Following a Bob Ross Painting Tutorial For The First Time
I tried the famous Bob Ross Painting Tutorial for the first time. The first and the last part is so satisfying and the middle part, meh, hilarious. Let me tell you how I went from "relaxing" to "frustrated" to "okay, this will do".
Who doesn't know Bob Ross?
Everyone knows him as the jolly guy who paints happily with trees and beautiful mountains. But did you know that he was once a Sergeant Commander in the United States Air Force who yells at people to fix their bed, to stand up straight and tell what to do? Yes, That's also him. But when he retired, became a soft-spoken person and use his voice on this kind of artwork .
Ross was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 29, 1942, to Jack and Ollie Ross. Ross’ father was a carpenter and builder. For a time, Ross worked with his father doing carpentry. From his mother, Ollie, Ross learned a love and respect of wildlife.
Ross passed away in 1995, but his stardom continues to grow. There are Bob Ross Clubs, T-shirts display his image and sayings and Internet memes poke fun at his soothing spoken aphorisms described by his business partner, Annette Kowalski, as “liquid tranquilizer.” He lives on as a cultural meme. Lego figures, Halloween costumes and cartoons of Bob are ubiquitous on the Internet. It's easy to imagine that Ross would love to see his work embraced and celebrated by so many people in their own individual and collective ways.
It was a sunny afternoon and I just felt the urge to bring my painting materials on our balcony, my favorite spot in our house. Then I was thinking what should I do and I came across Bob Ross' painting tutorial on Youtube! And yes, I decided to follow his famous ASMR and calming tutorial.
I set up my easel and canvas on a little make-shift table on our balcony. I aslo brought my acrylic paint there.
I guessed that he is using acrylic paint on his tutorial because he is not using any kind of liquid tool like turpentine and linseed. And he also used wet on wet technique.
I used the following colors:
- Pthalo Blue
- Yellow
- Crimson Red
- Mars Black
- Titanium White
- Golden Ochre
PROCESS
The color of the afterglow
Painting this part is actually fun, I love blending in colors with a flat brush. The acrylic paint blends well until I realized that the heat and sunlight is speeding up the drying process, so some part of it doesn't really mixed like what's supposed to be.
The colors of the clouds
This part is really tricky because the background layers are already dried and I cannot blend the clouds, and I think I am not handy with the fan brush. I struggle a lot here.
Mountains & Happy Trees
Almost all of Bob Ross' paintings have trees and he calls them Happy Trees. It is fun to do. I wish I made more of it.
And the mountains too. I love to put the white paint over the mountains using palette knife, it's so satisfying
Here's my final painting:
And here's the video of my journey with Bob Ross:
I hope you all like it!
Thank you so much.