Bob Ross - Island in the Wilderness (Season 29 Episode 1)

(mellow smooth jazz music) - Hello, I'm Bob Ross and I'd like to welcome you to the 29th Joy of Painting series. If this is your first time with us, allow me to extend a personal invitation for you to get your brushes and your paints and paint along with us each show. And if you've been with us before, please allow me to thank you for inviting us back for another series of painting shows. We'll use about a dozen colors, some unorthodox brushes, and each show I'll show you how to put some of natu

re's masterpieces right here on the canvas. So, I'll tell you what, let's get started. Today, we'll have 'em run all the colors across the screen, right there, that you need to paint along with us. While they're doing that, let me tell you what I've got going on up here. Today, I'm using an 18 by 24 inch, double-primed, pre-stretched canvas, but you use whatever size you'd like. And I've just covered the entire canvas with a very thin coat of liquid white. Liquid white is designed just to make t

he canvas wet, and to make it slick. It allows us to actually blend color right here on the canvas. Makes your whole painting life a lot easier. So, let's get started. Thought today we'd just do a very simple little scene that hope you'll enjoy. Let's start with a little two inch brush and a touch of the alizarin crimson. And we just load a little bit right into the bristles. Pull a little paint out, tap the bristles firmly to assure nice even distribution of paint all the way through the bristl

es. And let's go right up here. And we'll take this old brush and just making little X's, little criss-cross strokes. We'll just very quickly drop in just a little warm part in the sky, here. Maybe we'll have a little pink in the sky. I sorta like that. And in our world, we can do anything that we want to do here, any old thing. There. Doesn't take too long when you're using a brush that's two inches wide. Okay, without even cleaning the brush, we'll go right into, right into a little phthalo bl

ue. (chuckles) I like phthalo blue. It's a very warm blue, very nice. Once again, just tap a little color into it and let's go back up here and still using our little criss-cross strokes, X's. That's all they are, little X's. We'll just apply a little bit of the phthalo blue. Somethin' about like so. Then we'll come back after we clean the brush and blend that together. Now, the blue is many many times stronger than this little pink area. It'll just eat it up, so be careful. Be careful, all go a

way. If you wanted to make the indication of a happy little cloud, all you do is just sorta tap. Little stringy cloud just lives right there in the brush and that easy. We'll blend him out, have a little stringer cloud there. Let's see, while we have that on there, let's have some water in this painting. I love water and it's very easy to paint in this style. Still water is always level. And I think today we'll have still water. So, pull from the outside in, outside in. Somethin' about like so.

Alright. While I have that old brush going, I wanna darken the corners a little bit. I'ma take a little Prussian blue and just add in the corners here and there. Little bit up there, and we'll go over to the other side and add a little more and then down toward the bottom, and we'll put a little down here too. I'm just putting a little Prussian blue in each corner to darken it. And then, the most fun part of this whole technique is washing the brushes. Since these are oil paints, we're washing o

ur brushes with odorless paint thinner. Shake off the excess, (paint brush thumps) (giggles) and just beat the devil out of it. That's really the most fun part of it. Now, with a clean brush, and it's relatively dry from just beating it, we'll start in the light area, which is the pink, and we'll blend it all together. Somethin' about like so. That's all there is to it. Okay, and down here, we'll just do the same thing. There. But it's that easy, that easy. What's so fantastic about this is that

anybody, anybody can put a little masterpiece on canvas with just a little bit of practice, a vision in your mind, and off you go. Alright, that's working so well. Take a little white, little bit of the blue, grab a little more of the titanium white. I wanna make a light blue color here, mostly phthalo blue, and let's just tap a little color into the bristles. This old two inch brush'll do marvelous things. Watch here, watch here, watch here. It's fun. Take the corner of the brush and just pull

down, somethin' about like so. Straight down, straight down. I wanna make it look like little distant trees live far back in the distance. Little more color, and we'll just have it, we'll go, I don't know, right there. In your world, you create any illusion that you want. There, but I wanna keep the bottom light, so it looks like mist. You could even take another two inch brush, I have several, and tap it. Really get in there and tap it and then lift upward. It'll help create that illusion of m

ist, right down at the bottom. And sometimes, sometimes it's a lot of fun to put several layers. It helps create depth in your painting and for that, we'll add a little more blue but we make it a little darker. Add a little Prussian blue to it, make it a little darker, but the same thing. And we'll come back and just put another little layer in here, just touching and pulling downward, that's all we're doing. That's really all we're doing. Somethin' about like that. There. And we don't know wher

e that goes. It doesn't matter at this point. And back to our other two inch brush, and we'll tap this. I wanna create mist again. Notice the separation. It's caused because of the difference in color, difference in value, and that misty area turns out to be your very best friend. Take care of it, treasure it. There. Okay, let's have some more fun. (chuckles) Let's see, gonna take some black, some Prussian blue, and a little phthalo blue. It doesn't matter, we'll just throw it on there. Crimson

too, what the heck. Be brave, be brave. I'm gonna put a little satin green in there too. It's getting close enough we should begin seeing some color. Little bit of white. Don't want it totally dark yet. There, perfect. 'Kay I'm gonna wipe the old knife off. And let's get us fan brush, we'll use a fan brush. Load it full of color, both sides, both sides. 'Kay, let's go up in here and maybe in our world there lives, does now, some little trees back in here. Now, these are a little closer, you're s

eeing a little more detail, a little more distinct. There. And we just drop 'em in. We don't know where they go, wherever you want 'em. That's exactly, exactly where they should live. Don't put too much detail in here. It's too far away, you're not gonna see a lot of detail. You see detail when it's very close to you. When things are far away, you make out form, shape, basic color, that's all. Save the detail till the foreground. The lack of detail helps also create that illusion of distance and

depth in your painting. It's very very important, very important. M'kay, I'm gonna tap a little of that. That'll help create that illusion of mist on there too. There. Lift slightly upward, lightly. Just a little bit, see? Now then. You know, when I was a traditional painter one of the hardest things to make effectively was reflections. Watch how easy, I'll take some of that same color, we'll take a two inch brush, touch and pull down. Just pull straight down. It's most important that we go str

aight down. Somethin' like so, straight down. (clicks tongue) make those little noises. Then, very lightly, go across. There. And instantly, we have some nice reflections, that simple. Now, here somethin' is funny. Take a little, I just use a little white. If you wanna create another plane in your painting, take a little white and lift upward, and it'll make little areas back here that looks like a whole different plane and the white will look like little trunks in those trees. There, that easy.

Let's put a little water line. For that we use liquid white. Pull it out very flat, flat as you can get it, cut across, 'kay? And we can go right up in here and we can just drop in just a little water line. Just a happy little water line lives back in here somewhere, we don't know where it is. Don't know that we even care, just let your imagination take you anywhere you wanna go. Lotta times I start a painting and have nothing in mind but the time of day and the time of year. And from that, you

can paint some fantastic little scenes. Don't worry about it, you don't always have to have a perfect vision in your mind of what it is you're gonna paint. Imagination is, it's like any other muscle in your body, or lack of muscle in your body. The more you practice, the better it becomes. Take some black, Prussian blue, I'ma put some phthalo green in there. I like phthalo green, maybe a little crimson. There we go. Alright, let me wipe off the knife. I just wipe the knife on a little, little p

aper towel. I would just use that brush, little fan brush. Load some color into it, both sides of the brush. Both side, let's go up in here. Let's have, let's have a little evergreen tree. He lives right here, see? Just make a line, take the corner of your brush, make a touch, make another one, and just sort of work from the center out. There it goes. (clicks tongue) It's easier to do 'em fast than it is slow, though. Here they come. (clicks tongue) Just sorta back and forth. I had a lady in cla

ss one time tell me it was like makin' Z's, the letter Z. She called 'em Z trees, so I guess that's as good of analogy as any. From the center out, the center of the tree should be the thickest, darkest, strongest part of the tree 'cause you have leaves on the back, you have a trunk in the middle, and you have leaves on this side. We'll have one more in there. There we go. Have a little family of trees. You know if you've painted with me before, I think everybody should have a friend, even a tre

e. Even a tree needs a friend. Now, if you wanted to reflect those, just pop in some general indications of where they are, no big deal. 'Cause we don't make mistakes here, we have happy accidents. Very quickly, you learn to work with anything that happens. Take the big brush, pull down. (clicks tongue) Straight down, once again, and then go across, and we have instant reflections. I'ma just use that same fan brush. It has that color we made the tree out of it and I'll go through cad yellow and

a little yellow ochre. Immediately, we have green. There we are. Let's go up in here. And we can take that green, let's go back and put some highlights on our little evergreen trees, there they go. (clicks tongue) Alright, this little tree here he's sayin, "Don't leave me out. I need some too." There we are, there we are, there we are. Alright, now, gonna put a little liquid white right on that same brush, 'cause I wanna lighten the color and make it a little thinner. A thin paint will stick to

a thick paint. We mix 'em back up again, just go back up here. And we can just take this brush and let's just pop in the indication of some little bushes that live down here, right down in these little foots. Somethin' about like that. How's that? That looks like a little island. Let's put some dirt there. Let's take some white, little dark sienna, mix 'em together, cut off a little roll of paint. Let's go up in here and we'll take this and we just put the indication here, a little bit of soil,

some dirt, some kind. Gotta have a little place, if this is a little island, for all this to sit on. Alright. See there? That's all there is to it. M'kay, (sucks teeth), alright, we gotta figure out somethin' to do on the other side now. Let's have some fun, let's have some fun. You know if you've painted with me before, I like old big trees. Let's take a little bit of that color right there, let's go right up in here. This is your bravery test, take the corner of the old two inch brush and let'

s just begin laying in a basic shape here. Tree it lives right there, right there. Big old tree, but he's a nice tree. There he is. Alright, while I got that brush going, I tell you what, maybe let's do somethin' about like this. (clicks tongue) And we just tap in all kinds of little, little bushy lookin' areas. You have to decide what lives here, how far it goes, how tall is it, how short is it, it's fat, skinny, in between, it's your world. And in your world, you make all the decisions. All th

e decisions. There we are. See, we're just puttin' some dark in here so later on, our light color will show. We'll just grab a-- (paint brush clatters) Oops, grab another one. There's a fan brush right there. Take a little white, a little bit of the dark sienna, just wanna make the indication here. Maybe a little tree trunk, maybe a little more dark sienna. (exhales quickly) That's nice. 'Kay, right here. (exhales) Just want some indications. I'ma put some happy little leaves in there, so we're

gonna cover most of those up. Most of 'em won't show, we'll go right into that. Need a little sap green, little bit of the yellow. We'll just put it right on this two inch brush, give a little push. Good shot there, you can see that well. 'Kay, let's go up in here. Now, I wanna put some leaves on here. Use just the corner of the brush, just the corner of the brush. There we go. See? That's all there is to it, just the corner. Think about shape and form, drop these little rascals in wherever you

want 'em. Wherever. You really are the creator on this piece of canvas. You can do anything! You can move rivers, mountains, create any illusion that you want here. When I go home, the only power I have is over the garbage. I can take it to the street all by myself, but here I can do anything, absolutely anything. I decided I wanted a bush right there. And, tell you what, let's get crazy. You know me, if you've painted with me before. I like big trees and we have one living in our world right th

ere. There he comes. We should've done this with the two inch brush, it'd been a lot faster. There we go. Just drop it in wherever you think it should be. Alright. Boy, that's a big tree, I wasn't kiddin', this is a monster tree. Huge tree and you could've done it with a two inch brush just as easy, but much quicker. I like the old fan brush, it gives you a little more detail. Here we go with a smaller tree, 'cause I think he needs a friend. There. 'Kay, just drop it in. All we're doing, once ag

ain, is putting in the background color. You could put this in with a paint roller, it doesn't matter, long as the shape is right. We'll come back and separate all of this with some nice highlights. Here's a little brown and white. We're gonna put the indication just here and there of a trunk, just what you can see, here and there. There. You don't see it all 'cause you have leaves on this side. We can go back to our little fan brush, go right through the cad yellow, yellow ochre. We'll load som

e color into it. Let's go back up in here. Let's put a highlight or two on here. Evergreens are normally darker than other trees, so don't kill all the dark here in your evergreen. It happens sometime, get's ya' feeling good and you don't know when to stop. There. And the base of the tree should be darker than the top, big shadow areas underneath. And those shadow areas are where all my little friends live. In previous shows we've had, like Peapod the pocket squirrel, my little squirrel that liv

es with me. We've had him on the show. But this is kinda the places that he likes. Let's take a little bit of color, let's use the, let's use the one inch brush. We'll go through some, get some sap green, some yellow, load a lotta color into the brush. More sap green. (sharply exhales) That's nice. Alright, then we can go up here, and we can begin picking out individual bushes, one at a time, one at a time. There's a happy little bush, lives right there. You knew he was there, didn't you? And he

's got a little friend named Clyde, lives right over here, there he is. So you can give all these things names, personalities, it's okay. We'll take the little oval brush, dipped in some paint thinner. We'll go through some midnight black and some brown on one, wanna load it full of color again. Then I'ma take, and with the other side, I got some light brown I made earlier. I'm just gonna go through, see? Like that, put a little black in it, make it a little dark, ooh that's nice. Now, with that

I guess we'll come up here and make the indication, we can't see too much of 'em, of some rocks that live up there. Just some happy little rocks. Maybe there's one (exhales) there, somethin'. Wherever, just some indications. Then we'll come back with our brush we were making the bushes with and we'll settle those right down into the painting. There, now see? Now they become part of the painting. There we go, just like so. And we'll make all kinds of little bushes and trees and happy little thin

gs that live here in our world. Alright. Okay. Shoot, if we had such a place as that, I'd have to go fishin' there. I like to fish but I'm not a very good fisherman. I catch a little fish and take the hook carefully out of his mouth and put a band-aid on him, little CPR, pat him on the toot toot, and put him back in the water, go back, catch him again another day. But we'd have to have a way to get up here if we're gonna catch that fish. We'll take a little of the van dyke brown and let's have u

s a little path. We had to walk all through through these bushes, maskeeters would get us, so let's have us a little path that we can walk back in here, catch a big old trout or bass, whatever it is that lives in here. There. Take a little bit, let's find some white, little dark sienna, mix it together, make a little highlight color. Just barely touching, barely. Let it graze, let it graze. That easy, that easy. 'Bout like so. M'kay. There. Now then, let's put somethin' on this side. Ya have som

ethin' on the other side the path, now let's go on this side. Once again, I'ma take a one inch brush and I'm just settin' it straight down and I'm pulling it in one direction. It's most, most important. That loads a lot of paint, and see it rounds one edge. You wanna turn it, put that rounded edge to the top. It's most important. Then we take that, we go right up in here, no pressure hardly, just enough to get the brush to touch the canvas, and we begin working on shape and form and we create a

bush or tree that lives right there. That's all there is to it. And there's another one, but do one at a time. I know, I know. Sometimes it starts working, you get greedy. Do one at a time, one at a time. I'ma put a little bright red on there. Maybe here's one right here. Oh, yeah. It's got little, I don't know if you can see 'em, I got little red flowers on the tip. (chuckles) Sneaky. There. Then we can go back over in here, and we can begin adding in just little things that come about here on

the path. 'Bout like that. Alright, alright. You got your brushes warmed up yet and you're ready, you can do this! You can do this, I know you can. I get letters every day from people all over the country that said they'd never believed they could paint and they're doing it. Their friends and neighbors don't believe it when they look at their paintings but they are doing it. There. I'ma put a little stick lives right there, little old tree. Maybe, maybe, maybe this little tree died and he's nake

d now, just a skeleton hangin' out here. And that happens in nature. There. So, we can put little arms on him that are still hangin' out. Alright. All kinds of little dooders. Maybe over in here, and these little details are what'll make your painting look a little more finished. Take your time when you're doing these and just drop 'em in here and there and there and wherever. Take a little light brown with paint thinner on it and when you mix this, get it very thin. This should be almost like,

almost ink consistency. Turn the bristles, that'll bring it to a very sharp point. There you see it good against that dark, alright? And where it's very dark, then we make little light trees. Where it's light, we make dark trees because they both exist in nature. So you can put little, see now there's a little tree lives back here, just has a good time, looks out over the water, talks to the fish. That's all there is to it. Another way of making little sticks and twigs, take your knife, just a c

lean knife and you can reach up in here and just scrape right through the paint, see? And that'll make all kinda little sticks. And let's come down here, we'll make a few more in here, wherever. You decide where they live. Sometimes, these old evergreens here have old dead limbs hangin' off of 'em and you can do that, just with a little flick of the knife. And shoot, with that I think we 'bout have a finished painting. It's that easy. Let's take a little bit of the paint thinner, little bright r

ed, and we'll sign this little rascal. Really hope you've enjoyed it. It's a very simple painting that you can do and if you try it, I'd love to see some photographs of what you're doing. So if you have time, take a photograph, send it to us, let us hear from you. Until then, from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting and God bless, my friend. (mellow smooth jazz music)