The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Welcome.

I'm certainly glad you could join me today.

I thought today we'd just do a fantastic little painting that I think you'll really enjoy.

So let's have them graphically run all of the colors across the screen that you need to do this project with me, and we'll go on up here and get started while they're doing that.

I've already covered the canvas with a nice, thin even color, the liquid white.

It's wet and slick and it's all ready to go.

So let's do the same thing.

Today I'm gonna start with a small amount of the phthalo blue on the two-inch brush, and just tap it.

See, really tap it firmly.

We'll pick up a little of the midnight black and add it in there too.

So we have phthalo blue and midnight black.

Okay, let's go right up here.

Now then, using the little criss-cross strokes, little x's, little x's just like so.

Just being dropping in a happy little sky.

And do these little x's, see?

Little x's.

There.

That's just the way the teacher used to grade my paper in school.

She'd just write across it and go [Bob makes "tch, tch, tch" sounds] Just think about that when you're doing it.

Little x's.

Okay.

And as it works down, it picks up the liquid white and automatically, it gets lighter as it goes down.

Lighter and lighter.

There we go.

And today, I'm just gonna throw in a quick little background because I wanna spend some time playing in the foreground.

Just wanna have some fun.

So, we'll just blend out the brush strokes, and that quick, we have a happy little background.

Now then, let's have just a little rolling hill back there.

We'll just use the same old dirty brush, it's alright.

Go right into the phthalo blue, reach over here and pick up a little of the Alizarin crimson and a little white, so we have blue, Alizarin crimson and white.

And we're making sort of a lavender color.

About like so.

That's good.

Let's go right up here.

Alright, now maybe there's a little hill, and he lives, there he is.

You can just use this brush.

You could use a fan brush or a one-inch brush, it doesn't matter.

All we're doing is applying a little color here.

This is just a little hill that's way back in the distance.

And let it get lighter and lighter as it works downward.

There we go.

See there?

And automatically mixing with that liquid white, that happens.

You don't have to spend a lot of time worrying about it or planning it, let it happen.

Let it happen.

We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.

You learn to use everything that happens.

Okay, and that quick, we have a distant little hill.

Now then, same old dirty brush, go into a little bit of the Van Dyke brown, a little touch of dark sienna.

Same old dirty brush, and I'm just tapping it.

That's all there is to it, just tap it.

And maybe, back in here, maybe we'll have a little hill that runs like that.

And now, all I'm doing is putting in some dark color so when I put a lighter color on top, it'll show.

And that hill, he lives right there.

Okay.

Now then.

Same old dirty brush.

I'm gonna go right into a little bit of the yellow ochre, a little cad yellow, a little Indian yellow, just all the yellows, and I'm gonna reach up here and grab a little sap green.

So I have all the yellows and a little sap green, and just tap that brush into the color.

Tap it firmly.

Okay, let's go back up here.

Now then.

Just barely touch, see?

Just touch.

That's all there is to it.

And this is where you begin creating the lay of the land.

Make the little hill just a little rolling hill.

And we just make him roll here.

See there?

Just tapping.

Just tap.

Isn't that super easy?

And it's a lot of fun.

Just keep adding a little more color.

If you go back, let me show you here, let me show you.

You get a little bit of brighter color, watch, see how you can divide this up?

Because it's not just perfectly flat.

If you wanna make a little division in there, just make it a little touch brighter, and it makes it look like a little hill within a hill.

Sounds like a good name for a song.

Hill within a hill.

Don't ask me to sing it, because you'd turn your TV off.

There we go.

Okay.

And that gives us just a happy little hill that's back in the distance.

Same old dirty brush, go right back into the browns.

Load it full of paint.

Load it full of paint.

Now, I haven't washed this brush since we started.

Sky color, hills, everything.

Okay, let's go right back in here, and maybe in here we're gonna have another hill.

And here, once again, all I'm doing is just applying some dark color to it.

You could really, you could really put this on with a paint roller.

[chuckles] Put it on with a paint roller.

Boy, we could start a whole new thing.

There we go.

But at each layer here, you want it to get a little darker and darker as it comes toward the front.

As we've mentioned before, over and over, as things get closer to you in a landscape, they get darker in color.

Okay.

In fact, we could just, we can just paint the whole remainder of this canvas.

Just like that.

There we go.

Okay.

See, when you're using the big old two-inch brush, it doesn't take but just a second.

Just drop it right in.

There.

Okay.

Now then.

Same old dirty brush.

I'll go right back into my yellows: yellow ochre, Indian yellow, cad yellow, a little sap green, tap that brush.

Tap it.

Okay.

Now then, maybe.

See, here comes another little hill.

You can change the lay of the land just like that.

Just touch it.

Touch, touch, touch.

And let it wander right on out.

Now, when you're doing this, if you have problems making your paint stick, add a small amount of the liquid clear or paint thinner.

Very small amount.

Very small amount.

There we go.

There we go.

There.

See?

Just layer after layer after layer.

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

Drop them in.

Painting, painting gives you freedom.

It gives you freedom.

Spent half my life in the military with somebody telling me what color socks to wear, what time to do... oh, and this was my freedom.

I'd go home in the evening, and I'd paint, and there I could create any kind of world that I wanted.

It's clean, it's crisp, nobody had messed it up.

The water wasn't polluted.

Everybody was happy.

And you can too.

Just create a vision in your mind and drop it on canvas.

Look at all the hills we got.

Already, there's tremendous depth in this painting.

Look at the planes.

There's one, there's another.

There's one, there's one and there's one.

And the more of these planes that you have in your painting, the more depth you will have.

Okay.

Tell you what let's do.

Let's have some fun today.

Let's put a happy little house right in here.

Now, there's a lot of ways you can do it, let me show you here.

Probably one of the simplest ways, I'm just gonna take a little paint so you can see it.

You can just sort of scrape in a basic shape here.

See, there's part of the roof.

See, and then it comes down maybe like so.

And the other side.

And here.

And then you need something there and there.

You can do this just to sort of build yourself a little outline.

And then you can start filling it in.

And we'll take Van Dyke brown, a little bit of the dark sienna in it, and we'll begin building us a house right here.

[Bob makes "zoop" sound] Just like so.

Really push this into the fabric.

Push hard.

Very hard.

I want this color to just grind right into the material.

There.

Van Dyke brown, a little bit of dark sienna.

There we go.

There we go.

Tell you what, maybe, maybe this old fellow that lives here is like me.

He needs a little shed out here, so we can go ahead and lay that in right now.

[Bob makes "zoop" sound] Gotta make those little noises, or it doesn't work.

See?

Right now, we're just blocking in color.

We could care less.

We'll come back and separate all this.

Yeah, I know, you're saying, "Bob, you really done it this time."

And you may be right.

May be right.

We'll see.

Now, put him a little roof up here.

Okay, there we are, doesn't that look just like a house?

Oh, it doesn't.

Okay.

Well, we'll work on it a little bit more then, see what we can do.

Okay, I'm gonna take some bright red, some Van Dyke brown, a little dark sienna, a little touch of white in there, just to brighten it up some.

Just to brighten it up.

There we go.

Now then, this time, let's use the little edge of the knife.

See that little roll of paint?

Okay, let's go right up here.

Now then.

Go back here on this back, and let's start, like that.

It doesn't matter where you go here, because you can just cut it off when you put the other building on there.

Look at that.

Looks like happy little shingles back there.

That easy.

This is a old, tired building.

Now then, let's come right down in here.

See, and, we pick out this next eave.

There it is.

Comes right across there.

You knew that.

Now then.

Take a, this is titanium white.

Tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna add a little bit of black to that and make a nice, gray color.

Titanium with a little midnight black.

Oh, that's much nicer.

Much nicer.

There we go.

There we go.

Now.

Go back with the tiniest little bit of black and let's put some lines in here like boards.

Alright.

Then, with a clean knife, we just grab it and pull down just a tiny bit so it picks up the least little touch.

Look a there, look a there.

Makes all kinds of old-looking effects.

Okay.

All kinds of old things.

Now then.

Now then.

We'll take some more of midnight black and titanium white, make us that gray color again.

Pull it out, and let's go right up in here, and pull this one down.

Just pulling down, pulling down.

Doesn't matter if a little bit of that brown mixes in, makes it look old.

See there?

Look a there.

All those pretty things happen.

And I'm gonna go right along this edge here and firm it up with just a little dark color.

Just so it's a little bit firmer.

Back to my black.

Then we can go right through here and put, see, just put these little rascals back in there.

And don't get these too perfect, you want this to be an old house.

This wood is weathered.

It's really caught the devil out here.

Now, barely touch, just graze the canvas, caress the canvas.

Barely, barely touch it.

Give it these little pull-downs.

Let some, ooh, there's a nice one, see?

You could sit there with your one-haired brush for a week trying to get those, and here it just sort of happens.

Okay.

Now then, let's do, let's do the other side.

I want a darker gray.

Ooh, there's a nice gray for this side of the building.

See?

Maybe, tell you what maybe even a little darker yet.

I want it distinctly different.

Much darker.

Yes.

This one's in shadow, you don't see as much.

Don't see as much.

But we can still see that there's little boards running up through there like that.

Same thing, grab them, give them a little pull, make them look old.

That building, that building looks as old as me.

And that's old.

Alright.

Now then.

Maybe, we'll take some black.

Let's come right up in here and put a happy little window.

Need a way to see out.

Maybe the door's on the other side of this house, but have to have a window here, so you can see what's happening.

And, and we'll take, a little bit of light color.

This is very light gray.

And just go around, sort of clean up the edges.

And just cleans up the edges.

Makes your little window look good.

Now, maybe, look a there.

Maybe like so, I know next you'll want curtains in there.

And that easy, we got a nice little window.

Now then.

Gotta finish up the roof on this side over here, so let's go up in here, and we'll take the small edge of the knife again, and just pop in some little roof indications.

Little shingles.

See?

Do it just like you really lay shingles.

You do the bottom one first, and then work upward, so they overlap.

That keeps Mr.

Rain from slipping up under.

If you start at the top and worked down, you'd be in bad trouble.

And you paint them the same way.

Of course, this is a lot faster than putting shingles on a roof.

My father was a carpenter, and when I was young, he gave me a little taste of this.

My job was carrying all this up on the roof.

Boy, they were heavy.

Son of a gun, worked me to death.

I decided I wanted to be a painter.

There, now we got a lot of, a lot of shingles on there.

I'm gonna take a little bit of the white.

Now then, let's come right along in here, and I'm just gonna put a little white on here, just to make that stand out, so it really, really just pops out at you.

Okay.

Back to my brush that has all the grass color on it, we got a happy little building.

And we can come up in here and being tapping in some grass right down here at the base, and that'll clean it all up, make it look good.

Wanna clean up his little foots.

Just like so.

There we go.

A few right in there.

Once again, if you have problems making your paint stick, add a little bit of paint thinner.

Just a touch.

Sure didn't take much.

Nothing's worse than watching your painting just drip right off the canvas, so don't use too much.

Maybe there's a little touch back in there, we don't care too much.

Alright.

We got a happy little house out here.

See, you can just cover up whatever you don't want.

Now then.

House looks like it's sitting out there.

Boy, that's a dull place to live, isn't it?

Let's put a tree in there.

We need some trees in there.

Trees, oh, trees are super.

I'm gonna dip right into the liquid clear and go into midnight black.

Now, I dipped into the liquid clear to make this paint thinner, so it'll slide on the canvas, it'll move.

A lot of paint in the brush.

Okay, let's go up here, and you have to make a big decision.

Where does a tree live in your world?

Look around and decide, there he is.

There he is.

Maybe he's got a little, mm, crook right there in the bottom.

Just make up little stories.

Give these trees names and stuff.

Make them your friends.

Make them your friends.

Talk to them.

It doesn't matter if people think you're crazy.

You know, painters are noted for being a little weird anyway, we can get away with things like that.

If I acted normal, nobody would know me.

There.

Tell you what, let's put some arms on this tree, maybe, there we go, comes right out, [Bob makes "mmmmmmmm, zoom" sounds] Another little arm, maybe.

Like so.

Make him a little fatter right there.

Okay, I tell you, I tell you let's go over on the other side, I'll make that trunk a little bigger.

Maybe there's a big tree, and he lives right here in front of the house.

And in the summertime, when it's hot, this tree provides some shade.

Keeps you nice and cool in there.

And here comes a little arm, right through the roof.

And maybe there's another one there.

Wherever.

Wherever.

Still wanna make this one a little bit stronger on the bottom.

There.

See, with this liquid clear in the brush, thinning the paint, it slides right over the top.

Now then.

There we go.

Now.

I'm gonna take my liner brush, still using the liquid clear, I'm gonna thin this till it's just just about like water.

Pull that brush, turn it, and turn it, brings it to a sharp point.

Okay, now let's go up here, and begin laying in all kinds of little limbs and stuff like that.

Just all these little branches coming off here.

See?

Just, however many you want.

You have to make a big decision here.

How many live in your world.

Okay.

There we go.

I'm just gonna drop these in real fast.

When you're at home, and you have all kinds of time, take your time, and really put some beautiful little limbs in here.

See, now this one comes across in the front of the tree, don't have them all just coming off the sides.

If you do, it'll look like, [laughs] it'll look just like somebody took a big razor blade and cut your tree in two.

And all you have is the two sides.

Limbs come across the trunk.

And they go every which way.

Whatever makes them happy.

There.

See?

And just pop all these little rascals in there.

Just wherever you think.

Wherever.

And there's some back on that little tree.

There they are.

There's one.

Now, you could spend all day just putting all kinds of beautiful little limbs on your tree.

But I think I'll put some leaves on here, so, no use spending a lot of time and then just covering them up.

Let's go over here and put some on this other old tree here.

Just slide a few on there.

This paint just slips right over the canvas.

A little liquid clear, a little paint thinner, either one.

Just something to thin the paint down.

And then it'll flow.

If you tried to put thick paint on, oh, you'd be angry with me.

There.

Look at all those little, I get carried away sometimes, and just keep on and on with these.

There we go.

I forgot this one here.

Shoot.

He would've been very upset if he didn't have a limb too.

So we'll give him a couple.

Nothing like a mad tree.

Had one chase me all over the yard one time.

There.

There we go.

Okay.

Now then.

Let's get us an old brush, and we'll go right into dark sienna, some Van Dyke brown, just tap a lot of color in here.

Now then, let's go right up in here, and I'm just gonna tap on some little indications of some nice leaves.

And maybe, maybe sometimes you can paint a scene like this and leave the leaves off.

Maybe they've already, maybe they already fell off, maybe it's fall.

That's up to you.

That's up to you.

Okay, let's go over here and tap in a few here.

Like that.

Give this old tree some, don't want him left out back there.

Just however many you want.

And this one.

Isn't that a super nice way to create beautiful, beautiful little leaves on your tree?

While I got that dark color on here, I'm gonna put the indication of a little shadow coming right out through here.

We'll clean that up in a little while.

Without cleaning the brush, I'm going right into some yellow ochre.

Let's go right up here, and highlight some of these.

Just little light play through there.

Looking at your little cabin there, it tells you the light's coming from the left.

So, left side should be a little brighter than the right side.

And on this little tree, don't want him left out.

There we go.

All these little happy things.

There.

See, and work in little clumps.

Don't just throw them on at random, sorta look at it, get a feel for it.

Take pictures of trees, go out, sit in the woods, look at trees, talk to them, make friends with them.

There we go and that gives us some little leaves.

Okay.

Now then.

Clean brush here, let's just work that shadow right in.

There's a nice big shadow under this tree.

There we go.

Same thing over here.

I'm gonna pick up a little of that gray color, a little more of the white, just put a little touch of white in there.

Now, let's have some fun.

Maybe, maybe there's a fence right there.

I like to do an old, happy fence, comes right across like that.

And we're gonna have shadows.

There's another post.

As these posts get closer to you, allow them to get bigger, and farther apart.

There's another one.

See?

And that'll help create the illusion of distance.

Now then, we'll take a little brown and a little white, throw in a little highlight.

That easy.

A little bit of shadow, we want that shadow on there.

Okay, pull that shadow out that way, see?

And then go across.

Then go across.

We'll put a little, look at that.

And, we'll leave this one open because that'll be the gate.

And I think that'll show you how to make a super, super little painting.

And that just about finishes this one up.

So, think we'll call that one done.

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