[Beginner’s Guide] Because maybe you were watching “The Joy of Painting” and you’re feeling inspired, but you don’t know where to start.
Hi! I’m certainly glad you could join us today. What I thought we’d do today is have a fantastic little beginner’s guide, and really set up a resource for new artists who are looking to paint along with Bob Ross and experience “The Joy of Painting”. Please read this guide before PMing me a question. I’ll always answer, but you can save yourself the wait 😉
Now let’s get started!
I recommend that everyone who has never painted before should first watch ” Grandeur of Summer ” between the 4 and 10 minute marks. Here, Bob Ross explains exactly what each tool is and how to set up a white canvas. Even if you choose not to do that painting, it is invaluable information.
Picking a Starting Point
| Episode | Title | #Colors | Brushes | Complexity (1-5) | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VHS | Grandeur of Summer | 13 | 1″ Flat, 2″ Flat, Fan, Liner, Knife | 1 | Youtube |
| S07E11 | Grey Winter | 3 | 2″ Flat, Round, Fan | 1 | Youtube |
| S06E10 | Country Life | 10 | 2″ Flat, Knife , Liner | 2 | Youtube |
| S02E04 | Shades of Grey | 3 | 2″ Flat, Fan, Knife, 1″ Flat | 3 | Youtube |
| S06E07 | Arctic Beauty | 10 | 2″ Flat, Fan, Knife, 3″ Flat, Liner | 4 | Youtube |
| S21E03 | Royal Majesty | 10 | 2″ Flat, Fan, Knife, 3″ Flat, Liner | 5 | Youtube |
I’m measuring complexity using the number of colors, the number of tools, the set-up, and my own experience with these paintings. I have personally completed each of these 6 episodes (and many others), and found them to be fairly representative of their respective difficulty levels. I’m not just guessing based on pictures, but your results may still vary.
Unless you choose to do “Grandeur of Summer” (he really capitalizes on that extra 30min), episodes with mountains and/or waterfalls tend to be 3s or harder. Try a few things that look more basic until you get a feel for the medium. I strongly suggest you avoid “Black Canvas” paintings until you have done a few white canvas ones. Color shows up differently on a black canvas based on the opacity of the paint- it’s just not worth worrying about until you get the hang of his style.
Gearing Up
For a new painter, the master paint set, a cheap canvas, and odorless mineral spirits will do you pretty well. Most everything can be found online, so don’t be afraid to look around!
Find an episode that you want to do first. Watch it completely, and then get the materials that he used for that painting. Once you know how he composes that episode’s painting, you can paint along with him, pausing as needed. Some episodes rely heavily on uncommon colors, others use just 2 or 3.
- 18″x24″ Stretched, Double Primed, Canvas (but any similar aspect ratio will work). I use this for practicing
- Pallet Knife
- 2″ Flat (a typical natural bristled brush)
- Fan Brush (firm, natural bristled)
- Script Liner brush (soft synthetic hair)
- Bucket / Trash Can
- Odorless Mineral Spirits (the transparent kind, not the milky “environmentally friendly” kind)
- Pallet (Paper plates work fine)
- Paper Towels
- DROP CLOTH
- OLD CLOTHES
Other Useful Tools:
- “Refined” or “Cold Pressed” Linseed Oil
- 1″ Flat (a typical firm bristled brush)
- Round Brush (larger, check Bob Ross’s website)
4 Filbert Brush (Hard Natural Bristle, rarely used)
Most Common Paint Colors:
- Phthalo Blue
- Sap Green
- Van Dyke Brown
- Dark (Burnt) Sienna
- Yellow Ocher
- Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue
- Alizarin (Permanent Red) Crimson
- Titanium White
- “Liquid/Magic White”
And to a lesser extent:
- Phthalo Green
- Indian Yellow
- Burnt Umber
- Black
- Bright (Cadmium) Red Hue
- “Liquid/Magic Clear”
If you feel compelled to buy Bob Ross brand paint and brushes (expensive, but good), I hear that Hobby Lobby carries them. Michaels and Joanns do not. Lots of artists recommend hog’s hair brushes and hate nylon brushes. I consider nylon a “meh” budget option for this style. The reflections come out looking really bad, but it works decently well for every other technique.
“Taklon” are soft bristled synthetic brushes that are mostly used for acrylics. Soft synthetic brushes smear the paint more than a firm hog’s hair or nylon brush. Heads up, this may not be a desired effect outside of seascapes and reflections.
Cleaning Your Brushes
Regardless of whether you’re using natural hair brushes or synthetic brushes, you’re going to be cleaning them in odorless mineral spirits. I use an empty paint can with a folded up piece of wire mesh in the bottom.
Don’t forget to beat the devil out of your brushes! It’s an important step, even if it looks silly.
Don’t wash natural hair brushes with soap and water unless you are planning on walking away from them for a while. If that’s the case, rinse them in something like linseed oil or safflower oil to disperse the pigment, first, then wash gently with soap and water.
Preparing a White Canvas
I think the biggest tip that I can give you for actually painting is to be careful with using too much “liquid white” . Usually when Bob Ross starts a painting, he already has covered the 18″x24″ double primed (gesso) canvas with a very thin coat of this white paint. If you have a canvas that is “too wet” (i.e. too much liquid white), almost none of the techniques will work.
When you use liquid white, you will almost always need to wipe off the canvas with a paper towel or a clean dry brush. Gently and evenly. Most beginners skip that step because it isn’t really mentioned in most of the videos with a few exceptions . So long as you aren’t scrubbing the canvas dry, it should keep what it needs for this style to be successful.
Alternatively, you could just muscle a thin coat of titanium white across your canvas.
Preparing a Black Canvas
Either buy a black canvas or evenly coat a white one with at least one coat of black gesso. I, personally, don’t like to paint the edges with black gesso until I finish the painting and I’ve let it dry.
If he uses a liquid clear (he’ll tell you), apply it the same way you would apply liquid white- SPARINGLY. I use a linseed oil in place of liquid clear as a cost-cutting measure, and have experienced no ill effects.
Scrub in a transparent paint color as needed, starting with the brightest colors, ending with the darker ones:
Yellow > Red > Blue > Green > Brown
This step is a lot easier with liquid clear / oil on the canvas, but it usually isn’t necessary. If you aren’t sure what colors are transparent enough for this method, try a little bit of paint on a corner of the canvas. If it looks black-ish, it’s good enough.
Next, blend the colors together with “little x strokes”, then take a clean dry brush and slowly go across the canvas in one direction horizontally, then one direction vertically. Make sure you have coated all of the places you need paint, because you can’t go back once you start putting in bright opaque colors. Don’t leave any clumps of color. Remember: this is supposed to be a very thin coat of paint.
Generic Tips
Thin paint sticks to thick paint. Similar terminology you may read is “Fat over lean”. Same idea: Fat paint (that has a lot of stuff in it) with stick to lean paint (that is straight from the tube). Worth mentioning.
Do your best to seriously make sure your brushes are dry before you go back to your pallet. It doesn’t take much paint thinner to make a painting unworkable.
If you mess up, you can literally just scrape off the part you don’t like, then try again. Be careful, you might need to reapply that super thin coat of liquid white. Sometimes it’s easier to scrub a canvas and start over than to fix a cloud. Check out the episode “Happy Little Accidents” for more discussion about fixing a painting that isn’t coming out.
If a painting is dry, you can still put color on top of it. Wet-on-dry is definitely a thing. This has the added benefit of allowing you to gently remove new layers of wet paint without doing (much) damage to the under-layers.
Avoid trying to “touch up” a painting that is mostly, but not completely, dry. It can be a huge pain in the ass.
Just have fun. Don’t throw away your first painting, no matter how much you may think it sucks.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions for this post, please let me know!
From all of us here, I’d like to wish you happy painting. And God bless you, my friend.
A Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Brush Painting (9780804852630)
Current Stock: SKU: 9780804852630 Publisher: Tuttle Publishing ISBN: 9780804852630 Format: Hardcover, Jacketed Date Published: 11/09/2021 Illustrations: 35 hands-on painting activities; b&w illustrations Number of Pages: 64 Trim Size: 7 1/2 X 10
As one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world, Chinese brush painting has been used for thousands of years to create images that harness the imagination, and capture the inner spirit of a subject–be it an animal, landscape or tree. All you need for this simple, but beautiful, art form is black watercolor paint, white paper, a brush and some creativity!
An introduction tells you about the history of brush painting, and also gives tips for holding your brush, achieving different shades and collecting your materials. After that, the book takes you step-by-step through more than 35 hands-on activities–including basic strokes, putting them together to create an object or scene, the importance of leaving open space and even writing some Chinese calligraphy.
- Bamboo stalks, branches and leaf clusters
- A knotted pine tree and its delicate needles
- A snail with a spiral shell and little body peeking out from underneath
- A waterfall gliding down the side of a mountain
- And much more!
About the Author:
Caroline Self has studied Asian brush painting for over thirty years. She holds a B. A. in bacteriology and public health, a teaching credential in art from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in art education and sculpture from San Diego State University. She taught art in the San Diego City Schools for twenty-five years and taught Asian brush painting to children for six years at the San Diego Museum of Art. She has studied traditional brush painting with teachers in Southern California, Japan, China, and Taiwan. She also paints and exhibits her colorful watercolor and acrylic paintings.
Susan Self studied art in college and on trips to Europe and Asia, often accompanying her mother. She has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UC San Diego, where she taught in writing programs. She worked as a technical writer documenting software development tools before transitioning into the wireless telecommunications industry, where she works as a writer and research consultant.
