The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Welcome back, I'm glad to see you today.

And today I thought we'd do a fantastic canvas here and I've already covered this canvas with a flat black acrylic and allowed it to dry.

And then on top of that I went back and I've added phthalo blue and sap green and sort of just mixed it on the brush and just put it all over the canvas and blended together.

So before we get started, I'll have them graphically run all the colors you need cross the screen and they'll come across in the same order that I have them on the palette starting with a white and going around.

And while they're doing that, let's do it.

We'll start with the old fan brush today.

A little bit of titanium white.

And just work a little into the bristles, just back and forth like so.

Okay, let's go up to the canvas, maybe... Maybe we'll have some huge trees here and some light shining through so we need to have some, we need some light.

And just, just have fun, just let this brush play and jiggle and wiggle wherever.

Now, see it's picking up the phthalo blue and the sap green that's underneath and all these things happen.

And at this point we're really not, we're not too worried about what it is or where it is.

We're just, just throwing some color here and there.

This is where you take out all your, all your hostilities and your frustrations, just have fun.

Just throw some color in there, here and there.

Just let it go, let it play.

You're really not looking for any definite shapes, or... We're not looking for anything at this point.

Just some color.

Just some color here and there.

There.

Okay, now after you put a few little light spots here and there, let's take our two and a half inch brush and very lightly, I'm just going to brush it up and down.

It makes all kinds of beautiful, little things happen.

There we go.

And when this painting's all done, that'll look like light shining through the trees and be very, very pretty.

Let's clean our brush.

And we clean it with odorless paint thinner.

Scrub out the paint.

And just beat the bristles dry.

Now I'm going to take a mix up, a black color.

I'm going to use phthalo green and alizarin crimson.

In about equal parts.

And this will make a beautiful, beautiful black.

A very, very transparent black.

And lift your paint all the way off the palette and turn it over when you're mixing color like this.

I want this to be very well mixed.

Okay.

That'll give us some nice black color.

Now then, now then.

Let's get us a fan brush and go right into this dark color and begin laying in some basic, little, little tree trunk shapes.

And all I'm doing is just touching the canvas and just working down.

Just coming down.

And just drop them wherever you want them.

This is your forest, so you decide where the trees live.

We're still not looking for definite shapes yet or anything, just having fun.

Maybe, maybe.

Just sort of look at what you have and, and make some all mighty decisions.

You have to make decisions.

There we go.

Now here I've taken most of the paint out of the brush, so I have very little left.

Now I want to make some that are far away.

So I don't want as much paint, just a little paint.

There we go.

Okay, let's go maybe, maybe, maybe, there it is.

Nice tree lives right there.

Wherever you want a tree to live, that's where it is, that's where it's at.

Okay, good.

Tell you what, tell you what.

I'll have one there.

And this is what's so much fun.

We don't use any patterns or anything here.

We just, just sort of look at it and make a decision.

Drop it in.

And dome trees are fatter than others, some are skinny, some tall, and some short, just like people.

Just like people.

Maybe there's a few in here.

Not as much paint here, I want these to be farther away.

Just barely, barely touching.

There we go, I see one right in here too.

See and already it should be giving you the indication of, of trees way back, way back in the forest and light's coming through.

I like these kind of paintings.

I love these black canvases.

These black canvases will do fantastic things.

And sometimes we do canvases where we use magic black.

And you can do just about the same thing with the magic black that we do with a black canvas.

Then you don't have to paint your canvas black.

Just put the magic black on and go.

Okay, that ought to give us enough trees to play with.

Now then, on some of these trees, some of these trees, far, far back there in the distance, there are a few little leaves.

And here I'm just using a fan brush and I just want to put some indications far back in the background.

Don't want a lot of detail yet, just like so.

These are, this is ... the distant trees.

The ones that are far away.

Far, far away.

A few little leaves here and there.

And I'm just taking the fan brush and just touching.

Just touching.

There, right here, right here, there's one.

Okay, now, same color, it's the same black color.

Now as these trees get closer to us, you're going to begin seeing a little more detail on them.

So I'm going to take some white, titanium white and we'll use a little permanent red.

And I'm going to add a small amount of alizarin crimson to that, permanent red, alizarin crimson, titanium white.

Okay, there.

Now small, small roll of paint, right out on the edge of the knife.

Just like so, okay, let's go up here.

Now you have to make a decision.

Is your light coming from the right or the left?

And since I'm right handed, it's usually easier to have it coming from the right.

Just going to start touching here.

Small, small roll of paint and just begin touching.

Let the canvas take what it wants, you don't have to make any decisions.

The canvas will pull off what it wants and gives you back what's left.

There.

Just like Uncle Sam at the end of each year.

Take what they want and you [chuckles] end up with what's left.

Which ain't much.

Okay, there.

Decide which of these trees are the light striking.

You do have to make decisions.

There we go.

And decide where the light's hitting.

Maybe, maybe in your mind the light's getting blocked in places, so let that happen.

Let it happen.

There, maybe, maybe a little light's striking this tree, whatever.

Now.

You understand why we put the leaves back here, so we can go right over the top of it and it'll bring these trees into the foreground.

Maybe, right there.

Give it a little more of the color.

And we'll drop a little bit right in here.

This is sort of a pinkish color, it's very pretty.

There we go.

Okay, now, we need a shadow side on the tree.

So I'll take some white and some phthalo blue and I'll make a very dark blue color here.

Just white and blue like so.

All right, that's what I'm looking for.

Cut across it, get that small roll of paint right out on the knife.

Okay.

Now, on the other side and we need a shadow.

So we'll just very quickly, just here and there drop in a little, little shadow indication.

There we are.

Just let it drop off your knife.

Once again all you're doing is just touching the canvas, you don't have to make any decisions.

And I try to design these paintings so they're very simple and they work for you and yet very, very effective because very quickly if you watch our shows, you learn how to paint and that's no longer the problem.

The problem is, is what to paint.

That very rapidly becomes a bigger problem than how to paint.

So we try to give you numerous, numerous ideas.

And if there's things that we're not painting that you'd like to see... Drop me a line, drop me a line.

I certainly read all the letters and a lot of the paintings that we do on these shows come from, from your letters.

There.

Now just to put a little sparkle on there, I'm going to take a little bit, almost straight white, and just barely touch, just to add a little sparkle.

Just here and there, not too much, not too much.

Very easy, just where you think the light would hit.

Just a little.

Don't want much.

And that simple, you can make some beautiful, beautiful tree trunks.

With just a little of this very light color, not too much, not too much.

Now then, I'm going to use my liner brush.

This is a number two script liner and I'll put a little paint thinner on it and go right into some of this black color.

Turn that brush, bring it to a nice sharp point.

And then we can put some limbs on some of these trees and just here and there.

And I like to turn the brush as I'm pulling it.

Just turn it and all these things happen.

You don't have to plan them.

Just let them happen.

Now you want these limbs to be bigger up here when they're closer to the trunk.

I know that sounds silly.

Sometimes we make little mistakes and we, we let them get bigger out toward the end.

We want them big and strong where they go into the trunk.

There.

Just some indications.

Maybe there's one that broke off that lives there.

And wherever you want them.

Just, just drop them in, it's your tree, so you have to make these decisions.

There's some, come right over the top of these.

That'll help push everything back.

We want those to be far, far away, far away, far away.

There.

There we go.

Wherever.

And if your paint, if your paint didn't want to stick, add a little more of the paint thinner or you can use a thin oil.

Either one, either one will work quite well.

All right, now then.

Now then we'll go back and I'll put a little more of the black on this fan brush and let's drop in some little leaf indications here on some of these.

Just touch the canvas, just touch it.

It's a super easy way to make some very effective little, little evergreen type leaves.

Very effective.

You let the fan brush work.

These are quite dark and we'll even add some highlight on to these.

Whew.

Looks like you're deep in the woods there, hope you brought your compass, you may get lost.

We need the old compass to find your way out.

Okay, now.

Take another fan brush and I'll put some cadmium yellow and sap green on it.

Cad yellow, sap green.

And let's go right up here and just, just here and there drop us in some nice little indications of some highlights on there, just brighten that up a little.

Make it very pretty.

There.

Don't put too much of these.

You can very quickly kill all your dark.

And your painting will become very flat and we don't want flat paintings.

We want paintings that stand up and sparkle.

There.

Isn't that a super, super, nice little way to make some very effective little leaves on your trees?

Let's go back to the other side over here.

Drop in a few little indications right here.

Just wherever, wherever.

Once again, if it doesn't want to stick, add a little paint thinner and it'll stick right on it.

Thin paint will stick to thick paint.

And the first layer of paint we put up here is very thick, very firm.

Okay, now we can come down here and, and really start playing.

Maybe there's some little bushes and stuff that live in here and we'll just throw some of this dark color, this is still the black.

Just, just throw it in.

We're still not looking for distinct shapes.

That'll just take off some of that loose excess paint.

We're in business.

Now then I'm going to use, we'll just use the same old brush.

Put a little small amount of paint thinner on it, and I'll go right into a little bit of this green.

Sap green, a little cad yellow.

There we go, okay, let's go up here.

And let's just put a little indications of some highlights on some of these little bushes that are living right down here, right on the foots of these big trees.

Just some little indications.

All I'm doing here is just, just touching.

Just touching, tapping.

It's very simple.

There, just drop those in.

And that sort of helps to push the trees back.

Now we can, we can move things on this canvas.

We can push trees back, we can bring them forward.

When it's your world, you can do anything.

Okay, there.

Now while I got this old brush running here, let's just take it and maybe there's some soft little grassy areas back in here.

I'm just using the same colors.

Sap green, cad yellow.

A little yellow ochre, a little Indian yellow, just, just mix these on the brush.

And begin working on the lay of the land.

There we go.

I say, I am just crazy about these black canvases and paintings like this.

I think they are fantastic.

Now you can keep tapping this and it gets very, very soft and if you have one that's, that's too bright because there's color underneath, all you have to do is just tap on it and it'll pick up that color that's underneath and get darker, darker, darker.

Maybe, maybe last night it rained a little bit in the woods there's some, maybe there's some little puddles, some little pools of water.

I'm going to go right into some titanium white and mix it with some of that blue we had left.

So we have a little phthalo blue and titanium white.

You have to make a decision.

There's a little puddle that lives right there.

See, just pull it down.

Wherever you want the little puddle to be.

Just pull it down.

Or if you keep going, you can make a lake out of it.

And if you really get carried away, you can make [chuckles] an ocean out of it.

Just pull straight down, like so, and very lightly, very lightly go across.

Let's take our knife and we'll use some Van Dyke brown and a little burnt umber.

And let's just very quickly drop in some little, some little indications of some dirt and I'm really not looking for specific shapes yet.

Just laying in some color.

Just sort of let it happen.

We're not, we're not really planning things at this point.

We just want some little puddles though.

Whatever you, whatever you want you just leave here and cover up whatever you don't want.

It's that easy.

You have unlimited power on this canvas and you can do anything, anything.

Now let's take some brown.

A little brown, white, a touch of blue.

There we go, makes a nice grey color.

It's sort of a bluish tint to it.

And I'm just barely going to touch.

Just barely touch.

Just caress the canvas.

Just caress the canvas.

You need, you need to be in love with the canvas.

There.

Just barely, barely touching.

And by not over mixing these colors, all kinds of things happen automatically.

You don't have to worry about them.

Okay, now right underneath here.

Just a little of the phthalo blue and white on my knife.

And all I'm doing is just touching the canvas.

Put some little, put some little water lines here and there, just like so.

And now we can take, this is just our grass color again.

And we can sort of bring all of this together.

And that easy, that easy, you got a happy little puddle.

Happy little puddle.

Let it happen.

Okay, maybe it comes right down, right down.

Right on across there.

And you can just put as many puddles as you want, you can them wherever you want them.

That's what makes it so fantastic.

Add a little more of the yellow ochre.

And sometimes you can add a small, small touch of permanent red.

And it really helps.

Okay, now maybe.

Shoot, that puddle was so much fun.

Let's give him a friend right there.

See?

Wherever you want a puddle.

and you can put as many of these as you want in your painting.

Let's take a little bit of the brown here.

Shoot, you can add some brown in here and pull it down too.

And go across.

Now if you wanted, if you wanted a reflection that was brighter, add a small amount of white.

I just want to show you how to do that.

See, and pull down and then go across.

And don't kill all that.

It'll look like there's a little light hitting right there.

Sneaky, huh?

Okay, then we need some dirt around that so I'll use some more of the brown.

And we'll put some dirt right around, right around.

A little bit here, maybe, maybe.

Wherever you want it, just let it, just let it happen.

And don't worry about planning these things.

We don't make mistakes.

We don't make them.

We have happy accidents and these happy accidents create some of the most beautiful paintings.

There.

Okay, then we can come back.

Drop a little bit of the highlight color right on that.

Just like so, just like so.

Here I touched a little bit of the pink that was laying on the palette, leftover from the trees, and it makes it look nice and bright.

Okay, tell you what, let's do, let's have some fun here.

Before we get down here.

Let's pull some of these trees right, right towards us.

I'll go right into the dark color.

This tree, this tree, this tree.

I'm going to pull it right down here.

See and just take it and pull it right over the top of that bush.

Okay and we go back, put in some highlight color.

A little of the pink.

See there.

And just drop it on, a little bit of the blue on the other side and that easy.

You can pull that rascal right out here.

Then we can take, need a little grass around its foots.

There we go, fantastic.

Now, put a few, little grassy areas right down in here.

Come right around this little puddle.

Just let them go.

Wherever, wherever.

This is a painting that really, really should make you happy.

Okay, take a little bit of the blue and white on the knife here and put a few little, just a few little indications of some water lines here and there.

It's a way of cleaning up the edges and making it, making it look a little nicer.

Okay it's a straight line right there so we'll just put a little grass down.

Breaks that right up.

Now maybe, yep, you're right, you're right.

There's some more water, lives right here.

See, you can put all the puddles in here you want.

You make the decision, drop them in.

Come across, [Bob makes "shoo" sound] instant water.

There we go, a little bit of grass coming right down to the water.

Okay and take a little bit of the brown.

We need some dirt here around the edges.

Need some dirt.

There we go.

And that easy, we got a little dirt.

A little bit of highlight on that.

Ooh, there's a pretty color, beautiful, beautiful.

And just let these things happen.

Sometime they even surprise me.

I don't even know what's going to happen here.

Okay.

Now we can bring all that together.

I tell you what, I think we've got a little bit of time here.

Let's take, go right into this dark color, let's have some fun, let's have some fun.

There is a big tree, a big tree, a big tree and he lives right there.

Right there.

All mighty tree.

Huge, huge, big, strong tree.

Strong tree.

Because he's closer to you, so he looks bigger and that helps push everything back.

Make it look farther away.

And maybe there's a, he's got to have a big old foot here to hold him up.

So we'll just give him a big root there.

A little bit over here.

See, and that easy, you can, you can give him some big foots.

Okay, a little bit of paint thinner on my brush.

Let's give him just a little arm or two.

There's one, goes right off like that.

There he comes, there's one, there's one.

Wherever, wherever, it's your tree so however as many arms you want.

And let's reflect a little bit of that right into the water here.

Now we can take a little bit of the highlight color and we'll drop some highlight on this one.

Just like so.

And just let it go right on up the tree.

This highlight color's a little crimson, a little permanent red, a little white.

Just mixed together, let it come right on down.

Right on down just like so.

Put a little bit in the reflection.

And... Then we can drop a little bit of shadow on here.

I think that'll give you an idea and set your imagination on fire.

It's unbelievable what you can do with this.

So, try it out, have some fun.

See what you can come up with.

Now very lightly, pull this down, pull it down and go across.

And I think with that, we'll call this painting finished.

And I hope you've enjoyed it.

It's one of my favorites.

Until next week, God bless, happy painting.

[announcer] To order a 256 page book of 60 Joy of Painting projects or Bob's detailed 3 hour workshop DVD Call 1-800-Bob-Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]