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first painting
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Posted
I'm not sure whether to comment because the thread is a bit old and the op might have been chased away by some of the comments. But if I don't jump in at some point I'll stay an eternal nice visitor :)
I think it depends on what the op wants to do with their art. If they want to paint for pure enjoyment, then this is a good attempt. Its very Bob Ross-esque so its successful in that regard, and I don't think anyone should ever feel bad about doing this kind of work if it soothes away the trials and tribulations of life. Go for it and enjoy yourself, life is short after all.
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of Bob Ross either to be honest. He was good at his thing and seemed to enjoy it and thats cool. But as an artist, his work was strictly of a particular formula which limited him to only being able to paint certain scenes in certain ways. I think if you want to paint landscapes and scenes that people can look at and feel like they could walk into them or feel the weather etc, then copying formulaic artists like Bob Ross isnt a good idea. The best advice I can give in that regard is to get outside into the landscape and paint from life. You don't have to do everything on location. Do quick sketches for composition, colour studies, take lots of photos, then go back and work them up into a proper painting at home, where its warm. By doing that you get a feel for the place you're painting and that always shows through.
Okay, thats enough rambling, hope you guys don't mind me adding my two bob's worth :)
Posted
Don't mind at all - particularly since I agree with you. If people want to paint like Bob Ross, that's entirely up to them - but they need to understand that most of us here can tell where their inspiration came from in a matter of seconds - there's always something that gives it away: the reliance on big brush stippling, the occasionally slightly peculiar colours, and that trademark breaking wave, which never varies and rarely looks much like a wave. I wouldn't say it's a red rag to a bull necessarily, but it will get some adverse comment, inevitably, because we don't want to encourage anyone to keep painting like that - if that's where you started, OK, but think about moving on. There's not really any easy way to say this - the only alternative is to just bite the tongue and say nothing, but I've no desire to see the gallery clogged with Bob Ross clones....
The problem arises with people who have had no other sort of training and think they've done what they were supposed to do, and come here and find us shaking the grizzled locks at them. I appreciate this can be a problem for some, who are sensitive about their work - as who isn't? I really do sympathize with that - but I think the advice the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook gives to would-be freelance journalists is important here - study your market; don't send an article on yachting to Golf Illustrated, or one extolling the virtues of grass-fed beef to Vegan Viewpoints. Take a good look at the magazines, Leisure Painter and the Artist, at the forum, at the gallery - there's a wealth of advice in those resources (such as you've just given indeed) and just about all of it is better than anything you'll get from the Bob Ross school.... apart from anything else, if you're going to paint like good ole Bob, you're going to need his paints, and his 'liquid clear', and his special brushes - and they're not cheap; they're not of archival quality (how much he ever realized that, I don't know: a lot of research into materials has taken place since his death); and we can't just ignore that unless we're all going to say 'how lovely', as they so often do on Facebook for work which is about as lovely as gazing into an open latrine....
But it's not aimed at the poor old artist - it's the method. Getting this across is the devil's own job. And I would encourage our poster at the top of this thread to keep painting, and post here again - because we can help you get beyond this point if that's what you want to do; and if it isn't - well, that's fine too, it's your decision.
Posted
Cool, and yeah, I'm not one for staying quiet either. I'll aim for tact and try to give good alternative advice but I totally agree that staying silent just allows people to continue in bad habits. I spent a lot of years messing around with art, thinking talent alone was enought to make good paintings, because thats how I was raised to think. But after numerous frustrating painting disasters, I got my shit together and started studying how to do art properly. I think unfortunately, there's a lot of fundamental craft knowledge thats been lost from art schools in place of pure personal expression and conceptualisation. Which is all fine but whats the point of a good idea if you cant actually produce it well? So yeah, I guess I fall into the "study the fundamentals and know your tools" camp, which Bob Ross definitely isnt part of.
Posted
<p class="MsoNormal">Once again I feel I must say something onbehalf of Bob Ross. When I first saw himon TV in the early nineties, I was mesmerized with his voice encouraging thelikes of myself who knew absolutely nothing about art to get out there andtry. He lit a flame inside me which wasseveral years nearly 14 years in fact before I could make the first step indrawing and painting a picture, I knew nothing about the subject only if I likedor disliked a painting and would I have it on my wall. In fact that still stands today.<spanstyle="mso-spacerun:yes"> You have all seen some of my works -- good,bad or indifferent --so I think I do have to owe him a vote of thanks, for lightingthe flame.But I am not saying hismethods were right or wrong, but if it gets you going, then go for it and get the brushes working..:Whistling:<o:p></o:p></spanstyle="mso-spacerun:yes">Tao
Posted
If Bob Ross inspired anyone, then he did something right. He took what he knew from William Alexander, who got very cross with him for so doing (and was a FAR better painter); so Saint Bob wasn't as saintly as all that (although he didn't turn against Alexander, I believe, until Alexander turned against him). But he was not a good example to others; and his paint is dreadful stuff not suitable for artistic use.
But this is going to get nowhere - I listen to Bob on YouTube because he helps me to sleep; he certainly never helped me to paint, but on the other hand he taught a quick method to amateur painters who might never have picked up a brush if it weren't for him, some of whom moved on from Bob (and William Alexander) and developed their own style. Let's leave it there, because the two entrenched sides are never, ever, going to agree.
Posted
Tough crowd! As a newbie here seeing people call someones painting "junk" and "not art" is going to put me off posting anything ... I mean I know they put it here for critique but I don't think saying something is junk because it's a style of someone who doesn't seem very popular doesn't seem very constructive!
Posted
Have trawled through the thread, and found the 'junk' comment. It wasn't about the picture shown, but about the Bob Ross example from which it was taken - and as I think I remarked somewhere, it's better than most Bob Ross paintings, but then it probably took longer to paint: you'd have to be very good to produce a finished oil painting to an acceptable standard in less than half an hour - and many of Ross's paintings were all over the place in consequence (that and the method he used). Perspective out, recession established by one trick, which was to paint in layers rather like a series of theatre screens.
But it's the method, rather than individual paintings, which always throws up problems if it's persisted in. Ross himself told people to move on, that his advice was intended to get people started handling brushes and paint - I think that message got badly diluted over time, and the method became an end in itself. The business grew, products multiplied, any genuine educational element got sidetracked into product promotion.
By the way, a comment I didn't see last year but just have as the subject has been disinterred from its resting place - Alexander felt that Ross had "betrayed" him: they did work together at the outset, but precisely because both businesses grew and Ross began producing his own materials, and naming them subtly differently, there was competition between them which turned bitter. Just out of historical interest - it doesn't have much to do with the original painting shown here, and I hope the person posting it was not put off too much, although I can see why he might have been.
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