From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bob Ross
Bob Ross at his easel
Birth name	Robert Norman Ross
Born	October 29, 1942(1942-10-29) Daytona Beach, Florida
Died	July 4, 1995 (aged 52) New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Nationality	American
Field	Painter

Robert Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter, art instructor, and television host.^[1]

With his calm, patient demeanor, Ross came to prominence as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a television program that ran for twelve years on PBS stations in the United States. He parlayed this success into a commercial "Bob Ross" brand: an industry of art books and supplies. He died of lymphoma in 1995 at the age of 52.^[1]

Personal life

After graduating high school at Mills Godwin, Ross had a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force as a medical records technician.^{[citation needed]} Ross was living in Florida early in his military career when the Air Force transferred him to Eielson AFB (in Alaska), where he first saw the snow and mountains that later became recurring themes in his artwork; he developed his quick-painting technique in order to be able to create art for sale in brief daily work breaks.^[2] Having held military positions that required him to be, in his own words, "mean" and "tough," "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," Ross decided that if he ever moved on from the military, "it wasn't going to be that way any more," "vowing never to scream again".^[2] Ross discovered after beginning his sideline in painting that he was soon able to earn more from selling his work than from his Air Force position. After leaving the Air Force, he studied with William Alexander before becoming famous worldwide with his own television program.^[1]

Ross had a son, Steven, from his first marriage to Lydia. Steven occasionally appeared on The Joy of Painting and is a Bob Ross–certified instructor.^[1] Ross and Lydia's marriage ended in divorce in 1981. Ross married again, this time to Jane. Jane died of cancer in 1993.^[1]

Ross has a brother Jim, whom he mentions in passing on his show.^[3]

Television show

Ross was the host of the public television series The Joy of Painting, which ran from 1983 to 1994 and still appears in reruns in many broadcast areas. During each half-hour segment, Ross would instruct viewers in the art of oil painting using a quick-study technique that kept colors to a minimum and broke paintings down into simple steps that virtually anyone could follow.^[4] Art critic Mira Schor compared him to another PBS television host, noting that the softness of Ross's voice and the slow pace of his speech was similar to Mr. Rogers.^[5]

Ross later founded his own successful line of art supplies and how-to books, and also offered painting classes taught by instructors trained in the "Bob Ross method." In a 1990 interview, Ross mentioned that all his programs were donated free of charge to PBS stations and that his earnings came instead from sales of his 20 books and 100 videotapes (the total to that date), as well as profits from some 150 Bob Ross-trained teachers and a line of art materials sold through a national supplier.^[2] Ross also mentioned on the show "Towering Glacier" (#2341) that he donated all the paintings made on the show to PBS stations around the country to "help them out."^[6]

Ross also filmed wildlife footage, squirrels in particular, usually from his own garden. Small animals often appeared on his show, even during some of his trickier works, as he would often take in injured or abandoned squirrels and other assorted wildlife and look after them.^[2]

The show can be seen on the PBS oriented Create.

Painting

Ross utilized the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, in which the painter continues adding paint on top of still wet paint rather than waiting a lengthy amount of time to allow each layer of paint to dry.^[4] Combining this method with the use of two inch and other types of brushes as well as painting knives allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds. Each painting would start with simple strokes that appeared to be nothing more than colored smudges. As he added more and more strokes, the blotches transformed into intricate landscapes.^[7]

Ross noted that the landscapes he painted - typically mountains, lakes, snow, and log cabin scenes - were strongly influenced by his years living in Alaska, where he was stationed for the majority of his Air Force career. He repeatedly stated on the show his belief that everyone had inherent artistic talent and could become an accomplished artist given time, practice, and encouragement, and to this end was often fond of saying, "We don't have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents."^[8] Ross was well known for other catchphrases he used while painting as he crafted "happy little trees".^[9] In many episodes of The Joy of Painting, he noted that one of his favorite parts of painting was cleaning the brush, specifically his method of drying off a brush, which he had dipped in odorless thinner, by striking it against the thinner can and easel. He would smile and often laugh aloud as he "beat the devil out of it." He also used a pallette which had been lightly sanded down which was necessary to avoid catching the reflections of strong studio lighting.

When asked about his laid-back approach to painting and eternally calm and contented demeanor, he once commented: "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."^{[citation needed]} After his death, Bob Ross Incorporated donated most of his paintings to charities and public television stations.

An original Bob Ross oil painting for sale is somewhat rare despite the large breadth of his work. One can be found occasionally listed by private owner on eBay selling for around $6,000 to $10,000 USD along with proper paperwork of authenticity and provenance.

References

External links

• Bob Ross Incorporated
• Bob Ross at the Internet Movie Database

From Wikiquote

Bob Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter and television host. With his calm, patient nature, Ross came to prominence as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a long-running television program on public broadcast stations in the United States. Ross died of lymphoma at the age of 52.

Sourced

• I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn't know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.
  • Cathy Hainer (October 28, 1993) "PBS' stroke of serenity / Bob Ross brings brush of zen to 'Joy of Painting'", USA Today, p. 3D.

• People have success with this method and it gets them excited. It gets them hooked. You can put layers of thick paint on thin paint and that allows you to complete a painting in one sitting.
  • Mike Flannagan (October 1, 1992) "TV Artist Bob Ross Watches Paint Dry, Turns It Into a Successful Career", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. B1.

• Within one hour of touching the brush to canvas for the first time, my students have a total, complete painting.
  • Alessandra Stanley (December 22, 1991) "Television: Bob Ross, the Frugal Gourmet of Painting", The New York Times, Section 2; Page 33; Column 1; Arts & Leisure Desk.

• I have to paint fast on television because of the limited time, but I don't want people to see what I'm showing them as work, something to worry and fret over. This is supposed to be fun.
  • Judi Hunt (November 23, 1991) "Disciples of The Bob Ross Technique Find Joy in Learning They Can Paint", The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p. C1.

• Traditionally, art has been for the select few. We have been brainwashed to believe that Michaelangelo had to pat you on the head at birth. Well, we show people that anybody can paint a picture that they're proud of. It may never hang in the Smithsonian, but it will certainly be something that they'll hang in their home and be proud of. And that's what it's all about.
  • Linda Shrieves (July 7, 1990) "Bob Ross Uses His Brush to Spread Paint and Joy", The Orlando Sentinel, p. E1.

• I've never claimed that this is investment art. When we first started out, all the art colleges and universities across the country would sort of badmouth what we were doing. It's funny that a lot of them now are sending us letters saying, 'We may not totally agree with the way you paint, but we appreciate what you're doing, because you're sending literally thousands of people into art colleges.'
  • (1990) reported in Associated Press (July 7, 1995) "Bob Ross, Painting Instructor to Millions, Dead at 52".

Attributed

• Happy painting and God Bless, my friend.
  • Ken Tucker (2006) Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate about TV, Macmillan: ISBN 0312330588, p. 155.

• Let's build us a happy, little cloud that floats around the sky.
  • Ann Curry (September 22, 2004) "Painter Bob Ross remains an iconic figure years after his death", NBC News.

• Little more black, little more blue. And we'll just put that in using little crisscross strokes or--or little X's, whatever you want to call them. Whatever.
  • David Brancaccio (May 12, 2003) "Legacy of Bob Ross lives on through his TV show still airing on public television stations", Marketplace, American Public Media.

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Bob Ross

• Bob Ross at the Internet Movie Database
• Bob Ross at TV.com