Bob Ross

For other uses, see Bob Ross (disambiguation).

Bob Ross
Bob Ross at his easel
Nationality	American
Known for	painter

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.

Biography

Personal life

After graduating from Elizabeth Forward High School in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, Ross spent 10 years keeping medical records for the U.S. Air Force, which is where he first started painting. Ross was living in Florida early in his military career when the Air Force transferred him to 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. Having held military positions that required 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," and "vowing never to scream again." 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.

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. Ross and Lydia's marriage ended in divorce in 1981. Ross married again, this time to Jane. Jane died of cancer in 1993.

Television show

The public arguably knows Ross best as the host of the public television series The Joy of Painting, which ran from 1983 to 1995 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 anyone could follow.

Ross acknowledged that the appearances of the landscapes he painted (typically mountains, lakes, and 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 accomplished artists given time, practice, and encouragement, and to this end was often fond of saying, "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy little accidents." 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." 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."

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.

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.

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. Combining this method with the use of large painting knives and fan brushes allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds.

In many episodes of The Joy of Painting, Ross noted that one of his favorite parts of painting was cleaning the brush, specifically the act of drying off a brush, which he had dipped in odorless thinner and rapped it against the easel frame. He would often smile and even laugh out loud regularly during this practice as he, in his words, "Beat the devil out of it."

After his death, Bob Ross Incorporated donated most of his paintings to charities and public television stations.

Video game

In March 2006, AGFRAG Entertainment Group announced that it was in the process of developing a Bob Ross game for the Nintendo DS and Wii systems, as well as a PC version. The games were said to focus on the art of painting, based on Ross' Joy of Painting series. In December 2006, Bob Ross Incorporated dropped AGFRAG from the project and began searching for a new developer.

External links

• Bob Ross Incorporated