The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Welcome back.

I'm glad you could join me today.

And today, I thought I would do something that is very soft and very quiet.

I think you'll enjoy it.

So let's start out, I'm going to take the large brush and I've already covered the canvas with Magic White and I'll them graphically run all the colors across the screen so you can see the colors we're going to use today.

And they'll be in the same order that I have them on my palette.

And I'm going to start with a little bit of Alizarin Crimson and just really work it into the brush, so you have a nice, even distribution of color.

I'm going to go right up in here and just, here and there lay in a little bit of Crimson.

Beautiful, beautiful little paint color.

Then without cleaning the brush, I'm going to go right into a little bit of Prussian Blue.

Without cleaning the brush.

And very lightly, let it bounce around and play, don't cover up your Crimson because the Blue is so many times stronger than the Crimson it'll eat it all up.

Just let it play.

Maybe we'll go into a little tiny bit of Burnt Umber, just a small amount and just lay some of that here and there.

Just to, just to gray it down a little.

And we'll put a little bit of the pinkish color down in here, just a general idea.

A little bit of the Crimson.

A little bit of Blue.

And we still haven't cleaned the brush.

Just, just put in some nice soft little colors and let them go.

Okay, now, very lightly I'll blend all this together.

Very lightly.

Barely touching the canvas.

Just like so.

Okay, and that'll give us a nice little background to work with.

Now, let's put some little background trees in here and I'll use the same dirty brush and we'll go right into some Van Dyke Brown and a little bit of the Burnt Umber and we'll just take the corner of the brush here and I'm just going to lay in some basic little shapes.

I'm not worried about a great deal of detail here.

We're just looking for very basic, quiet little shapes.

Van Dyke Brown, Burnt Umber.

Very, very basic.

Just have fun.

Enjoy.

There we go.

Now just, maybe this just goes right on up.

We just let it go.

What the heck.

Put in all kinds of, all kinds of little background things happening.

Wherever you want them.

This is your world.

Just let things happen, let them fall off the brush.

Maybe, a little darker right in here so we'll have a little separation.

Okay, and while I have this dirty color on the brush, I know there's going to be a little water right here, I think.

So, I'll just take the same color and pull down a little bit.

And this will end up being reflections when we're all done.

But since we don't know exactly where the water's going to be yet, we really, we really don't care where this goes.

Gently, gently, gently go across.

Very lightly.

Okay.

I'm going to take a one inch brush and go right into a little bit of Cadmium Yellow, a little Yellow Ochre and just mix these on the brush.

I think I'll put a tiniest, tiniest little bit of paint thinner into the brush.

Just to thin the paint down.

So we've got Cad Yellow, Yellow Ochre and I'm going to take a smallest amount of Sap Green.

Now there's three different colors mixed here on the brush.

Now we're going to go right up here and I'm just using the corner of the brush.

And I just, I want to tap in some color, this is just background color.

Just here and there.

Just barely, barely touching the canvas.

We're not looking for detail yet.

Just laying in color.

Let's add a little bit more Green to that.

There.

Just here and there.

As I say, we are not looking for detail yet.

These are just background colors.

Let's go into a little bit of the Permanent Red, and mix it in, just to break that up a little bit.

Oh, that's pretty.

Very nice.

Just wherever.

Wherever.

Okay, now we take, after you have some of these basic shapes laid in, we'll take a clean dry two and half inch brush and I'm going to use just the corner of the brush and I'm just going to touch and I'm going to soften all this.

Make it very, very soft.

Very quiet.

And you can take the corner of the brush and really soften up the edges.

Make it look very far away, just touch.

There, okay, now we'll just quickly run through these, and we want to make this very soft, very far away.

Quiet.

Lookie there.

Lookie there.

Great big brush makes little delicate soft things like that.

Just give it a chance and let it go.

And that quick you've got a beautiful little background.

Okay now, we'll take a little bit of the yellow maybe and I'll just drop in some more little indications here, wherever you want them.

Remember this is your world.

You create the illusions that you want.

Pull a little bit of that color down into the reflections.

And lightly, lightly go across.

Okay with a liner brush and a little bit of thin oil here, we can go into some Van Dyke Brown.

And we'll just make a few little indications here and there of some trunks.

We're not worried about a lot of detail.

Too far away.

And you can lift upward or pull downward, whichever way's more convenient.

Just here and there.

Maybe back in here.

Make out some indications, these will be way in the background.

There.

Then with our large brush I'm going to gently tap up here and there just to soften and break them up.

Now we can take a little bit of color, and just add some little indications up through here.

Not looking for detail.

Now the other corner of the brush is clean, so I'll turn it over and I'll soften.

There we go.

There.

All kinds of little things happening.

Now let's take some Magic White and I'll put it on the palette and I'm going to mix a little bit of the brown in.

Now this will be a very thin paint.

Cut across it and let's go right up in here.

And let's just lay in all kind of little things here.

Just let them go.

Lookie there.

Super nice little way to make a very, very effective background and very quickly.

And you can make these as soft as you want them or you can make them very bright, very distinct.

It's an individual thing.

So let your imagination take you where you want to go.

There.

Okay.

Gives us a nice little background.

Now maybe there's, maybe there's some land that comes around through here.

So we'll go, let's go right into some Van Dyke Brown with a little bit of Burnt Umber mixed into it.

Now figure out, figure out where you want land to be here.

Maybe.

Maybe.

There it is.

There it is.

There it is.

Make a decision and go.

Just make a decision and let it go.

There.

See that quickly we have some, some dirt in here, now we'll come back and put some grass in it and all kinds of beautiful little foliage.

There.

Okay.

Now then, let's put some highlights on there and I'll take some Brown, a little bit of Prussian Blue and White.

I'm going to add a little Phthalo Blue to that, brighten it up just a tiny bit.

There we go.

Makes a nice grey.

Sort of a blue-grey.

Okay, we'll load a little bit of paint on the knife and let's go right up here.

There.

Follow the lay of the land.

It's very, very important.

Now just, just lay on a few little highlights.

Just a few.

And I'm going to take the same color and add White to it, to make it another value lighter.

And don't cover up all your first color.

Put a few more highlights here and there.

Just let the paint break.

Use a very, very delicate touch.

No pressure.

No pressure.

Okay, now let's take the old fan brush and I'm going to go right into some Van Dyke Brown, a little Burnt Umber and a little bit of White, so it's sort of a light color.

Tell you what, let's take and put a tiniest little bit of paint thinner on that to thin it a tiny little bit so it'll come off the brush a little easier.

So we can go right over the top of this thicker paint back here and maybe back in here, maybe, maybe.

There.

Just a little tree lives right there.

And he's got a little arm.

And these are just little indications that are far away.

And we can take and begin applying some color to that and I'll take a little bit of the Cad Yellow, Yellow Ochre and some Sap Green and here I'm just going to use the corner of the brush and tap.

You're just looking for color that stands out a little bit.

Don't want it real bright.

Just, just tap on some basic shapes here.

There we go.

Just using the corner, and making the brush bend downward.

I'm going to add a little bit of paint thinner to my brush, and this is a little bit brighter yellow and green and that'll stand out.

There.

That'll stand out.

Shine in the light.

Okay, now we can start worrying about what's happening way back in here.

Now if you want to soften this, you can use the big brush and very lightly just use the corner and just tap it.

It'll soften it, bring it right down to any degree of softness that you want.

Some people like, they like to leave it brighter like that, and it's up to you.

However you want it.

Okay, I'm going back into the Brown.

Now, this time I'm going to put White on one side, or a light color.

Dark on one, light on the other.

And maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe there's a nice tree and he lives right there.

See you do one tree and come forward.

Always coming forward.

And give it another branch.

Right there.

There we go.

And just a few indications here and there.

Wherever you want them.

Now don't worry about making a mistake on the limbs because you're put leaves on this tree, so you can cover up your mistakes.

Of course, we don't make mistakes, we don't make mistakes.

We have happy accidents.

Never, never make mistakes.

Okay, that'll give us a nice little tree trunk.

And let's go right in here, and we'll take some Yellow, let's add a little bit of Permanent Red to our color this time.

So I've got Yellow Ochre, a little bit of Permanent Red.

And as things get closer to you, they should get a little, little more distinct.

You should be able to pick out more detail.

And I'm just, just using the corner of this brush, I'm just tapping.

And you've got to make basic little shapes, you can't just throw these in at random.

Think about limbs, little projections.

Think, think like a tree.

That'll give you a challenge.

There we go.

We'll let this go right on off the canvas, we don't know where it goes.

And if you want to highlight it, you can take a little bit of color, I'm using a little bit of Sap Green and a little Yellow, and just here and there.

Touch.

Now, I'm not going to diffuse this one as much because it's closer so I don't want to kill all of this.

Just here and there.

Let's take and begin laying some, some little things back in here.

Start working on these land masses, and here we're just dropping in some basic color.

Just wherever.

And with a large brush then we'll tap that, just soften it.

Very, very soft.

Very quiet.

Okay now then, let's go into some color and to me this area down in here would probably be in quite dark shadow.

So I'm going to leave these colors very dark.

I don't want to kill all my land mass in here.

I want to leave a little bit of the land showing.

And I'm still just tapping.

It's just another way to use the brush to make all kinds of beautiful little things happen.

There we are.

Just sort of play with color back and forth between all the colors that you've used in there.

Now, maybe, maybe we want to show some light coming through here.

So I'll take a little bit of the White, this is just White added on to the same brush to indicate a little light shining through here.

Tiniest little bit, barely touch.

Maybe there's a little bit of grass that grows right in here.

Wherever.

Wherever.

This is your world.

So you drop them in where you want them.

There we go.

Nice and soft.

Quiet.

And that would be a super place to walk and sit under the tree and read a book and talk to the little squirrels and the bunny rabbits.

Now you know my secrets, I talk to squirrels and bunny rabbits.

Now, let's, let's do another tree.

Golly gosh, trees are so much fun.

This time we'll use a knife, I'm going to show you several different ways of making trees.

And maybe there lives a big tree right here.

There.

Just let it go.

Wherever it wants to go.

Van Dyke Brown.

A lot of paint on the knife.

A lot of paint.

Pull that paint out flat.

Like that, and just cut you off a big hunk of paint.

Want this tree to have texture.

When the painting's dry, I want to be able to feel the bark.

These back here are soft, further away.

This one's getting closer.

Give him a big foots out here.

There.

There we go.

Now, maybe he's got an arm.

Right there.

And since there's going to be a lot of leaves on here, we can just make indications and we don't have to worry a great deal about them being just perfect because the leaves are going to cover up most of them.

There we go.

Now we need some bark on that tree.

And let's take some Brown and White, I'm going to put the tiniest little bit of Permanent Red in it just to sparkle it up a little bit.

There.

And we'll start and all I want to do is just touch, just touch.

A little tiny bit of paint and touch.

Just touching, just follow right up the tree.

Just where you think light would strike and make it brighter.

Right on up.

There we go.

A little bit right there.

There.

Now on the other side to indicate a little bit of reflected light, take a little bit of Prussian Blue and just lay a little color over here.

Cool color.

Just helps give the tree a little more depth, a little more texture.

Makes him a personality all of his own.

And a little bit of grass growing around his foots.

Cleans up the bottom.

Okay, now let's take, let's take, and we'll go right into Yellow, Sap Green, put a little bit of Van Dyke Brown there to dull it.

Don't want it too bright.

So we got Yellow, Sap Green, a little Van Dyke Brown.

Now then, let's put some leaves right up here on this almighty tree.

It's a big tree here.

Just still using just the corner of the brush.

Work with your basic patterns.

There we go.

And right over the top of that one.

Just right over.

It's your world, you can put it anywhere that you want it.

Okay, now then, I'm going back to my brush with the Yellow on it and I'm going to lighten that same color.

I've added a little bit of paint thinner to my brush just to thin the paint so it will stick to the stick paint that we already have up here.

And just here and there, lay a little bit of highlight.

Just touch it.

Like so.

Here and there.

Let these little sparklers just fall right off your brush.

There.

Okay, now, maybe, maybe there's something that lives right in the corner, a nice bush.

And I'll use the large brush, I'll go into some Van Dyke Brown, a little bit of the Umber and right there.

Right there.

You decide where it's at and drop it in.

Drop it in.

There you go.

Now while I got that old dirty color on the brush, maybe there's a nice bush that lives right here.

And here it comes right down.

There we are.

Just let it come right on down through there.

Now we can go back to our fan brush with the Brown on it.

And we'll put the indication of a couple little trunks in here.

Just a couple little things happening inside.

And back to our brush with the Yellow on it.

And just the corner of the brush.

Drop in a few little shapes here and there.

Maybe a little bit of red added in there, that'll sparkle that son of a gun up.

Make it shine.

So let all these little colors just come right off your brush.

All the little greens and yellows.

So I'm going to take a tiny bit of the thin oil and thin down some Brown and we'll put a few little sticks that are poking out of here.

Just here and there, let some of these little things just have fun, come out.

Maybe there's one that lives right there, an old dead one.

Okay, we're going to clean that brush up.

Let's drop in a few little happy things right down in here.

Now, we need something over in here, so I'm going to take a little bit of this same color and we'll put a little bit more dirt right in there.

I think I'll make an almighty tree.

This tree lives right there.

Right there.

That's how easy it is to make him.

Van Dyke Brown.

Give him a nice trunk.

Make him strong.

Big foot.

And we need a little bit of highlight on this tree.

Made the same way we did the other one.

Just some indications here and there.

Let him go.

A little bit of the blue.

Blue, blue.

Okay now we can go in here.

Put some little grassy areas all down here, on his foots.

Just like that.

And we need, I'll use Sap Green.

We need some leaves for this big tree and this is just pure Sap Green, and it doesn't matter if you pick up that brown, you're looking for a very, very dark color.

This is so, so close so it should be very dark.

And we'll put just a few, very, very few little highlights on this.

And I hope this has given ya some ideas and set your imagination on fire and you'll do a fantastic painting.

We'll sign this one.

A little bit of thin oil.

And there we go.

And I hope you've enjoyed this painting.

Be looking forward to seeing you next week, and from all of us here, happy painting.

[announcer] To order Bob Ross' 256 page book with 60 painting projects or his Four Seasons 12 disc DVD set, call 1-800-Bob-Ross or visit BobRoss.com [music] [music]