The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross or Family

Water Colors and Pastels vs Oil Painting with Bob Ross
Patricia played with pastels, perfectly pushing pigment on paper.  Palette pale with pinks and purple, Patty places peaches in paintings pulsing with pleasure. 

I spent the week with one of Jim's sisters (estrogen overload perhaps!) More specifically, she spent the week with Mimi and we didn't go anywhere.  We stayed home except to go pick up Jamie from Horse Camp (which was fun).  Even more fun is the fact that Patty is an artist.  A pastel artist who has a gallery opening next week in Santa Fe New Mexico, where she lives and works.

She not only brought some pastels and paper (we went to Jerry's Artarama and I purchased some of my own) she worked on a watercolor painting for a class she was taking.  So we both had a great time playing and learning new mediums.  After just watching her, I feel more confident in trying both water colors and pastels.

I know I know . . it's not Bob Ross style.  But I think Bob wants me to learn about everything that interests me, using him as a starting point and becoming my own artist.  I don't intend to stop painting with Bob.  In fact I can't wait to get back on to the easel and apply liquid white. (I know I still have Episode 6 on a black canvas that is half finished.)  However it has been so hectic around here that painting with oil seems nearly impossible.  I get only a few minutes here and there to play with something.

I find that I really like having pastels on the table so I can just pick up a color and experiment while Mimi naps or watches.  She thoroughly enjoyed watching Patty and I this week.  If her arms and hands were working she'd have joined right in.  As it were, we just got a lot of smiles and thumbs up signs (which she can still manage to put together ;)

Today (really Today? .  . wow) marks ONE YEAR since we picked Mimi from the floor at the assisted living facility where she was, and brought her home to be with us.  What a year it has been.  Remember that I discovered Bob Ross and the Joy of Painting on television when I installed a TV in the kitchen (where I was spending a lot of time all of a sudden) so that MiMi and I could be entertained.  We didn't hook up a cable box and only got basic channels from the hookup.  Low and behold, one day on channel 8 (public access) I found Bob Ross.

His slow gentle voice was just what Mimi needed and his style of painting a complete landscape in 1/2 hour was intriguing to me.  So far the rest (this blog and my entire painting career) is history. His story and My story,  Her story and probably Your story.  The world is so amazing.  I know very little about practical application and or the history of the masters and Patty knows so much (art degrees and all) but we both learned from each other.

What she learned from me (besides how to care for her mother in her new phase of life ;) was how I am using the internet for companionship and inspiration.  How she might do the same and even sell a painting or two online.  Help me SHOW HER and the gallery owner who has her work that you support their art. Visit their web site, or better yet, visit them in Santa Fe.

Mill Fine Art and the artist P.E. Baldwin.  It's pastels today, and watercolor tomorrow.  Who knows maybe next time she comes we'll do a "throw back" weekend and I'll teach her to understand Bob Ross and the wet on wet Oil technique.  Talk about JOY!  I can't even think about it right now.  It's Monday morning and I have work to do.

Over "Joyed" by Family and Friends

The past couple of weeks feel like months, yet they flew by.  As odd as that sounds, I'll bet you can all relate somehow.  MiMi is home now for 2 weeks and we have found some sort of normal for this phase.  She may not be able to communicate much but you can see in her smile, she is not in pain.  She's happy and comfortable.  Hospice folks come and go 2 times a week for now and there has been a steady flow of family coming to share and understand.  It's happy and sad, exhausting but enlightening, confusing yet very clear what we have to do.  So we do it.

But I broke out the paint this week while I had the time and strayed away from "watching Bob Ross and painting with him" I decided to take one of my favorite photos and paint from it.  I wish I'd have taken more photos while I painted  (or video taped it, but I didn't) but here's where I am now.

I LOVE My Rocks (or mountains if you will) These are rocks that I've seen and touched in my life (back in our rock climbing days . . or should I say MY rock climbing days, since my husband still gets out there whenever he can) and we have always loved Yosemite Valley.  

Here's my reference photo, and so you see I'm now going to work on the foreground, from the land mass on the other side of the river to the rocks up close. I have a few more trees to add as well, to cover the bottom of the waterfall, as you can't really see it in the view.

I'm AFRAID.

I like my big rocks so much, and my trees, while not perfect, are reflecting of a style that I have been working on (used only the knife) and I think I did well with them.  I need another layer of trees and then the WATER.  I'm not sure how to "start again" now that the paint is dry.  So the underlayer of the river is there.  I even put in a rock or two underwater.  But now I need to "wet" it again so that I can complete the foreground.

When I wet the canvas now (or I'm really wetting the dry paint) I know I'm not going to make that paint wet again, but that will now be my base layer.  Upon which any new paint will need to slide to make it look like water. . . . I'm afraid to start again. . . but I will.

Help me share the Joy . . . Kay

For me, Painting was Never Therapy. But I NEED it now.

After everything MiMi and I have been through lately I so wanted to pick up a paint brush, summoning up the spirit of Bob Ross, and paint like I've been painting all my life.  I watched so many episodes of The Joy of Painting online and on DVD while we were in the hospital and at the nursing home.  You'd think my mind would know exactly what to tell my hand to do. Something MiMi can't do anymore.  She's pretty much forgotten how to do everything.  Literally.  So she requires a lot of help when she's awake.  She does sleep most of the time however and that is both a blessing and a curse.  But that's not why I'm here blogging right now . . so back to my story.

Now that we are home I was itching to work on Series 2 Number 6.  Black River. The name says a lot for me, because it starts with a black canvas.  I didn't like the black canvas we did in S2-No.3 Ebony Sea but I had convinced myself it was because I had used both the liquid clear AND the transparent colors as under paint, and this time I knew I was using only the transparent colors.

I was eager to apply my somewhat rusty skills on the black gessoed canvas that has been on my easel for nearly a month, so I just squeezed out the paint and "fired it right in there" (word to Bill Alexander, whom is still very much "with" Bob in his early episodes) and it Burned my Brain.  I couldn't mix colors, I couldn't decide which brush to use. I forgot how to make trees.  He was working with browns and yellows and I don't seem to like browns and yellows, and made a big mess.

So, to make a long story short (my facebook followers know I am likely going to destroy this one and start over or "skip" it) my Series 2 Episode 6 Painting of Black River is facing it's doom.  I AM going to edit and post the video and let you all have a good laugh.  After which I'll decide what to do with it. I have not watched the video, but I keep walking by the painting and cringing.  I'm sure the video will make me cry.

Speaking of crying.  That's happening to me a lot again lately.  Anyone who's read the 50 things about me on my web page  can figure out that the stress of having MiMi here and hospice care (which is a very helpful and beautiful process by the way) is likely affecting my emotions a bit.  But you wouldn't know it to talk to me.  (That's probably the problem right there) Good thing for blogs because I obviously need therapy!

But since this blog is about my painting, and not about my whining, I'm going to start using painting as my therapy and get back to something that I like to do, not that I need to do. Theres' so much of that around lately.  That NEED to do stuff.  I have always gravitated towards the LIKE to do, or WANT to do and that just becomes the natural NEED to do and by then I'd package it up and teach someone else to do it or sell it to someone else.

Spoken like a true entrepreneur.  That may be why I am enjoying learning to paint.  It's not something I can package up and "hand off" to anyone else to do.  HHHmmmm.  I'm going to have to talk to someone about that.  I think I'll go call my sister now.

Share the Joy.