(light music) - Hello, I'm Bob Ross, and I'd like to welcome you to the 11th Joy of Painting series.

First of all, let me thank you for inviting me back into your homes again.

If this is your first time with us, let me extend a personal invitation for you to drag out your paints and paint along with us each week, or just pull up the old easy chair and spend a relaxing half hour as we place some of nature's masterpieces on canvas.

We'll use a few big brushes and a dozen colors or so, and I'll show you how to create some of the most fantastic paintings you've ever seen in just a few minutes.

So I'll tell you what, let's go on up to the canvas here and get started.

Now the canvas has been covered with liquid white, and liquid white just makes the canvas wet, makes it slick, it allows us to actually blend color on the canvas.

So let's have 'em run all the colors across the screen that you need to do the painting with me.

And they'll come across in the same order as I have 'em on my palette.

While they're doing that, let's go ahead and get started.

Today I'll start with, oh, two-inch brush.

Go right into a little bit of the phthalo blue and just mix a little bit on the brush.

Just tap it right into the color.

And I'll reach right up here and grab a little black So we're gonna have phthalo blue and midnight black.

Black and blue, black and blue.

All right, let's go right up to the canvas now.

And today let's just dance in a happy little sky.

We'll just do a little fun painting.

And just sort of let the brush just bounce around and play and let it have fun.

Just relax and enjoy.

See there, that easy, that easy.

Just make little x's, little criss-cross strokes.

There, and add a little more color to my brush.

And we'll go right on over here.

And notice we're not covering the sky entirely.

We wanna leave a few little areas open.

Few little happy spaces in the sky.

Then we'll come back and we'll put some happy little clouds in there, okay?

Just like so.

And because we have the liquid white on the canvas, as we blend downward, the liquid white mixes with the color and automatically your sky gets lighter toward the horizon.

And this will help create the illusion of depth and distance in your painting.

There.

Just like so.

Okay, now while we have the old brush dirty here, I'm gonna go right back into some of the same color, blue and black, black and blue.

Boy, that's the way I look when I argue with my wife, black and blue.

Now then, maybe in this painting, maybe we'll have a happy little stream that sort of wanders down here.

So decide basically where your little stream's gonna be, and we just go right in here.

(chuckles) And that easy, just back and forth.

Drop in a little bit of color.

And we don't care where it goes.

We can paint the whole thing here if you want to.

It doesn't make any difference.

Just back and forth.

This is also a good way to clean off the excess paint that's on your brush.

There.

Okay, tell you what, let me wash my brush.

And we wash our brush with odorless paint thinner.

And I really recommend you use odorless thinner.

There's a screen in the bottom of my can that I scrub the brush against.

Shake off the excess, and then do that.

(banging) (chuckles) And you just beat the devil out of it.

And if you've watched me before, you know this is the fun part of this whole painting technique.

Now then, with a good, clean, dry brush, I'm gonna go right back up in here and just blend the sky out.

Be sure your brush is dry, though.

We wanna keep this paint as firm and thick as possible on the canvas.

One of our golden rules is that a thin paint will stick to a thick paint, thin to thick.

So we start out with paint that's very firm and very thick, and then on top of that, we can add layers of thin paint.

And that's the only way that you can paint this wet-on-wet technique.

There we go, and down here we just blend that out a little bit.

All right, now let's have some fun.

I wanna take a one-inch brush, and I'm gonna go right into titanium white.

And just pull that brush through the titanium white.

Then I'll reach down here and get a least little touch of bright red.

Be very careful with this bright red, it'll eat up your whole world in one heartbeat.

Load a lot of paint into the brush.

Okay, and let's go right up here.

Now you have to make some big decisions.

Where's the little clouds live in your world?

Maybe, maybe there's a little cloud, he lives right here.

He floats around the sky and just has fun all day.

Clouds are very free.

And when you paint clouds, remember that they're free.

They just float around, paint 'em that way.

In your mind's eye, think like a cloud.

Just think like a cloud, and just sorta let it float around.

Just float around, mm-hmm, yep, you're right.

There's one right there, right there.

In your painting, you put as many or as few clouds as you want.

I just wanna show you how to make a big old cloud.

And how many you make is up to you.

Maybe over here on the other side a little bit.

Maybe there's one, don't want this side to be left out.

So happy little cloud that lives right there.

There he is, there he is, just drop him in.

Don't overwork him, drop him in.

Put another one right there.

Just make a big decision, decide where you want him, and put your cloud right in there.

All right, that quick, we have a little cloud.

Now with a good, clean, dry brush, we wanna blend the base of these clouds out without touching the top, so tiny little circles.

Just barely touching.

And using just the corner of the brush.

Tiniest little circles.

Tiny little circles, there you go, see?

Don't overwork, be lazy.

This is one of the times that you really need to just take your time, do a little bit, and get away from it.

The more you work, the more your cloud's gonna go away and leave you.

There, just mix it up a little bit, stir it.

Okay, then I'll (banging) rap the brush one time there.

And when I beat the brush, that just removes excess paint without going through the whole cleaning procedure.

So now then, we're gonna come back up here and we're gonna fluff this cloud.

Grab it.

And this is very light, very delicate.

Three hairs and some air.

Barely touch, lift it up, lift it up, lift it up.

And always do this in circular strokes.

If you go straight up, it's gonna look like your sky has rain going up in it, and that's sort of distracting.

So always do it sorta in circular strokes.

Just like so.

And that simple, you have some fantastic little clouds.

Isn't that fun?

There.

Okay, I think today, let's build us a little mountain in this painting.

I lived in Alaska for many, many years, and I love mountains, so I'll show you how to make one.

Let's take a little bit of the midnight black.

We'll take some van dyke brown, a little touch of alizarin crimson, just a little crimson, and some prussian blue.

Don't put too much crimson unless you want purple mountains, and there's nothing wrong with purple mountains.

Fact, I'll add more crimson and get 'em a little to the purply side.

Seems like they wrote a beautiful song about purple mountains.

Pull it out very flat, take your knife, and cut across so you get that little roll of paint right on the edge of the knife.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, you have to make a big decision.

Where does your mountain live in your world?

Then you just take your knife and just begin deciding where your mountain lives.

And drop him in.

Just drop him in.

There.

(scraping) See how easy that is?

The only thing we're worried about is this nice outside edge.

We could care less what's happening inside here.

There we go.

Just looking for the outside edge.

Push that paint in very firm at this point and scrape off all the excess.

Just really scrape it off.

Okay, now then, we'll take a two-inch brush, grab that paint, and pull it.

Pull it, that does two things.

It removes the excess paint and it allows it to get lighter toward the base.

And that's what make your mountains so pretty.

There it comes.

And then just blend it right into nothing, that easy.

Now then, let's have some more fun.

We'll put some snow on that mountain.

Take some of the titanium white, and once again, pull it out as flat as you can get it.

Just get strong with it, cut across, and you have that little roll of paint, and it needs to be right out on the edge of the knife.

Okay, let's go up here.

Now then, start with the point of the knife right along there, and just pull it downward.

Just pull downward, there we go, little bit right there.

Just sort of determine where you think light would hit on your mountain.

There, and if the light's coming from the right, then you want the light to be more over here.

But you have to make these big decisions.

This is your world, and you have to design it the way you want it.

Okay, and we can take the little edge of the knife and go right in there, add a little bit in there.

Now then, let's put some shadows.

For shadows, oh, let's use a little bit of blue and white.

About like so.

Now sometimes, I wanna change to the smaller knife.

You'll find the small knife is excellent for getting in little tight areas.

So same way, little roll of paint.

Let's go right up here.

No pressure, absolutely no pressure.

You want this paint to break, to have all those little holes in it.

No pressure at all, just barely touch, barely touch.

Give it a little pull just like so.

And mountains are a lot of fun, and they're quite easy to make.

Just some basic rules.

Pay very close attention to angles.

Now then.

I'm gonna just keep using that little knife.

And go right in here, watch here.

Maybe there's a little valley that lives right in here.

Make up little stories, think about in your world what your mountain looks like.

Maybe there's a little valley that comes right around like so.

There he comes.

And you sorta play the highlight and the shadow back and forth and bring it together here.

See there?

And wherever you want it to go, that's where it should go.

Maybe this comes right on out.

Like that, there, there we are.

Bring it right on back.

And you could just keep on going 'til you cover up your entire canvas with mountains, which is an excellent way to practice.

So if you ever do that, don't worry about it.

You have lost nothing, and you've learned.

And if there's any secret to this technique or any other technique, it's practice.

Just spend some time practicing.

It doesn't take much.

But you have to devote that time.

Okay, now then, I wanna create the illusion of mist at the base of this mountain, so with a large brush, and this is a clean brush, all I'm gonna do is tap.

Following the angles here, just tap.

And over here, tap a little bit this way.

And give it a little lift.

Like so.

There we go, and then here we can sort of just pull this together.

See how easy that is?

You can do it, you really can do it.

There's no big secrets here.

We'll show you how to do it.

All you need is just to grab your canvas and some paint.

And jump up here and do it, and it's fun.

Okay, we'll just take, we had some mountain color left over here.

Let's add a little bit of, we'll add a little touch of sap green right into the same mountain color.

So we have black, blue, brown, alizarin crimson.

Might as well mix up a pretty good pile of paint here.

Now we can come in here and have some fun.

I'm gonna get the old fan brush.

And we'll load the fan brush.

Now I'm gonna make some little evergreens way back in the distance.

Now you can make these with a one-inch brush, fan brush, two-inch brush.

Anything, anything that works.

You can even make 'em with a knife.

Load the brush full of paint.

Look at the amount of paint that's in that brush.

It's really full.

Okay, let's go right up here.

Now then, maybe there's some evergreen trees that live back here.

Touch, take just the corner of the brush.

See there?

And there they are.

These little trees live right in your fan brush.

All you have to do is just sorta push 'em out.

There, that easy.

That easy.

Okay, and as many or as few as you want.

And sometimes, show you a little trick.

Show you a little trick, it's fun.

If you have a bunch of evergreens, you don't wanna set and make each one independently.

You can just dob on a bunch of color.

So just drop in a whole bunch of color.

Like that.

I'll tell you what, let's have some on the other side, too.

We don't want it left out.

All we're doing here is just tapping in the same dark color.

And then I'll show you what you can do with that.

Boy, I know you're saying already, "Bob, you've messed this one up."

And you may be right, may be right.

Since the only thing that you're really worried about in these little evergreens is the tops, you can put all that in at one time.

And then come back, and all you have to do is decide where the tops live.

There we go, there's another one.

And you can turn this into a whole forest if you want to.

As many or as few as you want, just drop 'em in.

Now we'll put some highlights on these trees, and that's where you'll separate 'em.

That's where they'll become individuals.

Maybe there's some way back here, and all you'll see is just little indications.

Just little tops, but you don't see a whole bunch of detail.

Just little indications.

Just here and there.

And then we come back.

Oh, look at all those.

As I said, you can paint an entire forest in just a few minutes.

In just a few minutes.

There's one, knew he was there.

There he is.

Just drop him right in there.

And maybe we'll push a little color into there.

You could even grab and pull up to make 'em look like they're really, really, really far away.

And it sort of gives the illusion these are closer and those are farther away.

And once again, it's one of those little tricks that helps create the illusion of depth and distance in your painting.

And of course we're not interested in that happy buck, but should you be, this is what sells your paintings.

I get so many fantastic letters from people all over the country that are painting, they're having unbelievable success, and they're selling their work.

And the selling of the work is not important.

What's important is the fact that someone is willing to pay you for something you created out of your mind with your hand.

It does a wonderful thing for your ego.

Forget about the pocketbook, that's not important.

It's really not important.

It's what it does to your heart, it's what it does to your confidence.

I could remember, oh, maybe 25 years ago when I sold my first painting, and I think I only got about $20 for it, and I paid that much for the frame that was on it.

But I went home, it gave me so much confidence.

I went home and probably painted 25 more paintings that I couldn't give away, but it was the fact that somebody wanted my painting enough to pay me for it.

It really inspired me to paint, and it'll do the same thing for you.

Okay, tell you what, while I got that old dark color going here, same old color, I'm just gonna begin adding in some little things like this.

All I'm doing is tapping down with a two-inch brush here.

Just tap downward.

Now we begin making some decisions here.

Where is our land gonna be?

And you need dark in order to show light.

So all we're doing here is just adding some dark color.

We're gonna come back and highlight everything, separate all this and bring it all together.

Maybe down, about like so, whatever, whatever.

Wherever you want it.

Let me get a little paint here.

Blues and the blacks and the browns and the greens.

And just mix 'em with the brush.

Maybe, yeah, you're right, right there.

There's another little thing.

And that easy, you can begin creating the lay of the land.

And by lay of the land, I mean the way the land flows.

Just however it flows.

And this is another one of those big decisions you have to make.

In your world, how does it, how does the land, has it got a lot of bumps in it?

Is it smooth, hilly, flat?

And if you're gonna put water in your painting, as you know, it's better to have a recessed area because water goes to a low area.

It won't stay up on top.

It goes down to the lowest area.

Water is like me, boy, it's lazy.

It looks for the easiest way to flow.

So you need to indicate that the land is higher than the water or it won't look right.

There.

And you could've really done this with a paint roller.

Would've worked just as well.

Okay, now we can come back and begin putting in some of the little detail things, the fun things.

I'm gonna take some dark sienna.

Dark sienna, little bit of white, touch of the blue.

Not much blue.

Okay, pull it out real flat again and cut across.

Once again, that little tiny roll of paint that's so important, okay?

Now then, maybe back in here we can see a few little tree trunks just here and there.

Maybe you can't see one in every tree.

And you can just cut through the paint and let some of the white of the canvas show through, and it'll create the indication of hundreds of little sticks and twigs, and people will think you worked for weeks doing all that.

And don't you tell 'em any different, that's our secret.

There we go.

Don't let the cat out of the bag.

Okay, little trunk in this tree, and then just touch.

The canvas will pull off what it wants, give you back what's left, it's that easy.

See there?

However many, it's up to you, it's really up to you.

Painting offers you freedom, creative freedom.

I spent half my life in the military, and this is where I made Bob's world, and this is where I came.

When I wasn't playing soldier, this is where I came and found peace.

Let me wash the brush here.

There, shake it off.

(banging) (chuckles) There we go, all right.

I get carried away with that brushing.

Before I get into that, I'm gonna take same old dirty brush and go right into the yellow.

Now this brush had the blue and the green, and so when I go into yellow, I'm gonna get a dark green.

Don't even have to clean the brush.

Okay, let's go back up here.

Let's just drop in indication of a few highlights.

Just on these trees, and all I'm doing is touching and pushing downward a little bit.

Now you don't wanna put too much in here and kill all that beautiful dark color.

If you kill all that, then your tree's gonna look flat.

Just touch it, go, just a little.

Evergreens are quite dark normally.

And if you've watched the shows before, you know we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.

You learn how to work with anything and everything that happens.

All right, let me put a little bit on this old big tree right here, a little here.

There we are, just some happy little things there.

Now let's have some fun.

I'm gonna go right into the cad yellow with a two-inch brush, and I'm tapping.

And see how it's tapping?

Grab a little sap green there.

I want a little green, then we'll go into some yellow ochre with a touch of the indian yellow.

We mix all of these in the brush.

Okay, let's go right up here.

Now big decision time.

By tapping downward right on top of that dark, we can begin creating a nice, soft grassy area.

See there, it's that easy.

Tell you what, tell you what, let's have some fun.

Maybe back in here, let's put a happy little bush or two.

I'll use the one-inch brush, and let's just push in.

Look at there, see?

It's a happy little bush lives right back in here, right up against these trees.

Just like so.

And maybe we'll put one on the other side, what the heck, we don't want him left out.

And you can put a lot or a few, none, it's sorta up to you, whatever.

Whatever.

Back to our two-inch brush, and let's begin putting all this in.

Now all you're doing here is tapping, just gently, gently, gently, gently tap, there we go.

See how you can create different planes in the whole lay of the land, that easy.

That easy.

There, just let it fall right off your brush.

Every once in a while I'm gonna touch a least little bit of the bright red just to sparkle it up, put a little fire in there.

And all these different planes help show depth and distance in your painting.

Okay, there we go.

And the more you tap this, the softer it'll become.

It'll get very, very soft.

Let's go over here on the other side.

We don't want him left out.

See how easy, just tap.

But the lay of the land, the angles are the most important thing here.

Don't lose sight of it.

Don't lose sight of it.

Okay, here's a big old bunch comes down and comes around just like that.

See, if you wanna show a different plane, lighten the color a little and drop it in.

Just layer after layer after layer.

I would strongly suggest you start in the background and work forward.

That's sort of a good rule of thumb in this style of painting.

Always start the thing as farthest away and work forward.

I think you'll find it works much easier for you that way.

Now then, let's take, we'll just use a one-inch brush here, whatever you have.

I'm gonna just pull some of this color down.

Just pull it down, just pull it straight down, and you can create all kinds of little things, and we'll just go across.

It makes reflections.

I'm gonna make this like moving water.

But even in moving water there's reflections.

They're still there.

And if you want it to have a little pond, this easy, you could create a happy little pond just by pulling a little of that color down, going across.

See, wherever you want it.

Now then, I'll dip my brush.

Have another fan brush.

And I have several of each brush so I don't have to clean each one.

Dipped it right into the liquid white, now I'm going into the titanium white.

Gonna load the brush quite full, reach up here and put the least little touch of the phthalo blue in it.

Now then, here comes our little stream.

And this is not a fast stream.

Maybe before this series is over, we'll do a fast stream.

This is just one that sorta, just like me, it's lazy, it just wanders along here and has a good time.

Just like so, and you just sort of scrub this brush across, but you wanna keep these lines basically straight.

Basically straight, and this is how you cut off the bottom of your land masses.

Bring it all together, just like so.

See how easy that is?

And you can do it, you really can do it.

There, wherever.

Come right on out through here, see?

And allow it to pick up some of that color and it all blends together like so.

That's all there is to it.

Isn't that fun?

I really hope you've enjoyed this painting.

The old clock on the wall is telling me it's about time to bring this one to a close for the day.

It's been a lot of fun.

I've certainly enjoyed being with you, and I hope you've enjoyed the painting.

From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless.

(light music)