(mellow music) - Hello, I'm Bob Ross,
and for the next 13 weeks, I'll be your host as we
experience the joy of painting. This is a fantastic method of painting, where we use the wet-on-wet technique. And before I go far into the show, I'd like to take a few
minutes, and make a dedication. I would like to dedicate this
show to my beloved friend, and teacher whom we've all
watched and loved for many years, on public television, Bill Alexander. And years ago, Bill taught
me this fantastic technique, and I feel as though he
gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you. So, before we start, let's talk a minute about the equipment that
we'll be using here. We're using a stretch canvas,
rather than a canvas board. The canvas board will absorb your under-paint very rapidly, and become dry. You need a strong easel, because we use a lot of pressure here. And you need an easel that would grip the canvas and hold it securely. The palette that we use, we use a large palette that has a lot of working area in it. And I'm going to go over each of the colors that we use here. And they'll be flashed across the screen, so if you need to write them down, you can pick them up off the
screen as I talk about them. So, here we go, let's start right up here with titanium white. Thalo green. Thalo blue. Prussian blue. Burnt umber. Van Dyke brown. Alizarin crimson. Sap green. Cad yellow. Yellow ochre. Indian yellow. And permanent red. Now, these 12 colors we'll use every week. So, if you wanna have your palette ready, these are the colors that we'll use. Also, each week, we'll run
the colors across the screen, so in case you didn't get all of these, you can pick them up the next time. The brushes that we use. These are natural bristle brushes. I'm using a two and a half
inch and a one inch brush. Also, we use an almighty palette knife. A very big palette knife. And this palette knife, unlike
traditional palette knives, is very firm, it's very big. So, we can do almighty
things very rapidly here. So, let's do it. Let's paint an almighty
picture right here. I'm gonna start by dipping the brush into a little bit of magic white. Now, this makes the canvas wet, it makes it slick, it allows
the paint to blend in here. You actually blend the
painting on the canvas. So, all we do here is
cover the entire canvas with a thin layer of the magic white. (bristling) Alright. Probably the biggest mistake
made when you first start, is applying too much magic white. All we want is just a
nice, thin, even coat. (bristling) And when you're using large brushes, this only takes a couple minutes, so no problem. There we go. Look it there, already
we're almost complete. There. Okay, I just work it back and forth, and up and down to get a nice
even distribution of color. Okay. Just about got this canvas
covered with the magic white. Another big problem that
we run into continually, is washing the brushes. Now, I'm gonna wash the brush, and we wash it with
odorless paint thinner. And I strongly suggest
that you use odorless, or you'll run everybody in
the house out in the yard. You'll be there by yourself. Now, you shake the brush into a box, and then beat the bristles dry. Now, if you do this at home, this is a quick way to redecorate your living room in a second, so be careful. Learn how to contain this. Alrighty, let's do a simple
little picture today, that'll just give you an idea of how this fantastic technique works. So, I'm gonna start here with
a little bit of Prussian blue. And we pull a small amount of paint out, and beat it into the bristles. Really work this paint into the bristles. You're looking for a nice even distribution of color
throughout the bristles. And we'll start right up here at the top, and we just make little "X's", little crisscross pattern. Come all the way across the top. There we go. Now, your brush is picking
up the magic white, and automatically the
sky is gonna get lighter in value as it works toward the horizon. There. Okay, now see how easy that was. Okay. And very gently, we'll
just blend this out. (bristling) Now, it's very easy to make a sky darker, but it's a son of a
gun to make it lighter. If you wanted to make it a little darker, all you do is add a little more blue. A little more blue. This stuff is really strong. And go right back through
the same procedure. You can darken the sky very easily. Alright. Another thing that seems to give us a lot of problems, is almighty clouds. So, let's spend a second
here and make us a cloud. And, here we'll use the fan brush. And, I'm gonna take the fan brush, and load it full of titanium white paint. Load it full. Lot of paint in the bristles. Okay, now, we'll go up here and decide where we want a happy little
cloud to float around. And you touch the canvas, and just make little tiny circles. Just work it, work it, work it. Do it rapidly. Push hard and get away from it. Don't keep working the same area, all you'll have is a big
cotton ball up in the sky. Okay, maybe we'll put another
little cloud right over here. Just to show you how to
make these little clouds. Okay, now, with a large brush, we wanna very gently, blend this out on the bottom down here. But, without touching the top at all. So, very gently, just the bottom. Just blend it a little bit. Little, tiny circles. There we go. Now over here, we'll
blend this one a little. Now, we'll fluff it. And, we're just gonna gently lift upward. And don't worry if you get some of these little things up in the sky. Okay. Now, very gently, we'll hypnotize that. There we go. These are very simple,
very basic little clouds. And very easy to do. Now, if your brush sheds,
like it just did here, and you get a hair on here, just take a corner of
your bush and lift it off. Don't spend all day trying to pick it off, you'll have fingerprints
all over your painting. Just use a corner of your brush. Alright. (water gurgling) Let's now make an almighty mountain. Everybody likes mountains. No matter if you live
in Florida or Alaska, mountains are still pretty. I'ma take a little bit
of the Prussian blue, some van dyke brown, and a little touch of crimson, very little crimson. (scraping) And, we'll mix that up real good. Now, all you need to do here is, push this almighty knife
right into the canvas. Just push. (scraping) You're really pushing the
paint right into the fabric. There. And all were looking for is just a basic outline for this mountain. And you may have noticed by now, we use no patterns, we do no sketching. We let this flow right our
of our heart onto the canvas. There. Now, with the larger brush,
I'm just gonna pull this down. One thing about mountains
when you're painting them, they should always be more distinct at the top than they are at the bottom. 'Cause at the bottom of
the mountain we have mist, and now we have pollution. All of these things
diffuse and break up light, and create the mist at the
bottom of the mountain. So, once again we allow the magic white to mix with the paint, and
this happens automatically. We don't have to worry about it, or think about it. Let it happen. Alright. Let's put some snow on
this almighty mountain. We'll use a little of the titanium white. And we're gonna start
right up here on this peak, and just let this paint flow
right down the mountain. And you want the paint to break like this. So it creates all the
little rocks and stone, and highlights and
shadows in your mountain. There. (scraping) Now, light's gonna strike right
along this peak also. And maybe, just a little touch back in here. Now, let's build some shadows. And we'll just use a little bit of the Prussian blue, and white. Maybe a touch more. There we go. (scraping) Now the shadows will run
in the opposite direction. We'll start here, and just let the shadows
run right across like this. There comes a shadow. Okay, and we'll put one back here. And, we've decided this peak, is behind the mountain. So, all we do is take this shadow, and bring it right through. And automatically, you've
just pushed a mountain around. On this canvas, you're the creator, anything that you want,
you can build here. This is your world. You're dreams come real here. Alright. There. Now, maybe we'll add just a couple more little peaks in here. Maybe there's a happy
little peak right here. We put the highlight in first. And then we give him his own private little shadow right there. Now, this is a very basic,
simple little mountain. And as the series progresses, we'll do some that are a
little more complicated, if this is too easy for you. There we go. Okay. Now, as we had talked about earlier, we always want it to be more distinct on the top than it is on the bottom. So, using the large brush here, I'm gonna very gently tap
the bottom of the mountain. I'm tapping, all I wanna do is diffuse. I don't wanna destroy it. There we go. Always following the angles. Now, very gently, lift
upward using the brush flat. Look at that. Look at that mist. See, I knew you could do it. Alright. I think it's time we had some fun now. Let's get over here into the sap green, and just load this brush full of paint. Just put a lot of paint into the brush. Just really work it into the bristles. And, we're gonna go right along here, and touch and push. Just push. Just like so. This is where you need the almighty easel, because you're really pushing hard here. You're pushing the paint
right into the fabric. Okay. There we go. Just push it in. This is just straight sap green, and you're bending the bristles. Most important that you bend the bristles. (bristling) There. Okay. Now, I'm gonna go into just
a tiny bit of Prussian blue. And we'll darken the front here. As things get closer
to you in a landscape, they should get darker in value. Alright. You know while I'm doin' that, one of the most interesting
things that we see, as we run across the country
teaching this fantastic method, is people continually say, "I
can't draw a straight line." "I don't have the talent,
Bob, to do what you're doing." That's bologna. Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that
you're willing to practice, you can do. And this is no exception. But it's like driving the car. At first, it's a little difficult. You have to learn how to make your hands and your foots work together. Same thing, and that's what
we're trying to teach you here, is the technique. Once you have the technique down, all you need's a dream in your heart and the desire to put it on canvas. Okay. Now, let's go back here in the
background a little bit. And, we'll mix up some blue, this is Prussian blue. Brown, Van Dyke brown,
in about equal parts. And sap green. All three of these are
in about equal parts. And it should look very dark, it should look black on your palette. Okay. Now, with the fan brush here. We'll make some, let's
make some little evergreens back here in front of
this almighty mountain. And there's many, many ways to make them, and we'll try to show you a bunch of ways during this series. Okay, we load the fan brush full of paint, and decide where you want your tree to be. You touch the canvas, turn the brush sideways, and just begin building a tree. Back and forth. Isn't that easy? Looka there. And, trees get lonely too, they need a little friend, so we'll give him a friend right here. There. And you know, sometimes, you don't wanna a bunch of distinct trees, you just want indications of trees, so watch right here. This is the way to make indications. All we're doing is touching, just touching. And this looks like little trees, when the painting's
finished it is way, way, they're way back in the background. And maybe over here. Just drop these in. This is, this is such a
free style of painting. There. And maybe there's some here
that are a little closer. There, we'll just drop them in, let them, let them just fall
right off your fan brush. There we go. There we go. (bristling) Okay, we'll put a little
more dark in here. You need dark in order to show light, so here I'm just applying
a little dark color. Now, another golden rule that
you need to remember here. A thin paint will stick to thick paint. So, I'm adding just a touch of magic white on my brush here to go
through this thicker paint. And this will make it a little bit thinner so it'll stick on top of the thick paint. This is why we're, we're able to paint wet-on-wet. Okay, now, let's put
some happy little things happening back in here. Just some little bushes and stuff, here they come, down the hill. Just let them progress. There we go. There. Look at all them little rascals. Okay. With a knife here, I'm
just using the point, and I'll scratch a few
little trunks here and there. (scratching) See, already it looks like we have a multitude of trees and stuff back here. Okay. Now, let's move a little
forward in the painting. And, I'm gonna come right about here. There we go. And we'll drop a bigger tree in here. There he goes. There he is. There. These little trees live in your fan brush, and you have to scare them out sometime. There. See, I knew you could do it. (bristling) Just let that come right on down. Maybe there's some trees on
the other side over here too. Let's, let's put an
almighty tree right here. We're having such a lot
of fun doing these trees, we might as well just
keep going with them. (bristling) Okay. And by now, you're probably saying, "Hey, can he do anything but evergreens?" Alright, let's do some
different types of trees. And, we'll take a one inch brush and load some of the
same color on it here. And let's put in, some leafy trees. There we go. Just push them right off your brush. Bend the bristles. Most, most important that
you bend the bristles. See you get all the
actions that happen there. Okay, and maybe over
here a nice little tree. There. There we go. Now, let's put a little trunk in here. I'll use a little bit of burnt umber, (scraping) and let's just lay some
happy little trunks. Okay, in the little evergreen trees. Just here and there. There we go. And maybe a trunk in this
big ol' tree over here. Like so. One in there. You can also take just
the point of your knife, and scratch right through the paint, and put all kinds of
little indications in here. (scratching) Alright. A little more of the thin paint, to thin this down. And we'll put some happy
little highlights on there. Maybe we'll say this is, this looks like fall, so let's
use some bright colors here. And they show up good on your set at home. Look at that son of a gun. Okay, now, there we go. Alright, now, down at the bottom, down here, we need some nice little
bushes that are happening. One thing to be very careful of, don't kill all your dark areas. If you kill them, your painting becomes very flat. There we go. And, maybe there's a happy
little bush right here. And a big ol' one here. Big tree here. Alright. Maybe a little something underneath here, just to give it a little more depth. There we go. Now, we'll cut a few more little sticks and twigs here and there. (scratching) And this helps create
depth in the painting. It shows different planes. The more planes you can show, the deeper the painting will be. So, we'll just cut a few of them in here. You know, it's interesting, I was doing this painting
one time at a mall, and I had a man come along, and he says, "You know I've been to that location." He says, "Except it had
a little pond right here, "if it had a little pond there, "I'd buy that painting from you." So I told him, I said, "You
start writing the check, "and by the time the check's done, "you'll have a little pond." So, watch right here,
let's see what happens. All you do is take this almighty brush, and pull down. And we'll create a
little pond right there. It's that easy. There we go. (bristling) And I'm gonna take a little
bit of Prussian blue, just to make this pond
a little bit deeper. I wanna have enough room for
the trout to live in here. Just a little bit deeper. This is one thing that's so fantastic about this style of painting. Right, right in mid-stream,
you can change your mind, you can, you can, completely, completely change a
painting in just a second. And here, I'm just pulling across to make it look like water. Isn't that something? Now, we'll take just a tiny
bit of the magic white, (scraping) and we'll put a little waterline in here. (scratching) There. Just act like you're trying to cut a hole, right through the canvas. And, let's take, and, I sort of wiped out a couple
of these little bushes here. So, let's just put them back in. And maybe on each side there, we have some nice little bushes. Okay. Now, I'm gonna add just a tiny bit, of the Van Dyke brown, and the burnt umber to this
magic white to make it, it's a very, very thin paint. And with that, we'll just take and pull down here a little bit. And make us a nice little bank here. Just some, just some ground for the, bushes and trees here to set on. Don't want them to fall off in the water, make a big splash. That'd disturb that old
trout that lives in there. There. Now, maybe highlight it with
just a tiny bit of white. And, this is a very, very gentle touch. Just enough to get the
paint to come off the knife. There we go. Isn't that something? Now, with just a little
touch more of magic white, we'll put a little
waterline right under here. (scratching) There it is. Just enough to separate this. There. A few more little sticks here and there, just to break it up. Maybe there's some little
grassy things that's sort of worked down onto the bank here. Just here and there. Over here ought to be some. What happens if you change you mind again? Son of a gun. Let's change it again. I'ma take the big brush and go right back into this dark
color and begin pushing, like so. And we'll just add another
plane to the painting, and make it even deeper. Just push this dark in there. Once again, we need the dark
in order to show the light. Okay, now we got our dark in there. Now, we can highlight it. Little more of the thin white here, so we can thin this down,
and it sticks nice and easy. We use a little yellow ochre
mixed with a little cad yellow. And mix it on your brush, that way you get a multitude
of things that happen. Maybe a little of the permanent red, let's put... Oh! There's a little fireball. That's a nice one. And, right on down through like so. And just let these flow
with the lay of the land. And put all kind of little, look at all those little grassy things. There they go. Just as easy. Okay, now, we'll just cut a few little
sticks here and there. There we are. You know one of the hardest things to do when you're painting, is to know when in the world to stop. It's just, it's such a
temptation to add one more stick, or one more tree. And there comes a time
when you have to stop, or you piddle it to death. So, I think we're gonna stop on that one. Show you how to sign a painting. This is something that gives
people a lot of trouble. And I'm gonna dip, this is a number two script liner. And I'm gonna dip it into
a little bit of thin oil. And then, use the liner brush and make the paint so it's like water. Very, very thin. Then it'll flow right on top of there. And turn this brush, twist it. That brings it to a
nice, firm, sharp point. Okay. Now, let's sign it right here. And, all we do is touch, and just let this paint flow, right off this little liner brush. There we go. And, luckily, I have a very simple name. It's easy to spell, and only takes a second to sign a painting. And next week, I hope you have your canvas on your easel, and you're all ready to go with us. And, we'll be doing a
white canvas next week. During the series, we're gonna do numerous different things. There will be several paintings that we do on a black canvas. Oh, there'll be some
that you won't believe, but next week, have a white canvas ready. You have the colors. And we'll be looking for you here, and until then, from all of us here. We'd like to wish each
and every one of you, happy painting and God bless. (mellow music)
