The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

[Music] Hi, welcome back.

Certainly glad you could join us today.

Today I thought we'd just do a beautiful warm little winter scene.

So let's start out, have them do all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with me.

And they'll come across, right about there.

So tell you what... Let me show you what I've done up here.

I've got my standard old canvas up here.

This is a double primed, pre-stretched canvas.

We don't recommend canvas boards.

And onto that, I've put a piece of contact paper with an oval cut out of it.

And that's basically all we've done.

Just covered this with liquid white and it's ready to go so.

So, let's go.

And today we're gonna use a very limited palette which means we're only gonna use a few colors.

So let's start out with a little alizarin crimson.

Just a little, on the old two-inch brush.

I'll go right up here and just bounce in a little bit of pink.

And this is one of those paintings that just, it should make you happy.

Just enjoy this.

This is not something you should labor over or worry about.

Enjoy it.

If you've been with us before, you've probably heard me say it.

"If painting does nothing else, it should make you happy."

It should make you happy.

There.

Okay, still using a little criss-cross strokes.

Just little x's, that's all, that's all.

And with the old two-inch brush it doesn't take too long to really cover a lot of area.

And when you get done, shoot you can go out in the yard and paint a barn, or the house, or whatever.

There.

I know these look like house painting brushes but they're really not, they're very fine artist brushes.

There we go.

Okay, right on up, I don't know, wherever, maybe about to here.

Looks like a big Easter egg already.

There.

Now then.

Let's take, let's take, we won't even clean the brush cause alizarin crimson is not a very strong color.

We'll go right into a little phthalo blue and just put a little into the bristles and tap the bristles.

See that gets a nice even distribution of color all the way through the bristles, and that's what we're looking for.

Otherwise if you just hit that big gob of paint and go up here, you're gonna have huge blue streaks that are very hard to work out.

Work those bristles in the color.

There, and we'll start at the top and just blend a little touch of that blue into here.

I don't want a great deal.

Just a little, just a little.

And let it blend downward.

About like so.

Shoot you can even tap in a little stringy cloud here and there if you want it.

But we'll come back and blend this in a second.

Right now we're just putting a little color in, like that.

And while we got it on the brush, let's add a little bit down here in the bottom part, which will probably be water.

As I say, I think we'll do a little winter picture today.

Winter picture's are very nice.

I enjoy doing them.

And I like to make winter scenes with a little warmth in 'em that's why I use the pink.

But some people - well, I was talking to my friend, Ken, just the other day from New Jersey.

And he said we wanted a scene that was cold.

If you want a cold scene, then all you need to do is just take and leave the pink out, just use blue and grays.

Mix a little midnight black with it.

Shoot, you'll have a cold winter scene.

I guarantee it.

Now then, let's wash the old brush.

That's the fun part.

Shake it off.

[laughs] There we go, we're in business now.

Now that the brush is good and clean and dry.

And the cameraman's covered again.

We can just take this, and blend it out.

Just blend it.

And when the two come together, you'll get sorta a lavender color, which is very pretty.

There.

Something about like so and down here, we just go gently, gently all the way across.

We're not applying much pressure.

Just enough to sorta blend everything together.

Okay.

Now then, today let's build us a little cloud.

We'll use a fan brush today.

Let's go right into titanium white.

Good old titanium white.

And we'll go up here, and I'm just going to put in an indication of just a happy little cloud using just the corner of the fan brush.

And you could do this, you can do this with a one-inch brush, works very well, very well.

There we go.

Now maybe, maybe let me grab another fan brush.

Let's have two of them going.

Maybe you want to put a little color into the cloud.

We can take a little blue, a little alizarin crimson, and we'll make a lavender color here.

I'm gonna grab a little white.

A little lavender color.

A little bit, ooh that's pretty nice.

That's coming along.

And just adjust it back and forth until it's the way you want it.

And let's go up in here, and we'll just come in, and we'll put a little, a little color underneath.

There.

That's all there is to it.

A little more of the white.

That'll sorta mix it together.

There, let me find a big brush.

Now, clean dry, two-inch brush, very gently, using just the corner, just the corner.

And I like the two-inch brush, because it has a lot of bristles, and then we'll fluff it, lift it, tease it a little, and then very gently go across.

Isn't that a nice way of making a very effective little cloud?

[laughs] You can do that.

Maybe right here, we'll have another little cloud.

And you can do this either way.

You can put the light in first, and then the dark it doesn't much matter.

As long as you blend them together gently.

Let a light in, get my little fan brush that has that touch of dark color on it.

A little loving under the base, under the bottom.

That'll indicate the lights coming from above.

And then very gently, three hairs and some air.

All we do is just, stir it up, mix it up and blend it, fluff it, lift it, and then very lightly just go over it like that.

There.

And you can put clouds in front of clouds.

Maybe you want another little cloud, a little baby cloud maybe lives right here.

Maybe this is a mommy cloud here.

There.

Can't ever tell.

Who knows, who knows.

There we go, blend 'em together.

Give that one a little fluff.

And off we go.

And that easy, we've got some nice little very effective clouds that just float around in the sky, have a good time all day.

Wash the old fan brush off.

And as you know, we just wash the brushes in odorless thinner, and the little brushes I just wipe on a paper towel to dry 'em.

Now then, let's take midnight black and alizarin crimson, just black and crimson today, what the heck.

That's all we need.

Put these two together, it makes a very dark lavender color.

Cut off our little roll of paint, right out on the edge of the knife.

And maybe in our world there lives, boy there does now.

Maybe there's a mountain right here.

Okay, now this is an extremely simple little painting we're gonna do today.

Just want to show you how effective it can be just playing with some colors.

Very simple little painting.

This is the type painting that one of our instructors would teach you probably in the first or second day of class.

And you could do it.

And we have instructors that travel all over the United States spreading the joy of painting.

There, take a large brush, grab this, and pull it.

Pull it.

In fact maybe earlier in the series, you saw Dana Jester on the show here with us, with the squirrels all over him.

[laughs] I had to have somebody to help me with all the little rascals, we had four of them here in the studio, and boy they were giving us a fit.

They wanted to play.

And as you know, in a television studio you have to be sorta quiet and not run around.

They don't know that rule, they just wanted to have a good time and play with everybody here, and of course everybody here fell in love with them.

There, but we want this now to blend right into the nice soft misty area there.

Very soft, alright.

Let's take our knife, this is a fun part.

This is a fun part, I'm gonna take titanium white, pull it out as flat as I can get it, add the least little touch of alizarin crimson to it.

Least little touch to it.

Just to warm it up a little, give it a little warm flavor.

Pull it out flat, once again, cut across, and we get out very small roll of paint, right on the edge of the knife.

There we go.

Now then, let's have our light coming from the right, because I'm right-handed and that's normally easier for right-handed people.

There we go.

[Bob makes "shooomp" sound] See there.

Now then maybe have a little snow right there.

Wherever you want it.

Just think about where light would zing through there and play and make all these little highlights on the mountain.

That's really all we're looking for at this point.

There we go.

I really and truly enjoy doing mountains.

As I mentioned before, I lived in Alaska for about a dozen years.

And they have some of the most beautiful mountain scenery there that I've ever seen.

Absolutely gorgeous.

I, I had been born and raised in Florida and was 21 years old before I ever saw snow.

Shoot that's been nearly 10-12 years ago now.

[laughs] Well, maybe a little more than that.

Okay, [chuckles] there.

Devil's gonna get me for telling stories.

A little blue, a little black into it, and off we go, everybody around here is laughing when I say it was just 10 or 12 years ago.

Cut off a little roll of paint, and go right up here.

Touch, and let's put in the indication of some nice little shadow areas here.

No pressure, absolutely no pressure.

Just let the knife barely graze the canvass.

Just barely touch.

And that's what causes all that breaking, you want all those little holes in there.

You want them in there.

There.

Okay, maybe a little shadow right in there.

Wherever, wherever.

Now we can come back, and we can begin adding all kinda of little extras in our mountain.

See you can do this, you can put all kinds of little things that you want in there.

You can do it.

On this canvass you can do anything that you want to do.

Total power.

There we go.

There we go.

Very gently, though.

Very gentle.

No pressure.

There.

Sometimes it's nice to go back and pick up a little of that dark, and lay a little dark indication here and there.

Just makes it look like there's some deep shadows some places.

There we go.

But don't overdo, you can overdo real quick.

Real quick.

There, it's a trick I learned from my son.

He makes some beautiful mountains.

There.

Okay, now then we'll just take a clean, dry brush and tap this, all over the angles.

Always follow the angles, there we go.

And lift it.

That takes out the tab marks, brings everything together.

That easy.

Over here, we'll follow these angles.

Just however you painted it, that's exactly the angle you want to follow.

If you're coming on like this, and go all the way across, it's gonna look like somebody took a big razor blade and just cut it off, and just sorta left it hanging there.

So follow those angles.

There, and let's go and grab a little of that white, let it look like a little reflected light going down the side there.

Another little thing that's fun, take a little of that same shadow color, and just tap in, like so.

There it is.

Maybe there's just a little hill right there.

And that sorta pushes everything back, it gives another plane.

Just like that.

Okay, looks like there's a little white paint up here in the sky that I sorta missed.

Didn't see it.

But we'll just put a shadow under, and that easy we'll turn it into another little peak.

[laughs] See we don't make mistakes.

We just have happy accidents.

Cause the mountain looks better now with a peak like that.

There.

Okay, now then.

Let's take, tell you what let's do today, tell you what let's do, I have some lavender mixed up here.

Let's see what it looks like.

We'll take lavender, put a little white in it.

And I want it more to the crimson side, so alizarin crimson, phthalo blue, and white that's really all we have here.

I wanna make a nice, sorta light little lavender.

Ooh that's nice, I like that right there.

Right there, but when you do yours, if you want it more to the blue or the red side, that's up to you.

That's totally up to you.

Here's a dirty fan brush, we'll just use it.

Same one we was making the clouds with.

This is number three fan brush.

But you could use your six.

Alright, load it full of color, lot of color on it.

Let's go up here.

Maybe in our world, yep, see, right there we'll push in a little tree.

And I'm pushing upward here.

I want these particular evergreens to have little upward arms on 'em.

Depending on where you live, evergreens are different.

In some places, the limbs sorta hang downward.

In other places, they sorta push upward.

And also depends on the kinda tree it is.

There's a lot of different types of evergreen trees.

There, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe yep.

Put another one there, and this one's maybe got a little crook.

I hate having all my trees just perfectly straight.

I'd really rather see trees that have some character to 'em.

And I always tell myself that maybe, when that tree was young, maybe somebody stepped on it, or maybe a squirrel ate it's top off or something.

I don't know.

But just anything.

Just to keep it from being too bland.

And there we are.

Okay now then, I'm gonna... that's pretty clean.

[laughs] There we'll just take that brush, and I just want to begin tapping this.

And we'll pick up a little of this color, and bring it over here, and then let it just fade right on out to nothing.

See how soft that gets?

Good.

Alright.

Now then, take a little of that same color, and let's decide where we would have a little reflection, and maybe it's right there.

Pull it straight down.

Just a tiny bit of that reflection, and go across.

Now then, let's take us some liquid white, liquid white.

I'm gonna put a little touch of alizarin crimson into it.

Just enough to warm it up a little, so it feels good.

Pull it out flat, cut across see.

Flat, cut across.

Now then, we take that and we go right up here and let's just cut us in a little water line.

Just cut it in.

There.

Just sorta let it wander back into there.

There we go, wipe my knife often.

There.

Maybe there's a little ripple here and there.

We don't want too many.

Just a few little things in there.

Now then, well, I still got that number three fan brush going.

I guess it's okay.

Doesn't make much difference, whatever works for you.

Clean off a spot, and let's take black and Prussian blue.

Prussian blue is strong, strong, strong.

Crimson, so we got black, Prussian blue, and alizarin crimson.

There we are.

Very dark though, very dark color.

Should look black.

Clean off the old knife here.

Now then, let me just wipe the excess of that number three fan brush.

We'll use it, as I say, it doesn't matter.

Alright.

Now, this good dark color and the brush is fully loaded.

Let's have us a tree that lives right there.

Start off with just a little line, and then we're gonna push upward.

Push upward.

And with that, we'll make our happy little evergreen tree.

Just like that.

There he goes.

There it goes.

Yeah, see that's all there is to it.

I'm gonna make several of these.

And while I'm making these, let me share another one of my little creatures with you.

As I say, I am such a nut for these little creatures.

This is my crow here.

And he lives with me, we call him Midnight.

Isn't he a mean looking sun of a gun.

And he's one of the nicest little creatures that you ever seen.

That's midnight.

He lives in my backyard right now.

And sorta a sad story with him.

Somebody tried to shoot his wing off.

And its, he didn't do too good for a while.

We didn't know if old Midnight was gonna make it for a long time.

But a lot of nice people have helped him.

And I think he's gonna make it.

He's gonna be okay now.

But he'll never be able to fly again.

Which is, it's hard to watch that, when you see something as beautiful as he is.

And he'll never be able to fly again.

There.

Now then, we'll take, let's just grab this two-inch brush, I want some reflections under there.

Pull it straight down.

Straight down, straight down.

And go across.

There.

Alright.

Now then.

let me find, let me find, we use a one-inch brush.

I wanna pop in a couple little bushes or some dark color that'll end up being bushes in here.

There we go.

This is that same dark color.

Now then.

Let's take our knife, just cut right through there to make the indication of a few little trunks and sticks and everything.

There.

[chuckles] Did you like that old crow?

He's something else.

He is something else.

He's a pretty nice little bird though.

I hate it that he, as I say, he'll never be able to fly, though that bothers me terribly.

That somebody would just shoot him, just for the heck of it.

Let me grab a little pink here.

And I'm not opposed to hunting.

My father was an avid hunter.

But I'm opposed to shooting things for no reason.

I'm just pulling a little color in here.

This is just titanium white with a little alizarin crimson, I want to warm it up some.

And we go up here, and let's just put us in, just a beautiful little snow-covered bush right out here on the edge.

There.

A little more of the liquid white.

And the liquid white's in there only to thin the color.

Because as you know, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

And the color we have up here initially is very thick.

I want another one, maybe right in there.

Work in layers.

One layer at a time.

Now you can reverse the brush, see there.

Put some little doers down here in the water.

Down in the water.

And this is your test to see how gentle you are.

Barely touch, and go down, go across.

And we can make those nice little mirror reflections.

[laugh] I like those.

They're fun.

Now then, we'll take - why don't we just use some titanium white, what the heck.

What the heck.

Come right along here.

And just put in a little bit of snow.

Like that.

There we go.

A little bit of our liquid white, that we can come back, cut us in a water line.

There we are.

And off we go, we take the clean edge of the knife, scratch us in a stick and a twig.

Then we're in business.

And I'll tell you what, today I want to pull this oval off now.

And I'm gonna play a little bit, you know me.

Let's just take that right off there.

And we'll - there we go.

Now then.

I always like to have big trees in my paintings so guess what, [laughs] guess what.

You're right.

Let's take that old dark tree color fan brush and I went to a number six fan brush, I want it to be bigger.

Let's go right there.

[Bob makes "chooka, chooka, chook" sounds] And we're gonna cut right outside of this oval and we're gonna let this big old tree, we're gonna let him look out into the sunlight.

And there he goes.

There he goes.

There.

Okay, pushing upward though.

Always pushing upward.

There, maybe I should have done this with a two-inch brush, [chuckles] big as this tree is becoming.

Didn't know it was going to be quite that big.

But that's alright.

Let it go, let it go.

Boy, when I said big tree, I was serious this time.

Whew.

I'm gonna stop it there.

Otherwise it's gonna eat up the whole world.

The tree that ate up the world.

Sounds like a nice theme for a horror movie or something.

Go, another little tree.

I gotta have a friend for him.

Gotta have a friend for him.

Otherwise he'll get lonely sitting here.

There.

Don't want him lonely.

Push upward though.

Continually pushing upward.

Now then.

I'm going back to my one-inch brush that has the dark color on it.

Somehow I have to stop this tree.

So we'll put a bush up under his foot.

[laughs] There we got him slowed down now.

We got him slowed down.

Maybe, well we'll just come out here.

What the heck.

Let your imagination go when you're doing these little paintings.

That's what makes it fun.

Just let 'em go.

Let 'em go.

Now then, take a little white, a little dark Sienna, mix it together, and let's come up here.

[Bob makes "tchoom" sound] Put the indication just here and there of a little trunk that lives in these trees.

I don't want 'em much.

Grab another fan brush, I'm gonna take titanium white, and a little bit of phthalo blue on it.

White and blue.

And let's come back in here, and I want to put a few little highlights on this big old tree here.

This is just phthalo blue and white.

Like that.

Mm, think about shape and form.

I know you get tired of hearing that.

But it is so important.

Don't just throw this in at random.

You'll be unhappy.

A little bit on this tree too.

Don't want as much on that one.

There.

Darker, darker, darker, down to there.

Okay, and these little ones back here.

I'm want a little bit back in here too.

Don't want them left out.

These are farther away, so I don't want as much detail in them.

Just enough so you know they got a little, a little something happening in them too.

And going to the liquid white, a little bit of the crimson, and let's go in here, and let's put some nice highlights on these little bushes that live right in here.

There we go.

See?

Just drop 'em in.

Drop 'em in.

Maybe there's one lives right there.

And we got a minute left here so... let's put a little path.

Take a little white [Bob makes "shoom" sound].

We gotta have a way to get back to this big old tree.

[Bob makes "shooo" sound] There it goes.

Just happy little path that lives right there.

We need just a couple of bushes on this side.

And that will push that path right back in there.

We need our dark in there first.

Then a little liquid white, a little titanium white, and we'll put a bush over here.

Shoot, isn't that a nice way though of making just a beautiful little winter scene?

And you can do this, I think you'll enjoy it.

So I'll tell you what.

[laughs] I think with that, we're gonna call that one finished.

From all of us here, happy painting, God bless my friend.

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