On
Bob Ross
Hi,
glad you could join me. Today I thought I'd share a happy little page
of some thoughts on the benefits of watching Bob Ross before bed each
night, for the growing creative.
Relaxation
Bob
Ross' gentle voice and tame Floridian accent, along with the
comfortable patterns of his speech, (his catchphrases in particular,
parental in their practical wisdom and comfort) and the simple,
procedural instructions he vocalizes make him the perfect thing to
listen to while getting ready to sleep. Sometimes I even turn on an
episode of The Joy of Painting
and turn the phone over such that the video doesn't glow in my eyes,
and simply listen to Ross speak. This is a man of a particular
expertise, with decades of experience in his craft. If we are lucky,
someday we might be able to instruct in our craft with similar ease
and comfort.
Welcome
Bob
Ross shows that anyone can paint, including you, and all you have to
do is do it. And he
does it by demonstrating his techniques, each day, from a blank
canvas (covered in magic white.) This is incredibly important as a
rhetorical technique: the first step to doing something is of course
to start, regardless of whatever happy accidents we may make along
the way towards creating a finished product.
Craft
The
purpose of The Joy of Painting
is extremely simple. Using a limited color palette and a limited set
of painting tools, Bob Ross instructs beginner painters in some of
the basic techniques of wet-on-wet landscape painting. When we watch
The Joy of Painting we
are witnessing the practice of craft, in the most literal sense. By
the time Bob Ross began hosting The Joy of Painting,
he was already a master of the techniques he presents, but each time
he performs them for us, he keeps his skills practiced and refined.
Ross was lucky that any number of people paid him to practice his
craft, many of us are not so lucky, but we should strive to work like
Ross and refine our basic technique, constantly, and consistently,
such that we get better at what we do, and stay good at it.
Purpose
Ross reminds us that, when painting, we
have control over the world we wish to paint. For Ross, this meant an
opportunity to create images of idyllic landscapes, separate from the
petty toils of living, and the corruption of society, a world that is
happy. As writers, musicians, visual artists, what have we, we often
choose other purposes than to make our audience our ourselves happy.
But the important part is that we choose, consciously, what that
purpose is, and we know intimately what we wish to attain with our
work.
In
Conclusion
To watch Bob Ross is to immerse one's
self in the basics of craft, and as such, serves to refresh our
willingness to practice our craft, our want to improve in our craft,
and our passion for our craft. He sends us to rest with dignity, and
respect for ourselves and our work.
From all of us here at Critical
Switch in Olympia, WA, all one of us, Play is Labor, I'm Austin
C. Howe. God bless.
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