Bob Ross

Bob Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter and television presenter. He was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and spent a 20-year career with the U.S. more...

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Air Force in medical records, stationed mostly in Alaska, before his painting career and television program made him famous worldwide. He died in 1995 of lymphoma. He had a son, Steve Ross, who occasionally appeared on the show and filled in for his father. He claimed during a later season that Steve "painted the best mountains in the industry."

Television show

He was the host of The Joy of Painting, perhaps the most recognized and most watched art program in the history of U.S. television.

With a bushy afro and a calm, soothing voice, Bob Ross taught viewers to paint "happy little trees," "happy little clouds," and "pretty little mountains." On occasion, after cleaning his two-inch brush in paint thinner, he would "beat the devil out of it" and laughingly remark on his enjoyment of that process -- i.e., knocking the paint thinner off the brush by rapping it against the easel. He believed that everyone has inherent artistic talent and, given half an hour, anyone could paint a landscape by following his instructions and words of encouragement, including his popular phrase "we don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents." The TV series also provided Bob Ross a platform to introduce his own and other people's little rescued "rascals" including squirrels, owls, and robins.

He utilized the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, which is the application of wet paint on top of wet paint, as opposed to the more traditional waiting period for each layer to dry. Combining this method with the use of large one-inch and two-inch brushes allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds. On the show he often credits Bill Alexander for teaching him this method.

Ross took up painting while stationed in Alaska in the Air Force. The geography of Alaska is visible in much of his later work on The Joy of Painting: mountains, lakes, snow scenes and cabins were favorite subjects. Although it is commonly believed that Ross had no formal artistic training, he said during one episode that, "as a pup," he attended art school.

He later expanded his show into a multimillion-dollar business that included "how-to" books, a line of brushes and paints, and classes in which instructors were trained in the Bob Ross method.

The series was taped for eleven years, up until 1993, and is broadcast in many countries worldwide. As of 2005, The Joy of Painting was being shown on Turkish state broadcaster TRT (with the title Resim Sevinci), German television (BR-Alpha), Discovery Real Time (Sky Digital channel 250) in the UK and AT5 in Amsterdam, as well as several other public stations across The Netherlands. The show also runs in syndication on American public television stations and on Create, a digital public broadcasting network. In Mexico, it is shown on the network of the IPN, Instituto Politécnico Nacional.

Read more at Wikipedia.org