When pressed for influences, most artists will likely claim historically famous predecessors: Pablo Picasso, Vincent VanGogh, Leonardo DaVinci, Egon Scheele, Claude Monet, etc. I think for many of us, there\u2019s a certain loftiness to claiming that our work or our techniques are influenced by the masters. And while this may be true, I think for me, personally, the one major player in painting who has influenced me the most would be Bob Ross.
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While most serious artists tend to giggle or even outright scoff at the idea of Ross being a major influence on their work, I\u2019d point out that as young artists, it was very likely that he was the first or one of the first visual artists we were exposed to. I mean, who didn\u2019t have PBS back in the 80\u2019s? And if you were into art like I was, then you were sitting there in front of the tube, tuned in and listening to the dulcet tones of Bob\u2019s voice, gently guiding you through the forests and mountains of all of those amazing worlds he created for us.
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If you think about it, most artists can be highly self-critical, insecure, and completely at the mercy of the opinions of others about our work. Especially at those formative ages. And who was the one who would simply smile at us, his eyes twinkling a bit as he taught us that it was our world, we could do whatever we wanted\u2026 it doesn\u2019t matter. He\u2019d tell us we\u2019d need to be brave as he showed us how to paint a happy little tree? Good ol\u2019 Bob. The man with the perm. That gentle and loving dad that some of us simply never had.
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Because of this, Bob Ross has always been a big deal to me. Someone I admire. If there were a holy trinity of people who brought some little piece of heaven to earth, Bob would be in it, most likely hanging out with Fred Rogers and Steve Irwin.
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The thing is, Bob was so much more than just a gentle painter that \u201cserious artists\u201d kind of snicker about. His life demonstrated so many good things. Things that would likely be very helpful for our world, our peers, our co-workers, and even ourselves. Most people don\u2019t really think about it, but Bob was a good steward of the earth and of the creatures that inhabited it. And I think those little guys knew it. I mean, who else would let a baby squirrel nest around in that gorgeous perm? Every time I think of that little squirrel, \u201cPeaPod\u201d, I smile. Any time Bob showed us his little rescued animals, he always smiled, and he always had a good word or two to say to us about how we needed to take care of these little creatures, and the earth, so that they\u2019d be around for us.
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Bob Ross kept things simple. Whether it was painting, or the way he dressed, or each movement of the brush on the canvas. Everything seemed to have order and purpose. Criss-cross brush strokes dancing across the canvas. Circular strokes as he blended. Two hairs and some air as he gently pulled his palette knife across a majestic mountain top. Even when he\u2019d beat the devil out of his old two-inch brush he had a reason for it. Part of the reason was that he just loved doing it, but in most cases, he wanted that brush to be as dry as possible so that he could properly blend the paints using the wet-on-wet technique he\u2019d made so famous. There was always a reason, and he always made it seem like he was having the best time of all of us. Maybe that was his secret. He was having more fun than everyone else. Yes, we might have been learning. Yes, we might have smiled at his funny hair, or his goofy phrases like, \u201cHappy little trees\u201d or \u201cMajestic mountains\u201d, but the reality is, the joke was kind of on us, because he was having fun and putting a happy buck in his pocket while doing something he loved.
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As I think about Bob Ross\u2019 contribution to the world, I think about a lot of the things he said and gave to his viewers over the years. I recall how he always spoke about contrast. The dark. The light. How both were necessary. Both were components that created opposites, but that they had to work together. And while it\u2019s not directly related, that idea of dark and light co-existing reminded me of a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of his most famous lines, \u201cDarkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.\u201d And it simply reminds me that it\u2019s required that we have both the dark and the light so that we know the difference between the two. Was that Ross\u2019 intent? To subtly insert things like that into his show in order to remind us that our differences are what make us interesting? That our differences actually help us? That our differences serve an important purpose? I\u2019d like to think maybe.
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That quote, though, the one about light and dark… I think maybe he was even being a little bit open and vulnerable about depression.
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\u201cGotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It\u2019s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.\u201d -Bob Ross
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I\u2019ve often wondered what good times he was waiting on, and since depression is one of those things I\u2019ve struggled with my entire life, I feel as if I can truly identify with those words. Sometimes, I\u2019m also waiting on the good times. The question I have, though, is do we have to wait on them or can we actively seek them out? I think we can look for them. One way I do that is through art. At some point, I hope you\u2019ll also do art, or maybe you\u2019ll come paint with us some evening so that together, we can actively seek out the good times and won\u2019t have to wait on them.
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There are so many other things we could learn from Bob besides a fast and lazy way to paint. Yes, I said lazy. Even Bob would admit that he was one of the laziest painters in the world. I loved that about him. We could learn from that. Find a fast and efficient way to do things. Might not be the way you learned to do it in art school, but it worked, right? He also taught us that everyone needs a friend. Didn\u2019t matter that it was a tree. Didn\u2019t matter that it was Pea Pod the squirrel. What mattered was that we all have a fundamental need for people and nature in our lives. We all need friends. He taught us to believe in ourselves, and that talent is a pursued interest. He even taught us not to be so tough on ourselves. Remember, we don\u2019t make mistakes. We just have happy little accidents.
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Most importantly for me, though, is that he taught us it was okay to be weird. Event stated it outright.
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\u201cI guess I\u2019m a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That\u2019s okay though; I have more fun than most people.\u201d -Bob Ross
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For a pre-teen who grew up in a dirt poor household, wore Walmart tennis shoes until they wore out in a month (only to take them back and force them to trade them for a new pair for free), sometimes didn\u2019t smell so great in a hot and stuffy sixth-grade classroom because bathing in our household just didn\u2019t seem to be that important, and whose dad liked to dress up like Wonder Woman for public parades in a very small town, these were magic words, and I needed to hear them. I needed to know that I wasn\u2019t alone. Bob Ross helped me understand that. It\u2019s okay to be a little weird.<\/em> That\u2019s one of the many reasons I cling to the idea of him as a mentor, and as one of my most important artistic influences. Yes, I love the art of the old Masters. I\u2019ve learned from it, copied it, and used it as stepping stones to find my own way. But Bob Ross was different. Yes, he taught me different painting and artistic techniques, but the most valuable things were the gifts he gave to me that weren\u2019t simply about art, but about life. When pressed for influences, most artists will likely claim historically famous predecessors: Pablo Picasso, Vincent VanGogh, Leonardo DaVinci, Egon Scheele, Claude Monet, etc. I think for many of us, there\u2019s a certain loftiness to claiming that our work or our techniques are influenced by the masters. And while this may be true, I think for me, personally, the one major player in painting who has influenced me the most would be Bob Ross. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncorkedinspiration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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