Bob Ross (painter)

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Robert Norman "Bob" Ross (born October 29, 1942 in Daytona Beach , Florida , † July 4, 1995 in New Smyrna Beach , Florida) was an American painter and television presenter .

Life

Ross was the son of a carpenter and a waitress. He had a half-brother and grew up in Orlando . After the ninth grade, Ross dropped out of school and, at the age of 18 in 1961, committed himself to serve in the Air Force for two decades . The reason he gave was that he could get to know the world in this way. He retired from service in 1981 with the rank of Master Sergeant .

As early as the 1970s, Ross attended seminars in painting at various colleges . He was particularly inspired by the technique of his teacher Bill Alexander for his own work. Later he also offered his own courses. After filming in 1983 for the Chicago local station of the PBS , he was offered a contract, from which the first thirteen episodes of " The Joy of Painting " emerged. Today, however, the first fourteen seasons are considered unsendable due to a too coarse-grained resolution; Only the fifteenth to thirty-first seasons (1988–1993) are broadcast.

Ross died of lymph gland cancer in 1995 at the age of 52 . His trademark was his big Afro hairstyle , which he didn't like himself.

Act

Starting with do-it-yourself methods like that of William “Bill” Alexander , Ross developed his own painting technique , a special wet-on-wet painting , with which he created landscape pictures using fewer colors and tools . Statistically it has been calculated that in his 30,000 surviving paintings, 91 percent of the time there is at least one tree, 20 percent a sun and only 2 percent palm trees. Ross said in the New York Times in 1991 that he only exhibited his pictures once. There are “thousands of very, very talented artists who don't even get known after they die. Most artists want recognition, especially from the professional world. I've had my show for so long. I do not need more."

In 1981 Ross toured the United States with this new technique before showing it on his own television show The Joy of Painting from 1983 . Through this broadcast he achieved worldwide fame and helped the wet-on-wet technique to spread. Since then, its own company (Bob Ross Inc.) has sold textbooks and videos as well as Bob Ross painting sets, among other things. Anyone who wants to officially teach this painting technique for landscapes must be trained as a CRI (Certified Ross Instructor). There are also certificates for flower painting (CRFI), wild animals (CRWI) and portraits (CRPI). The latter, however, are further developments of other people's techniques. The technique of flower painting, for example, goes back to Annette Kowalski , a companion of Bob Ross, who now runs Bob Ross Inc.

The Joy of Painting

The Joy of Painting is a television painting course moderated by Bob Ross in 403 parts (31 seasons of 13 episodes each with 27 minutes airtime). The programs were produced between 1983 and 1994. The episodes in which Ross always presents his painting technique in the same way have names like New Day's Dawn , Waterfall in the Woods or Quiet Mountain Lake ( “Sunrise of a new day”, “Waterfall in the forest” or “Calm mountain lake” ). In doing so, he tries to use a calm and gentle voice to motivate the audience to pick up a brush and paint their own personal world, in which everything is allowed and nothing can be wrong.

At the beginning of each episode he greets his viewers with the words “Hi, welcome back!”, Supplemented by “I'm certainly glad you could join us today!” (“I'm really glad, that you can be with us today. "). In commenting on the work processes, he uses recurring sentence components, such as “We don't make mistakes here, just happy little accidents” (“We don't make mistakes, only small, happy mishaps”). For example, the brush slipped when a brush was shaken dry in a tin bucket: “Beat the devil out of it” or “Everyone needs a friend” if you were alone A second tree is painted. Other often used sentences and expressions are “A happy little cloud that lives right here”, “A happy little tree” or “God having a good day making Alaska ”(“ God had a good day when he created Alaska. ”) as well as“ What the heck ”(“ what the hell ”) and“ The good old two inch brush ”(“ The good old two inch brush “); for small objects of various kinds (bushes, stones etc.) especially like “little rascals” (“little rascals”). When the picture is finished, the presenter says goodbye to the audience at the end of each program with the sentence “From all of us here: I'd like to wish you happy painting and God bless, my friend!” (“From all of us here : I wish you happy painting and God's blessings, my friends. ").

In total, Bob Ross painted 381 different pictures in his broadcasts. Ross made three versions of each picture: the first served as a template for the picture that was created in the program, and a more detailed third was then painted for the accompanying books.

All pictures are still in the possession of Bob Ross Inc. in Herndon , Virginia . The company markets painting supplies, books, DVDs, and licenses painting courses and teachers worldwide.

In some people, Ross' soft voice induces an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), which is why he is also referred to as the “King of ASMR” within the ASMR community.

literature

  • Michelle Witte: Happy little accidents. The most beautiful wisdom from Bob Ross. Kösel, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-466-34698-1 . (German first edition with numerous pictures)

Web links

Wikiquote: Bob Ross  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biography
  2. ^ Bob Ross painter and entrepreneur. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk from October 7, 2011.
  3. ↑ The painter is dead, long live the painter ; FAZ.net of September 30, 2009; accessed on July 5, 2020
  4. ↑ We're Sorry, But Bob Ross' Curly Hair Is A Lie on huffingtonpost.com
  5. ↑ Counting clouds with Bob Ross. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung April 15, 2014.
  6. ↑ The Mystery of the Painter Bob Ross ; ntv.de of July 4, 2020; accessed on July 4, 2020
  7. ↑ Painting cult: Anti-Fernsehen with Bob Ross on spiegel.de, accessed on April 1, 2015.
  8. ↑ The Real Bob Ross: Meet The Meticulous Artist Behind Those Happy Trees on npr.org
  9. ^ The New York Times: Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them. In: The New York Times . ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed July 14, 2019]).
  10. ↑ Joe Kloc: The Soothing Sounds of Bob Ross. In: Newsweek. October 1, 2014, accessed April 29, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Ross, Bob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ross, Robert Norman (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter and television presenter
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Daytona Beach , USA
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1995
Place of death New Smyrna Beach