I got my first real job after I graduated college in 2009. From that point until I quit my teaching job in May 2022, I rarely painted. Especially as an exhausted teacher, weekends were spent catching up on chores, having fun, OR relaxing. One could not do more than one of these per weekend. But in the quarantine time of 2020, there was more time at home. I painted quite a bit in these few months. More that I had in a few years. An old friend had come back into my life recently. An old friend we all love. Bob Ross.
At first, I started watching re-runs of Bob Ross purely to relax during/after dinner on the weeknights. Especially someone with ASMR, it’s really impossible to watch him without melting into a tingly puddle. But the more I watched the more I focused on the technique. His explanations, his “why”, really made sense to me. Surely I could do this, so I gave it a try.
The first Bob Ross painting I attempted was “Autumn Fantasy” Season 20, Episode 7. Now, although I would call this a success, let me be very clear. Painting Bob Ross with acrylic is not the same as the easy wet-on-wet version with oil paint. There was a lot of pausing, paint on the remote, sticky dry paint frustration. I could not find videos for how to do the style in acrylic, so I had to figure it out for myself. Living in Las Vegas, Nevada at the time, my husband and I would travel to the National Parks as much as possible. That was our thing. So I started using our trip photos for inspiration. In the photos below you can see the “Autumn Fantasy” Bob Ross painting I did, along with my Lassen Volcanic National Park below it, using the same style.
I did a couple of other photos of places we had been, not all necessarily “Bob Ross” style, but still using the photo-realism I had done in high school.
Morris Island Lighthouse- SC
Desert by our House- NV
For my birthday in May 2020, my husband gifted me with a Bob Ross art set. Painting with oil was incredible. Like painting with butter. I have never used oil because it was always so intimidating to me. But it is really easy, especially with the wet-on-wet technique. I now use both oil and acrylic. Both have pros and cons, depending on what I need. The painting below I did for a friend’s housewarming gift following a Bob Ross seascape, in oil.
