- Hello, I'm Bob Ross,
and I'd like to welcome you to the 20 second
joy of painting series. First of all, let me thank
you for inviting us back for another series of painting
shows. And if this is your first
time with us, allow me to give you a personal
invitation, to drag up your paints and spend a relaxing
half hour with us as we put some of nature's
master pieces on canvas. So I'll tell you what,
let's start out today, have them run all the
colors across the screen that you need to paint
along with us at home. And while they're doing
that, come on up here and let me know you what
I've got done already. I have a 18 x 24 inch canvas,
but you use whatever size is convenient for
you. And this is a pre-stretched,
double prime canvas. And I've covered the
entire canvas with just a thin, even coat, of liquid
white. And the liquid white is on
there, only to make the canvas
wet; it makes it slick. It allows us to actually blend
the painting on the canvas, so we're not working ourselves
to death here on the palette. So I'll tell you what,
let's grab an old brush and let's just have some fun
today. We'll start today with
an old two-inch brush. We'll go into a small
amount of the Prussian blue. This is a very strong color,
takes very very little paint. Just pull a little out and
then tap the bristles into it. I'm gonna reach right here
and get a little bit of the midnight in black and just
sort of mix them together. So we have black and
blue, or blue and black. Whatever your preference. Let's go right up here to the
canvas. Now then, in doing landscapes, normally you want the whole
thing to be darker at the top, and then
lighter toward the horizon. And by starting at the top
and making little crisscross strokes, allowing the color
to blend with the liquid white that's on the canvas, that
will happen automatically. It's very easy, just like so,
we'll just make little x's, little
crisscross strokes. Allow that color to blend,
there. And If you're working on a dry
canvas, this would be very difficult. But since this canvas is
wet, and you're continually blending color, this is
very simple, very simple. This is truly the lazy
man's way of painting. There we go. And I think I'll have some
big fluffy clouds in this one today, so I'm just
gonna leave an area sort of open here, and that's
where my clouds will live. Alright, I'm gonna come
down, oh I don't know, maybe to about like there. Just sort of let it happen,
don't worry about it. If you've painted with
me before, you know that we don't make mistakes, we
just have happy accidents. Because very quickly,
you can learn to work with anything that happens here. I think I'll have a little
water in this, so while I have that same color on the
brush, just Prussian blue and midnight
black, just gonna put a little
indication of some water here. Maybe I'll put a little
more color on my brush, make it a little darker, there
we go. Alright. (paintbrush strokes) They're both in the outside in
and leave an area open here. If everything works just right,
that'll look like a little sheen of light coming across the
water. And it will certainly
enhance your painting. There, I put a little more of
the color. We'll go on the other
side, do the same thing. But pull from the outside in. See if you start here and you go
across, look all the horrible line you
get here. And then you have to really
work to blend that out. So start from the outside
and pull toward the center. Or wherever you want your
little light sheen to be here. Okay let me wash the old brush. That's the fun part of
this whole technique. Course they don't think so
around the station here. Because I've covered
everything, as you will see. Put the paint thinner, shake off
the excess. (paintbrush tapping) (chuckles) And just beat the devil out of
it. Okay now with a clean brush, we
can just go across here and
blend all this together. (paintbrush strokes) There, but see that light
spot still remains in there. It's not very distinct
but it's strong enough to indicate what we're trying to
show. And we can blend the sky, and
I don't want to overblend it. I like to have little
areas that show variations, so it's just not a flat, dead
sky. But in your painting,
you sort of look at it, and you decide how you want it. And you step back and take a
look see every once in awhile so
you can see it from a distance. (paintbrush strokes) There we are. Because if you back up and look
at your painting, it's much easier
to see. Sometime when you're
standing, this close to it, it's sort of difficult to, to
see. Let's use a one-inch brush, then
I'm gonna make a happy little
cloud up here in the sky. For that, let's take just
titanium white. I'll be right back, don't go
away. A little big of the bright
red, very small amount though. Put a little sunshine on this
cloud. Okay let's go up here. Now then, very gently, and all
we're doing is just sort of tapping the
canvas. Just let the corner of the brush
touch and begin thinking where your
little cloud would live in your little world. And this piece of canvas is your
world. And on here you can do anything
that your heart desires. You can create any illusion
that you want here. You can find peace and
tranquility here, or you can make big storms that
just, just depends on what
your mood is that day. There, painting is sort
of a way of capturing the second of time and a mood,
putting it on canvas. And maybe a hundred years from
now someone will look at your
painting and they'll know that
you had a fantastic day. And then on this day, you truly did experience the joy of
painting. There we are. Just sort of let these
little things just work around and have fun, let them
play. Clouds are very free, they may
be one of the freest things in
nature. They just sort of float around in the sky and have a good time. There we are. Okay, now we'll go back
to our two-inch brush. (paintbrush tapping) Be sure it's good and
dry and very carefully, just gonna take the corner of
the brush, the top corner, and just
go in little tiny circles. Little, tiny circles. I don't wanna touch the top
edge up here at all yet. Very gently. This is
two hairs and some air. Just whisper light, whisper
light.
(blows air) Because you can destroy
these little things that you've made in here very
easy. Very light, barely touching,
very gentle, caress it. There we are, now- (paintbrush tapping) I just beat the brush to
knock off any excess paint. Now very lightly we can fluff
this cloud, we can lift it. But this is a very gentle touch,
just barely lifting upward. But you can see how that cloud
is beginning to fluff up. There, and then very lightly,
one hair and some air. Just go across now takes out
all the little tap marks, brings everything
together and make some of the most fantastic
clouds you've ever seen. And it's very simple. (paintbrush strokes) Alright, shoot. We got a nice little cloud
there. Now that, maybe today. Tell you
what. Let's build a very simple little
mountain. Everybody seems to like
mountains, so let's, let's make us one. We'll take us from black,
some Prussian blue. I'm gonna get a little van
dyke brown too, what the heck. Maybe even alizarin crimson,
just good dark color. There, okay, now pull it out
as flat as you can get it. Take the knife, cut across,
then get a little roll of paint, and it should live right out
on the edge of the knife. You can see how it's right
out on the edge there. Okay, let's go up here. Now then you have to
make a major decision. Come right up here. Now you have to decide in your world where your mountain lives. Maybe, it lives right here. And you can make any kind of
mountain that you want, it's up to you. Up to you, we'll just,
we'll make something maybe today that maybe sort of
resembles the Tetons or mountains in that
area. And the Tetons have a, they have a lot of little points on them. Little jagged, ragged things,
and that's what we'll make. But you can make a mountain
that's very smooth. It's totally up to you. Once again, painting is
a very individual thing. That's the reason we use no
patterns and no tracings. Cause then we're just painting
somebody else's thing. I wanna teach you to make
a world that belongs only to you and it's unique to
you and your personality. There, okay. Now we'll take a two-inch
brush, and we wanna grab this paint and pull
it, and there's two things. Maybe the most important
one, is it removes excess paint so the next
layer will stick much easier. But it also creates this nice,
misty area at the base of the
mountain. And mountains are always more
distinct on the top, then they are on the
bottom. If you can see the entire
mountain. Because there's mist and now
we have wonderful pollution, that hang around down here at
the bottom. And it breaks up and
diffuses light, so that's why you have misty look at
the base of the mountains. Alright. (paintbrush strokes) And by using brushstrokes
when you pull this, I hope that'll show up,
but you can literally lay out all your highlights and
shadows. Can you see what's happening?
Without being commited. It's sort of a sneaky little
way of seeing what your mountain's gonna look
like before you paint it. But you can lay out everything,
that easy. Now then, let's just
take a, we'll just use that same old titanium white,
right here. Pull it out, once again,
as flat as you can get it. Cut across, and a little roll of
paint. See, let's do that one more
time. Cause that's so important,
pulling out flat, cut across, little roll of
paint. That easy, let's go up here. Now then, you have to start
making some big decisions. Where does the highlights
live on this mountain. Maybe somewhere right
along in here, no pressure. No pressure. Three hairs and nowhere, it's
that easy.
(chuckles) I've mentioned before in
other shows when I was teaching my son Steve to
paint, I used to tell him, "Just pretend you're a
whisper, floating right across the mountain and you're
not even touching it, you're just, you're just
floating right across there." There. See how you can create
all kinds of little things. Anything that you want,
you just decide where these little things live in your
world. And just barely touching it, and
you want the paint to break like
this, that's what makes all
those beautiful little, little things you see in there. And it happens automatically. All you have to do is
learn to make the knife barely, barely touch the canvas,
gentle. We receive a lot of letters. One of the things that I
hear over and over again is people are having trouble
doing this. Normally you can equate
it to one or two problems. First of all, the paint's too
thin. We use a very firm, dry paint. Much firmer than traditional
oil painting paints. Secondly, the pressure
that you're applying, if you apply too much pressure, it's gonna look just
like your ice to cake. And we're not looking for that. We want to have all those
nice breaks in there so it's, very pretty, and people
won't believe what you did. Everyday I get letters
from people and they say, they've watched the show
and they've tried it and it's' working, and
they take the paintings and they show it to friends and
relatives and they don't believe
that they painted them. That's always wonderful to hear. For a little shadow here I'm
taking little Prussian blue and white, and just
mixing it here together. Once again, you can even
use a small edge, see and pull out a little roll
of paint, or you can use a small knife, whichever
is convenient for you. We have two different sized
knives, so pick out the one that you
like. And you go back in here now, and
begin putting in some little shadow
areas. I want this to remain quite
dark. I don't wanna get too
much going on back here. These areas are deep in shadows
here. There we are. (paintbrush tapping) But this is where you begin
forming all these little things. This is where the little
mountain goat lives, right up in here. He needs a
little place to call home too just like the
rest of us. And you have to take care of
god's little creatures, there. (paintbrush tapping) He could be over in here, like
that. Wherever, wherever, just sort
of let your imagination go. And you can come right
along in here and any place you wanna show a
little, a little break here. You just put a little shadow and automatically it'll happen. Let's take another good
clean, dry, two-inch brush. And I wanna create mist at
the base of this mountain. So all you need to do
is tap, but follow these angles when you tap,
don't just chop across. It'll look like, look
like somebody took a big razor blade and cut your
mountain off. Just tap and then gently lift
upward. The same angle that the
mountain flows here, same angle. It'll create a beautiful,
soft, misty effect, right at the base of your
mountain. Okay, shoot, we got a pretty
good looking little mountain there
too. Alright, let's, let's take
the old round brush today. I'm gonna use that same
basic mountain color. We had Prussian blue and
black, little alizarin crimson, (paintbrush tapping) There, I think we had some van
dyke brown. I'm gonna reach up here get a
little sap green put in there too. Let's start making some foliage
leaves. Back here in front of this
mountain, with the old round brush here,
we can just take, and just begin
tapping, (paintbrush tapping) Just aside basically, where
you want these things to live. There maybe there's a
bigger one right there. Big strong one that lives
right up here, wherever. You have to make big decisions. There they go, okay, little
bit more of the color. (paintbrush tapping) Alright, maybe, maybe there's
a big tree here on the side. But just sort of let your
imagination go. Think where, think of if you
were a tree where you'd like to live. This tree, he lives right
here in front of the mountain. He has one of the prettiest
views. He looks out over this
mountain, and watches, watches everything happen. Sometimes, sometimes you get
carried away and these trees keep growing on
you. That's alright. This is your
tree. So you make it anyway that you
want. Anyway that you want them. In your world you can have
anything. Anything, there. Okay, right on down, maybe,
somewhere in there we don't care at this
point. Let's see mix up a little more
color. Black, blues, some brown, little
crimson. Little of sap green, ran out of
color. There, now then maybe in our
world, we'll have, shoot, let's get
crazy. (gently laughs) Maybe there's another tree over
here. That'll sort of block everything
in. Make sort of a nice composition, that way it'll force
your eye to go in here and look at this mountain when
we're done. There, got a little hair there. You get a little hair, just use
the corner of your brush and lift it
off the canvas, no big deal. These brushes are natural
bristles so they do shed. There, till you, till you get
those out. Alright. Okay now, maybe, maybe we'll
have some reflections in our water,
so all you have to do is just bring some of
this color right down. Just let it go. (paintbrush tapping) Something like that. If we have a tall tree
on this side, then we're gonna have very long
reflections in the water. Alright. (paintbrush tapping) Okay now, we have to make a big
decision. Where does water and land meet? Somewhere right in here in my
world. (paintbrush strokes) There, so just, just
begin pulling this down. We don't know exactly what's
gonna happen, but somewhere in here we'll
have all this come together. Doesn't really matter at this
point. Now very lightly, go across. And that'll create the illusion
of instant reflections in your water, that
easy. Now have several of each brush
going. Let me pick up another
little round brush here. And with it, let's put
some nice highlights. I would take a little cad
yellow, little yellow ochre, be right back, I'm gonna
pick up little sap green, but mix these colors on
the brush, that way you have a multitude of things
happening in that brush. Look at all the different
tones and colors. I don't know if you can ever mix
that. If you just sat and tried to
mix each one individually. Okay, let's go up in here. And I just wanna put little
indications of some little things, some little
highlights on these trees. Just tap, that's all you
gotta do. Just tap it. But think about forming shape,
don't just hit it random. Think about where the light
would play through here, and all these little things
would shine and sparkle. There, here's another one. These are just some
little background trees. Okay, very loose, right there. And it helps to make up little
stories about your scene. Give it, give these
characters personalities and then they become individuals
to you. Become very special, become your
friends. I wanna add a little big of that
Indian young, a little bright red here
and there. I wanna give this a
little, a little indication that maybe Jack Frost
has been through here and had a good day and things
are beginning to change colors. There, and you can get as wild
with autumn scenes as you want, this
some of the most beautiful
reds and golds in nature. Hmm. There we are. Do you want a little
more of the sap green, little cad yellow, maybe, whew
let's put a big tree here. (paintbrush tapping) Think about individual things in
there. And once again, this is
just gonna end up being a background tree. I think I'm gonna put some
things in front of it. But you wanna make it look
pretty good, because a lot of it is gonna
show through. And people would think
you've worked for months trying to get in there and put
all those little, little individual things
in there. And we don't tell them
any different, that's, that's our secret. That's our
secret. Cause a lot of people would
never believe you could paint this much detail using a big
old crazy brush like this. But you can, there. You can do anything. As long as you believe you can
do it. You know it helps to mentally, when you decide you're
gonna paint a picture, paint it mentally, several
times, and get those strokes sort of worked out in
your mind. Know what you want, before you
start. Have a general idea of what you
want. But do it mentally, just like
athletes, they psyche themselves
up before big event. You can do that for painting
too. Okay, tell you what, maybe over
here we'll put a nice little
sparkler. Okay, before we go too far here, I better decide what we're gonna
do. I'm gonna put some nice little
tree trunks back in here. So we'll take some paint
thinner, paint thinner. I'll just use some van
dyke brown for that, maybe a little dark
sand and mixed with it. Give it a little, a little
flavor. But this paint should be
very thin, almost like ink. This is a script liner
brush, it holds a lot of paint, but it needs to be
very thin. Let's go up here, maybe, maybe,
maybe. Yup, right here lives
a big old, strong tree. A little more of the paint
thinner, load the brush full again. But let the brush wiggle and
jiggle, so it's just not a plain old,
straight, telephone pole looking tree. I sort of like the
trees to have character. There, be individuals. I don't want all my trees to
grow up to be just telephone poles. There we go, but maybe in your
world, that's what you want. And there's freedom on this
canvas, you can do anything here. You can even string wire on your
tree if you want to, it's okay.
There. And over there, this is the
tree that lives right along, and he too has a beautiful
view of the mountain. Alright. (paintbrush swishing in water) And we can come back, I'll take
a little paint thinner, and little,
little white. But at least it'll touch
a bright red in it. You can come right back in here, and add some highlights to your
tree. Your mountain tells you the
light's coming from the right side. That easy. You can make it a little
tree to stand out there. Okay, back to my brown. Don't want the other side
left out, it'll get jealous. And nothing worse than a
mad tree, I'll tell ya. And maybe there's a little
that lives right here, in front of that great, big one. But by doing it this
way, painting that tree first and then painting
trees in front of it, it creates the illusion of depth and distance in your painting. It's not, it's not flat. It's
not flat. So many paintings I
see are just very flat. This way you build depth. You'll be able to see between
things and look back in there and
just awe, it's fantastic. I've painted literally, tens
of thousands of paintings, and I still get excited
every time I see this work. Every time there. Okay just all kinds of little
limbs and sticks and twigs and wherever you think they
should live. But if that paint doesn't
flow for you, chances are you don't have enough paint
thinner. Just add a little more
paint thinner, you'll, it will begin sticking on. Go back to my round brush onto a little yellow ochre,
little bit of bright red, and just mix them together. We'll put some, maybe a
little more of the red. Let's sparkle this up. We're gonna have fall
colors, let's go crazy. Maybe on this one here, we can
see- Oh, that's a nice one, look at
there, but right over the top of that
other tree. It's alright, we don't care. There, see. Just pretend it's
not there. Don't pay any attention to it. Cause you want it to look
natural. In nature, one tree does not
worry about being in front of another
tree. It just grows wherever it can
get to most light and water. And that's where we want
our paintings to look. There, and maybe there's a few, bright little things on this
side. Look at there, this whole round
brush is just fantastic things. Even if you've never painted
before, this son of a gun will just
drop them right in there. Okay, maybe it's a little land
out here. We need something for
this to stand though. I'll take a little van dyke
brown. Let's go right in here. And let's decide where the land
lives. And this is just the base color. We'll come back and highlight
it. I'll tell you what,
maybe there's a little, a little peninsula that
lives right out here. Wherever you want it,
just sort of drop it in. On the other side here, just a
little. There it goes. There. Now, we can take a little
titanium white, little dark sienna, kind
of just mix them together but looslely so the
color's not over mixed, and just barely, caress the top
of that. Just let it, just let it
pick up here and there. Don't push hard though with the
knife. This is just like laying
snow on the mountain. Cause if you push hard, it's
gonna destory the under color, and we don't
want that. And let's take us a fan brush. I'm gonna dip it in a little
liquid white. Just a thin pain because
one of our golden rule's, thin pain will stick to a thick
paint. Take the same colors and
mix them on the brush here. Alright, let's go up in here. Just gonna push upward,
with the fan brush. Just pop in a few little grassy
areas that live right back in here. Follow the lay of the land
here, that's very important. This is where you create
that flow of the land. That's where it's created, right
here. Just by making these little
areas, you can see exactly how this flows,
there we go. (paintbrush strokes) Don't kill all your little dark
areas. These dark areas at the
base of trees and stuff are extremely important. They're the shadows deep in
there. That's where the little
bunny rabbit hides. (lightly chuckles) And he has to have a place to
hide. Take a little liquid white,
pull it out very flat, cut across, let's get
a little paint on here. Let's just put us in a little
water line. This light area separates the
two darks, and cleans up the bottom
and brings it altogether. Just brings it together- act like you're trying to cut
hole, right in the canvas. And this whole canvas is
very tough, very tough. Okay, now then. Here we are. (paintbrush strokes) Yeah, let's get crazy. (gently laughs) Let's get crazy. We got
a minute or so left. And you know, if you painted
with me, I like big trees. We have one, see right in
front of everything though. Lives right there. Just van dyke
brown. And we take out same
brown and white we used. Let's just touch, barely touch. GIve it a little, a little pull
here. Just a little pull, see. Maybe this whole, tree.
Maybe it's about dead. Just put a few limbs on
it, and let it sort of just hang around out here. A little paint thinner
and the liner brush. And we'll just put a big
old limb here and there. Just like so. Few of them still hanging
on, still hanging on. Not too many, don't want ruin
the illusion that this old tree is just
hanging around here and dead. Okay, I think we have pretty
nice little painting there. Hope you've enjoyed this one. And from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy
painting, and god bless my friend. (music playing)
