(gentle guitar music) - Hello, I'm Bob Ross and I'd like to welcome you to the fourth Joy of Painting series.

For the next 13 shows, I'll be your host as we explore this fantastic method of painting and if this is your first time with us, I think you'll find this a very exciting method of oil painting.

We're gonna take here and use some very simple tools, a dozen colors, and I'm gonna show you how to do fantastic things.

So let's start out here, and I'm gonna cover the entire canvas with a thin, even coat of magic white.

Now magic white is a liquid paint that makes the canvas wet and makes it slick and allows things to happen right here on the canvas.

We allow color to blend on the canvas rather than worry about mixing it on the canvas.

So, let's go here.

Use long horizontal and vertical strokes to make sure you have a nice, even distribution of magic white across the canvas.

There we go, and we're ready to go.

Today I'm gonna use a very very limited palette, we're only going to use about four colors and I'm gonna have them graphically run those colors across the screen so you can pick them up at home.

And they will come across your screen in the same order that I have them on my palette, starting with a titanium white and working around, okay?

Let me wash the brush and we wash our brushes with odorless paint thinner and I have a screen in the bottom of my can that I scrub the brush against to remove the paint.

Shake off the excess (rapid thumping) There we go, that's the most fun part of it.

Okay today, let's mix up a purple color and I'll take alizarin crimson, we might as well mix up a pretty good batch, we're going to be using it all through this little painting and thalo blue.

Now the blue is many, many times stronger than the alizarin crimson so use very little, very little in comparison to the crimson.

There, and we'll mix this pretty thoroughly.

Okay, pick the paint up off the palette and turn it over when you're mixing it, that assures it is mixed very thorough.

Now it's very hard to tell what color you have here, it just looks black so let me wipe off the knife and we'll take a little bit of white and then we'll touch that and we'll check it, we'll see what we have here and if that's the color that we're looking for and that's pretty good color so we'll use it.

So now, with a large two and a half inch brush, I'm gonna take just a little bit of the color on the brush and really work the paint into the bristles, work it into the bristles so you have a nice, even distribution of color.

Let's go right up there to the canvas.

I'm gonna start right at the top of the canvas and make little criss cross strokes, little x's.

Now if you're color is not right when you get to this point, stop and correct it, okay?

It's easy to make a sky darker but it's a son of a gun to make it lighter so use very little paint, you can always add more.

Go all the way across the top using the little criss cross strokes and begin blending downward.

Now your color is mixing with the magic white and automatically, it gets lighter as it goes toward the horizon and that's what we're looking for.

In a landscape, things should get darker in value as they get closer to you.

Okay, we'll take a little more color, just go right up here, still making the little criss cross strokes and blend downward so that it gets much, much lighter right here at the horizon.

Okay.

There we go.

And very gently, we'll just blend that out.

Now while I've got the color on the brush, I'm gonna load a little bit more and we'll have some water down here at the bottom.

One thing about water, if it's still water, it's always flat so pull from the outside in, the outside in and keep these strokes as straight as possible, it'll make your water flat, make it lay down.

Okay, now we'll come from the other side and do the same thing.

There we go.

And very gently, very, very gently, we'll blend all this together.

This is three hairs and some air, just barely caressing the canvas.

There.

As I say, if this is your first time joining us, you'll notice that we do not do any tracings, we use no patterns, we just sort of let these paintings flow right out of our heart and you can too.

That's what makes it so fantastic.

Okay, let's clean the brush.

Once again, we use odorless paint thinner.

(rapid thumping) There we go.

Alrighty, let's use the fan brush some today and I'm gonna go right back in here and I'm gonna use the same dark color and figure out, maybe there's a tree line that lives right there, there it is.

And all I'm doing here is touching the canvas and pulling down.

Touch and pull down, I'll try to hold the brush sideways so you can see that close up.

Touch and pull down, okay?

And we just sort of let this wander right on back and we're still using the same purple color, lavender color, purple.

There, just let it fade right on into nothing over here.

Okay, now let's bring this little hill, I know this is gonna be a little hill right here, I see a little hill.

Bring it down just like so and then lift gently upward, I'm just touching and lifting straight up, straight up.

Good, now I want to create the illusion of mist so we'll take the large brush and, very gently, I'm gonna tap the bottom of this, just tapping.

There we go.

Okay, now after you get it tapped and have it very misty, lift gently upward, very gently and that will soften it to make it look just like there's mist and it's far, far away and you can soften it to any degree that you want it, any value that you want.

Okay, now I've got several fan brushes going today so I don't have to stop and clean them in between each operation.

Now I'm gonna take a fan brush and go right into some titanium white and we'll begin deciding where our little hill's gonna be back here and maybe, let's go right up here, maybe the little hill comes right here and we'll use a fan brush today, you can put this on with a knife or you can do it with a fan brush, make it very, very soft.

And you begin worrying about the lay of the land, follow those angles.

And we'll put a little white over here and then take a little touch of the thalo blue and add to it.

This will be some of our shadow colors in the snow.

Load the brush full of paint, a lot of paint.

Now, very lightly just lay some of this in just here and there, create some shadows in your snow.

There we go.

Very soft, very gentle, very, very far away.

Just sort of visualize this in your mind.

This is your world, you create the illusions that you want.

See, already, it looks like there's something far, far away back there and we've only been working for a second.

Sometimes when you're painting, you allow paintings to get so complicated that they bother you.

Work with simplicity sometimes, sometimes simplicity is the secret.

There we go.

And maybe, maybe way back here in the distance, maybe there's a little cabin.

So let's take, we'll use a knife here, little bit of titanium white and get a small roll of paint on the knife, right out here on the edge.

There we go.

And figure out where you want the roof for your little cabin to be, and let's say maybe the cabin's gonna be right here, right about here.

So you touch and pull.

Just touch it and pull.

Gives you the roof for your cabin.

Touch and pull.

Just let that paint slide right off your knife.

There we go.

Now we need to do the other side of the cabin, the other side of the eave up here so we'll use the small edge of the knife and we can just, that easy, put the other side on.

Okay, now let's go into some van dyke brown.

And we can begin working on some detail here.

Now maybe there's an eave right there, one stroke going across.

And we need a front on this little cabin, zoop, there we are.

Other side, and this is where you begin to straighten him up and get him like you want him.

And this side here a little bit.

Okay, now we can straighten out the front and we'll take a little bit of brown and white and we'll make the front of the cabin a little bit lighter, barely, barely touch, barely, barely touch just to make it look like old wood and we'll go back with a little bit of the dark, put some shadows in, make it look very old.

And we need a door in that cabin so I'll take just a tiny bit of the van dyke brown on the knife and we'll put a little door, just pull across, it's all there is to it.

And we need some highlight around the door so, that easy, we'll highlight around the door and maybe this is an old slab cabin so we'll just cut some slabs in here, that simple.

Alright, and we've got a pretty good looking little cabin going there.

Now we can straighten the bottom out by just scraping off this excess paint.

This is sort of how you shape your cabin.

You can check your angles, make sure they're just right and you can take and add a little bit of paint just to make nice firm edges here.

This is just a little bit of the titanium white.

There.

And maybe we'll have a snowbank coming down the side here so let's get rid of some of this brown like that, and we'll go back to our fan brush and back into some titanium white with a little bit of thalo blue into it and we'll put a shadow right here.

Just let it come right down beside the cabin.

Touch, pull.

Now be careful right in here you don't want to hit that brown and pull a big bunch of brown down into your snow.

Brown snow is worse than yellow snow.

There we go.

There, a little bit of shadow right in there.

Maybe you want to put the indication that there's a little path coming from the door so we just take a little blue and just sort of scrub it back and forth.

Just sort of pull it and we don't know where this goes, just let it go, let it have fun.

The old fellow that lives here needs a way to get up to his cabin.

And maybe he had a few little animals here and had to have a fence so let's build a little fence.

I'm gonna take my liner brush and dip it into a thin oil and go right into the van dyke brown.

Now I want the paint to be very, very thin.

Normally we work with a paint that's very thick in consistency because one of our golden rules, a thin paint will stick to a thick paint.

So we've got a thick paint on the canvas, now I can take this thin paint and stick it on top.

And I turn the brush to bring it to a point, a liner brush has very long bristles, holds a lot of paint.

So let's go right up here and maybe the little fence, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe it's right there and we'll put in some little posts, and this is far away and maybe there's a little hill right here and it just goes right on over.

Right on over the hill.

And we need some, some boards across the old fence post.

And these are just indications, this is far away.

Don't want to get too much detail, it'll ruin the illusion of distance.

Now we can go back with a little bit of titanium white on the fan brush and just define that.

Looks like that fence goes right over the hill somewhere and we don't know where it goes, we just let it go.

Okay, while I've got the brown on the little liner brush, maybe there's a little chimney right here so we can just throw in a little chimney, that simple, it's all there is to it, gives the indication of a chimney.

And maybe there's a touch of red on that chimney, least little touch, just enough to brighten it up a little.

I cleaned the brush and we're ready to go again.

Maybe we'll go back to the fan brush that had the dark purple on it and let's load it full of paint.

Really load it full of paint.

Maybe right in here, maybe there's a tree that lives right there, there he is.

Now we're gonna use just the corner of the fan brush to make this tree, this is a nice evergreen, just go back and forth, back and forth like so and that simple, that simple, you could make a fantastic tree, I know you could do it.

This is what makes it fun, these things happen.

You really don't plan them, you just sort of let them happen.

Just let them flow right out of your mind, right onto the canvas.

That's what makes it fun, when you can create on the canvas, you don't have to spend a great deal of time trying to figure out what you're gonna paint, you just learn how to paint and you let it go.

Maybe there's a little hill right there so we'll put some little weeds coming down from under this tree.

Just like that, just let these little weeds just, these create the lay of the land.

There we go.

Now, take a little bit of the, this is thalo blue and white, once again.

Very limited palette we're using today.

Let's take, and put us a little hill right in here.

And we don't care if it picks up a little bit of that purple color, it helps add to the shadows.

Isn't that pretty?

And it's simple, this is a very, very easy painting, very easy painting and it's a lot of fun, very rewarding painting.

Now, once again, follow the lay of the land.

These brush strokes determine how your land's gonna look, which direction it's gonna flow.

Okay, let's go over on the other side here and work a little bit and see what we can come up with.

Maybe over here, maybe there's a whole group of trees.

I'm gonna start right there and all you do is touch a canvas.

Now, corner the brush and practice these little trees.

It takes a little practice.

They live in your fan brush and sometime you have to sort of scare them out, get them little rascals out of there.

Just go back and forth.

And I use the same corner of the brush all the way down the tree.

Now these trees can be made with a one-inch brush, two and a half-inch brush, all works on the same principle.

A lot of paint on the brush and a very firm paint, very firm, we're gonna stick some highlights on top of that.

Once again, if this is your first time watching our series, I hope you're enjoying it, I hope it's got you excited, you've got your brush about ready to go with me and that you paint along with me each week.

If you've been with us before, I'd like to tell you how much we appreciate all the cards and letters that have came in.

We read each and every one of them and they make us very happy to know that you're watching our shows and you like what we're doing.

You know, when this series is finished, we have a complete year of television.

52 shows.

Unbelievable.

And I want to thank you for allowing us into your home each week and for supporting us.

You've made it happen and we appreciate it.

Okay, maybe there's a little tree lives right there, there we go.

And however many trees you want, this is your world.

Your world so you decide how many trees live in your world.

There we go.

I'll tell you what, let's have another tree right there.

Maybe this is a little stand of pines right on the corner.

There we are.

And on this series, I think we're gonna try to, we'll bring in some of my friends, I have some fantastic friends that paint, also and I'm gonna bring some of them in and let them show you some of the unbelievable things that can be done in just a few minutes.

Okay, maybe, I'll tell you what, let's have one more little tree, right there, right there.

And maybe from there, there's some more little weeds, maybe they come right down here.

See that's gonna cut that out and push everything back.

Just let these go.

And we just lay in some basic shapes first because I want to pick up some of this color in my snow to make shadows.

We'll go back to the titanium white with the tiniest little bit of thalo blue in it and we begin putting in some basic shapes here for our hill.

There.

Barely, barely touch the canvas.

See, pick up some of this purplish color, let it become part of your shadows.

And over here we're just gonna sort of let it fade away right into nothing.

There we go, maybe this comes right down, there it is, you knew it was there.

And I hope this painting gives you ideas.

You know, we're not trying to give you things just to copy, we're trying to give you ideas and we're trying to teach you a technique and then turn you loose on the world.

Okay, let's put a few more little grassy things in here.

These paintings can be done in any color.

They don't have to be done in just purple, you could do them in any color.

Now, maybe up in here we'll show a little bit of snow, a little bit of light.

My home's in Fairbanks, Alaska so I like to do snow paintings, I see a lot of snow where I live.

There we are, just let these fade right on off into nothing, just right on away.

See how easy that is?

Now then, let's go back over to this tree over here and finish this up.

Lift up just a little bit here and there like so, and let it go.

Then I'm gonna bring in a little bit of snow, little highlight here and there, let the sun play across.

Okay now, while I've got this brush going with a little bit of the blue on it, let's put some indication of a little bit of snow on the trees.

We'll start with this one here.

We don't want a great deal, I don't want to lose the dark values here so I just put some little indications here and there.

There we are.

Just a few.

Now, let's go over into the clump of trees and do exactly the same thing, just touch just here and there, just a few.

Just a few, drop them in.

Dark down there, darker, darker, darker as it goes down toward the bottom.

Very, very dark.

Very, very dark, let it go.

A few up here on that one and we're in business.

Let's put a little bit of water in this painting.

All we need to do is go right in here with our large brush and pick up a little bit of the dark color.

Decide where you want your water to be, maybe it lives right there, and pull straight down.

Even though you're going around the corner, still pull straight down.

And, that easy, that easy, we'll create some beautiful, beautiful little reflections straight down.

There we go.

Now, very lightly, go across, makes it look like water.

Let's put a few little stones and stuff here, back into the purple color and decide where you want a little stone to be and just lay in some paint like that, that's all there is to it.

Maybe there's a little stone that lives right there, there he is, see, just lay it in.

I know, let's have one right here.

Just lay in your little stone.

Then we'll take a little bit of the white, titanium white, and come right over the top of that stone.

Now, there, very lightly, just right over the top, just like so.

Bit of white, and let's lay some snow on that stone and you can put as many stones in here as you want.

As many as you want, let them go.

Tell you what, let's add a little blue to this one, put it over here maybe in the shadow and there.

Just let it come across like that.

Maybe this comes right on down, just let it go.

There we are.

See and you pick up a little of that color and it makes it look like a shadow.

You know, we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents so let it happen, learn to use anything that happens.

Alright, now we needs a water line here.

Clean up the edges and finish this little painting up so we'll take a little bit of the magic white and I'm gonna put it on the palette, pull it out very, very flat and then cut across it.

Just cut across it, you have a very thin line of paint on the knife.

And we'll go right up here and act just like you're trying to cut a hole in the canvas.

Just like you're trying to saw a hole right through it, push very hard.

We use a very, very firm pressure here just like so.

There, and just let these water lines work right around.

I hope you've enjoyed this, this is a very, very nice little painting, easy to do, it's a good first project.

Get you started, get your blood fired up.

Hope next week you have your almighty brush out and your easel set up, big glass of tea sitting there and ready to go with me.

Let's sign this one and we'll call it finished.

I'll take a little bit of the thin oil, and I did put some permanent red out here which was not on the screen, just for signature, and let's sign right here today.

And that's all there is to it, a thin paint, go right on there.

So, and we'll call that one finished and from all of us here, we'd like to wish you happy painting, God bless, see you next week.

(gentle guitar music)