The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today, for this is the last show of the 22nd Joy of Painting series.

So I'll 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 this.

While they're doing that, let me show you what I've got planned for today.

Today, as you can plainly see, I have a canvas here that's painted with a black gesso.

I've allowed it to dry completely, and then on top of that, put a thin even coat of liquid clear.

We put the clear on there only because it makes putting transparent color on top of this, much much easier.

You really don't have to have it, but it makes your life so much easier.

Then on top of the clear, I put a mixture of sap green, pthalo blue, and a little Van Dyck brown to dull it down.

And I thought today we'll just do a happy little scene, maybe that's deep in the woods.

I've had a lot of requests for paintings that have big trees in them, so.

Let me just show you an easy, easy way to do just that.

Let's take an old two inch brush today.

Take the corner of it, just the corner, and go into a little bit of titanium white.

Then let's go up in here.

Now once again, this has green and blue and a little brown on it.

So, color will just jump out at you.

All you have to do is just take and put a little bit of white on there, and watch what happens.

It's beautiful, beautiful.

This is a fantastic painting to do as a demonstration for friends or relatives or just people who are going to watch you paint, and dont let them see you put the color on, and they'll think you started with a blank canvas, and then you touch it with a little bit of white, and they'll, they'll absolutely think that magic is happening.

And, you don't have to tell them any different.

Let them try to figure out how to do it.

But these are truly a joy to do, and the black canvases might very well be my favorites.

There.

Just spin it and work it, keep it going, move it.

Just have fun with it.

Just have fun with it, and let it go.

There.

Okay.

Now i'll just keep adding a little touch of white here and there.

And if we're going to have deep, deep woods, this is a nice way of making a background.

Maybe we'll put some big trees in here.

This is a nice way of making a background that you can see between the trees, and it looks like a lot of things that are happening, and you didn't have to hardly work at all to do it.

And this is truly the lazy man's way of painting.

That's why I'm here.

There.

All right.

Now then.

A little bit more on this corner, and let's put a little over in here too.

Be sure to leave some nice dark areas in here.

Don't just cover it all up.

Don't cover it all up.

And the other thing is you can do this with any transparent color, or semi-transparent color.

It don't have to be totally transparent.

Semi-transparent.

And the way to tell if the paint is transparent, what i'd do, is just take a little put on my finger and touch the black.

If it's transparent enough for this, it'll still look black.

The canvas will still look black.

You will know immediately whether it's transparent enough to do this.

Some colors, like the cadmium yellow, the white, are very opaque.

Other colors are semi-transparent, and some are very tranparent.

So, test a little.

You'll find exactly what you're looking for that way.

All right.

We just sort of wind it up and play with it here and there.

And when you're doing this, maybe it's a good thing to step back and take a look-see and see what it looks like.

If it needs to be blended more, just blend it a little more.

Sometimes you need to go back and add some little light spots or you could even go back with the original color, the green and the blue, and put dark back in here if you wanted to.

If you overdo this light.

There.

Just sort of wind it up like a ... Ok down here at the bottom, I want it to be much darker, so I'm not putting much color here.

I want it to really look like it's far away.

Something like that.

All right.

Then very lightly just brush across it, and that will take out the brush strokes and let you sort of take a look at what you have.

And if you have one that you don't like, or it's too bright, you can change it.

Or you could move it, anything that you want to do.

Anything that you want to do in here.

All right.

Now then.

Maybe, let's find an old thin brush today.

let's go ahead into a little touch of the, a little touch of the midnight black.

Just load the brush full of color, and let's begin making a few trees in the background back here.

In my mind I see a tree, it goes right there.

Just pull straight down, applying more pressure as you work down the tree, and that will give you a nice trunk, that easy.

That easy.

It's the easiest kind of tree to make there is.

Take a little white, a little white, be right back, get a little touch of the bright red.

Just a little.

It's very, very strong.

Eat up your whole world.

Okay, now, I'm gonna get a little bit more paint, put it right here, and that one, we'll put some of the pthalo blue.

Maybe even add a little black to that to dull it.

Thats better.

Don't want it too bright.

Use black to dull.

There, All right.

Now then.

Clean the old knife.

In my world, today, I think the light is coming from the right.

If you're right-handed, as I've mentioned before, you will probably find that it's easier to have the light coming from the right side.

So let's just start off here with the knife, and just put the indication of a little highlight right there on the edge here.

There.

Now then.

A little bit of the bluish color, I'll put on the back.

Not a great deal.

This is just to indicate a little reflected light.

Now we take a little bit of the pure black, and touch, all I'm doing is just taking the knife and touching, just touching.

The canvas will pull of what it wants.

And this way you can blend all those colors together.

And it will actually give this tree texture.

When this painting is dry, you can actually feel bark on it.

Of course you can feel it while it's wet too, but it's gonna get all over your finger.

So just wait till it's dry.

Let's take, let's take, get some paint thinner, go right into a little bit of the black, a little black, pick a little bit of the dark sienna there.

Once in a while even some of the Van Dyck brown, just to get a little brownish flavor.

A loaded brush full of color.

Okay.

Now then.

We can put just indication here and there.

A few little limbs.

Just a few.

Maybe these are evergreen trees out here.

Or whatever kind of trees you want.

Giant redwoods maybe.

I don't know.

Just these, just friendly trees.

There.

A few little arms sticking out on him.

Now then.

We can take us a, here's one.

We'll take us an old two inch brush, and put a little black on it, a little sap green, go right.

Of course the black and yellow will make green.

But black is once again just used to dull.

Just push.

Tap a little color right on there.

And maybe, this little tree up here.

There's a few little limbs, leaves, that are hanging out here.

Just use the corner of the brush, and sort of tap some of these little rascals in.

There.

Just think about where little arms would stick out, little leaves would grow.

It's the easiest way I've ever found of making very effective, gorgeous trees.

There we are.

It's one of the things that we're doing demonstrations for charity groups and PBS stations and stuff around the country.

When people see the paintings that we do up close, one of the things that I always hear, is that I never realized there'd be that much detail on it when I saw it up close.

So this really does work quite well.

It really is an exceptional amount of detail, believe it or not.

Tell you what.

Shoot.

I just had another idea.

Maybe, I'll show you a couple of tricks.

Maybe, let's take, let's take, I get excited sometimes, I begin seeing things in here.

I want to put, yeah, watch here, put a nice little bush, right back here.

And I want this bush to be in front of this tree.

Show you how to put that little rascal right back in the woods.

This bush, or collection of bushes, bushes, lives right there.

Like that.

Maybe, maybe there's another old bush that lives right here.

Just sort of let your imagination go.

Wherever.

Wherever.

Maybe might even have a friend here.

There.

And, maybe, back here, let's get crazy.

Maybe.

Watch, watch.

See here.

I'm putting in all kinds of little areas.

There.

Just sort of blend them together.

And all I'm doing is just tapping down, here and there.

Adding a little yellow ochre, a little Indian yellow, a little bright red once in a while.

There.

But not much of the bright red.

I think I'll keep this mostly in the greens.

Use the red to dull the green.

Just to dull the green.

There we go.

Okay.

We got a whole bunch of bushes.

And, maybe come in right down here, there's a couple more.

But see already, that tree is being pushed back.

I want to push it back into the forest.

You didn't know you could move trees, did you?

Or maybe you did.

Hmm.

There we go.

There.

Okay.

Now.

Let's take ... let's put some trees in the foreground, and really push everything back.

I'm going right back into the black here.

Maybe ... woozh, be brave.

Right there beside.

At the bottom of this one, I'm gonna bring it farther down.

So everything's behind it.

Everything is behind it.

This is a stronger tree.

Bigger.

And it may just be that it's closer to you, and thats the kind of impression that we're trying to make here.

That it's just closer to you.

Maybe, maybe he's got a friend.

Well, we said we was gonna paint some big trees.

I think, I think these are big trees.

Big, strong trees.

Maybe, maybe we have a forest.

And when you're doing yours, you decide how many paintings, or how many trees you want in your painting.

How many paintings you want in your tree.

There we go.

Either way it works for you.

(laughs) We can start a whole new kind of painting here.

All right.

And if you're really brave, you can put big trees in here.

I mean whooo, big, very strong tree.

So why is this, this is a number six fan brush, and as wide as this brush is, I'm gonna make this one.

Big old trees.

Okay.

Put a little grass around the bottom of that one.

Now then.

Let's go back to our color that we had here.

This is a little bit of bright red and white.

Just let it float right down the tree.

This is just like you're laying snow on the mountain.

Just let it break, grab.

The canvas will literally pull off what it wants, and give you back what's left.

Just like a tax man when you ... those do taxes.

There.

Very nice looking.

As I mentioned earlier, this will look like real bark when it's done.

It'll feel like real bark.

There.

And you can make it as thick as you want.

That's one thing that's so fantastic about oil paints.

You can give texture to your painting.

Of course I guess you could do that with other paints.

Just find it much easier with oils to do.

There.

A little hard to get watercolor to build up a quarter of an inch.

(laughs) There.

Mix up a little more color.

And, we'll give this big tree here some.

Something like that.

There.

Isn't that a fun way to paint big strong trees.

And you can do this, even if you've never painted before.

This is one of the easiest, most effective ways of making large trees.

Just, it's a pleasure to make them this way.

And they work.

And people will never believe you've done this.

Never believe it.

They'll be looking for the numbers, because they'll know this is a paint by number thing.

There.

Okay.

Now take a little bit of that blue that we were using for reflected light, and we're just gonna let a little of that play down the back side.

Just a little.

Right down through there.

There we go.

A little bit here.

Like so.

And down.

Shouldn't have done so many trees.

This is too repetitious.

There.

Of course when you do yours, you decide how many trees you want to have in your world.

maybe you want fewer, more, somewhere in between.

Doesn't matter.

As long as it makes you happy when you do it.

Painting does nothing else.

It should make you happy.

Go right back into some black.

Let me clean off a spot to work.

Back into the midnight black.

And then once again, all I'm gonna do, I'm just touching the canvas.

That's all we're doing.

Just touch.

Get that little roll of paint, and touch.

It's so simple.

I think ...

I think just about anybody can do this.

With never practicing even.

This particular part of it.

Some things need a little more practice than others.

This one is very easy and very effective.

That's the nice thing about it, a lot of things are easy, but they don't look good when you're done.

This looks good.

This looks good.

All right.

There we go.

So I say this is the last show of the 22nd Joy of Painting series.

It's almost unbelievable to me that we've done this many shows.

With 22 series that means there's almost 300 half hour shows.

Whew.

That's unreal.

That's a record.

It's absolutely unsurpassed in television history.

I'm very proud of that.

And don't ever think that you do that many shows alone.

There's a lot of fantastic people that have worked with us, To make it happen.

People like my wife Jane, Annette Kowalski, and the people here at the television station.

Takes an effort on all of their parts to bring this to you.

But most important, is the fact you watched the shows and, and you liked them.

That's what keep us here.

So if you haven't seen all the shows, as I said there are nearly 300 of them, and you want to, give the station a call.

They're available too.

They're available.

And if there's other things that you want to see in future series, that we're not doing yet, drop me a line.

Let me know what you want to see.

And if I cant do it, I'll try to find somebody who can, bring them on as a guest artist.

There.

But we can get it.

We can get it.

Let's take a little bit of black, line our brush, and let's go in here and put the indication back in here and there.

You'll have some nice little limbs and branches that live back on these trees.

There we go.

And right there, and in here.

Now if you have trouble making this paint flow, add a little bit more paint thinner.

I'm gonna put a lot of leaves, I think.

Of course I'm not gonna put every little stick and twig.

Sometimes it's fun to not put any leaves and put a lot of little twigs.

It makes an interesting painting.

But it would be too boring for you to watch, somebody sat here for thirty minutes just putting leaves and limbs on these trees.

So, we'll just put a few in, show you how to do it.

And then when you do yours, you put as many in as you want.

Good.

Maybe, here's an old one, hangs down and comes across.

Don't have all of them just going right off from the side.

Look like your tree has somehow been just cut off.

Half of it's gone.

Need branches that go in every direction.

Some go behind the tree.

Some come in front.

Some are broken.

Some are long, some are short.

They're like people.

Every one's different.

And that's what makes everyone wonderful, it's the fact that we're different.

The fact that we're different.

There.

Okay.

Couple more in here and there.

Something like that.

A little more of the paint thinner, a little more color.

And maybe, we don't want this old big one left out.

Maybe he's got a big old arm that comes out here.

Like that.

Like that.

Let your hand wiggle and jiggle when you're doing this.

Don't just make them all straight.

Nothing's more boring than just perfectly straight tree limbs.

Give them some character.

There.

There's another big old rascal.

If these are a type of evergreen, evergreens seem to always have a lot of little broken limbs on them.

That's where you always find little squirrels and stuff sitting.

Speaking of squirrel, I really hope you've enjoyed as many times as I've showed you Peapod, my little squirrel in this series.

I really hope you've enjoyed seeing him.

It's my way of sharing nature with you, and trying to make people aware that these little creatures are so fantastic, and they need our help and support if they're to survive.

And you can really enjoy some of God's creations by just looking out your window.

Because it's unreal, what's been done.

We have a tendency in our busy life to forget about these little creatures and to look over them.

And my young friends tell me that they really like these little creatures.

But I hope, I really hope that you enjoy them, because they're as I say, they're very special to me.

Very special to me.

But, anyway, you know painters are sort of weird, they like things like that.

All right.

You don't have to be a painter to like little creatures.

Just put a little grass down here, bottom of this.

Maybe we'll, just take it right on through there, wherever.

A little yellow ochre, Indian yellow, cadmium, sap green, just mix them on the brush.

Let all these little colors and things just happen.

There we go.

Wherever.

Okay.

Put the least little touch of paint thinner on my brush.

I just dip the brush into a small, small amount of paint thinner.

Just to thin the paint a little bit more.

So it really slips off very easy.

Now sometimes, it's fun.

It makes your painting look a little better.

Put some roots out here on the tree.

Just take a fan brush, a little black paint, around, whatever.

When you put the indication here and there, just a big old root that grows right out.

But, don't put one on every single tree, because you're not gonna see every tree.

Some of them are gonna be covered up by grass or things, little weeds that grow around here.

Don't put one on every one.

Just here and there.

There.

Something about like that.

Okay.

We can go up in here, we just use that same old brush to take a little.

And begin thinking about where all these little pieces of foliage would live up in here.

Things like this.

Begin thinking about shape and form.

There.

Okay.

If you have trouble making the paint stick, add a little touch of the paint thinner to your brush.

Just a little.

There.

See, here goes one right across the tree.

There.

This is really where the paint that you're putting on top of all this on the tree.

Has to be thinner.

If it's not, it's just gonna all mix together, and we don't want to do that.

We want it to stand out there and look good.

There.

Wherever.

You put as many as you want in here.

I'm just gonna put a few here and there, and let it go at that.

There we go.

Come on back down here at the bottom.

Driving the directory crazy here, running back and forth on this.

All right.

Little grassy areas.

Nice little place.

This would be just a fantastic place to come and walk.

Take your shoes off and let your feet run naked through here.

Feels good on the bottom of your foot when you run across all these little grassy areas.

All right.

Look at the amount of distance that's already in there.

We have a big blank spot there, let's do something.

We got a minute left here.

You know me.

Here we go.

Another huge tree.

Another huge old tree we're putting right in there.

Right there.

Maybe he comes right down to about like that.

Give him a big old root hanging out there like that.

There he is.

I'm gonna get a little bit of bright red, white, same thing.

Choom.

Let that drop right down, right there.

Something like that.

Okay.

A little bit of our bluish color.

(mumbles) more in there.

Just drop that right on down.

There.

A little bit of our black.

And once again, all we're gonna do here is just sort of touch.

Like that.

All right.

Let's drop a few little branches on that.

Don't want him left out.

He needs some arms on him too.

There.

See, if we had known he was gonna be there, we could have just put him in while we were doing the other ones.

I just decided there should be something over here in this spot too.

There we go.

Something like that.

Then we take our brush, once again, let's just tap a few leaves on here.

It's a big tree, it ay not have many leaves down here.

They're way up somewhere, where the little squirrel lives.

All right.

Okay.

Now this would be a, as I said, a beautiful place to take a walk in the woods, so let's have a little path.

We'll take a little dark sienna, a little bit of white, go right up in here.

You just take a knife, and just rub.

It'll pick up the color underneath, and then sort of all blend in together, and put you in a happy little path.

Just rub very strongly.

Very strongly.

There we go.

And that'll give us the indication of a little path, that goes way back there in the distance.

And with that, I think we're gonna call this old painting finished.

Once again, I really hope you've enjoyed this series.

The next one's already under production.

I look forward to seeing you then.

On behalf of the entire staff, happy painting.

God bless, my friend.

(jazz music) - [Voiceover] This program is brought to you by North Light Books, publisher of over 200 how-to books and videos for fine artists and graphic designers, and by Langnickel, manufacturers of selected artist brushes.