The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

It's a fantastic day here and I hope it is wherever you're at.

So, 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.

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

I thought today we'd do one of our little ovals.

This is just contact paper with an oval cut out of it and stuck on the canvas.

Then I've covered the inside with a thin even coat of liquid white, so it's all slick and wet and ready to go.

So that's exactly what we'll do.

We'll just take off here with the old two-inch brush and let's, let's start today with a small amount of phthalo blue.

A little phthalo blue, maybe I'll get a little black right there, a little phthalo blue and black and the least little touch of phthalo green.

Least little touch, I just want to, just want to sparkle the color up a little.

As I say, it's a fantastic day here, so I thought we'd do a little painting that would just make you happy, just will make you happy.

We'll put a little bit of blue in here like this and that little touch of green in there will just make it sparkle.

There.

I'm going to leave a little place open here in the center, just a little one open.

I'll show you why here in just a second.

Something like so.

Okay, while I have that color going, maybe we'll have a little water in there.

You know me, I love water.

So, we'll use the same colors.

Phthalo blue, a little midnight black, and a touch of phthalo green.

You can have a little more in the water if you want to than in the sky.

Be careful with it in the sky though.

And we'll just pull across and put the indication of a little water down here.

We're not too worried about it right now, because anything that we don't want to be water, shoot, we'll just plant a tree on it, or whatever happens to be there.

There.

Okay, now then let me wash the old brush.

That's the fun part of this whole technique is just washing the brush.

It's a good way to, to get even with anybody that's be hassling you in the last few days.

There.

[chuckles] See what I mean?

There we go.

I may take just a little touch, a little tiny touch of the Indian yellow.

I don't want much, just a little tiny bit, a little cad yellow too.

I'm going to mix them together, so I get sort of a semitransparent yellow, semitran, that's almost transparent, but not much color.

And I'm going to add the least little touch right up in here like there's a little sunlight playing through there, just a little.

Now be very careful when you do this, because too much of this against that blue will turn bright green.

Put a little down here in the water too, what the heck.

Just let it sort of go right across there.

Now then, one more time clean the old brush.

Actually, I just like to clean the brush.

[chuckles] Good and dry and then very gently just go and blend this together.

But there's very little paint on the canvas, very little.

Just want a little, little tiny glow there.

I don't want a lot of color, just a little.

And down here, same thing.

All right.

There.

I just beat the brush to knock off any excess paint.

That way we don't have to clean the, in, in layman terms, that's known as laziness, just plain laziness.

Let's take a little bit of our midnight black with a little tiny amount of the Prussian blue in it, maybe, be right back, a little bit of that, a little of the alizarin crimson in there, too.

So we got black, a little blue, a little crimson on the fan brush, both sides loaded.

And maybe in our world, maybe there's some, maybe there's some big old clouds that live up in here in the sky and just sort of float around and have a good time.

So let's just take the fan brush and just sort of wind them up, just make little tiny circles, little tiny circles.

Maybe there's a, maybe there's a little doer that comes out there, I don't know, just sort of let it go.

Clouds are so free that you can just about paint any way that you want.

If you're like me, when, when we were kids we used to, we used to go out and see all kind of shapes in the clouds.

We'd make up little things.

We'd see Puff, the magic dragon or the wicked old witch, or whatever, whatever, just anything that you wanted to see.

If you looked long enough in clouds, you could find them.

So they're very free.

Shoot, maybe, maybe there's a little floater right there and maybe there's a bigger one that comes right across here.

It doesn't matter.

This is your world and you can do anything here that your heart desires.

You have total freedom here, totally in control.

This may be the only world that I'm in control of and the same with you.

But here, you can literally do anything.

Little stringy cloud right back here.

There.

A good dry two-inch brush, should be very dry though, because otherwise we'll sort of mix these up more than we want.

All we want to do here is just sort of, actually all we're doing is removing excess paint, so we can blend it.

That's all we're really doing, just barely grazing it, caressing it, touching it gently, very gently, just with the corner of the brush most of the time, just sort of, just sort of winding it up here, fluffing it.

And as I say, in reality the biggest thing we're doing is removing excess paint so we can do this.

There we go and we just, just blend that to any degree of softness that you want.

Something, something maybe about like that.

Okay.

We just beat the brush a little to knock off the excess paint.

Now then, maybe I'll take a fan brush, a little fan brush, we'll put a little white on it.

Be right back, get a little tiny amount of the bright red.

Don't want much, just a little tiny amount and maybe here and there just sort of tip the edges of that a little bit.

I don't want this to get too bright, I just want a little indication here and there of a little floater that lives up in here, tiniest, tiniest little bit.

There, maybe a little in here.

Wherever, you make the decision.

And then very gently go right over that and that just helps create that illusion of little things that are happening, but I don't want them too bright.

All right, isn't that a fantastic way though of making a very effective little sky?

And it's pretty, too.

[chuckles] Now then, now then, let me grab, let me grab, we'll use one of the little, the little small round brushes, about a half size round.

We're going to take some black, a little bit of the Prussian blue, reach up here and get a little van dyke, a little alizarin crimson, maybe a little touch of the sap green in there.

But just tap the brush, just tap it.

And maybe in our world, maybe back in here in the background maybe there's some little trees that live back in here.

And this little brush is just fantastic for making these little trees.

Little things that live right along in there, wherever.

You have to make the decision where they live, how many there are, big, small, skinny, fat, whatever you want.

You have to make those decisions.

There we go.

Something like that.

That gives us some very basic little shapes.

All right.

Now then, let's find an old script liner brush.

A little bit of the van dyke brown, a little paint thinner, and let's go right up in here and here and there make the indication of a little trunk in some of these little trees.

Not too many, but just a little here and there.

Maybe there's even one or two that stick out above up there that you can see.

Mm.

I like that.

Now then.

We'll just use that same old brush, what the heck.

What the heck.

If we go into a little bit of the cad yellow, it should turn a nice greenish color.

We'll use a little yellow ochre, a little Indian yellow here and there and my once in a while a little bit of the bright red.

Okay, let's go back up here.

Now then, let's put some nice highlights on these little trees, there.

We'll vary the colors going between the different yellows, just to change the flavor now and then.

Doesn't that little brush do some beautiful little things there?

Going to really highlight that one.

I want him to stand out better.

There.

Boy, he's a shiner.

Add a little touch of the bright red to it.

There, see?

And just put a little doer in there.

There we go.

And maybe we'll give him a little friend right down here, but do little layers like this and it'll create that illusion of depth that we're always talking about.

Let's go over here.

Do this one over, over here, don't want him left out.

There, but don't kill all your dark areas.

Sometimes this gets, this gets working nice and you get carried away and you kill all the dark areas and then you lose your shadows, lose your shadows.

Get a little more of that sap green and put in there.

There, now if you really want a bright green like spring time, and a little bit of the phthalo green.

That'll really sparkle.

There, maybe just tap that one, dull it down a little bit.

Don't want it to stand out too much.

It'll be the only thing we see in the painting.

There we are.

But see, if you get one that you think's a little bright, if you just tap it, it picks up the base color and you're in business again because we don't make mistakes.

We have happy accidents.

Let's use those same colors.

It was black, a little Prussian blue, a little van dyke brown, a little sap green, crimson.

And maybe in our world a little land lives right here, little land right there, there it is.

All right, and I'm just tapping in some dark color.

And we'll put some grass on top of that, but we need that dark color so our light will show.

There.

Tell you what, tell you what, let's, let's have some fun today.

Let's have some fun.

This will be a nice place, maybe, maybe there's a big bank here.

We haven't done that in quite a while.

Maybe there's a big bank sets right here.

We'll take a little bit of van dyke brown and I'm just sort of pulling it over.

[Bob makes "Bloop" sound] Like that.

There.

Just wherever, maybe a little more down here on this end.

Okay, now, take a little bit of white, a little dark sienna, a little van dyke brown, mix them together, but leave them very marbled.

And barely grazing the canvas, following those angles, just come right along like that and just let it just barely, barely touch it, barely touch it.

Just graze it.

Just graze it, I mean, just the lightest possible touch, lightest touch.

We'll just use that same old brush.

Doesn't matter if it's got a little color on it.

It'll just make green when we touch the yellows.

There, just push so you get that little, little ridge of paint right out on the end of the bristles.

And we can take that and we can go in here and begin applying a little highlight.

Paying very close attention to the lay of the land, or the way the land flows, whatever you want to call it.

Let some of that just go right over the edge.

And touch a little of the bright red here and there.

Put a little sparkler, see?

But let it, let it just crawl right over the edge.

[Bob makes "Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop" sounds] Like that.

There.

Just a little more color.

But isn't that neat, how you can just make it look like there's little grassy areas hanging right over the bank on the side of a, maybe this is a little river.

That's what... Let's make a little river out of this.

A little river just sort of meanders along here.

There, sort of a nice word.

It feels good on your tongue, meander.

Guess, guess that's a word.

I like it anyway.

[chuckles] There.

There's another little hangy down right there.

But isn't that, isn't that neat the way it just, it already looks like a little bank up in here?

Shoot, you know me, I'd have to have a little house here.

Let's put a little cabin right here.

I'm just going to take the knife and let's just scrap out a basic shape.

Don't want a big cabin, just want a little, a little guy that lives here.

Because I would like to live right there.

I'd have a good time.

I'd sit right here in the living room and throw my fishing line right out in the water.

And if I caught one, we'd put a band-aid on him, wish him well, give him a little CPR and put him back on the water, pat him on the too-too and send him on his way and we'd catch him again some other day.

This is just van dyke brown.

I'm just blocking in a basic shape.

Let me get the, let me get the little knife.

This is a small cabin, little knife makes it a little easier to get in there.

There, that's the reason we designed the little knife, do little things, so we might as well use it.

There we go.

Now, I'm going to take some white, put the least little touch of bright red in it and dark sienna.

Make a nice warm color, cut across, get a little roll of paint.

On this side over here just touch, [Bob makes "tchoom" sound] pull down, something like that.

Now on the other side, I want to add a little van dyke brown to that same color, because in my mind I think this side over here, well that didn't get any darker, do it again.

Should be a little darker over here.

There, that's better.

Little rascal didn't want to play right.

There we go.

All right.

I want to darken that even a little more right up against the top.

There.

Now we can take just a little bit of straight van dyke brown on the knife, touch it, make the indication of some old boards.

This is an old cabin out here, old fishing cabin.

Take our knife, do our old cabinectomy, soon as we decide what shape we want it.

We need a door.

There, we better put the door on this side, because if we put it on the other side when you walk out you're going to fall right in the creek.

Probably ruin your whole day.

Now let's take a little white, a little of the midnight black, and we'll make a nice gray color.

And with the small edge of the knife, let's go up in here, let's put the indication of some little shingles on this house.

Just some little tiny shingles.

[Bob makes "doop, doop" sounds] Got to make those little noises.

And maybe some of these shingles have already blowed off, so don't worry if they don't all look perfect.

It's an old cabin out here.

It's seen its better day.

Old cabin like me, tired.

There, a little highlight just so it shows up a little better.

Now then, back to my brush that we were making the grassy areas with and let's put some things around his little bottom here.

[Bob makes "Doop, doop, doop" sounds] Some little grassy things.

Maybe the grass has grown clean up to the door, clean up to the door there.

There, all right.

Okay, now let's take, let's take our knife we'll put a little bit of, a little liquid white out here and we'll put the least little touch of black into it, so I make a very light gray color, cut across, get our little bit of paint right on the edge of the knife and let's come right up in here and we'll clean up the bottom of this cliff.

Bank, whatever we want to call it.

Rocky area that drips over here into the water, whatever.

But just rub it, just rub it firmly.

And I don't want it to be perfectly straight.

I want all kind of little indentations and little doodads in there, because that's where the fish hide.

[chuckles] I like to catch fish, but as I say, I'm not a very good fisherman.

I just, I sort of turn them loose.

There.

But that's okay.

All right.

Now.

Let me find another one of those little round brushes, I like them.

Let's take our black and blue and brown and crimson and sap green, just load a lot of those colors on there.

Maybe in our world, right over in here, we've got to have something on this side.

Maybe there lives a little peninsula right here.

That way we can push that stream back.

We can just push it around.

There we go, this is a nice little tree here.

This would be a fantastic place for my little squirrel to live.

I've showed him several times.

I'd like to show him one more time in this series, because I'm so crazy about these little rascals.

[chuckles] There.

There he is in my backyard.

You see, after I turned him loose, how dependent he still is.

I think, I think he's got sort of used to, to the old man feeding him here.

[chuckles] They, they really didn't go far when I turned them loose.

They certainly knew where they had it made.

There.

Now, let's have a little reflection under there.

Grab it and pull down, straight down, and go gently, gently across.

Aren't those little squirrels cute?

I raised, oh, about a half a dozen of them this year and, and most of them we've turned loose now and they're living out in my backyard, just having a good time.

I still feed them every day, so they hang around.

They hang around.

And people come over to see me and they go out in the backyard and if they're not expecting it, it sort of scares you when this squirrel jumps, jumps on your shoulder out of the tree, but that's all right.

People, people get used to it and they certainly like them once they, once they know they're not going to attack.

They like them, you can't hardly help but like one of them little rascals.

Let's take some of our greens and yellows and all of those colors.

I'm going to reach over here and get the least little touch of liquid white and put in there.

I want that to be a little bit thinner and a little bit brighter, so I use liquid white rather than paint thinner, so it stands out from the, from the stuff in the background there.

Now we can come right up here with this brush and that quick we can just throw all kinds of little grassy things up here, little leafy things.

There, see?

Isn't that neat how that little brush just drops all those in?

That easy.

I really like this little, little round brush.

There.

Now then, a little bright red, a little yellow ochre, we'll just play, shoot.

Let's have some nice, nice little bush out here that really sparkles.

Whew.

Oooh, that's a nice one, nice one, nice one, that one will get your attention.

Little one right here, wherever.

Just sort of look at them and decide where you think they should live and drop them in.

There we go, that easy.

Now we can take, take a little touch of the liquid white on here and then just very easy, just put a little indication like that in.

Maybe a little bit of van dyke brown there, too, just to make it look like there's a little, a little dirt there.

There, and then let it just go right into that liquid white.

And that's the simplest, easiest way there is of making the indication of a little bank without really doing nothing.

Now we'll just take and scratch in a few little sticks and twigs and all those little things that live out there.

Tell you what, why don't we bring the camera right up here, I'm going to pull the contact paper off and then we'll play some.

This is the moment of truth right here.

Shoot, that looks pretty nice right there just the way it is, maybe we'll just quit.

[chuckles] Nah, you know me, I've got to have a big tree over here on the other side.

I get letters sometime, people say, "You did the most beautiful painting on TV the other day and then you put that dumb tree in there."

[chuckles] I get carried away with trees, but when you do them at home, if you don't want a tree in there please don't put one in.

The only thing I'm doing is showing you ideas.

And by showing you ideas, I hope I spark your imagination and you come up with many, many more ideas than I've ever had.

And that's when painting really becomes fun.

It's when it's your own creation.

It's not just something you're copying that somebody else did.

But really, we're not trying to teach you how to copy, we're trying to teach you a method of painting, a style of painting, a technique, and then turn you loose on the world.

Because once you have this, you can paint anything.

Anything.

You just, you just need a little vision in your mind.

Practice visualizing paintings in your mind.

There we go, something, going to have tree right over here.

Shoot, maybe, maybe it comes right on down here.

I don't know, wherever you want.

There's a little bush.

And we let it wander right on out to about there.

Something like so.

You decide when you do yours.

Now then.

There we go.

Let's grab an old fan brush here, fill it full of van dyke brown, a little dark sienna.

Let me just mix them together on the brush and let's put a, put an old tree trunk up in there.

[Bob makes "rr, rr, rr" sounds] This is an old gnarly tree.

It's got a lot of wiggles and jiggles and all kinds of little things in it.

There's another arm on it.

That'd make a big slingshot, nice tree.

There's his little foots.

Okay, take a little white, a little dark sienna, mix them together, get our little roll of paint and let's just put the indication here and there of a little highlight on this tree, there.

[Bob makes "toom" sound] Just let that, just sort of float right down the tree allowing it to break, barely, barely touching, just barely touching.

And that old rascal will just jump right out there at you.

Something like that.

Take a little touch of the Prussian blue, a little white, put on the other side here, just to give the indication of a little reflected light.

Go right back into that dark color and over the top of it gently, and I'm not kidding when this is dry, it'll look and feel like real bark.

You'll, you'll absolutely be amazed at how real it looks.

I'm going to put a bunch of leaves on there, so we don't need many limbs.

We'll put a couple.

Don't want too many.

Maybe there's one that comes all the way out there.

We don't care.

There, now then, back to our little round brush, get a little bit of the color.

I'm going to have some more sap green in there.

Ooh, that's nice.

Let's go up in here and let's just put in a few leaves on this tree.

Just a few leaves that sparkle and play and have a good time.

There they go.

Let some of them go on out here past the dark.

It makes sort of an interesting effect, like that.

There we are, wherever, wherever.

Now then, let me add a little touch of the bright red and let's just come down here and bounce in a few little bushes and, shoot, we'll have a finished painting.

Hope you've enjoyed this one, because I certainly like these little paintings.

These ovals, as I say, may be one of the neatest things that we've ever come up with.

As I travel around the country, now I see them all over.

There.

Let that just wander right on back.

Okay, maybe a few little things back in here behind the tree.

Leave some of these dark areas.

They'll make nice things in there.

Okay, take the knife, scrape in a stick and a twig.

Shoot, you got a finished painting.

Think we'll call that one done.

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

[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]