a little bit more of the green.

[Bob makes "Dooom" sound] Look at that.

Did you ever think you could make all these gorgeous bushes that easy?

You really can.

You really and truly can.

There.

Okay,, now maybe - Tell you what, let's have some fun.

Let's just reflect a little of that down into the water.

I don't want a lot of reflection but just a little.

Just tap a little of that color right down to the water.

On the other side same thing.

There.

You can make some of the most beautiful reflections in this technique that you've ever seen.

And when I was a traditional painter reflections were one of those things that absolutely drove me crazy.

And this technique it may be one of the easiest things that happens.

Just come across.

But when you pull this down, oh, so gentle, one hair and some [chuckles] air, that gentle, easy, caress it very lightly, very, very gently.

Let's put a few little trunks in our trees.

We'll take some white, a little dark sienna, mix them together.

Tiny little roll of paint on the knife.

And we go up in here, decide where your, where your trunk lives in the tree.

Just touch.

Now, we're not going to see the entire trunk because we're going to have some limbs that protrude out in the front of the trunk.

So just here and there.

And you can scratch in the indication.

Makes it look like there's a lot of trees there instead of just a few.

[chuckles] There we go.

See.

There.

And you can just take a scrape right through the paint and make it look like little sticks and twigs and all kinds of little things that live back in the woods there.

That's where all my little friends live.

The little rabbits and the squirrels and all those little characters.

If you've painted with me before you know I have a lot of animal friends.

A lot of times we show them on the program.

I'll show you some before the series is over.

I got a lot of letters and one of the earlier series.

I showed a little squirrel that lived with me named Peapod the Pocket Squirrel.

[chuckles] He's, he's something else.

And now he's an old squirrel.

He's just about, just about ready to turn loose.

We turn all our animals back to the wild.

We don't keep them, we don't try to make pets out of them.

Okay, let's take a little sap green, a little yellow, make a dark green here and let's just begin putting some highlights on some of these trees.

As you work down the tree I like to get darker and darker until it just fades right off into the very dark color.

Remember that your light's coming predominantly from the right in this painting.

Your mountain tells you so, right there.

So a little more color on the right than on the left.

We'll give that indication in the trees.

There.

See, down in here keep it very dark because you need a nice shadow area in there.

It makes them look deep.

Very deep.

There we go.

A few over here.

Something about like that.

This old tree needs some.

There we go, just drop them right on.

There.

Darker, darker, darker down here toward the base.

Shoot, we've got some nice highlights on the evergreens.

Now then, all this needs something to stand on so it doesn't fall over in the lake there and, and... Well, it might be a river, whatever you want it to be.

Take some Van Dyke brown and let's put some land under all this.

Pull sort of the angle you think the land would flow.

Remember that water always, always sits in a recessed area.

So chances are that there's sort of an angle coming down like this.

There we go.

Chances are that's not 100% true but most of the time.

A little brown and white.

Come right back in here.

No pressure, just like putting snow on the mountain.

Just like putting snow on the mountain.

There.

The angles are very important here, very important.

You wouldn't want to bring these straight down, it would look like cliffs hanging there.

There we go.

A little bit of our liquid white.

That will give us a water line.

Clean the bottom up.

Sort of bring it all together.

There we go.

There.

And a little back in here.

Maybe a little ripple here and there, there and here.

Wherever.

Painting is a very individual thing.

So when you're doing your painting you change it any way that makes you feel good because we each see nature through different eyes.

And the way I see it may not be the way, necessarily, that you see it.

I only want to show you a technique.

A technique that makes painting very easy and that you can do, anybody can do.

I've absolutely never met anyone who could not paint.

There.

Just take the point of the knife and we'll cut a few little sticks and twigs and things in here.

This also helps show different layers.

Shows depth in your painting.

There are a few over on this side.

Something like that.

Sometimes there's a little bush or two that grows down the edges.

You can drop them in.

Just sort of helps fill everything in.

Shoot, I think we're about to the point where we can sign this one.

Take a little paint thinner, a little bit of the bright red, make the paint very thin.

Almost like ink.

And let's go right up in here and we'll sign this one.

I really hope you've enjoyed this painting.

It's one that'll bring you a lot of pleasure because of all the colors.

Makes you feel good in here.

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