Colors Ill Need For Bob Ross Painting
Everyone knows Bob Ross, that’s aloof an absitively actuality of the universe, but how abundant do you absolutely apperceive about him? The painter abundantly kept to himself, admitting actuality a connected attendance on PBS for over a decade and basic of every angle of the internet since. In fact, none added than The New York Times appropriate that he could be “the best accustomed painter aback Picasso.”
There’s an old adage that you should never accommodated your heroes. No bald animal could anytime alive up to the ethics you affected of them. Well, thankfully, Bob Ross seems to be the barring to the rule.
It turns out the man acclaimed for painting “happy little trees” is every bit as layered and admirable as his artwork. From his cautiously destructive political angle (“That’s a agee tree. We’ll accelerate him to Washington“) to his angle on abstruse art (“If I acrylic something, I don’t appetite to accept to explain what it is”) to his bound optimism (“We don’t accomplish mistakes. We aloof accept blessed accidents”), the painter with the perm was annihilation abbreviate of a masterpiece.
Grab your absolute two-inch besom and let’s go crazy. Actuality are the 15 Things You Never Knew About Bob Ross.
Believe it or not, Bob Ross was already a child. As a adolescent man, he would about advice out his father, a able carpenter, in the copse boutique in their garage. Of course, there’s a acumen Ross became a painter and not a woodworker…
After an adverse altercation with a table saw, Ross absent allotment of his larboard basis finger. We’ll never apperceive if the event actually managed to agitated him in some way, but Ross never seemed to let it get him down. Best viewers, meanwhile, never alike noticed, as Ross about hid the missing chiffre abaft his acrylic palette. (Although you can see it if you apperceive what you’re attractive for.)
In fact, the alone bodies who did assume to apprehension were his Air Force buddies. Turns out that Bob was absolutely the beholder in his day, and his coiled PBS attendance was about bugged to them. They alone accomplished it was him by his missing finger.
As Ross was addicted of saying, his admired uncle, Uncle Sam, asked him if he capital to go to Alaska, and how was he declared to say no?
Bob Ross enlisted in the Air Force in 1961. Over the abutting twenty years, he rose to the rank of adept sergeant, eventually confined as the aboriginal baker of the U.S. Air Force Clinic at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
Ironically, it was Ross’ time in the aggressive that led him to be so calm. As he told the Orlando Sentinel: “I was the guy who makes you abrade the latrine, the guy who makes you accomplish your bed, the guy who screams at you for actuality backward to work. The job requires you to be a mean, boxy person. And I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I anytime got abroad from it, it wasn’t activity to be that way anymore.”
While in the Air Force, Bob Ross took a job as a bartender to accomplish a little added money on the side. On apathetic nights, he’d end up watching television, accurately The Magic Apple of Oil Painting with Bill Alexander, a low-budget PBS assembly area a preternaturally airy guy teaches bodies how to paint. Sound familiar?
Ross, already painting on his own, absolutely took to Alexander’s technique, eventually befriending the man and alike demography over his classes afterwards Alexander retired from teaching. It was during one of those classes that Ross and Annette Kowalski were introduced.
Kowalski’s son had died tragically, abrogation her depressed. She found joy in The Magic Apple of Oil Painting, though, so her bedmate active her up for one of Alexander’s classes – alone to acquisition some dude with awe-inspiring beard continuing there instead.
Then Bob Ross started talking. The absolute class, Kowalski included, was bugged by his calm address and anesthetic tone. Kowalski brokered a accord with him that atramentous and became his manager. He began touring the country, afore Kowalski eventually pitched him to a PBS associate as the host of a new Magic World-inspired affairs alleged The Joy of Painting.
Painting isn’t the alone affair Bob Ross is acclaimed for – his coiled afro has become every bit as iconic as the man himself. So, it apparently comes as a abruptness to acquisition out that he hated the thing.
Before he was a acknowledged painter and internet darling, Bob Ross was aloof a approved painter, of the craving artisan variety. He was touring the country in a adaptable home, teaching Bill Alexander’s “wet-on-wet” address as he went, usually to mostly abandoned auberge appointment rooms. He told his wife that he’d try it for one year, and if he wasn’t successful, they’d move aback to Alaska.
He was so beggared for banknote during this time that haircuts were a affluence to him. So he went out and got himself a perm, addition it would be a acceptable way to save a few bucks. Turns out, he needn’t accept worried, because he concluded up actuality absolutely acceptable at his job. In fact, by the end of the year, he had his own band of paints and brushes – all of them emblazoned with that arresting ‘fro.
Ross may not accept alone cared for the ‘do, but he was no dummy. The hairstyle was actuality to stay.
Bill Alexander billed himself as the “Happy Painter,” teaching his “wet-on-wet” appearance to millions on television and in classrooms, alike actualization on The Tonight Appearance at one point. Eventually, though, time bent up with Alexander and he enlisted Bob Ross to booty over teaching for him. Already Ross’ own acclaim started to aces up, the two filmed a bartering together, with Alexander symbolically handing over his paintbrush to Ross. All was able-bodied in the acreage of blessed little trees.
Then Ross became alike added successful, and the “Happy Painter” became the affronted painter. Alexander started claiming that Ross “betrayed” him and blanket the address that he invented – admitting the actuality that Bob Ross connected to accord Bill Alexander abounding acclaim for teaching him to acrylic in The Joy of Painting.
It’s apparently additionally account advertence that “wet-on-wet” (or “alla prima”) is a address dating aback to the 1400s, and was acclimated by others, such as Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet.
Anyway, Ross and Alexander didn’t absolutely allocution abundant afterwards that.
No one knows absolutely how abounding paintings Bob Ross made, but the best estimates are in the tens of thousands.
What we do apperceive is that The Joy of Painting ran for 31 seasons, a absolute of 403 episodes. Ross corrective in 381 of these – and he corrective three copies of anniversary painting every time. The aboriginal one he’d acrylic advanced as a guide; the additional was the one he corrective on the show; and the third one was for his How To books, with a columnist continuing abaft him and snapping shots of anniversary brushstroke as he went. That’s 1,143 appropriate there.
Then there were all his claimed paintings. Unfortunately, there aren’t adamantine numbers on those, because Ross didn’t keeping track. He awash a fair bulk aback he was in the Air Force, and there was also everything he corrective while he was teaching. Additionally, he was accepted for giving abroad absolutely a few, and then, of course, there’s the abstracts and the convenance works he corrective for himself. All told, the final cardinal is affected to be about over 30,000.
For comparison, Vincent Van Gogh fabricated 900 paintings in his lifetime.
During his time in the Air Force, Bob Ross would crank out a brace paintings over cafeteria – and that’s not hyperbole. He’d absolutely paint, about on the abdomen of old gold-panning tins, while he ate a sandwich, and again accept those paintings out for bargain in bounded day-tripper shops the same afternoon.
Combining his own adeptness with the techniques he best up from Bill Alexander, Ross developed a address for painting acutely fast. In fact, he’d shoot an absolute division of The Joy of Painting in two-and-a-half days.
Now, admittedly, there were alone thirteen episodes in a season, but that’s still a abbreviate period, abnormally accustomed that he’d accept to acrylic anniversary painting three times. However, that’s the adorableness of accomplishing it all on his terms: he had complete ascendancy and a abundant affinity with his crew. They all knew what they were accomplishing from the get-go. Their almanac was eight shows in a distinct day.
You’d anticipate for a guy battlefront out paintings like a Gatling gun, Bob Ross would be a array of activity bubbler too abounding caffeinated beverages, but he wasn’t. In fact, Ross’ appearance of teaching was so abstracted and meditative, he put bodies to sleep, literally.
While it was on the air, a abounding ninety percent of The Joy of Painting admirers didn’t paint. They watched the appearance for Bob Ross– he was their own claimed alleviation guru. They weren’t shy about cogent him this: he said he accustomed assorted belletrist from admirers adage that they slept bigger aback the appearance was on. He never begrudged them that for a moment. In fact, agog admirers adeptness apprehension that he got alike quieter and added abstracted as the alternation went on.
Even now, there are affluence of bodies on the internet who watch his videos accurately to advice them abatement asleep. While some are allotment of the ASMR association – a growing subset of association who accept to assertive noises to get “tingles” – others aloof book it up to actuality one of Ross’ “happy little accidents.”
Bob Ross anesthetized abroad over twenty years ago – but don’t acquaint the internet that.
Ross is one of the best meme-ified abstracts out there. Crafters accept abounding Etsy with bootleg Lego abstracts and Halloween apparel in his likeness. He’s been a Google doodle, a common accountable on Mental Floss and Buzzfeed, and a battle accomplice for Pablo Picasso in Epic Rap Battles of History. Best afresh Ross has been uploaded into DeepDream, because the internet can accomplish a daydream out of anything.
However, perhaps no one loves Ross added than Twitch, the live-streaming belvedere that affectedness Bob Ross reruns every week. Following a acknowledged 200 hour Joy of Painting chase for his altogether a few years aback – which added than 5 actor bodies watched – Twitch has made the Ross reruns a approved event.
Part of his success is that, clashing some added entities out there, Bob Ross Inc. loves that bodies adulation him, and rarely enforces their copyrights, abrogation admirers chargeless to remix Bob Ross’ image.
Fruzsina Eordogh of Motherboard said it best: “He is the yin to the internet abhorrence machine’s yang.”
Of course, it’s not aloof the web that loves Bob Ross. Aback in the pre-internet Stone Age, admirers would accelerate him absolute letters, and he’d apprehend all of them.
In fact, aback approved letter writers fell out of touch, Ross would absolutely alarm them, aloof to assay in and see if they were okay. At Christmas, if someone’s bulletin had decidedly affected him, he would accelerate the biographer a painting, as a acknowledge you.
After one admirer wrote a letter advertence that he could never acrylic because he was blush blind, Ross absolutely adherent an absolute adventure of The Joy of Painting to creating a mural absolutely in grey, accumulation browns, blues, and whites to appear up with altered shades. Bob Ross was a huge backer of the “anyone can paint” ethos, and wasn’t about to let anyone anticipate otherwise. As he was so addicted of saying, “Everyone needs a friend.”
If you watch The Joy of Painting carefully, you adeptness apprehend that he rarely corrective cabins, and, aback he did, they never had chimneys. That wasn’t an accident: Bob Ross never corrective people, and he didn’t alike appetite signs of bodies in his paintings. The internet’s got the numbers to aback this up.
FiveThirtyEight did a statistical assay and begin that Ross alone corrective one actuality in his about four hundred episodes of the Joy of Painting, and that was artlessly a contour adjoin a timberline abreast a campfire. His manager, Annette Kowalksi, said she could anticipate of alone two added times he’d corrective a actuality in the absoluteness of his career.
Instead, Ross chose to focus his efforts on the majesty of the Alaskan landscape, accepting collapsed in adulation with the accompaniment during his time in the Air Force. Aback he acquainted like bond things up, he’d booty afflatus from the postcards, photos, and calendars blowzy beyond his basement attic – best beatific from viewers.
Even so, the best requested paintings were those of mountains, so Ross fabricated abiding to accord the bodies what they wanted.
Because the art apple has a acceptability for actuality bossy and elitist, it’s apparently not a shock to apprehend that the works of Bob Ross are looked bottomward on by “serious” collectors. However, this doesn’t beggarly that Ross’ paintings don’t advertise – aloof not through the acceptable avenues.
No one knows how abundant a Ross painting is absolutely worth, as they don’t advertise able-bodied in professionally curated auctions and they’ve never been appropriately appraised. On eBay, though, his works accept gone for as aerial as $10,000. It’s not like there’s no demand: during The Joy of Painting’s additional season, a burglar blanket thirteen paintings from Ross’ van, and purportedly awash them on the atramentous market.
Not that any of this agitated Bob Ross. He was actively adjoin assuming his assignment in a building or gallery, adage on the appearance that: “most painters appetite recognition, abnormally by their peers. I accomplished that a continued time ago with TV. I don’t charge any more.”
More than anything, though, Bob Ross was an amazing businessman. Between him and Annette Kowalski, they were able to about-face a quiet guy with big beard and a paintbrush into an constant multi-million dollar empire.
For starters, while The Joy of Painting was unscripted, it wasn’t unrehearsed. Ross would allocution to himself as he fell asleep, acute out the abutting day’s paintings. Kowalski’s additionally been on almanac as adage that Ross ran a bound set: aggregate was a choice, and every best was his.
Meanwhile, he was crowdsourcing his appearance afore there was a chat for it, allurement admirers to accelerate in account for paintings, and administration snapshots of their own paintings, cartoon them in and authoritative them a allotment of the proceedings. He abundantly appeared in a alternation of MTV commercials, declaring the access as “the acreage of blessed little trees.”
Of course, they weren’t all winners. Somewhere, in some chilly aback room, there’s apparently a pilot for Bob’s World, a bootless wilderness-based Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood that Ross was aggravating to get on the air. Similarly, there were affairs for a Bob Ross Nintendo bold that never got off the ground.
PBS never paid Bob Ross for a distinct adventure of The Joy of Painting – and that’s aloof how Ross capital it. The artist, anytime the adeptness businessman, was absolutely application the appearance to advance his own band of paints and brushes. That was how he fabricated money.
However, surely, he awash the hundreds of paintings he fabricated on the show, right? Nope. In fact, Ross donated about all of the paintings from the appearance appropriate aback to PBS stations beyond the country, absolution them bargain them off during their agreement drives. Sometimes he’d alike accomplish cast new ones. Aback he died, the paintings he was still sitting on were donated to non-profits or auctioned off for charity.
This is addition acumen why award an aboriginal Bob Ross or pinning bottomward a amount is so difficult. Already his PBS appearance took off, Ross basically chock-full affairs his paintings, at atomic directly. Because he was cogent bodies how to acrylic like him, there are additionally bags of fakes and copycat paintings out there.
Maybe it’s not hasty that a guy who seemed to get a adventure out of affective mountains and “beating the Devil” out of his brushes concluded up actuality a god. In a video game, anyway.
Smite, Hi-Rez Studio’s mythology-based amphitheatre action game, appear a bark for their timberline god, Sylvanus, acceptance users to comedy as none added than Bob Ross. The bark takes a mostly irenic access to combat, throwing acrylic and summoning blessed little clouds adjoin their enemies.
Turning the painter into a god seems abnormally fitting. As Ross said: “that’s why I paint. It’s because I can actualize the affectionate of apple that I want, and I can accomplish this apple as blessed as I appetite it. Shoot, if you appetite bad stuff, watch the news.”
He added elsewhere: “in painting, you accept absolute power. You accept the adeptness to move mountains. You can angle rivers. But aback I get home, the alone affair I accept adeptness over is the garbage.”
And our hearts, Bob. And our hearts.
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All episodes of The Joy of Painting are accessible on YouTube. Beddy-bye well.
Can you anticipate of any added absorbing facts about Bob Ross? Is he your admired painter? Let us apperceive in the animadversion section!
