The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join me today.

You ready to do a fantastic little painting?

Good.

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, and they'll come across, as usual, in the same order as we have them on the palette, starting with the white, and working around.

Let me tell you what I've already done today.

Today, as you can plainly [laughs] see, we have a black canvas up here.

Now we, we get this just by taking a white canvas, and covering it with Black Gesso, letting that dry completely.

Then on top of that, I've taken, today, and I've covered the whole canvas, with a thin, let me say that again, a thin, coat of Liquid Clear.

And then over the top of that, I've just put a tiny, tiny bit of Phthalo Blue, so we have Liquid Clear, and then Phthalo Blue.

I put the clear on there only to make the blue go much easier, and I want a very thin coat of the blue in there.

I don't want a whole bunch today.

And I thought maybe today, we'd do a fantastic little winter scene, and I'll show you how easy that can be.

Let's start out with a little Titanium White, just a small amount.

We'll use a 1 inch brush, but we could use any old thing.

2 inch brush would work just as well, but since we picked this one up, we'll use it.

Now then.

I want to make the indication here of just happy little cloud things that are happening.

There.

And we're just sort of going to bounce this around and let it play, and just make all kinds of little shapes, but always keep the brush moving.

I don't want a lot of color in one place.

And you can see that white's picking up all that beautiful blue that's underneath, and these things will just happen.

If you've painted with me before, you know I, I mention quite frequently, when you're doing these black canvases with the transparent color on them, that if you'll put the color on before you start painting in front of someone, and then you start this, and you take your brush and go into a little bit of white paint, and then touch this, people will think it's magic, because they won't understand why this is happening.

There we go.

And it really makes a - it's a sensation when it happens.

People just go crazy over it.

So if you're ever out painting for someone, think about these.

They're a lot of fun.

On the black canvases, you'll find that color stands out much, much more than it does on a white canvas, just jumps out at you.

Use that to your advantage.

I love these black canvases.

You can create some of the most striking effects, and they're very simple to do.

This Black Gesso's one of the neatest things that I've ever came up with.

There.

Now then.

See?

We left a lot of these holes in here though.

Don't just cover it all up.

Leave these spots.

Now watch.

We'll take, we'll take a good, clean, dry 2 inch brush, and let's just begin blending this together.

Now you can blend this to any degree of lightness or darkness that you want.

The more that you work it, and I'm just using the corner of the brush, the more that you work this, the darker it'll become, because it'll pick up that color that's underneath.

So you have to make a big decision right off in this painting.

How dark do you want your sky or how light?

And you can always go back and add more of the Titanium White any time that you desire.

And you can make it, shoot, you can make it so bright it hurts your eyes if you want to.

And that's an individual thing.

You can make it any way that makes you happy.

There we are.

See?

And that quick, we have a very nice, effective little sky, and just very gently, we'll blend the brush strokes out.

But by putting this Liquid Clear on here, then you can put a very, very small amount of Phthalo Blue, so when you put the white, it's not, it's not so bright blue that it hurts the eyes.

That way, it's almost like a glaze on there.

Tell you what, let's have some fun.

Let's take some black, we'll use some black, a little Prussian Blue, Alizarin Crimson, a little Van Dyke Brown, what the heck, doesn't matter.

Whatever you want.

Let's build us a little mountain in this one.

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

Go right down here with the knife, cut across, and get that small roll of paint that lives right out on the end of the blade.

There we go.

Now then.

Come right up in here.

You have to make a big decision.

See?

We start right in here.

Decide where you want your mountain to live, and all we're looking for is a nice top shape.

We're not worried about the bottom of the mountain or anything else at this point.

The only thing we're trying to do is get us a basic shape in here.

So, make up a shape or look at mountains in your area or get a nice book that has mountains in it, whatever.

Mountains come in all shapes and sizes.

Some big, some small, some dark, some light.

They're like people.

They have personalities that are, that are different and unique.

So when you make your mountain, don't just try to copy this one, make any kind of mountain that makes you happy.

There.

All we're interested in, once again, is this nice edge up on top.

We don't care what's happening in here.

But scrape off all the excess paint.

Now with a clean, dry brush, we want to grab this and begin moving it.

You can literally pull this paint around.

The canvas is wet from the clear and the color that we have on there, so we can move this color.

If this was a dry canvas, it'd be very difficult.

There's very little color on the canvas.

Very little.

We have scraped it very hard, and now we're brushing it out.

So, all we have left on here is just basically a stain in the canvas.

Very, very little color.

There we go.

Very little paint.

Now today, shoot, let's have some fun today.

Let's come up here.

We'll take a little white.

A little bit of white.

A little white.

Reach over here, get a little Dark Sienna and put in there.

Maybe even a little Van Dyke, it's up to you.

And we'll make a color about like so.

Whatever, whatever.

Now then, it's very small roll of paint, right out on the edge of the knife.

Now let's start making some decisions in here.

First thing you have to decide is where your light's coming from.

I think maybe today, let's have the light coming from the left side, but you can change that in your painting.

If you want it coming from the right, it doesn't matter.

And begin thinking about little ideas and basic shapes and how you want things to be in your world here.

See?

Maybe there's a little thing that comes right down.

We don't know, maybe it comes down like that.

There.

Just sort of let it go.

Maybe it comes right on down.

Mountains are a great deal of fun, and mountains will teach you how to use the equipment, teach you how to use the knife.

And that's, that's fantastic.

If you learn to use this knife, you can't believe what it'll do.

But you have to make friends with it.

You have to devote a little time to working with it.

But very quickly, you'll be doing things with it that you didn't believe was possible to do with a big old thing that looks like a putty knife here.

There.

Just begin thinking about the shapes that you want in there.

Maybe out here, just a little indication.

But you barely touch the canvas, allow the knife just to sort of graze it, to slide along.

Just float through here.

The lightest touch that you can come up with is just right.

Absolutely just, whew, whisper.

Absolutely whisper.

Probably one of the biggest questions that I hear over and over again is "Why can't I make this paint break like this?"

Two things normally cause the problem.

Either the paint is too thin, because you need a very dry, thick paint to do this, or the other thing is, applying too much pressure.

Very little pressure.

A little bit right there.

Want it just, just enough to let a little light tweak right through there.

Now then.

We can take - we'll take a little white, a little white, maybe a little of the Prussian Blue, a little Alizarin Crimson.

We'll make us a nice lavender color.

But very dark.

This is going to be the shadow, so we want it to be quite dark.

Once again, our little roll of paint.

Now then, we can begin coming back in here and we don't want too much, but here and there, just put the indication of some little highlights that live in here.

Now it's very easy to get carried away with these.

Once again, we don't want too many, just a few, just a few.

Keep them quite dark.

There.

And now you can begin putting in indications of individual little things in here.

All kinds of little things, just wherever you think they should be.

Just a few though.

Once again, this will get too bright on you very easily, so don't overdo.

It gets to feel good sometime, and you just keep going and going and going, and then it's, and then you have to go back and put your dark back in, but you can do that too.

That's not a big deal.

You can go back and put your dark right back in.

There we go.

See?

There's a lot of different things happening up here in this mountain.

It's just not a plain old mountain.

There's a lot of things.

Maybe, let me take a little bit of Titanium White with a least little touch of Phthalo Blue in it.

Just the least little touch, just want to cool it off a little.

[laughs] There we are.

Just a little.

Pull it out flat, and once again, our little roll of paint.

Now maybe there's a little, maybe there's some snow lays right in here, a little, maybe there's a little glacier.

Shoot, who knows?

Just begin thinking about the shape and form and how it would lay in there.

There.

See there?

We'll just put it in.

Very lightly.

A little bit more of the blue and white.

There.

And that blue gives it sort of a cold feeling.

Blue's a very cool color.

See maybe it comes right down.

There.

See, we don't know where it goes, just let it sort of bend around and play in there.

It climbs up the side of that.

You can go back into your browns.

Just sort of bring it all together.

But it's unbelievable what you can make here.

Back into the browns.

As we get farther down this mountain, but see how that color stands out against that black background?

It's fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

Maybe up in here, we'll just - a little too sharp for me.

I want to break that up a little, so it's not quite as sharp.

There.

Okay.

And we can go back to our original dark color, and just pull in a few very dark, recessed shadow areas.

But very, very dark.

See?

Grab a little of that color, and let them just sort of blend together.

But it's very dark.

There.

See?

Okay.

Good.

And with that, you can make just unbelievable mountains.

But devote a little time to practicing.

Shoot, you will not believe what you can make very soon.

There we go.

And here I'm just rubbing very hard, just, just to push all that color right into the fabric.

There we go.

We'll just let that come right on out.

We don't know where that goes.

Maybe I'll put a big tree right over there.

Okay.

Shoot, we've got one fantastic mountain going right there.

Now, we can take a 2 inch brush, and the least little touch of white paint on it, Titanium White.

Least little touch, aw, just barely touch it.

Now I want to just begin blending, a little of that white.

I want to create the illusion of nice, soft misty areas down here at the base.

So we take that white, and just do little circles.

Tiny little circles.

Now we can tap, that'll bring it all together.

There.

But you can create areas that are so misty and soft and quiet, that easy.

There we go.

Now it's easy to overdo.

Once again, color stands out so strong against this black, that it's very easy to overdo, so don't, don't get carried away.

There we are.

Now then.

We're not worried about the bottom.

I think I'll put some little trees down there.

What the heck?

Trees are the base of the mountain are always very pretty.

And over in here, we'll just tap a little, just to soften.

Right in here where they come together.

There.

Now, just like making clouds here, you can put several layers if you want.

You can create the illusion of layers of mist laying here.

Can do very easy.

Just let your imagination take you wherever you want to go.

That's all you have to do.

All righty.

Now then.

Let's get the old knife.

Let's take - we'll just use this dark color we was using, that's mountain color.

Maybe, maybe I'll add a little bit more black to that.

I want it grey, maybe a little bit Phthalo Blue, black, Phthalo Blue, and some brown and crimson, that's all it is.

There.

Okay.

Let me wipe off my knife.

We'll grab an old fan brush today.

This is a number 6 fan brush, but the number 3 will work just as well.

And some people like a number 3 because it gives you maybe a little more control.

It's a little smaller.

Maybe back here in this mist, we have some happy little trees that lives back in here.

Just the indication of little distant trees that are far away.

See now, that little misty area we put in there, that's the only thing that makes those little rascals pop out at you, otherwise they would just hide back there in that dark area.

But because we put that little mist, now they come alive.

Another little trick you can do is take a little bit of light color, doesn't matter what it is, grab the bottom, and lift upward.

Make it look like hundreds of little tree trunks that are far away back there.

[laughs] That's sneaky, huh?

That's the lazy way of putting in a bunch of tree trunks, very simply.

Now then, I have several fan brushes going, so we'll just take - I want to mix up some color here.

We'll take some white, some Phthalo Blue.

I want to make several different grades of this.

So, we'll take white here, and I'll just bring a little of that into it.

So now we have a much darker value up here than down here.

But it's all the same color, so we can have different variations of the same color in one pile.

Let me clean off my knife.

Okay.

We'll grab another fan brush.

As I say, I have several of them going here.

That one's clean, so we'll use him.

Take a little of that blue, just load it into the bristles, a little bit of the light color.

See, there's all kinds of things happening in there.

It's not one dead old color.

Now maybe, right in here, there's some bigger trees that live.

They live right about here, and I push upward today.

See?

Give it a little upward push, and we can make just all kinds of happy little evergreens.

These are a little bigger.

They're a little closer to us.

Make a decision how many live in your world and drop them in.

Just push upward with the corner of the fan brush though.

Maybe there's a little one lives right here.

And this is just playing lights against dark, darks against light, etc., etc.

And that's what gives you all these beautiful little effects.

Now when you're doing this, make a decision, once again.

Decide how many trees live in your world here, and just pop them in.

Maybe back in here, we'll put some little bushes right here at the base of this.

See there?

Just pop in some little - all I'm doing is pushing upward with the fan brush.

That's all there is to it.

Now then.

I want to create some mist at the base of these little trees.

I'll take the 2 inch brush, and very firmly, tapping with the top corner of the brush, just tap those trees, and you can distort that, diffuse it, and it'll create that illusion of mist.

And right on the base of this, we can do the same thing if we want.

But you can just make all kinds of beautiful little misty effects, that easy.

There we go.

Now.

Shoot, we'll just use that same old brush, doesn't matter.

We'll go right into Titanium White with it.

Just put some Titanium White on it.

There we are, like so.

Now then.

Decide where your snow's going to live.

Let's come right here.

We can watch right in here.

Okay, now, just pull.

See?

Just make a big decision, give it a pull.

[Bob makes "shooo" sound] Wherever you want it to go.

[laughs] Isn't that a super way to put some snow in your painting?

It's that easy though.

That easy.

And once again, look how this stands out against that black?

Whew.

Hurt your eyes if you're not careful.

It just stands right out there.

And maybe, maybe there's a little river or something that lives in our painting.

Make a decision where you think it lives, pull it down.

Straight down.

Okay, now, take a clean brush.

This is clean, and very dry.

Be sure it's clean and dry.

Now that's mixing with the blue that's underneath here.

Very gently, go across.

And that quick, we have instant reflections and a nice shimmer on the water.

Okay, maybe, maybe, let me find another fan brush.

There it is.

Knew I had one somewhere here.

We'll take the blue and the white, just mix them together.

Maybe there's a larger evergreen tree that lives here in our world.

I'm going to add a little dark color to that too, just to dull it a little.

There we go.

A little black into it, just to dull it down.

Oh, that's nice, that's nice.

Don't want it too bright.

Maybe our tree lives, [Bob makes "bloop" sound] right there.

Just make a decision, put it in.

Once again, we're going to take the corner of the brush, and begin pushing upward.

Now sometimes we make evergreen trees by pushing downward with the brush, sometimes upward.

Just sort of depends on how your mood is.

Look around at trees in your area and see how they look.

Or, how you're feeling that day, whatever.

They're individuals.

Just like painters, so you make them any way that you want them.

There.

Just want to show you different ways of making them, and you, you decide.

Maybe there's some little grassy things coming down through here.

I don't know.

Now we can take the fan brush and begin making big decisions where all this lives, very gently.

Barely touching.

Just caress the canvas.

Smooth all that out.

See, here that comes.

[Bob makes "shoo" sound] We'll make a distinct little peninsula that comes right down to the water there.

There.

Like so.

But just barely touching, you can make this so smooth, it looks like silk.

Or you can leave it a little rough, it's up to you.

Up to you.

Now you know me, [laughs] I always think these are such beautiful places to live, maybe, let's have a little cabin that lives right here.

Easiest way that I've found to make a cabin is start by scraping out a basic shape.

This does two things.

First of all, it allows you to lay out your cabin without being committed.

Maybe most important, it removes the excess paint, and that makes your life a lot easier.

Find me a spot to work, take some Van Dyke Brown, and let's go right up here.

We'll do the back eave.

While we have that brown, we can just fill this in.

All we're doing here is just blocking in color.

That's really all we're doing.

Just blocking in color.

We're not committed, we're not worried about it.

Just putting some color on the canvas.

Now then, put a roof, [Bob makes "psoo" sound] a little white, there it is.

See how easy that is?

You can do that.

There.

That's all you have to do is just drop it in.

Pay attention to your angles though.

Angles are very important when you're doing buildings.

Okay, a little snow on the other side.

There we are.

[laughs] Cute little house.

Take a little brown and white, barely touching the canvas.

Make this look like old wood, tired old wood.

Now on the other side, if you put anything over here at all, very dark.

Very dark.

Because it's going to be in the shadow.

Okay, maybe, tell you what, have a little door here.

[Bob makes "zoop" sound] That's all you've got to do.

Take a little color on the knife, a little dark color and you can cut through, make the indication of some boards.

We'll do a cabinectomy, [laughs] there you go.

Just cut it off to whatever size you want.

That easy.

With our fan brush, come back in here.

Add a little snow down here at the bottom.

Take a little blue and white, make the indication maybe of a little path coming out there, I don't know.

Whatever.

Just make up little stories in your mind.

Maybe there's an old trapper lived here.

Maybe one day, maybe, he fell off in here in the river.

Shoot, who knows?

We don't know.

Tell you what.

Let's get crazy.

We'll take some dark color.

We'll take some black, some Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue, Alizarin Crimson, it don't matter, as long as it's good dark color on the 2 inch brush.

You know me, I love these old big trees.

Let's do a big tree.

Let's go right over here on this left side.

Maybe in our world lives a big tree, right there.

I'm going to do them the same way I did the little ones.

Take the corner of the brush, just give it little upward pushes, that's all there is to it.

See there?

Think about shape and form, don't just hit at random though.

And you can create a beautiful tree just using this great big old brush.

That's all there is to it.

Big tree.

Let's go on the other side.

We don't want it left out.

Maybe this tree over here is a monster.

Maybe it went clean off the canvas.

All right.

We can do that too.

We have no limits to our world.

You're only limited by your imagination.

Only limited by your imagination.

And the Good Lord puts no boundaries on that, so we can go anywhere we want to go with our imagination.

Don't even have to see your friendly travel agent for that.

There.

Anywhere you want to go.

Maybe this tree lives right out here.

Shoot, right in front of our house.

There we go.

Just coming right over like that.

That pushes that cabin way back there in the woods.

Like that.

Maybe, maybe there's some bushes and stuff that live down in here.

Now then, without cleaning the brush, I'm just going to go into a little touch of white and Phthalo Blue.

Now then.

Go right back up here, and very lightly, decide where your highlights are.

And just push upward, same way.

But don't overdo.

You want this tree to stay quite dark, and just put in the indication of a few happy little highlights here and there.

There.

See there?

Isn't that something?

There's some right here, like that.

And we'll go on the other side, and give this little tree some.

We don't want him left out.

There he is.

But still thinking about shape and form and all those happy little things that go on in there.

It's most, most important.

Now.

Back to our fan brush, let's put, over here, see you can use this fan brush.

Maybe there's big stones and stuff all underneath here.

We don't know where it is.

See?

You can put all kinds of things by just jiggling and wiggling that brush.

Looks like this, this is rough.

That's what my dog said when he sat down on the sandpaper.

He said "Rough."

Now on the other side, a little touch right there.

I like that.

Isn't that a fantastic way to do a beautiful little winter scene?

Put a few little finishing touches in there.

Shoot, that son of a gun's all done.

Hope you've enjoyed this one.

It'll really give you a nice painting to do.

So I think we'll call that one finished.

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