- Hi, how you doing today? I'm so glad you could join me. I thought today we'd do a black canvas and we'll have a lot of fun with it. So, let's start out,
have them graphically run all the colors you need
to do this painting right across your screen. And, we'll start with a titanium white and go around in the same order I have them on my palette. And we have a black canvas here as I said, and I've already gone ahead and covered this canvas with a thin, thin coat of sap green and thalo blue. And I sorta just mixed it on the brush and I just covered the entire canvas and brushed it out. So, let's go up here
and let's have some fun. I'm gonna start with a
little bit of titanium white. We need a light source in this painting. We need some light in it. So, we'll just start
with some titanium white and decide where our
light source is gonna be. It's right there. Make a decision. Drop in some color and let it go. Start in the lightest
area and work outward. I'm just using little criss-cross strokes, just little x's, just like so. Little x's all over the canvas. Just the way the teacher used to grade my paper in school, lotta little x's. Okay now, you can do this as many times as you want to get a desired lightness, but I suggest strongly
that you clean your brush each time so you don't
carry the dirty color back into your light area. Okay.
(thumping) Now, we'll go right in here. I'm gonna get a little more white. Let's go up here, and I wanna make this light area a little bit brighter, a little bit brighter. Just add a little more white, just use a little criss-cross strokes and blend it out. Blend it out. Then very lightly, we go across and that'll just give us a light source in the back of this painting. Okay. Once again, I'll clean the brush. There we go. Alrighty, alrighty. I'm gonna take a one-inch brush, a one-inch brush and I'm gonna go right into some sap green, some sap green and some cadmium yellow. And, we'll just mix
them on the brush here. Let's go up to the canvas and figure out maybe we wanna put some indications of little trees back here. Don't want detail, just some little indications. Let the brush bounce around and let little things happen. There we go. Don't want detail. Just a little, little happy thoughts. Okay, maybe, maybe, maybe here and here, wherever, let the brush play. Let it play, let it play. There's another one. There you are. There you are. Let's add a little paint
thinner to our brush here. We'll go into the little yellow ocher and I'll touch some thalo blue to it. Yellow ocher with a
little thalo blue in it. Makes for a little
different shade of green. Then I just put a little
light here and there. I'm just using just the
corner of this little brush, just touching, just touching. Go into a little indian
yellow, cad yellow, drop a little highlight here and there. Again, you can make as
many of these as you want or as few as you want. These are your woods so you make your own mind up. Everybody sees nature in our own way. There we go. Touch a highlight here and there. Little things, just happening. Still not looking for detail. All I'm looking for is just little things happening way back in the background. Let them happen. There. Over here, it looks a little darker to me, so use darker colors. You don't want as much detail. As it goes away from your light source, it'd be less and less color. Just little indications. Same thing on the other side over here, just little indications. We don't want a lot of detail. Most of this will be covered up anyway. Just in case it sorta shows through whatever you have in the foreground. Alright. I'm gonna go right into just go into a little Van Dyke brown, blue, burnt umber, smallest little amount of white. There. Cut a little roll of paint off. Let's go right up here and right there, we'll just drop in some indications of little tree trunks here and there. Just let them go, it'll be fine. There. Just let the knife bounce around and play. You can put in all kind of
little trunk indications without really working it all. This is just background. And, when you're all finished, all these little things
that you're doing so quick, people will see it and they'll think you worked for a month on this painting. And, if you're selling your painting, that's when you say well,
the price just went up. Course, you say that in your mind, you don't tell them that. There. Okay, now let's make some, let's make some decisions. Let me find a big brush, goes faster. Maybe now there's some little, soft bushes that are playing right back in here. Let's go right into a little
cad yellow, sap green, throw a little brown in there, too. That'll dull it down. A little yellow ocher. Just mix all these colors on your brush. and there's many layers of color then on your brush. Okay, let's go up here. Maybe, maybe, maybe right there lives a, just a happy, little bush. Just using just the corner of the brush. There. Maybe a little indian yellow. I'm just gonna let these
play back and forth. All kinds of pretty
little things happening. Wherever you want. Add some sap green, back in here I want it darker. Always wanna keep it darker over here, it's far away from the light source. Little more of the green and the yellow. Maybe, right there, yep. Going back into a little
more of the cad yellow, little brighter color so it shows up against the darker, and we can begin building a few little layers of things in here. Just let them happen. Okay, maybe, maybe, maybe maybe, maybe, yeah, right there, there's another happy little bush. Just the corner of the
big brush here I'm using. Just let all these little
things just happen. There. We'll add a small amount
of permanent red in there. There we go. Get a little sparkler out there. Let him sing out there. Every bush, every tree
has its own personality. Each one's an individual. So, when you paint, you paint them as individuals. Think about the personalities. Each one's different. Each one's your friend if you let it be. Just let them be your friend. See there, just layer after layer after layer, bush after bush. It just goes on and on until you run out of
canvas or you get tired. You can very easily get carried away. Alright, let's have some water down here. So, I'm gonna right into a little bit of the titanium white. We'll decide where the water is at. There it is, there it is. Just grab a hold. I had all the greens and
the yellows on the brush. I just had a little white, and we'll pull straight down, straight down. So, you're just picking up all the blue and the green underneath. All kinds of beautiful little things happen just automatically. A touch more of the white, just a touch more. Pull it down, pull it down. Straight down, it's most important to go straight down. If you go at an angle, your reflections will never look right. It's sort of crazy but that's what happens, it just don't look right. There. And you can make this water as bright as you want it. Don't get carried away. Color shows up so much stronger on these black canvases. Okay, now very lightly, go across, straight across. Keep these strokes straight and you have instant reflections, that easy. And, you can push these reflections, and bend them just by using the brush sideways and pushing, can make all kinds of beautiful effects. Okay, same old brush, let's go back into a little bit of the cadmium yellow. And maybe, maybe we'll bring this little peninsula down right here,
wherever you want it. Oh my gosh, you can just make all kinds of little
things happen wherever. There's one. Let's have some fun here. Tell you what, let's do, let's take the old fan brush and I'll go right into some Van Dyke brown and burnt umber and just mix it right on the fan brush, right on the fan brush, lot of paint, pull it through the paint. Wiggle it and then pull it. That sharpens it right up. Okay, let's go up here and let's put some little
dirt areas in here. It's most important, most important that you follow the lay of the land. If in your mind, the lands coming down this way then make these strokes go that way. Water also always lays in a recessed area. It don't lay on top of the hill, lays it on the bottom of the hill. Water's lazy, it's lazy. It always looks for the easiest way to go places and place sick and lay and be left alone. Don't wanna be disturbed, it's lazy like me. Looks for the easy way to do things. Let's take another fan brush, well, I've got all kind
of fan brushes going, and take a little yellow ocher, a little white and a
little bit of burnt umber. Yellow ocher, burnt umber, little white, just pull it through. I don't wanna over-mix this. You can see all the different things that are happening on that fan brush. Lot of colors, we don't wanna over-mix. Okay, let's go up here. Now, very lightly, just barely touching and let it play along there, we can put some highlight
on some of this dirt. Just barely, barely touching. See now there when I loaded it, I picked up a little more white. Just all these little
colors happen automatically. You don't have to worry about them and try to mix all these different colors, they happen. They happen. They're right there in your brush, and that happens when you load your brush with many colors. And when you put your first color in, put it in very deep, the next color, a little less, the next color
a little less right off. But that first one you load deep and when you want that color, you push hard. So, you put the light color normally on the end of the bristle, dark color in first, normally. And with a little bit of practice, you learn how to load brushes and you don't even have to think about it. Sometimes, it becomes such a habit, I forget to tell you
exactly what I'm doing. I just assume everybody is doing it, but I try not to, I try to remember to tell you every step. We really want you to learn how to paint from these shows. And we appreciate you dropping us a line and letting us know, or calling your local station. If you like a show, call
your station, let them know. That's the only way they know. Okay, now, we can go back into our big brush here, get a little of the color. I wanna add a small
amount of paint thinner. There. And, just clean up these
edges a little bit here. Add a little grass here and there, come right down on that. Makes it look more real. There we go. Isn't that a son of a
gun, isn't that easy? Let's go over here and do it right there. Right there, right there. I bet you never knew it was that easy to create your own world. Alright, alright, a little magic white, a little magic white and ooh, too much. A little magic white, let's start over again. A little magic white and the smallest, smallest
amount of thalo blue. There, that's better. As you could see, that
blue is very strong. Be careful with it. Pull this paint out very flat and then take your knife and cut across it. That gives you a small amount of paint right up here on the edge of the knife Okay, let's go up to the canvas. And with that, we can just put all kinds of little happy
water lines in here, and you act just like you're trying, trying to cut a hole right in the canvas. Just like you're gonna cut a hole in it. Here and there, wherever. Wherever, it'll go. Now, this is a very, very thin paint. It's almost like water, it's liquid. It's liquid so it'll just come right off your knife when you cut in. If it was a thick paint, it's harder to get off your knife. You can just make this
go right around corners, wherever you want it to go. Wherever, wherever. There it goes, right in there. Let's go right in here, Maybe there's a few little things that are playing out here on the water. This beautiful, beautiful dark water. It looks almost like a swamp. I grew up in Florida
before I moved to Alaska, so I used to play in the
swamps when I was a kid. But, one thing, if
you're gonna do a swamp, it always has to have a
little moss and stuff. So, we'll put some moss in this painting before it's over with. Let's have a happy little tree so we can hang some moss, if we wanna play with that. I'll start with some Van Dyke brown and maybe, maybe, maybe there's a little tree
that lives right here. We'll make this a dead tree, that way it's easy to see, easy to see. And there's always dead
trees in the woods. And they die and they
make room for a new tree. And it starts all over again. A never-ending cycle. At least, we hope it's never-ending. There we go. Well this is where some of
them boogers would live, some of them creatures. The snakes and all kinds of bugs and whoo. And they're all good. I used to have a pet
snake when I was a kid. And, he got out of his cage and was loose in the house for months, and my mother found him about 2 o'clock in the morning one night when she went to the bathroom. He was in the bathroom
getting him a little drink. Scared her to death and
she said bad things to me. I wasn't allowed to keep
snakes in the house anymore. Probably, if she hears
this, it's gonna remind her and she's gonna be mad all over again. 'Cause she sure got mad about that snake. Okay, enough with that. Let's paint. A little brown. There. Now that gives us a nice, little dead tree to play with. Take a little permanent red, a little Van Dyke brown, make it stand out a little more. Let's take a little on the knife and let's just drop a little bit right here on this edge, just so it'll help him stand out and you can see him a little better. It also helps give him a little shape, a little form. Makes it a little more interesting. There, a little bit
running right up there. Just where you think light would hit. Just let it play. Maybe on the other side, it's always nice to, I like to put a little bluish hint on the other side and it gives it the
feeling of reflected light. Just a little blue, touch of white in it. Just here and there. And, it gives it a little more character. Now, let's put, we're gonna have some moss here. I'm gonna start out with a lot of paint thinner on my fan brush. I want this paint to be very thin. We'll use a little bit of white with some brown in it, but it's very thin, very thin, Van Dyke brown, little white, see how thin it is? Almost like water. Okay, let's go up to the canvas, and figure out where you want these little mossy areas to be. You know moss, it just sorta hangs over and hangs down. That easy. But this thin paint just slides. Oh, it'll just move and slide. If it don't wanna stick, add a little more paint thinner to it. Touch and just pull. And, you can use the
brush this way, whatever. Just lay all these little things in here, and you can put all kinds of beautiful little things hanging. Years ago, as I say, I grew up in Florida, we used to pick the spanish moss out of trees and they would take, and we'd sell it. And they would boil it, and that was what was in mattresses and chairs and stuff. It was the stuffing they used to make it soft. There was all kinds of
creatures lived in there and boy, I'd have more bugs on me after spending the day collecting moss. But, I like bugs and
creatures so that's alright. Okay, maybe we'll put something in the foreground here. Let's get a big old brush, I'll go into some sap green, some brown, crimson, and maybe, let's make a decision, maybe there's a nice bush
that lives right here. Maybe comes right down, just make a decision, throw it in. I'll tell you what, maybe there's a big tree that lives right here and you can just see these
branches sticking out and that'll sorta help our composition. Okay. Like this. There. That'll close up that side and help the composition. Make it interesting. Maybe there's a nice tree
that goes right here. Wherever you want it. Just drop them in. Drop them in. And down here, we'll just fill it up. Okay, maybe before we get too far along, let's go back into some brown here with a liner brush with thin paint. Let's put some little things that are just growing here and there. Let's grab a hold and lift up and pop it up with all
kinds of little weeds. There we are. And, wherever you want them. Just lift up and put little things growing all on them. Just touch it. Looks like little cat tails way back here. See there. Just drop them in. All kinds of little things. I'm trying to show you as much as I can in this painting, so you'll have a lot of fun. Now, if we have moss on this tree, maybe back in here we should show just here and there, put a few little, sort of making this swampy, put a few little hangy-downs back here on these trees, too. You don't want them to get lonely. Just wherever you want them. Like so. Okay, let's put some highlights on these bushes that we have here. I'll use some cad yellow, sap green, little indian yellow, yellow ocher, all these colors, mix them on the brush. Go right up here. And just drop in, and there's a happy little bush. All of our bushes are happy. Happy, happy That's what painting is about. There is another one. Now you layer these. Do one at a time and layer them. That's what makes the
depth in your painting. Okay, let's go up to the top. Right up here on the top, got this big limb here. Let's just drop a few little highlights here and there. All I'm doing is just
barely touching the canvas. Just using the corner of the brush. Just to give some indications. And maybe, maybe, maybe right here. Right here is a nice big, bushy thing, whatever it may be. You see when you're
finished with this one, it almost didn't look like
a black canvas anymore. Almost looks like you
started with a white canvas and let all this happen. There. I tell you what, let's have
a little land down here. We're gonna use some brown. Maybe there's a little dirt showing. Just go across with some brown. Let it happen. Wherever you want it. Just knock down all of your bushes that you've worked so hard to put up here. A little highlight, a little brown and white. Let that paint break like that. Let it break. Okay now, bring some bushes down so it comes right down into the dirt. You need that to push that dirt down into your painting. Otherwise, it sorta just
hangs there, floats around. And, a few little bushes here and there, wherever you want them. Just let them happen. Let them happen. I added a little paint thinner to my paint so it's a little thinner. Let's go into some ocher. Drop in a happy little tree. Get my friend right there. Look at all these beautiful bushes you can make with this one-inch brush. And you're pushing upward here. Sometimes, we tap downward, sometimes. we push upward, depending on what we wanna achieve. And we can take the knife and just use the point, and cut in some indications of a few little sticks and twigs. See, we cut through and let the black show through. See, that easy. Makes it look like your sticks. Makes it look like you worked very hard and you hadn't done anything. Hadn't done a thing hardly. A couple here and there. Maybe, tell you what, we're running out of time but I'll do it anyway, 'cause I think it's fun. Right here, big tree. Van Dyke brown, little burnt umber. And it comes, maybe
there's a limb over here. And, it comes, there. Big old tree, big old tree. And that's an easy way
to make a big old tree. We'll give him another little arm there. Go right into a little bit of white, same brush, didn't clean it. I just added a little
white on the side here, a little tap just to
give a little highlight. Just enough to make him stand out. And that's an easy way
to highlight your tree, give him a little character. And, and, and, and, we'll take a little cad yellow and we'll just very quickly, drop some little indications here. Let some happy little things happening. And just let the brush
bounce around and play. There we go. Just let it bounce around, wherever you think there might be a leaf. That's where it oughta be. And, I think we're just about got a completed painting here. We could take your little brush here and hang some moss on it, wherever you want them. And you'd have a finished painting. And it's that easy to do. Fix his little foot, and I think we have a painting that I'm gonna call finished. I'll leave you for today, but I'll see you again next week. And, from all of us, Happy Painting. (jazz music)
Came for the snake story, stayed to watch Bob paint an amazing tree.
Had a bad day today and have been trying to distract myself all evening. Thought this would be a small clip, but ended up watching the whole thing. I never really watched his videos from start to finish before, but it was really soothing and helped me calm down a lot. Thanks for the post!
Bob Ross is someone we would definitely need in our current times.
When you realize how soothing Bob Ross really is and decide to go to sleep listening to him.
Little insight into why he's such a soft and gentle man. Lovely.
I wonder what Bob Ross sacrificed when he visited that mysterious voodoo witch who gave him his supernatural ability to just make a picture appear on a canvas without even trying.
its like magic