I learned a lot about color from Bob, and my favorite mixes were the warm Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White and a third pigment of Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Pthalo Blue or others. The addition of TW to CY seems to warm the cool quality of the TW and tone down the brashness of the CY. Very enlightening.
I just arranged a short showing of my latest work at Meadowbrook in Kelowna. April 29th 2 - 4pm. More as we near the date.
This week at the condo I’m teaching myself how to fix water damaged laminate, as I can’t find a floor layer willing to tackle it. (They’re all too busy with million dollar construction with our building boom.) Wish me luck!
On the horizon and fast approaching is the Kat Sloma “Liberate your Art” postcard swap. My postcards have been sent out to the swap location and all I have to do is wait for six lovly pieces of art from around the world, to drop into my mail box. I’ll post them here as they arrive.
This week a brand new selection of my Art Cards will be available at Kelowna Art Gallery. As we change season I will be busy swapping out winter art and dropping off spring art at my various locations. It’s always lovely to see the blossom paintings back on the walls.
And finally the collage of my third week of Bob Ross paint along
I completed the Opus Daily Practice during the month of February and posted them all on instagram. I learned a bit more about the power of instagram and gained many new followers. Thank you for your clicks.
I also completed the 11th bi-annual Leslie Saeta 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Some nights I was painting right up to midnight, but managd to do all 30.
Week 1 Opus Daily Practice and Leslie Saeta 30 paintings in 30 days
I entered two paintings in into the Intergenerational Exhibition “Who Are We” and they were accepted. Now on exhibit at Lake Country Art Gallery for the month of March. This is one of LCAGs most eclectic exhibitions, spanning and encouraging collaborations between many different age groups. My paintings are UNISUN with first nation collaboration and MEADOW LAKE, a Bob Ross collaboration from the February series.
On a more personal front my new condo with larger art studio is continuing to take shape. As with all renovations, there is a new challenge each day, but I’m making my way past all the obstacles. After several attempts to find just the right chandelier (too traditional, too modern, too small, too big) and yesterday, beautifully perfect! I now have the just right light over my all purpose dining, craft, sewing and private lesson table.
View from new condo
The old condo is emptying out as I move stuff over to the new one and its getting its final tweaks for selling in two weeks. Sleep has been hard to achieve this month, but I hope to play a bit of catch up this weekend.
Thank you for all the wonderful comments on my work last month and for your loyal followship.
It’s amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it. I almost lost it a couple of times during this this season’s 30 in 30, but here I am at Day 30, still in one piece and with 30 new paintings for exhibition and sale. Whooopppeee!
No, you’re not seeing a repost, this is a brand new painting revisiting Bobs “Secluded Forest” video. I wanted to try different paper, more inks and spritzing. I finished just after midnight and the board was still wet and very curled, but I managed to get a decent if slightly warped image. Tomorrow it will flatten out and I’ll scan it.
To view all 30 paintings along with more from my catalog, click here. There are still some open auctions, so don’t miss out if you would like a slice of history.
Phew I didnt think I would make it. I had reminder alarms going off all over the place as I put the final brush strokes. Posted at exactly 12:00 midnight! It was rushed, but I’ve been catching glimpses of this painting all month and then getting distracted and I couldn’t find it again. I lived in the Yukon and visited Alaska many times, and this reminds me so much of the awesome landscapes up there. Again painted on 11” x 14” canvas board, so much less restricting than 8” x 10”.
Right now it is very wet, but will be posted for sale on DPW soon.
This was a fairly quick painting. I enjoyed the subject matter and color choices and it was one of those paintings that almost painted itself. And below, as promised I’ve tweaked the sky from yesterday.
This painting was challenging from start to finish and I spent far too long on it. I wanted to use more traditional canvas and 11” x 14” was the first that came to hand. This isn’t a size I use much, but I rather enjoyed the larger format.
My studio lights are “Reveal” which give a slightly warmer look to the painting and the sky doesnt look as pretty in this image. However, I will tweak the streaky clouds tomorrow. The rest is done. Bob Ross Video - Ocean Sunset - Season 10 Episode 10
I did some progress shots on this one from Season 6. Bob started with a black canvas, but I don’t think that works well with acrylic so I made a base of watery Pthalo Blue and Sap Green which were the colors Bob laid over the top of the black gesso. I kept the acrylic wet with a fine water mist and tried to follow Bob as best I could.
Some lovely things started to happen around shot #3 and I think #4 was my favorite. By the time Bob painted in the water, my painting was getting very gooey. Shot #5 was in studio light and shot #6 in daylight. There were a lot of things about this painting I liked but the interesting paint mixes were mind blowing, especially the lovely highlight mix of Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson and Pyrole Red. I think I may repeat this painting to explore the color combination more thoroughly.
All my 9” x 12” Bob Ross series are painted on Daler Rowney Acrylic Paper. Because of the large amount of paint used, they are quite robust, but I photograph them before they are completely dry, so they have a tendency to shine and curl around the edge. I admit they would look better scanned or mounted, but they would need to dry well before I could do that. Video - Secluded Forest - Bob Ross Season 6 Episode 5
There are many series of Bobs painting show, but for this challenge I chose the first three, intending to eventually do them all.
After viewing a few random episodes, I discovered that in the beginning he was painting Alaskan scenes inspired by where he lived, but later he received many requests for different types of land and seascape. He also began to travel and be inspired by oceans, marshes, deserts etc.
Having lived in the Pacific Northwest most of my life, I’ve seen enough conifers and snow capped mountains and I find myself more inspired by Bobs later series. For this painting I chose an episode with a more distant view of mountains. In this video Bob painted mainly with a flat palette knife. Golden Open acrylic paints flow more than Regular heavy body paint, so it is challenging to do a whole wet in wet painting with a palette knife; the paint can get very deep and sloppy.
The painting was finished just before this blog needed to go out, so I photographed it wet. I’m looking forward to seeing how it dries. Golden Open is generally more glossy than regular acrylics, so it should look similar.
Today, I began painting with Bob, but quickly started to struggle with his Alizarin Crimson in the sky. I wanted to see how he created the waterfall so I kept going. I changed the sky, smoothed out Bobs pointy Alaskan mountains and changed his centralised composition, but I feel it’s still a work in progress. Parts will stay, but it needs a few more tweaks. Bob himself says it’s a good practice painting. As you can see below, my paintings are totally different to Bob’s finished pieces, but it’s not my intention to copy.
Mountain Waterfall took me far longer than I would like and I was in danger of over working it, so it was time to stop and ponder.
This caught my attention because I liked the water. It is a very relaxing scene with some nice darks and lights. I couldnt resist adding a touch of my own irridescent bronze to the colorful tree, just to add some sparkle. Impossible to photograph with an iPad but very pretty. The more I look at this painting, the more I like it, which is a good sign for a painting.
I’ve used up all my Canson Mix Media Art Boards now, so this is painted on Daler Rowney 9” x 12” Canvas Paper, which is much thinner and would suit a mat.
No, I didn’t make an error, I used the same video for inspiration as yesterday. At least as far as colors go. I wanted to create a calmer sky with those pretty colors.
I’m getting tired of big old mountains and friendly trees, so when the next show in the series was entitled “Brown Mountain”, I thought I’d give it a miss. As any long time follower knows, I’m an ocean lover and so I chose this ocean painting for my next paint along. I’m glad I did.
The first thing that struck me was the lovely mix of Titanium White with a whisper of both Indian Yellow and Van Dyck Brown. Even better was the lovely soft aqua created by adding Phthalo Blue to the mix. Then the datks were mixed with Phthalo Blue and Van Dyck Brown, which created a lovely dark and velvetyblack.
I did follow Bob most of the way, but at the end I didn’t like his streaky sky and painted in some billowing clouds. The painting is very striking, so much so that I decided to use the same colors and paint another seascape, which I will post tomorrow.
Bobs Tip
When using a flat palette knife to create mountains and water lines, scrpe most od the paint off, leaving a thicker edge. That way when you go over with a highlight or blending brush, you don’t end up with a sticky mess.
My computer has started to throw me random Bob Ross videos because the watchers have discovered that I spend a lot of time watching them. Today in a bit of a departure I decided to paint one of his later episodes. This is marked Season 23 and he is using the same list of colors but has added a rich black. This painting has an unusual mix of mainly Indian Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Black and Cadmium Yellow.
I thought it would be interesting to see how the tonal values sit in these compositions, so I converted the finished painting to black and white. Being the master he is, Bob does a great job of leading the eye into the composition with tonal value. Sometimes he looks as if he is going waaay too dark and streaky, but he always rescues it with generous helpings of Titanium White and Cadmium Yellow. As he says, it’s important not to loose the darks by covering too much of it because that is what creates depth.
I’m not a big fan of black grounds, so I groaned when Bob decided to do one. Nevertheless, I duly painted my Art Board black and waited a couple of days so it was good and dry. Bobs method called for coating the dry black base with transparent colors and then going back and “hypnotizing” with Titanium White. I quickly found this didn’t work with acrylics because you can’t keep them wet enough for this lengthy process.
I got frustrated and then started adding my own slant. I added much brighter colors, texture and sparkling stars and turned it into a truly unique painting. I just couldnt find a way to photograph it accurately, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
As I look at the images I’m thinking I may paint more detail and light on the moon.
If you paint in oil, I encourage you to watch the video below and give it a try. The technique looks very interesting.
Winter Sun by Sea Dean
Inspired by watching Bob Ross
The image doesnt do justice to the lovely colorful greys in this work.
I’m finally getting into the groove. Bob himself says he is just painting to give ideas and technique, he doesn’t expect the student to copy. I never understood this before and it makes me happy to know I can experiment. Being an experienced artist I would find it far too confining to replicate.
Sometimes it is something Bob says that inspires me, or it’s an interesting technique, or a wonderful blend of colors .... and before I know it I’m off at a tangent. Here it was an interesting mix of Phthalo Green and Alizarin Crimson that set me off.
Bobs Tips
Use a heavy duty easel which holds the painting firmly because this method calls for pressing hard into the canvas at times
Use a large palette because you need to have plenty of room to mix enough color to use across the whole painting so the color doesnt change with a new mix.
Your paint should be very thick. When squeezing it out of the tube it should stand up about 3/4” before starting to bend.
Seas tips for acrylic conversion
With oil paint it takes weeks to dry so you can squeeze out a huge blob. One of the main challenges I find with my students is the do the same with acrylic, which dries in minutes and a lot of paint is wasted. One way around this is a good quality sta-wet palette and another is to use slower drying acrylics like Golden Open. I don’t squeeze out any paint until I need it. Even so, try to guage how
much you will need for your size of painting
For the second series Bob changed his color selection very slightly. The original colors were Titanium White, Prussian Blue, Phthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, Van Dyck Brown, Cadmium Yellow, and Permanent Red. Later in the first series Sap Green and Phthalo Blue were added. For the second series Bob also added Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre and Indian Yellow, warming his palette slightly. This means he is now working with a full cool/warm palette with extra geens and browns to help with mixing landscpe colors.
Red Cool - Alizarin Crimson
Red Warm - Permanent Red
Blue Cool - Prussian Blue
Blue Warm - Phthalo Blue
Yellow Cool - Cadmium Yellow
Yellow Warm - Yellow Ochre and Indian Yellow
Green Cool - Phthalo Green
Green Warm - Sap Green
Brown Cool - Van Dyck Brown
Brown Warm - Burnt Umber
Liquid White and Titanium White which are used for mixing and are fairly neutral
This is day 13 of the 30 painting in 30 days challenge and also day 13 in the Opus Daily Practice challenge. This morning the water in the building was unexpectedly shut off and then the fire alarm kicked in, so I didnt manage to paint ahead as much as I wanted to. I did get this painting done though, and I think it turned out well.
Snow paintings are fun to paint but the don’t sell well unless you have a gallery on a ski hill. I’ve sold quite a few snowy paintings at Kelowna airport where our ski buffs fly in and out, but generally buyers prefer spring and summer landscapes. Therefore, I resisted painting “Snow Fall”, but when I saw that Bob was actually painting snowflakes, I had to give his method a try. As it turns out, it’s very similar to my method. Watch the vido to see how.
Today Bob emphasized the importance of using stretched canvas, rather than canvas board, because it absorbs the oil too fast. I made the mistake of purchasing cheap canvas boards to practice with in the beginning and I agree with Bob that stretched canvas is much better, if its good quality with a very tight stretch (if it droops in the middle or has poor quality prep. it causes even more problems).
For the past 10 paintings I used Canson Plein Air Canva Artboards, which come in a pad of 10 sealed together with removeable glue to give a tight, hard, canvas like surface. At first I found they absorbed ordinary acrylics too quickly, but if you look back over my Bob Ross blogs you will see the formula for my “liquid White” substitution which has made them work really well. I actually prefer the boards to stretched canvas now. It says right on the pack that they are ready to use without priming and I’m all for simplicity.
Sadly, I’ve now run out of Canva, so for my next few paintings I will be using a similar product, Canson Plein Air Mix Media Artboards, which have a smoother surface. So far I’ve found they are even more absorbant and need a lot more moisture to get a smooth brushstroke. That is occasionally a good thing, but mostly a pain.
Today I found out how to play YouTube on my TV, which was very exciting and I got so engrossed that I messed up the Bob Ross painting I was working on. Normally I would wait for it to dry, back up a few steps and rescue it, but this time I wanted to experiment.
Prior to starting the painting I had watched a question and answer session with Bob Ross and his son doing the demo and I thought I would practice some of the techniques. I also wanted to heap on some texture. The result is nothing like the Bob Ross painting and I love it!
Bob advice
Work in planes. Every plane adds more depth to your painting.
You must be able to see the background through the leaves. Spaces for the little birds to sit.
You need dark to show the light. Don't lose the dark, your trees will look flat and we don't like flat trees.
