The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, I'm Nicholas Hankins and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the 32nd Joy of Painting series.

Over the course of the series, you and I will paint some of the beautiful paintings that Bob left for us as he prepared for his series 32, including the little mountain scene that you've seen today.

It's just a, it's just a gorgeous little summer time painting so let's get started.

I'm going to load up my two inch brush with a little combo of phthalo blue and Prussian blue and as we come up to the canvas, I'll tell you a little bit about what we've got going on here.

Now, I have an 18 by 24 inch pre-stretched double primed canvas just like Bob used on his shows.

And it was already prepared, it was already covered with a very thin, even coating of the liquid white.

And that, of course, is what's allowing us to mix and move and blend this blue all over.

As we work our way down here you'll, you'll also notice that, that that blue color is getting a lot lighter.

A lot lighter.

Now I've got Bob's original painting over here just off to the side, so I'll be kind of referring to that.

If you see me looking off camera, you'll know what's going on.

I'm not losing focus, I promise.

I'm just going to be checking that painting out as we work through, because I want to get this as, as close as I can for you to the painting that Bob produced ... you'll, you'll have a chance to see how he did that.

Bob worked so hard on these paintings.

And unfortunately, he was he was unable to share those with you.

But we thought it was time to bring them out and let the world see them.

So.

All right, we've got a little, I've got a little blue on the canvas.

Saved a little space there for some clouds.

There's a big bank of clouds in this painting.

But first we need to wash the brush.

So in the great tradition here, we wash our brushes in odorless, paint thinner.

Shake out the excess.

And of course, you just beat the devil out of it.

So.

All right, we'll grab a clean, dry brush.

Now, I'm going to come back up to the canvas, start in the light area and we'll use some little crisscross strokes.

Just soften out any kind of unwanted little brush strokes or marks that you might have will bring it all together nice and smooth.

Come down in the water.

We'll do the same thing only in the water, I'm using level strokes.

I'm going to go all the way across.

I just left a little light area right there in the middle.

And if everything works out just right, that'll look like a little sheen of light playing across the water.

One of those little clever tricks Bob taught us.

So that's always fun.

I'm just taking that same two inch brush now and I'm tapping firmly, tapping the top corner into some titanium white.

You saw me reach and get just a tiny little touch, a bright red in there too to light it up.

Let's go up here to the canvas and we'll just kind of start tap, tap, tap, tap tapping in a little cloud shape.

Now, this may be the easiest way to create a little cloud than I've ever seen.

We teach a lot of painting classes down at Bob's workshop in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

And this is this is probably the easiest way when we have, especially when we have beginning painters come in, paint with us.

This may be the easiest way to create a happy little cloud of all the techniques Bob used.

So I'm happy to, happy to get to play around with this when it works so good.

And you just kind of let your brush bob and weave and dip and dive and duck and roll to create a variety of shapes in there.

Maybe it kind of wanders over here a little bit.

I'll just kind of tap up, tap down, tap all around.

And I'm trying to save as much as I can, a little bit of darker space in there.

I don't want to cover all of that up.

Having a little light and a little dark is very important.

You have to have the dark to show the light.

That's true in the case of clouds as well.

Let's come down here.

Maybe there's a little bit right there.

Looks like it anyway.

All right.

That's probably pretty good.

Okay.

Let me find a clean, totally clean, dry brush.

Let's come back up here and we'll just soften all of this out.

Now, this is what Bob would call two hairs and some air.

Very gentle, very gentle touch will kind of lift everything up, fluff it up.

Again to soften it.

Takes a little bit of that excess color off of there.

Occasionally you might even want to just knock the excess paint off your brush or wipe it off just to ensure that you don't have any paint going into weird, wild places where you wouldn't want it to go.

We'll just soften all over everything.

Knock it down a little, something like that.

All right.

Now it's all ready.

Big decision time.

Of course, Bob kind of made the decision for me today, so that's all right.

You know, over the course of the series, Bob produced about seven or eight paintings for us.

So just to, just fill things out, I'm going to, I'm going to share with you a few that I dreamed up, too.

So we'll, we'll kind of pad out Series 32 with a couple of mine and some of the prettiest paintings maybe you've ever seen Bob Paint.

They're just, they're just gorgeous and I can't wait to share them with you.

This is going to be a lot of fun, starting with this one.

Of course, we've got a big, big happy mountain here.

You really want to force that paint down into the, the grain of the canvas, push very firmly.

Bob often said, just sort of feel like you're you're taking that paint and pushing it through to the other side of the canvas.

Wherever you want, a little mountain peak to live, just put your knife down and really push firmly on it.

Let's see, we got another one lives right about there.

And as I say, scrape away all of that excess color.

You won't remove the dark, the dark's in there.

It will remain on the canvas.

Back to my two inch brush.

I'm going to grab that paint and pull it.

And of course, we have the luxury to do that because we have the liquid white on the canvas.

It just allows us to take those, those thick, firm, dry paints and move them around.

There we go.

Something about like that.

Looks nice and soft and misty down at the base and that's what we're looking for.

All right.

Put a little snow on our mountain here.

Let me pull out some titanium white.

Just flatten it out very flat on the palette.

We might even put a tiny little touch of bright red in there with it.

Cut across.

Let's come up here and just touch and allow that paint to filter right down, sweep right down.

Gentle touch.

You want to just allow this to float, float, float, float right down.

A little touch back there.

All right, let's take a little white, a little bit of the mountain color, a little touch blue.

Cut off a little roll of that paint that gives us that nice shadow color.

Now come back here and just sweep that right down so you can take and push a little bit of the mountain right back into the background back there if you want to.

A little bit behind this peak right here, he needs some.

Let's see, it looks like Bob kind of left that one a little darker so I'm going to, going to darken it up with just a touch more of that mountain based color.

There we go.

Maybe that's a deeper, deeper crevice right there or something.

Hard to tell.

Now, Bob does something really cool in this painting.

Well he did something cool in just about all of his paintings, didn't he?

But something I'm especially fond of in this one.

He just takes this knife a little more white, and kind of lays a little, little glacier right in there.

See it.

Just kind of snakes its way down the mountain.

Just allow that kind of wander off wherever you want it to go.

You can kind of pull the two together, maybe just take a clean knife, sort of sneak those two areas together.

Take a little, little light blue on maybe on the small side of the knife here.

Then you can go back to the big side.

When you have room, you can sneak both little edges of that knife into the painting and use them when it's most convenient.

And that's a nice thing.

That's why they put two edges on a knife.

All right.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, soften the base of that little mountain, sweep it up.

And let's mix together... We'll come back to the palette that just about takes care of our little mountain there.

Let's come back to the palette and use up some of this excess color that we have here.

A little white, a little bit of that leftover shadow color had some blue in it.

And I'm adding mountain, the mountain mixture I mixed up.

Which incidentally, I don't even know if I told you what was in that.

That was Prussian blue, midnight black, Van Dyke Brown and Alizarin crimson.

More blue and black than brown and crimson.

So that's how you make that super dark mountain mixture?

Now I'm adding some of that super dark mountain mixture to a little bit of white and just, just throwing in a touch more Alizarin crimson to make it more of a lavender color.

I'll take a one inch brush and load that up.

Tap it in there, tap, tap, tap, tap, and give it a little push.

Give it a little push, push up a little ridge of paint there.

See that?

Push up that little ridge paint on your palette?

Let's come up here.

And we'll have some little footie hills.

And guess what?

Bob liked to call them little footie hills.

Live down here at the base of this mountain.

And take your brush and even tap or pull up on those little tap marks that you made.

Give yourself a little, little tree lines.

Little timberline look to them.

Impression, textures of little trees back there.

Take our big brush and just soften out the base.

Make that nice and soft and misty back there.

Go back to our color.

Maybe, let's darken it just a touch.

I'm going to add a little more crimson, a little more of the mountain mixture.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

My brush in there the same way again.

Okay, let's go back up here And once you have that little misty area in there, you can create layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of anything you want to.

Little, little foothills, trees, mountains.

Doesn't matter.

Barn silos, could be anything Long as you've got a little, a little lighter value, a little lighter misty area in there to separate everything.

That's possible.

Sweeping tops up out here.

Go back to our big brush again.

I'm just going to soften that a little.

Put my misty area in there again.

We've got to take care of that.

Pays big, big dividends.

It sure does.

It sure does.

All right.

We're ready.

We're ready for some little trees, I think.

Happy little trees in here.

Let's add a little, little more blue, a little more black a little touch of sap green and crimson to this mixture.

Just mix up a kind of a medium dark color there.

Doesn't even need to be mixed all that thoroughly.

Wipe off my knife here and I'll grab a little fan brush and we'll load it up with some of that sort of medium, medium, dark color.

There we go, let's jump up here and go time on happy little trees.

That's where they start right there.

Just that corner of your brush.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Work your way down.

And of course they, they have to have a little friend.

Nothing's changed.

Even after all this time.

All these little trees still need a friend so we're going to give them one or two or three or maybe a few more along the way.

We'll see what happens.

Like I say, I don't want to vary too much from Bob's, though.

Want to make that as true, true to the original, as I can.

So you see how to paint it.

And we've, we've waited long enough to see these series 32 paintings.

I'm just, I'm so happy to be able to bring these to you.

Loading up a little one inch brush with some of that dark color.

I even added a little more black and green and blue to this just to darken it up a touch.

We'll pull down a little, [Nic makes "tchoo, tchoo, tchoo" sounds] a little reflection in the water.

Grab my, grab my large brush and soften that.

Sweep across, and we'll take, let's take a, a clean brush, clean one inch brush.

I'm just going to dip it into the liquid white and we'll come up and take a little cad yellow, yellow ochre, maybe a little touch of that base color, which will give it a nice greenish flavor.

Get a little sap green in there if we want to.

A little brighter color, pull that in one direction.

In one direction only.

Just fill the end of that brush.

Absolutely full of paint.

See that?

It's just choked down with a lot of paint.

Let's come up here and add some little highlights to these bushes.

Delicate little touch, delicate little touch.

That's all you need.

Something like that.

Something like that.

Might even see some of that color in the water reflection itself.

So we'll add that in there too.

Take my knife, a little Van Dyke Brown, we'll put a little piece of land back here.

Got to have something hold all this stuff up.

A little piece of land that needs a touch highlight on it, probably.

A little white and sienna and brown just mixed to a real marbled, marbledy appearance.

If I can borrow a Bobism there, it's marbledy.

I don't think that was a word until Bob spoke it.

[chuckles] But it is now.

It's in the lexicon.

Take a little white and liquid white, spin that around on the palette, cut it off.

Sharpen up tops of those little trees a bit.

There we go, now.

Move all this stuff out of the way.

I've got to do a little, do a little housekeeping.

Happens on even the biggest of palettes still have to clean up.

It's too bad.

All right.

Now let's make up the dark mixture.

Prussian blue and black.

Van Dyke Brown again.

Crimson.

Sure, why not?

A little Sap Green Just throw it all together.

Throw it all together.

Whatever's dark, it's good.

It's game.

I'm picking up all that paint and turning it over.

When you mix your paint, be sure you mix it so that you're picking up all of that color and turning it over.

Otherwise, what's right against the palette never gets mixed.

And that's no good.

That's no good.

We got to mix it all.

All right.

I'm going to grab a little larger fan brush, and let's come up here, make sure it's clean.

Then we'll come up here and really, really load this thing full.

Lots of paint on both sides.

There we go.

Load it up nice and full.

Pull it to a chiseled edge.

Let's go up here and have a, started to say, a happy little tree, but this is kind of a happy big tree that lives right there.

Just decide where you want it to live first and then take just corner of your brush.

Start working your way down here.

And you press firmer and firmer and firmer as you work your way down.

And it makes a bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger branch.

Just come right on down with it.

Pick up more paint as you need it.

Don't try to, don't try to squeeze more tree out of your brush than you put, than you put in there to begin with.

There are only, they're only good up until they run out of paint and then you've got to put more paint on them.

Pick up some more that color.

If you have any trouble getting your paint to stick to the canvas, you can add just a tiny little touch of the paint thinner.

But be careful.

Be careful If you do it, you don't want to get it too thin and paint thinner will turn your turn your nice, firm dry.

Bob Ross paints thin in a hurry.

So just word to the wise, be careful with it.

Be judicious with it because you don't want to get so thin that you can't go back on top later and add a little more.

We want to paint wet on wet for as long as we want to or as long as we can.

And the thicker that base coat is better it the works so.

My that's a big tree.

[Nic whistles] Let's give him another friend.

Looks like Bob's got one kind of stuck in beside him here on the right, right about there.

Yeah, right about there.

Sneak on down here.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka' sounds] You got to make this little noises, too.

That was.

That was not a joke.

When Bob told you to make the little noises, that was not a joke.

It really does help.

At least I think it does.

It's worth a try.

It's worth a try.

All right.

We've got a little piece of land comes out there, and then it's just, it's just kind of all dark in here.

We don't have to be all that careful.

It's all, it's already all dark anyway.

There will be a little bit of reflection, though.

This is right up against the water, so let's pull some of this color down into the water.

Soften it a bit.

Sweep across [Nic makes whistling sounds] two hairs and some air.

There.

Go back up here and play with these trees just a minute.

We'll put a little sharper, little sharper, top out of them.

Take a little bit of my a, a little bit of my white, dark sienna, Van Dyke brown combo.

Just mix that to a marble appearance.

Cut across.

See a little indication of a tree trunk in these trees.

Not too much though.

Just enough to say it's there.

In case anybody, in case anybody wanders up, looks at it.

It'll be there in case they're looking for it.

Take a brush that's got a little bit of that original tree color on.

It's got some lavender and blue.

I'm interested that it has blue because it'll turn green when I load it with all three of the yellows and a little touch of the liquid white.

Come back up here and add some highlights to these trees.

Just a little accent.

I don't want to lose the dark, just a little accent on there.

And leave plenty of dark.

Don't cover up all your darkness.

So important.

Like I say, you have to have, have to have the dark show the light.

[Nic makes "tchooka, tchooka, tchooka" sounds] There it goes.

Come back to our one inch brush has some of that light color in it.

I'm going to dip in just a bit more liquid White and we'll pull it through.

Again, all three yellows, why not?

Maybe we'll start with cad yellow, Indian yellow.

Have a nice bright little effect.

Happy little bush lives right there.

Saving darks in here too.

Don't give up on that.

There we go.

Change the flavor a little and come on over.

Maybe the, maybe the last one of the bunch here has some more yellow ochre.

Just so they don't all look the same.

We don't want them to look monotonous.

Pull a little, little bit of that yellowy color into the water for some reflection.

Again brush just gently across.

Take a palette knife, this needs something to stand on too, just like those in the back.

So I'm going to put a little Van Dyke Brown in there for the riverbank.

Put a little highlight on him.

Just barely graze.

[Nic makes "whoo, whoo, whoo" sounds] Just barely graze.

Scratch in a little stick and twig here and there.

Kind of helps bring everything together.

Pop a little, [Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] a little bit of that color, a little bit of that vegetation, comes down on the bank.

Don't want that to look cut off.

A little touch of the liquid white.

Speaking of cutting off, this is where we'll distinguish between our water and our land.

This is where the ripple kind of comes up and bounces against the water there.

Tiny little roll of paint.

When you do that, try to keep your knife just as level as you can.

Otherwise, it looks like the water's going to run off, run off in the floor on the, on the wrong side.

You can't have that.

I think Bob used to say you'd have to tie a bucket on the side of your canvas and catch it.

So all those, all those principles apply.

You've got a couple of little trees on this side.

Let's, let's drop them in too.

Same dark color, same fan brush.

These are the neighbors across the way here.

Looks like they've got lake property.

Another one right there.

[Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] And he's just barely in there but, but he made it.

He made the cut.

[chuckles] Snuck him into the side.

Drop a little dark down here too.

A little embankment on this side.

This is probably where we're standing looking at this painting, Looking out at this scene.

I always wonder if this is a place that Bob visited or something or if it was maybe something he saw when he lived in Alaska.

Interesting stuff.

A little touch of tree trunk on these.

Go back to my fan brush, we'll dot in quick little touch of highlight on those trees.

[Nic makes "tk, tk, tk, tk" sounds] Not too much, don't want to kill the contrast.

A little touch my liquid white into the cad yellow, Indian yellow.

Come back down here.

Sneak in some more of these beautiful little bushes.

We haven't used bright red yet, let's do that.

At least not in any quantity.

I think we put it our clouds.

All right.

Hope you enjoyed this painting.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

Happy painting.

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