This is inspired by an episode of The Joy of Painting that I was watching late at night earlier this week (as of this writing). It’s not exactly a paint-along, though I used some of the same colors (and the pink sky is one thing that came from Bob’s original work), but the principles are the same.
And that’s exactly the way Bob would have wanted it. He never wanted people to copy him directly, just to be inspired. That’s something he says a lot, and something that says a lot.
Behind the Scenes
What made Bob Ross’ original painting so interesting was the way that it demonstrated the principles of composition without being heavy-handed about it. Even my not-quite-a-copy here is basically a pattern of alternating tones, alternating light and dark. The colors provide a path for the eye to follow back and forth across the canvas; the big honkin’ trees literally tie the dark area at the top to the rest of the painting. The leafy bits in the corners hug the whole thing.
The sky in this one was originally solid pink, but that didn’t look right so I added a much lighter pink near the horizon. The implied light source lends the whole composition a reality that makes it a thousand times better than it was. The trees on the right were also originally pink, but that didn’t look right either so I took ’em out at replaced them with the blue ones. The contrast of color but not tone is something that I really enjoy here. Then I added the same blue here and there so that the trees wouldn’t be lonely. That’s another one of Bob’s principles.
So if I can share anything with you through this beyond the image itself, I hope it is the idea that it’s okay to try things. Be inspired, see if you can come up with something you like that is close to something else you like, and go ahead and fool around with it until you do like it. That’s how we learn. (I know I did.)