The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi.

Welcome.

Certainly glad to see you again.

Today I thought we'd do a fantastic little painting on a black canvas, as you can plainly see.

I tell you what, let's start out, 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 done up here.

Today I have my standard ole pre-stretched canvas, but I've taken black gesso, and I've sort of just painted a little thing like this with a foam brush, and I've left the center unpainted, but I've graduated that black gesso into it.

Just, you start out here, and as you lose all your black gesso it'll happen automatically.

Then we've covered the whole area with a little tiny, tiny bit of liquid clear.

And then on top of that, I've just put a mixture of alizarin crimson and phthalo blue.

Proportionally, much more crimson than blue.

I want it sort of to the reddish side.

So, that's how we've got this prepared.

I thought today we'd just do a very warm little painting.

I think you'll like it.

It's a lot of fun to do, and I really think you'll enjoy it.

So, let's start out with an old 2-inch brush, a little bit of the titanium white, and just load some on.

No big deal how we get it on there.

I'm going to go right up here in this light area, and I'm going to start and just make little criss-cross strokes, just little criss-cross strokes.

It's beginning to pick up that color that's already on the canvas, and immediately beautiful things will begin to happen.

And if this is going to be our light source right here, then we start in the center and work around.

And that way, it'll progressively get darker as it goes out.

And once again, that also will happen automatically.

You don't have to worry about it.

All you gotta do is start at the center, and work outward.

Okay.

And you can do this in any transparent color.

This is also very pretty to do in like just phthalo blue or sap green, any of these colors that are transparent.

And if you want to find out if a color is transparent, just take a little bit and rub it on black gesso, and if the black area still looks black, then it's transparent enough to do what we're doing here.

Let me wash the old brush.

We wash our brushes, as you know, with odorless paint thinner.

Just shake off the excess, [chuckling] and beat the devil out of it.

You can go back as many times as you want into the center area to make it as bright as you desire.

So, let's load the brush again.

I do recommend that you clean the brush between each application of this white paint, otherwise you're gonna take that dirty color right back into the center, and you'll lose your brightness.

Start in the light area and work outward.

Always working outward.

And I make the little criss-cross strokes because that's easier to blend.

Instead of having big circles, little criss-cross strokes blend out quite nicely.

There.

Okay.

Let's just keep working it outward here.

I want to keep the edges of this quite dark.

Don't want it to get too bright, but when you're doing yours, you might want it to be very, very bright, and you can do that.

And color stands out so much more on a black background than it does on a white background.

You won't believe the difference.

There.

This black gesso may be one of the neatest things I've ever come up with.

Alright.

Now then.

let's see what we have.

Just put a little in this corner up here.

Very lightly, we just brush across, and that'll remove the brush strokes.

But there's a lot of action happening in the sky.

If you wanted to smooth it, I've got several brushes going here, you can take a clean brush and just blend it.

I sort of like having some of these little action things happen, but it's up to you.

If you want to make it smoother, if you keep blending it like this, you can make it so it looks absolutely like silk.

Just like silk, very smooth and very nice.

Alright.

Okay.

Now we have us a light source.

Let's have some fun today.

Tell you what, let's use, we'll use the old round brush here.

I'm going to mix up alizarin crimson and phthalo blue.

We'll just mix those two together.

Once again, we have much more crimson than we do blue.

I want this to be a lavender color, but to the bluish side.

And it's very difficult to tell when you're mixing color like this what color you have.

Sometimes you put a little white out there, and then you can see what color it is.

And that's just what I'm looking for.

Alright.

As I say, let's take old round brush and I'm just going to tap it right into that color, just tap it.

Let's go right up here.

Now then, I want some little trees that live back here in the background.

This round brush is one of the neatest foliage brushes that you've ever seen.

It makes background foliage probably better than any brush that we have.

It's so nice and easy.

All you have to do is tap.

There.

Okay.

Make some beautiful little background trees.

Be a nice place for my little squirrels to live.

I tell you what.

We've got so many [chuckles] requests about that little squirrel, this is all going to be just the same, I'm going to tap in some little trees, I'm going to show you my little rascal again here.

He is one of the cutest little devils that you've every seen, and it's fun to watch him eat.

That [chuckles] son-of-a-gun, he can tear up an eye dropper in a heartbeat, and if you've seen this one before, this is the one that we named Pea Pod the Pocket Squirrel because he wants to live in your pocket all the time.

I think if you allowed him to, he would stay there 24 hours a day.

I raised him ever since he was just a small baby.

And in only a few more months, he'll be ready to turn loose and out on his own, have his own family.

There we go.

I'm still just tapping in some basic little background shapes here, just to create the illusion of foliage way in the background.

Okay.

Very good.

Alright.

Now then.

Let's put a few little highlights here and there.

And for that, I have another round brush.

I have several, so I don't have to spend [chuckles] all my time just washing brushes.

I'm going to take a little touch of the alizarin crimson, a little bit of cad yellow, a little yellow ochre, I want to make this a very bright little painting in the background.

Some beautiful warm colors, a little bright red in there, too.

Phew, that's nice, sort of an orange color.

Let's go right up in here and maybe, maybe, yep, you're right, look a there.

A little light just zings right through there and just lights up that little bush, just lights him up.

Now, let's take, I'm going to take just titanium white and bright red.

I'm going to make some beautiful little colors here.

This'll be sort of a hot pink color.

Once again, just tap it right onto the bristles.

Just touch, phew, look at that.

These are the kind of paintings, though, that you can put in a room, and it'll warm it up.

It will absolutely just warm it up.

But once again, you can do this in any color.

This is just - It's such a fantastic day here, it's just, I feel like doing it in cheery, bright colors, but maybe you'd like to do it in greens or something.

That can be just as striking.

I'm adding a little touch of the phthalo blue to that same pile now, just varying the colors back and forth.

Now we're going to a cool color.

Blue is a very cool color.

Put it right next to the warm colors, and it just makes a striking contrast.

Okay, maybe, maybe another one of those.

I like that.

Right there.

You make the decision.

You make the decision, wherever you think they should be.

There.

But doesn't that brush make some beautiful little things very, very simply?

There we go.

Another one right there.

Alright.

Now, take a little bit more of the white, a little more of that bright red.

Once again, I'm just going back and forth between these various colors, but I want them to be warm against cool and cool against warm.

The pinks against the blues, vice versa.

That's what'll really, really turn people on when they see your painting.

There we go.

Let's go right over in here and take this little one, maybe bring it right on down like that.

And here and there, and there and here, I'm going to add the least little touch of sap green to our color.

Maybe here and there we can see a little green in some of these bushes, but it's going to be a very light green.

I don't want any dark greens back here.

It would change the whole mood if you was to put a dark, dark green in there, just a nice sparkly little green.

If you notice, some of them here have been left unpainted.

That really makes it look like a deep shadow, and that was done intentionally.

There we go.

Now, just maybe a little touch right in here.

Once again, I want to leave some of those up in the background unpainted.

Makes them look like they're really far away.

Okay.

Super.

Now, let's take our little script liner brush, and I'm going to dip that in some paint thinner and go right into the lavender color.

And we want this paint to be thin, almost, look a there, it runs, it's almost like ink.

Turn the bristles in there.

That brings it to a very sharp point and loads it full of color.

Need a lot of color.

Okay?

Maybe there's some little tree trunks that we can see just here and there.

And these little delicate things in here really give depth and dimension to your painting, because they're always in the woods.

You always have little sticks and twigs and limbs and branches, whatever you want to call them.

they're always there, and they're very nice to put into your painting.

They add realism to it.

There we go.

And I know we're not interested in going out and making a happy buck or two, but if you're out selling your paintings, and I've said this so many times before, this is what separates your painting from other people's is this little bit of extra in it.

Makes you special, and we know that you're special.

There.

Okay.

Now then, it's time to really have some fun.

Let's take an old 2-inch brush here.

And in my world, maybe I'm going to have some little grassy areas that'll come right down through there.

So I'm going to take, first I'm going to put a little touch of that same lavender color on this 2-inch brush, and then I'm going to go right down, there we are, to the yellow.

I put that lavender on there so when I touch this yellow, I'll get varying shades of green, and I'll go into the yellow ochre, the Indian yellow.

And once in a while, I'll bounce a little bit into the bright red.

And I'll just vary these back and forth.

Tap the brush, giving it a little push, so it creates that little ridge of paint.

See?

You can see it right along there.

That's what we're looking for.

There's another one on the end of the brush and that's what we work with.

Okay.

Let's go up here.

You have to think about the lay of the land already.

Maybe our land's going to flow something about like that.

Now, begin thinking about how you want this to lay or to flow, whatever you want to call it, lay of the land, the way the land flows.

Everybody has their own idea of what you call it.

Okay, a little more of the color.

Go right back up in here.

Now I want it to get darker as it gets back out in here.

Darker, darker, so you can tap it more or just use less and less pressure on the brush.

There.

Okay.

We'll sort of vary.

We'll go into a little more of the yellow ochre here and there.

You can change the planes in here or the lay of the land just by doing that.

See, it leaves a little indentation in there, and it creates interest in your painting.

That easy.

Ok, a little touch right in here like so.

There we are.

But things will begin appearing if you just start out with a general idea.

You don't really have to plan each and every little thing here.

It'll just actually start appearing if you just let it work.

Let the paint work, the canvas work.

Shoot.

Now, sometimes it's fun to take your brush and go into a small amount of titanium white.

Just load a little tiny bit on there.

There you can see I think, just a very small amount.

I don't want much.

Now.

Think where you're light's coming from, and just pick out a area or two and let that really shine.

It'll look like there's light just zinging right through there.

It'll really, really sparkle your painting up.

Just think where it would hit, but don't overdo.

This gets feeling good, and it's real easy to overdo.

And then it absolutely will lose it's effectiveness.

Back to our darker colors, just add in some little things here and there.

Alright.

Now.

You know me.

[chuckles] I like, I like water, and that would be a perfect place for a little stream.

I'm going to dip the fan brush into liquid white, go into titanium white.

I'll be right back.

Get the least, least little touch of phthalo blue.

So we have liquid white, titanium white and phthalo blue.

The liquid white's in there only to thin the paint, because a thin paint, as you know, will slide right over the top of a thick paint.

Okay.

Let's go up in here.

Now, with this thinner paint on the brush, in my mind, right about in here, there's going to live [Bob makes pshoo sound] just a happy little water fall, but see pull it straight, and then go down.

Over and down, like that.

Decide how big your waterfall is, push upward, create a little foam.

Now we can let that waterfall just work right down here.

And it's going to pick up the color that we put on that black gesso.

We have that nice lavender color on there.

[Bob makes pshoo sound] Woops, look a there.

Fell over again.

Water got trapped in there and fell right over.

Just make up little stories and let the water go [Bob makes bloop sound] wherever you think that little bloop should happen.

And that easy.

That easy you can create the illusion of a little stream that's just bubbling and playing, probably some little trout live in there.

[chuckles] This is a place my little squirrel would like to live because this certainly is a lovely spot.

He'd have a good time here.

Good time here.

Hope you like seeing those little rascals.

They play a very important part of my life.

Right now, I have five little squirrels and two crows.

I've talked about the old crow in another series, both of them had been injured by guns, people shooting them, just for the heck of it.

I'm not opposed to hunting, but I'm certainly opposed to people just shooting things just for the pleasure of shooting them.

I don't want to get on that soap box.

Okay.

[chuckles] Let's go back here.

I'm going to take some of that lavender color.

Take the old 2-inch brush, and maybe, let's go right up here.

Maybe in our world, there's a big tree that lives right over here on this side and watches over the waterfall, so we need some dark.

The dark is in here only so we can put light on top of it.

That's all we're putting it in here for.

Something about like that, just to give us a basic shape.

Okay.

Now, in this tree, I'm going to make a light blue here.

Actually, it's more of a bluish-gray color, and maybe there's a happy little tree trunk that lives in our tree, right about there.

See?

[Bob makes tchoo sound] There.

I'm going to put leaves I think on this tree, so we don't need too much, just a little bit of this might show.

Something like that.

Now we can go back to our old 2-inch brush.

What the heck.

You could use 1-inch, 2-inch, anything.

We'll use this.

It's handy, and it's already got paint on it.

We'll go more into the yellow ochre on this one.

Let's go right up here.

Now, using just the corner of the brush, let's come in here and put the indication of all kinds of just beautiful little foliage on this tree, just wherever you think it should live.

There.

But work in patterns, layers.

Think about the shape of the tree, just don't throw it on at random, or that's what it'll look like.

There, see there's another little batch right there.

And maybe, maybe, maybe in our world, yep, maybe there's another little bush that lives right here underneath this tree.

See?

Just make up little things.

Maybe we'll put some grass that comes right down here.

Just a little.

There.

A little grassy bank that lives there.

We'll decide where that goes later.

Time to have some real fun.

Let's take some liquid white.

We'll put it out, and I have quite a bit of liquid white.

I'm going to take dark sienna and Van Dyke brown, and mix it with that liquid white so we make a brown color that's very thin.

Very thin.

Okay.

Now.

We go back up here.

Let's use our filbert brush today.

And I'm going to take the filbert brush and go through the two browns, Van Dyke and dark sienna, load it quite full of color.

Okay?

Stay right there and bring this up, now this thin color we've made, just pull one side through, see?

So we have light, dark, light and dark.

Now we can go right up in here.

I want some rocks and stones back here.

So all you've got to do is just touch, and that easy, in one stroke.

You can make the highlight and the shadow of numerous little stones and rocks, and there's a bigger one, see?

You decide where they live, and just drop them in.

That easy.

Shoot, I'll tell you what.

[chuckles] This is just too good here.

It's just a perfect place.

Let's put a nice stone right there.

And maybe another one right there.

See that?

Big old stone lives there.

We'll give them a friend.

A friend lives there.

Maybe, sometime I get carried away with these rocks.

They're so much fun to make, I just get to making them and can't seem to quit.

So we'll have a whole bunch of them right there.

We'll put another big one right about there, big old stone.

Okay.

Now, let's go back to our brush that has the it has liquid white on it, titanium white in it and a little touch of that phthalo blue.

Not much phthalo blue, just a little.

And I bet you know what's coming.

[chuckles] You know me, I love moving water, and it's so much fun to make.

[Bob makes pshoo sound] Yep, just a happy little waterfall right there, and it just works its way right around these stones.

[Bob makes tchoo sound] There we go.

Just splashes right out of there, and of course, right there, too.

And we push upward to make some splashy areas, some little foamy things that are happening down here, because we need those.

And that's also a nice way of cutting off the bottom of your waterfall and making it as long or as short as you want it.

Now then, we can just come back in here and put all kinds of little water movements, little things that are happening in the water.

Any time you want a little foamy thing, you just push upward with the brush, and that easy, you can have it.

Tell you what we need to do.

Let's take a little more of our little grass color here, come right down like that, and maybe, shoot I'll tell you what, take a little of the yellow ochre, a little touch of the bright red, let's get a little crazy.

A little bit crazy.

You can use any color you want, and maybe, maybe, yeah, you're right, it's just a little bush that lives right here.

And he sort of hangs out over the water, right on the bank.

Back into our greens, and just let something hang out right about there.

So, it really looks like it's protruding out over the water.

On the other side, maybe just bring this right on out.

Just a little cove where the water goes, and then it zings right on down the stream.

There.

Now.

Shoot, let's have some fun.

Let's have some fun here.

I'm going to take paint thinner, quite a bit of paint thinner and go right into my brown colors.

There.

I want a lot of color in this brush.

Alright.

Let's go up here.

Let's get crazy.

[chuckles] Maybe, yeah, let's get crazy.

In our world there lives a big old tree, right about there.

And I'm doing it with a liner brush because I want to make it have a lot of bends and wiggles in it, but you could do it with a fan brush or whatever.

It doesn't matter.

Whatever.

Let's give him a little friend.

Everybody in my world has to have a friend.

There.

About like so.

And maybe even, let's go on the other side.

Maybe.

We don't want it left out.

Maybe there's a little one that lives right here.

He goes clean off the canvas.

Now we just put in a few little arms, few little arms.

Gotta have some arms out here.

There we go.

Okay.

Tell you what, you can also take a brush and pull it through that thin color that we made for rocks, and just go right down like that, see, and it'll create the illusion of a beautiful highlight on these trees.

That easy.

That easy.

A little bit more on the color, and go along in here, and we just need to put some arms on this tree.

We don't want it left out.

Wherever.

Maybe right up through there.

And this big old rascal, it needs something on him.

But just let your imagination go here.

Just let it go.

There.

I did a painting very similar to this for our newsletter a while back, and it was one of the best paintings I think we've ever done.

We had so many comments about it, and people painted it at home, and it worked for them.

It's unreal.

We have art contests every year, and I know that one's coming this year.

People will send that one in, because they were happy with it.

There.

And wherever, wherever.

You can put as many little limbs out here as you want.

Okay.

Now then, let's go back, get our old 2-inch brush.

I'm going to go back into that same yellow-green color, and just tap a little more color, the same way we did to make the little grassy areas and the bigger trees.

I'm going to put a few leaves up here.

I don't want too many because I don't want to lose this background, but just a few nice little floaters that just sort of hang around up in here.

Wherever you want them.

There.

Once again, I don't want too many up here, because I'd like to be able to see through this, and see that background that we worked so hard to put in.

There.

Something like so.

Maybe on the other side here, maybe we'll change the flavor.

I'm going to add a little bit more of the yellow ochre and Indian yellow to that side.

Yeah, that's nice.

I like that.

Just a little more to the gold tone.

It's a very colorful little painting.

As I mentioned early in this show, this is a painting if you hang it in a room, it will certainly brighten your room, and everybody will love it.

And these black canvases are so phenomenal because every time you change the light, it looks like a new painting.

Let's add a little bright red to yellow ochre and go out here and do this ole big one.

There.

Just really brighten him up.

There we go.

Just some little leaves that hang out here, and have a good time.

Something like that.

But sort of look at form and shape on your tree.

That's so important.

Maybe this old limb down here's got a few.

Like there.

There.

And we can take the liner brush, a little touch of the light color, and here and there and there and here maybe put the indication of just a few little sticks and twigs and things like that.

And I think this one's about done.

So let's take a little paint thinner, a little bit of the bright red, and we'll sign this one.

Certainly hope you've enjoyed this one because if you try this, guarantee you'll love it.

Send us some photos.

We'd love to see what you're doing.

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