Bob Ross (A Tribute to a great Painter)
Bob Ross was born in Daytona Beach Florida as a son of a carpenter. After trying out different ways of painting, (like water color-painting) he discovered that he wanted to create a new style of painting. His style of painting is a little different from the wet-on-wet methode. He perfected this way of paintings with all kinds of tricks to make beautiful landscapes. In stead of making tiny details with a one-hair brush, he developed very big brushes but still he could make a lot of details. In 1983, he got his own TV-show called "The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross". With his very positive attitude, he convinced many viewers (including myself) that they could paint like him too. With his soft and gentle voice, (and of course the help of his 2" brush) he showed the viewers how to make "happy little mountains" and "happy little clouds" by making a painting step by step, each show. He told little stories about "Gods little creatures" hiding in the dark areas in the painting and explained that everybody should need a friend; even a bush needs one! He even brought his own "happy little creatures" to she show like his owl, squirrels and swallows. Like this, he could learn the viewers in a funny way how to paint ,and easy to remember! If you're a Bob Ross painter, you probably know what I mean. Every time you paint a tree or a bush, you remember not to fill up the whole tree with light paint but to leave a few dark spots open for the little creatures to hide. The show became very popular. Not only because of the beautiful paintings Bob made, but also because of his calm and soothing voice, (some people only watched the show just to hear his voice) his cool hairdo and his very positive view of life. "Every day is a good day to be alive!", like Bob said. People became inspired by his way of painting and tried it out thereselves. The TV-show grow into a large multimillion-dollar business by selling the equipment, How-to books, step by step videos and more.
On the 4th of July 1995, Bob Ross died at an age of 52. The cause of his death was cancer. However, the show was still populair and Bob Ross inc. continued to exist. One of Bobs friends (Annette Kowalski) even developed a way to paint flowers, inspired on the Bob Ross technique. Eventhough Bob has died at an early age we can say he lived his life intensely. Wherever Bob is now -painting in a heaven with happy little clouds or not- remember that he will live on in your paintings. You rule Mr. Ross!
Happy painting, and God
bless.
