“I got a letter from somebody here a while back, and they said, ‘Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.’ That’s for sure. That’s why I paint. It’s because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news.”
– Bob Ross
We all know him for his charming personality and calming oeuvre. Watching a Bob Ross painting session gives courage to a creatively challenged individual such as myself even before I’ve picked up a brush. It is because – if you’ve ever watched a Bob Ross tutorial yourself, you would know that – through the journey of painting that canvas, He will be there to spiritually hold your hand and guide you through the process like a lost puppy. The undying popularity and prevalence of Bob Ross in media and culture is proof enough of his dedicated fanbase. His motivation sucks you in, and even if you haven’t touched a paintbrush in all your life, Ross believes that with just a little bit of practice and a tad bit of bravery, you too can be an artist.
Born on 29th October 1942 in Daytona Beach, California, Ross had an affinity since childhood to feel for nature. When he was 18, Ross enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where he was placed in Alaska. Throughout his career as a painter, the audience can always see the touch of Alaska in all his canvases. It was also his experience in the military that inspired his baritone and calm voice he is known for now, as out there in the military he was always known as “the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work”, which is why he decided to never raise his voice after he left.
The art style Ross is famous for via his TV Show is the “wet-on-wet” oil painting technique wherein he mastered the art of painting without sketching the outlines. His first introduction to this “Alla Prima” painting style was the TV Show “The Magic Of Oil Painting”. In the 381 episodes of “The Joy of Painting”, Ross was known for his repetitive attraction towards painting nature and trees in particular. “Everyone deserves a friend, even a tree” he says as he continues to paint another tree buddy for his canvas or as he referred to “his world”. An analysis of his show confirmed that in all of Ross’s paintings 91% contained at least one tree, 44% included clouds, 39% included mountains and 34% included mountain lakes.
Throughout his career, Ross has been known to make over 30,000 canvases. His relevance in media today is exemplified in the numerous pop culture throwbacks, Halloween costumes, documentaries, biographies, etc. Known for his permed hair, light-coloured shirt, jeans, a colour palette in one hand and a paintbrush in another, Ross has established himself as an undying figure in the industry. We saw a recent surge of interest in his tutorials as people got in touch with their creative side during the pandemic – a hope-deficient time.
“We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents” he famously said to his viewers giving them hope and courage to perform the ‘brave’ task of adding another huge skyscraping tree to the canvas. On his birth anniversary, we commemorate our favourite painter who made the intricate art look like a child’s play as the world watched him make one masterpiece after the other in all of 25 minutes.
Read Also:
Vaishnavi Srivastava is a learning writer, a keen researcher and a literature enthusiast. She is a Sub-editor at Abir Pothi.
