But Is It Art: Bob Ross
Television art, ASMR, Bill Alexander, and the happy little accidents
Bob Ross is a bit of a legend. He’s an iconic artist with an unusually broad appeal, despite, or perhaps because of, producing the kind of paint-by-numbers landscape paintings that you might find in an op shop and buy for the frame. His work has been criticised as trite and unoriginal, but people all over the world are more likely to say “Oh, I LOVE Bob Ross” than to critique his artwork. His greatest talent may not have been his painting ability, although the way he produces a beautiful and realistic landscape in half an hour out of his imagination deserves credit. But his greatest talent was his ability to reach people, to teach them, and encourage them to find their own joy in painting. He’s famous for saying there are no mistakes, only happy little accidents.
Everything in Bob Ross land seems happy. And as cheesy as it sounds when someone like me talks about it, his sincerity is impossible to ignore. If you didn’t grow up watching his show on PBS in the ‘80s, you might stream it now out of curiosity, or perhaps for some kind of mockery. But once you start watching it, it’s hard to make fun of something so genuine and so wholesome.
I’ve had two Bob Ross painting parties. I can’t seem to find any photos of either of these painting parties, so you’ll just have to imagine it: I bought cheap paints and canvases and brushes, and my friends and I sat around in my lounge room, eating and drinking, and following along with an episode. Each painting turned out different, even though we were painting the same thing, and that’s one of my favourite things about it.
Bob Ross is known for being a TV host and artist, but he spent the first twenty years of his working in the U.S. Air Force. It is surprising that someone so softly spoken and kind was, according to him, "the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work.” His years in the military, being that guy who screams, made him swear that once he left, he would never raise his voice again. His voice is so relaxing that people would tell him it would put them to sleep - and he never minded.
Bob Ross’ voice is said to induce ASMR - which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response - a pleasant, tingly feeling that can be triggered by things like listening to whispers, or watching something repetitive and mundane. I don’t get it, but my son does. He went through a phase of watching videos on YouTube of people scrunching slime that has been left out in the air for a couple of days to create a crisp coating, or slicing kinetic sand with a metal knife. He also liked videos of a car tyre running over crunchy things like carrots, or plastic bottle tops. These are all part of a growing genre of intentional trigger videos, that include actions such as shaving bars of soap, turning pages of a book, or brushing hair.
The term ASMR was coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010. She had experienced this “weird sensation feels good” for years, but previous attempts to name it were a bit “new age-y,” or sounded too sexual, like “brain-orgasm.” She felt that a more clinical term would lend legitimacy to the experience. She started with “autonomous” because the feeling was internal. “Sensory” is obvious - because it was a sensation. “Meridian” suggests a peak, and orgasm, and also spoke to the energy lines of traditional Chinese healing. “Response” was because it happens as a reaction to external stimuli rather than being a constant state.
There has been minimal research into the ASMR phenomenon, but researchers have found that the first experience is usually between the ages of 5 and 10, and that whispering, personal attention, crisp sounds, and slow movement are common triggers for the sensation. Neuroimaging has shown different levels of brain activity at rest between those who do experience it and those who do not, which might explain why I don’t get triggered but my son does. The common everyday experiences reported by participants in a study by Poerio et al (2018) that can trigger the tingly ASMR response that are found in Bob Ross’ shows are: people speaking softly, tapping on hard surfaces, like when he bangs his paintbrush on his easel, watching people do things in a careful, attentive way, visual hand movements, and scratching sounds, like his paintbrush on the canvas.
Dr Craig Richard, is a professor in biopharmaceutical science, who started ASMRUniversity, which is not a real university, but he is a real professor at the real Shenandoah University in Virginia. One of Dr Richard’s ASMR triggers is Bob Ross. He believes that the tingles of ASMR are evolutionary, and that triggers like grooming, soft touches, and whispering, are similar to the way humans soothe babies. Dr Richard believes that even if ASMR is not sexual itself, that it can still belong in the realm of healthy foreplay, of connection and trust, making someone feel safe and cared for.
Another common anecdote about watching The Joy of Painting is that people with insomnia or post-traumatic stress disorder find it relaxing and comforting to listen to Bob Ross’ almost-hypnotic voice. The relaxation app, Calm, now has the audio of Bob Ross shows without the visuals. Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., said, “People back in the day were shy to tell him they fell asleep listening to him. They thought it would insult him. He loved it.”
Bob Ross was born in Florida in 1942. His dad, Jack, was a carpenter, and Bob lost part of a finger as a teenager while working as a carpenter with his father, which is usually hidden in his shows by the paint palette he holds. His mother, Ollie, was a waitress, and he had a half brother named Jim. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force when he was 18, and worked as a medical records technician, becoming a master sergeant by the time he retired from duty. He was stationed in Alaska, which is where he saw the snow and mountains that feature in so many of his paintings. It was while he was in the military that he started painting, and developed his method of painting fast. He said he would go home during his lunch break, do a couple of paintings while he ate his sandwich, and then sell the paintings to tourist shops that afternoon. It didn’t take long before he was earning more money from painting than from his Air Force wages. Some he painted on gold pans.
Bob Ross learned the distinctive wet-on-wet style of painting from a man named Bill Alexander. Bill had his own TV show, The Magic of Oil Painting, and the format was very similar to Bob Ross’. The rapid painting technique wasn’t a modern invention though. Wet-on-wet, or alla prima, which is Italian for ‘first attempt’, was a technique used by artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and John Singer Sargent. The invention of portable tubes for commercial paints helped make this fast method of painting more accessible. As the name says, oil paint is applied over a still-wet layer of paint, allowing colours to be blended more easily and quickly. Bob Ross starts with his canvas primed with liquid white paint. Traditionally, oil paint would be added a layer at a time, once the previous layer had dried. Depending on how thick the paint was applied and therefore how fast it could dry, it could take weeks for the final painting to be finished. The wet-on-wet technique allows artists to complete a painting much more quickly, like around 26 or 27 minutes, the length of a Joy of Painting episode.
Unfortunately for Bill Alexander, the student became the master, and despite both Bill Alexander and Bob Ross both achieving success in TV and with their paint companies, there was apparently a feud between them, or at least some resentment on Bill’s part about Bob’s popularity and success.
Bill Alexander was born in Germany in 1915, and said in his autobiography that he grew up in a landscape of “dead cows and machine guns bared and lying around and skeletons of soldiers half-buried with the boots sticking out of the ground.” A travelling artist visited the small town where he grew up, and impressed Bill with how fast he could paint. Bill Alexander got an apprenticeship and did work for wealthy people in his town before setting off as a travelling artist himself. However, he joined the German army at the start of World War 2, and was captured by American soldiers. His painting skills were encouraged by his captors, who commissioned portraits. I don’t know if he was a prisoner for the rest of the war, or what happened after, until he moved to Canada in 1952. Again he hoped to make a career in art, but struggled for years. He and his wife travelled across Canada and the United States displaying his canvases in the windows of their Volkswagen bus. He began teaching classes in California, which is where he met Bob Ross. Bob said “I took one of his classes and I went crazy. I knew this was what I wanted to do.”
It was in the early 70s that Bill Alexander got his TV break. According to Laurie Anderson, who now owns Alexander Art, “The reason he wanted to reach more people is that Bill, with every fibre of his being, believed that painting made people better. He truly believed that if everyone painted, the world would be more peaceful—that there would be so much more beauty in the world.” Bill’s show, The Magic of Oil Painting, first aired in 1973, and went on to have an almost ten year run, even bagging an Emmy in 1979.
But by 1983, Bill Alexander’s show was replaced on the public broadcasting service by Bob Ross. In a promo for the new show, PBS ran an ad where Bill handed a paintbrush to Bob, passing the proverbial torch. Years later Bill Alexander said “I trained him and he is copying me—what bothers me is not just that he betrayed me, but that he thinks he can do it better.”
Bill Alexander was an upbeat, encouraging art teacher, just like Bob Ross, but where Bob was softly spoken and calm, Bill was more fiery, and of course he had a German accent instead of Bob’s American one. They both emphasised an accessible approach to art, believing that it was available to all, and shouldn’t be controlled by pretension and elitism.
Bob said, "Traditionally, art has been for the select few. We have been brainwashed to believe that Michaelangelo had to pat you on the head at birth. Well, we show people that anybody can paint a picture that they're proud of. It may never hang in the Smithsonian, but it will certainly be something that they'll hang in their home and be proud of. And that's what it's all about." He didn’t like abstract art, and said if he paints something, he doesn’t want to have to explain what it is.
Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting show followed the same simple format each time. You never see the finished painting before it starts - although with today’s broadcast mediums like Netflix, YouTube, and Twitch, you can skip to the end. Bob wore the same outfit in each episode - jeans and a collared shirt - as he wanted to appear timeless. The ‘80s afro and production values date the show, of course, but the clothes don’t. Apparently he permed his hair to save money on haircuts and it became a distinctive part of his branding. He was then stuck with a perm he hated for the rest of his life.
The set was simple to not distract from the painting. He had an easel set up and his canvas primed with “liquid white,” to create that first layer of wet paint. He’d hold a large clear palette prepped with paint, and the names of the paint colours you’d need would display on the screen. He would lightly sand his palette before filming, so that it wouldn’t reflect the studio lights. He filmed as though he was talking to just one person, not to the hundreds or thousands of people watching.
His paintings were formulaic: first the sky, maybe some clouds then a mountain or two. He’d pop in some happy little trees, perhaps a waterfall or a lake. The website FiveThirtyEight analyzed the show and found that 91% of his paintings contained at least one tree, 44% contained clouds, and 39% had at least one mountain. He painted cabins in 18% of the shows but interestingly, only two of his paintings included people. One was the silhouette of a man by a campfire, and one had two indistinct people walking in the woods. According to his business partner, Annette Kowalski, the campfire piece was one of his least favourite paintings. There was a lake in 34% of his paintings, and 19% had snow. He didn’t seem to like flowers, though. Only 2% of his paintings had flowers in.
When he switched colours, he’d wash the brush and then whack it on the easel. He would look at the camera and giggle self consciously, aware of his catchphrase, “just beat the devil out of it,” but seemingly unable to stop himself from saying it. At the end of the show, he’d thank the viewer for joining him, and finish with a “God bless.”
There were 31 series, with 13 episodes in each series. The show was recorded with three cameras, and no edits - it was all one take. He did three versions of each painting though. The first one was for practice and used as reference during the show, the second was filmed, and a third was painted afterwards and used for his instructional books. He painted in 381 of the 403 episodes of the show (the rest featured a guest) so there should be at least 1143 of his paintings out there. He also did live events and classes, so that would mean even more. Yet almost none of them are for sale. It seems strange that he didn’t sell any, when he was such a popular artist, who sold paintings even while in the Air Force and he had many fans and willing buyers. Especially when you consider that he wasn’t paid for his PBS TV shows. PBS stands for Public Broadcasting Service, and is a non-profit station that gets 15 percent of its funding from the government.
The New York Times made a video in 2019 about what they called “one of the internet’s favourite little mysteries,” in which they visited the headquarters of Bob Ross Inc. in Virginia, to find out where all his paintings are, and why they’re not for sale. According to a 1991 New York Times article, Bob Ross said he’d painted nearly 30,000 pieces of artwork. Turns out there are hundreds of paintings stored in a non-climate controlled room at the Bob Ross Inc headquarters, and in the New York Times video Joan Kowalski, daughter of Annette Kowalski, simply says “it actually has never occurred to us,” and that they’ve never really talked about it. To which the obvious response is: well, can you talk about it?
To be clear: it’s not impossible to buy a Bob Ross. He gave away many paintings for charity auctions, and his early work is still out there too. Annette Kowalski will authenticate paintings if they are sent in person - not a digital image - to Bob Ross Inc. If a piece is certified as an original, they provide documents of authenticity. By the way, Annette Kowalski made all the shirts Bob wore on TV.
Bob Ross made his money from teaching live classes and selling workshop videos, from his instructional books, and from the painting supplies Bob Ross Inc. sold, and still sells today. You can even train to be a certified Bob Ross painting instructor. Of course there is merch these days too, and it’s not just t-shirts. There’s a Bob Ross Bingo Game, with tickets such as “Big Ol’ Brush,” and “Everyone needs a little friend.” There’s a Bob Ross Cookbook, published by Running Press, with dishes such as: Happy Little Roasted Chicken, Nothing-to-It Pot Roast, Upstream Salmon Croquettes, Brunch Palette Quiche, and Cabin-Roasted Vegetables.
We know a lot about his impressive career, but not very much about his personal life. Bob was a private person, and when he was diagnosed with lymphoma in the early 90s, only his close friends and family knew. He was married to Vivian Ridge from 1965 to 1977, with whom he had one son, Steven, and then to Jane Ross from 1977 until she died of cancer in 1992. He got married for a third time to Lynda Brown in 1995, two months before he died, at 52 years old. He continued painting and filming his show until 1994, only a year before his death. His gravestone reads “Bob Ross, Television Artist.”
Bob Ross used to receive up to 200 letters from fans per day. If a regular letter-writer fell out of touch for a while, Bob would phone them to check they were ok. He was a kind man on screen and off. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Bob said, “I don’t intimidate anyone. Instead, I try to get people to believe in themselves. I tell people, 'You can do this.' And they write back and say, 'You were right. I can do this. And now I believe I can do anything.’”
The whole deal is charming and heartwarming