The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, it's a fantastic day, and I'm glad you're here with me.

So I tell you what, today, let's paint the little animated opening.

That's the one you see at the beginning of each show in this series, a little seascape, and I'll show you exactly how that one was done.

Let's start out and have them run all the colors across the screen that were used to paint that picture.

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

I have my standard old pre-stretched canvas.

But today, I've covered it with a thin, even coat of well, I guess you'd call this liquid gray.

I've taken liquid white and liquid black in about equal proportions and covered the entire canvas.

I've also decided basically where the horizon line will be because I want it to be straight in the seascape, and I've just a piece of masking tape across here, which we'll pull off later.

So tell you what, let's get started and let's do a little seascape.

I'm going to start today with a small amount of Prussian blue on the two-inch brush.

Prussian blue, this is an overcast looking sky in this particular painting, so we'll add a little black to it.

Just mix it on the brush.

Seascapes traditionally are, are sort of hard to paint, but I, I try to show you an easy way of making very effective little seascapes.

Now let's start right up in here.

Just using the little crisscross strokes.

Just begin putting in a little sky.

There we go, like so.

Very, very easy, just little x's.

And the area where the big clouds are going to be, we'll just sorta leave that open.

Okay, a little more of the Prussian blue and the black.

And let's go to the other side over here.

There.

That's all there is to it.

Okay, didn't take but just a second when you're using a two-inch brush to drop in a happy little sky.

Or today, maybe a mean little sky.

Now then, without cleaning the brush, I'm going to get the least little touch of alizarin crimson on the bristles, just a small amount.

Just a small amount.

And because there's blue on there, that'll turn sort of a lavender color.

I want a little lavender right down here.

Like so, okay.

Fantastic, a little bit over on this side.

Maybe a little touch more.

Now when you're doing your seascape, you put whatever color you want in there and in what degree.

You may want it brighter or duller or whatever.

Whatever, whatever makes you happy, that's what we ought to do.

Okay.

We've got a start of a nice little sky.

Now then, today, let's use the one-inch brush and put some clouds in.

You could put them in with a two-inch brush, with a fan brush.

I'll, I'll just use a one-inch brush today, doesn't matter.

Whatever makes you happy.

Go through titanium white, pull the brush just like so.

Just load it, I'm going to be right back.

I'm going to get the least little touch of cad yellow.

Least little touch.

A lot of paint in the bristles.

Bristles are fully loaded, okay?

Now then, let's go right up in here and just using little circular strokes, let's just begin laying in some basic shapes.

Basic little shapes.

Maybe around like so.

Now this will not be an exact duplicate of the one that you see at the opening of the show.

I don't think you could ever in 100 years paint an exact duplicate.

But it'll show you how it was made, and you can make your own at home.

There we are.

Okay.

And up in here, once again, little circular strokes, and try not to stay in the same area and keep working it, or you'll just end up with great big old cotton balls in the sky, and we really want, we really want to have nice actions up here.

Okay, there.

All right.

Well, this is a monster cloud, big cloud.

There's going to be a big storm coming here.

If you got a little boat, you better put it away.

Mm, it's going to get washed right on out.

Maybe over here, see?

Okay, let me grab a big brush.

Be sure it's dry.

Now, using just the corner of the brush, I'm just sort of stirring it up, mixing it up.

Like that, very gentle.

And every once in a while, you can beat the brush just to knock the excess paint out.

You're going to pick up a little paint here.

There we go, just knock it out.

Okay, blend it, blend it, there.

Now very lightly, this is two hairs and some air, grab it and lift it, fluff it, tease it, pull it.

There.

Make love to it here, very gentle, very gentle.

There we go.

And this paint that I'm using is very firm and very dry.

And you can do all this blending without it mixing.

Now we just take out the brush strokes.

And that easy, [chuckles] that easy, you got a, boy, you got a big cloud there.

A little more of the white on the brush.

And maybe over here, let's have another cloud right up in there.

See, just as many or as few clouds as you want in your world, just drop them in.

Always using that little circular stroke, though.

And think about, think about shape and form here.

Don't just throw them in at random.

You might luck out, but your chances are much better if you, if you plan it a little bit when you're looking.

There we are.

All right, boy, that's a lot of clouds in one painting.

Maybe that one comes way up here.

Lookie there, but see how easy it was?

Used to, when I was traditional painter, I used to labor over clouds, whew.

Now it's one of the easiest things that there is to do.

There.

Okay, now then, let's go right over there.

Put in some more happy little clouds.

And work in layers.

In your mind, think which clouds are farthest away and do that one first, and work forward, forward, forward.

Always working forward.

There.

Maybe one right here, wherever.

You have to make those big decisions.

And that's what makes painting fun is that you can make decisions, and you can create a world that you want.

There we are, sometimes we're not totally satisfied with the world the way it is.

In here, if you're not satisfied with the world that you create, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

There we go.

I think I've mentioned on previous shows, I spent half my life in the military, and I used to come home, take off my little soldier hat, put on my painter's hat, and there I'd build the kind of world that I wanted.

It was peaceful, it was quiet, there was no hassles, nobody was yelling.

And it was good, everything was good.

Nobody was going to get shot or hurt, not in my world.

And it's a happy place.

But you build, build the kind of world that you want.

There, fluff it up, lift it.

Tease it.

Pull it, there, see?

Just can blend those clouds to any degree of softness that you want.

But always in big circular strokes like that.

You don't want to come straight up.

It'll look like it's raining up.

[chuckles] And it'll usually bother you.

Knock off the excess paint, and very lightly, once again, just blend the entire sky, there we are.

See there?

We got a fantastic little sky.

Super big clouds.

Okay, I can wash this old brush off now.

Odorless thinner, and be sure it's odorless, whew.

You'll [chuckles] not only run your whole family off, but you'll run yourself off.

Okay, now as I'd mentioned earlier, I have a little masking tape right here.

Let's pull that off.

[Bob makes "zooop" sound] And we have a very straight horizon line because we put that on there.

And I'll take a little touch of the, let's get a little touch, little touch of color here.

And we'll just work that in.

I'm just picking up a little bit of that, what'd we call it, liquid gray there, because it's wet, and just working it in.

There.

[scraping] Okay, that's basically all you have to do.

Just work in a little bit of color.

Cover up where the tape was at.

Okay, and we're in business again.

And then when I'm doing seascapes, let me clean this.

One of the things that I like to do is sorta lay out a basic form for my major wave.

Main reason being where the transparency or the eye of the wave is, I want that to be light, I don't want this dark color on there.

So to do that, let's take a little crimson.

I'll just use liner brush here.

Crimson, a little phthalo blue, just mix it on the brush.

Get a little thinner on it.

There, we'll just make sort of a little lavender color, it doesn't matter.

Now then, come right down here.

Decide where your major wave's going to be.

Maybe that son of a gun's going to go way up here.

See?

It's going to break the horizon here.

Come down, maybe go over.

I think that's the way we had it.

Something like so, doesn't matter, and on off.

And that's going to come right out on there.

Now right here, maybe that'll help.

Right there will be the eye.

The eye of the wave or the transparency.

Now then, we can take a... Let's take our fan brush.

We'll go right in here and get a little phthalo blue, a little phthalo blue.

A little Prussian blue.

And let's just go right up in here.

Now in between here, I'm going to add a little bit of this darker color right in here.

See?

All you've got to do is just sort of fill it in.

Fill it in.

Keep this horizon line quite straight.

If it gets crooked, it'll [chuckles] bother you.

And I'm, I'm using this fan brush only because I don't want to get in there with a big brush and lose those areas.

Normally, we just do this with a big brush.

There, see there?

Speaking of big brush, let's get one here.

We'll get some blue on it and some black and a little touch of the phthalo green.

Very dark.

And come right down in here, right in here.

There, we can begin putting in some color.

All we're doing here is laying in color.

Very dark so our light will show.

There.

That's just the blues and black and a little green.

Okay, we want that maybe about down, say, there.

That's good.

I think that's about where we had it.

Okay.

All right, I'll just take the same old brush.

I'm going to go right into van dyke brown.

Just load some in the bristles, it really doesn't matter how you load it, just tap some in there.

Now then, the rest of the canvas, I'm going to fill up with brown, van dyke brown.

Once again, this is just a base color.

We're going to cover all of this up.

It really is no big deal.

It's just our base color.

It don't look like much of a seascape so far, does it?

But you remember our golden rule, we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.

So we can turn this into a beautiful painting no matter what.

Because between the two of us, we can do anything.

There.

All right, and we have our painting blocked in.

Now we can go ahead and let me take a little blue, a little green.

This is phthalo blue, a little phthalo green.

And I know right here, see, it's nice because we've already painted this painting, I know basically what's going to happen.

We can take, put in where our major wave is going to be here.

See there, just add a little color, that's all there is.

There, pull it over.

Just think about how the wave's formed right here.

Put a little of that here and there.

There, all right.

Now then, let's take our, let's take our little filbert brush.

Take some titanium white.

The least, least little touch of cad yellow.

Least little touch.

Very small amount.

Let's go right back up here.

Now if this is going to be the eye of our wave, our transparency, take your filbert and just scrub it.

Using the side of it, scrub it firmly and begin working out.

You're going to start picking up the underneath color that's going to get darker, darker, darker as you work out from that transparency, and that's exactly what we want.

Allow the canvas to work for you.

There we go, okay.

Let's have a little more right over here.

There.

Don't want this one quite as bright as the other one, but right in there we'll have a little.

And in here we're going to have all kind of little foamy things that are happening.

And you can begin putting in some basic little shapes here just using this brush.

There.

All right.

Now, be sure this two-inch brush that we're going to use is clean and dry.

Use just the corner of it, just the corner.

And just, just gently, gently wiggle it.

Just wiggle it, can you see that?

Just barely.

See?

Just barely turning.

Little, tiny circular strokes.

There you go, now you can see it better.

See how that's just coming together?

Isn't that fantastic that you can do that with such a big old brush?

Now we can begin pulling in the shape here, that easy.

That easy.

And over here, we'll blend this one out using just the corner of this brush.

And I prefer the two-inch to the one-inch brush for doing this, it seems to have more bristles, and it makes it smoother.

There we are.

Okay, now then, let me find, I've got several of each brush going here.

I'm going back into the crimson and a little bit of blue, and I'm going to make a lavender color here.

Just alizarin crimson and a little phthalo blue.

All right, let's go back up here.

Now then, going to start, I want to add a little shadow right here.

This is...

I'm just using the side of the brush.

Think about the foam that's crashing all in here.

This is the shadow part of the foam, that's all we're doing right now.

Tiny, little strokes though, I hope you can see that.

And just let it go right on around, see?

Like so.

Okay.

We can clean that.

Now comes the fun part.

Now we want to make this wave crashing over, so I'm going to use a fan brush.

Just load some titanium white into it.

Just both sides.

Now, think about how the wave is coming up here and it's hitting.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Got to make those little sounds.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] See?

Wipe your brush off as it picks up the color.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Okay, here's another one.

And don't make it too even.

This, this is water, it's churning and it's mad.

Oh, it's just raising the devil.

Okay, back to my little filbert.

Wipe the paint off.

We'll take titanium white and the least, least little touch of the yellow in it once again.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now we want to put some highlights on this.

So here we just sort of push upward.

Push, give it a little upward push.

And as you pick up that under color, reload your brush, put new color on it.

Come back, look at that.

Look at that, isn't that fun?

[Bob makes "poom" sound] Boy, that water's just churning and raising the devil.

There.

It comes all up through there and maybe it just sort of goes right on off into the distance, like that.

Okay, now I'm going to wipe off all the paint.

And I'm going to come back and very lightly just a clean, dry brush, begin blending that together.

Keep your brushes clean and dry as possible so it just sort of blends together.

There.

Now let me find my big brush again.

Back to the old two-inch brush, once again.

Very lightly.

All you're doing is just mixing it up.

Just stirring it up, see there?

And you can make it as smooth as silk.

Just stirring it up.

Okay.

I'm going to take, I'm going to define this edge a little more.

Make it a little bit brighter.

Make some little things happening in there.

Push, so when you push upward, that's when your foam pattern comes off.

There.

All right.

Okay, now then, we need some waves happening here.

Let's take the small knife.

I like the small knife for this because it's a little bit thinner, a little bit flimsier and it bends easier, and I need this to be a little roll of paint.

We're going to start right up in here, watch here.

Very firm pressure.

Lookie here, very firm pressure.

As you run out of paint, add a little more paint.

Look at that, isn't that fantastic?

And, and, and it comes right on out through here.

See there?

But that easy.

But you need a very firm pressure and a good dry paint or you run into problems.

Now you can begin thinking about form and shape here.

This little knife is fantastic for doing entire seascapes.

It's unreal what you can do with it.

It's just absolutely unreal.

Okay, tell you what, that was [chuckles] so much fun, let's do another one, let's do another one.

Maybe start right about here in the same, almost the same spot.

And we'll let it come out.

Lookie there, a lot of pressure.

Bend that knife, bend it.

You want that ridge of paint there.

See there, and we got the water coming right up on the shore, that easy.

Maybe there's a little more water, just wherever.

And let that just sort of blend right on back.

I'm, I'm applying quite a bit of pressure.

Don't be afraid of this, get in there and do it.

Okay, tell you what, take some paint thinner.

I'm going to go right into the white, titanium white with the least, least little touch of the yellow on it.

I just want to sparkle this edge on this.

Just sparkle it a little bit.

And we can bring it right on down.

There.

Like so.

And back in here, we want to begin putting individual little wave shapes all the way up to the horizon.

Now all these little details in here are what really make the painting exciting.

And just sort of use a little motion, [Bob makes "blip, blip, blip" sounds] like little waves.

And that easy, you can create the illusion of all kind of little things happening in there.

Let's go on the other side over here.

See there?

Just throw in a few.

And right along in here put a few little things.

These little, little foamy things here, they're really what make your painting spectacular.

And you can put them in with a liner brush, put a few of them in here.

At home where you have unlimited time, it's unbelievable what you can do.

Here, if I go over 30 minutes, they don't have any sense of humor, they [chuckles] yell and scream at me.

Director comes out here and says bad things.

She's mean.

There, now maybe back in here, just put some little indications of things happening back in that, mm, that gives it just a little detail.

There we go.

See, the more you put in, the more interesting it becomes.

And people will think you worked for so long on these.

All right, let's get, let's get serious here.

Clean off my palette a little bit.

Let's go into the van dyke brown.

I'm going to grab a big bunch of paint.

And let's come right up in here.

I want to take, this is your bravery test on this painting.

Let's just come right out there.

We're going to put a little bit of land out here.

There were some palm trees in that painting.

We need a place for them to set.

There they are.

All right.

All I'm doing is putting van dyke brown in.

Okay, let's take some white, some dark sienna.

It's just plain white, dark sienna.

And maybe underneath here the color's a little lighter.

And take your knife and just scrub it.

Just rub it very hard.

And you can blend this right in.

Make that beach just stand out there.

Okay, a little bit of black right here.

Maybe there's a... Lookie there, see?

Just a little something there to sparkle it.

Now then, let's begin working on some things in here.

We'll take some of the brown and the white.

Lay a little highlight here and there.

Just let that, [Bob makes "boop, boop, boop, boop, boop" sounds] sort of run right over the edge here and there.

Whatever.

There we go.

See, just let all kind of little things happen in here.

We can pick up some white and get a little touch of the bright red, the yellows.

Get crazy in here.

Let's put in some beautiful colors.

There, let these things just happen wherever you want them.

A little sap green.

A little yellow here and there.

Ooh, that's nice.

I like to paint with a palette knife.

It just makes so many beautiful things happen.

All right, take my fan brush, van dyke brown.

We have a palm tree that lives [Bob makes "ssssoo" sound] right there.

One right here.

And another one, maybe he lives right there.

Now with a paint as thin as water, and we're going into straight midnight black, and let's put in just the indication of some leaves here.

Wind's blowing.

[Bob makes "tchoo" sound] Boy, look at them go.

Look at them go, see?

And you just put as many as you want.

And that's basically how the little animated opening at the beginning of the show was made.

It only takes a minute to do it, but it takes a lot of people a long time to make it happen.

They work very hard.

Okay.

The old clock on the wall tells me that's about it for the day.

And I think with that, you can see how it was done.

From all of us here, happy painting and God bless.

[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]