Bob Ross

Megan McLane
Module 1b
 Robert Norman Bob Ross was born on October 29, 1942, in Daytona Beach, Florida. His father
was a carpenter and his mother was a waitress. Bob left school when he was in 9th grade to work with his
father. When he was 18, he joined the Air Force, stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. It was in
Alaska that Ross discovered painting. He took art classes and learned the wet on wet technique by
watching Bill Alexander's show, The Magic of Oil Painting. In his lifetime, Bob Ross made around
30,000 paintings before he died on July 4, 1995, of lymphoma.
Bob Ross is most well known for his show on PBS, The Joy of Painting. In each 30 minute
episode, Ross would show viewers how to paint along with him to create a finished landscape. As he
painted, he would talk about his world that he was creating, giving stories to the mountains and trees.
Many of his viewers watched the show only to listen to Ross talk. Despite the appearance that Ross was
making everything up as he went, each painting was carefully planned. Ross created three of every
painting he made on the show. The first was painted before filming to be used as a reference while
painting the second version. This was the version that viewers watched Ross paint. The third painting was
used in Bob Ross's instructional books. Annette Kowalski, Ross's business partner discovered Ross when
she took one of his classes. At the time, Ross was working for his mentor, Bill Alexander's company.
After listening to him while he was teaching, Kowalski was convinced that Ross could make a lot of
money if he started his own company. After talking with Ross, she was able to persuade him into Ross to
starting his own company with her. Although they did not do very well at first, they were eventually, able
to start The Joy of Painting on PBS, which became extremely successful. Ross continued to film The Joy
of Painting up until a year before he died. Although he did the show for around 13 years, he made no
money from it. He did filmed The Joy of Painting for free as a way to promote his company. All of his
paintings that he made for The Joy of Painting were given away instead of being sold. His money came
from the Boss Ross Foundation which gave painting classes and sold painting supplies.
Bill Alexander, the host of The Magic of Oil Painting, was Bob Ross's mentor. When Bob moved
from Alaska, he went to Alexander to learn more about his way of painting. Alexander was happy to
teach Ross what he knew. Eventually, Alexander hired Ross to be an instructor for his art classes. When
Ross started The Joy of Painting, Alexander passed him a paintbrush. Later, the two became enemies.
Even though Ross never claimed to come up with everything himself, Alexander claimed that Ross
betrayed him and stole the wet on wet technique from him. This was not an entirely true claim, however,
Ross did steal many things from Alexander. Both his and Alexanders shows were very similar and they
both used their shows as a way to sell their art supplies.
Although he was popular on television, Bob Ross was not well liked by other artists. His
paintings are not considered real art by other painters. These people say that real art must be planned
for, not simply put together with happy little accidents. They saw Rosss paintings as something for
people that had never painted something before. By following along with Ross, anyone can create the
same painting. Rosss critics even believed that people who only followed along with The Joy of Painting
would never be able to become better at painting, and that Ross was not qualified to be teaching people
how to paint. Because Ross was teaching people how to follow along with him, his students would end up
with a painting just like his. Some artists felt like people who painted with Bob Ross were not really
creating their own work. Bob Ross did not seem to care about the criticism too much. In fact, there was
also a type of art that he didnt like. Ross was not a fan of abstract art. He once said, If I paint something,
I don't want to have to explain what it is. Rather than use his art for expression, Ross painted for
enjoyment and as a way to relax.
Many Bob Rosss paintings are very similar to each other. Common features in his paintings
include mountains, trees, clouds, and water. In an analysis of his paintings, it was found that 91% of his
paintings from The Joy of Painting had at least one tree in it. Often, there were multiple trees. In fact,
after painting one tree, there was a 93% chance that Ross would paint a second tree. He also tended to
paint a tree in the foreground. It was also found that 39% of Rosss paintings had at least one mountain in
it. Many of Bob Rosss paintings were inspired by the things he saw during his 20 years living in Alaska.
On The Joy of Painting, Ross would often talk about his time in Alaska as he painted.
The wet on wet technique that Ross used in his paintings allowed him to complete paintings very
quickly. Normally, painting with oil paints takes a long time because you must wait for the paint to dry
for each layer. With the wet on wet technique, each layer is painted onto the last layer while the paint is
still wet. Before painting, Ross would coat his canvas in paint, usually white, in order to help the paint
blend. Ross used different ways of applying the paint in order to get different effects. For example, he
used a palette knife to create his mountains and a fan brush to create his trees and clouds. The water in his
paintings were created simply by brushing down the colors above it to create the look of reflections. The
layering of paint created the illusion of details in his landscapes. Ross taught the simplest ways to create
your paintings.
My opinion is that I like the way that Bob Ross paints. I do not think that there is much
originality in all his paintings, I do appreciate his colors, especially in his springtime paintings. I also like
the simplicity in his style. One of my favorite paintings of his is A Hint of Springtime. I love the way
the sky looks with the clouds in it. Another favorite of mine is A Perfect Winter Day. Compared to A
Hint of Springtime, it is very similar. Both feature a mountain in the middle and big trees on the left.
They also have similar clouds in the same place. I also like the paintings where there are different colored
trees.
 Although his death was more than 20 years ago, Bob Ross continues to be an inspiration for many
people. The Bob Ross Foundation continues to offer art classes by official Bob Ross instructors and
episodes of The Joy of Painting are available on YouTube and Netflix. They continue to be watched by
those who wish to learn painting and those who would just like to hear him speak.
References

Bob ross biography. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/

Famous veteran: bob ross (n. d.). Retrieved from http://www.military.com/

Hajek, D. (2016, August 29). The real bob ross: meet the meticulous artist behind those happy trees.
National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/

Hickey, W. (2014, April 14). A statistical analysis if the work of bob ross. FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved
from https://fivethirtyeight.com/

Kamer, F. (2015, December 2). Bob rosss strange afterlife. The New York Times. Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/

Smallwood, K. (2015, September 17). The surprisingly mysterious life of famed artist bob ross. Retrieved
from http://www.todayifoundout.com/

Stanley, A. (1991, December 22). Television; bob ross, the frugal gourmet of painting. The New York
Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/

Wet-on-wet. (n. d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page