How many of you know who this is?

Image:  Bob Ross Incorporated / Wikipedia.com

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the man in the picture is Bob Ross, an artist who had a public television show called The Joy of Painting that aired all over the US, in Canada, and in Europe.

In this show, Bob would demonstrate a wet-on-wet painting technique in which he created the most amazing landscapes and seascapes merely by smooshing colors around on a canvas wet with liquid white (gesso) using various-sized brushes.

Watch him do this here:

Sadly, Bob is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on in endless reruns of his show, and the sale of painting kits, supplies, and classes where you can learn this technique.  I always wanted to do this.  Last year, I bought a Bob Ross beginner painting kit.

Today, I decided to try it.

I wish I could have filmed it for you–you would have found my experience pretty hilarious.  I used to dabble in painting (badly) and I haven’t done anything like this in many years.  I learned some things today.  Here are some of them.

• When you buy a kit, open it the day you buy it. Don’t leave it in the closet for six months.   Mine was missing some things.  There was no fan brush (luckily I have one), and the tray had a space for one more tube of paint than it actually contained.

• You can do this without an easel, though it’s more difficult. I put double-sided tape on a large cutting mat and used it to hold the canvas still.  Then I stood over it and painted.  I didn’t want to buy an easel until I knew if I would do this again.

• Very, very old oil paints will still be good, if you can get the tube open. I ended up ripping the bottom off an old art kit tube of yellow ochre and another of burnt sienna, since the kit did not provide those colors.  When I finished, I just rolled the end of the tube back up and smashed it down.

• Phthalo green will stain your brushes, your clothes, your table, and your palette FOR THE REST OF THEIR NATURAL LIVES.

• I need FAR more odorless paint thinner than the kit provides. Like gallons of it.  Also, I used almost an entire roll of paper towels to clean up my mess.  There has to be a better way.

• Beating the brush is just as much fun as Bob made it look on TV. I had to do it inside the coffee can that held my thinner, but it still made me laugh just like he used to.

Ready to see the result?  ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE READY?  Okay, here goes!

What’s that thing in the sky? A UFO. Hey, it’s my painting–nobody said I couldn’t put that in there!

Painting and photograph by Elizabeth West

This technique is harder than it looks.  My misty foothills look like crap, especially the ones right above the water.  The first row marches straight across the canvas; real foothills don’t do that.

I had better luck with the water than the sky.  The reflection thing works just as advertised.  I’ll have to try again to get fluffy clouds like the ones Bob made.

Also, the instructions in the kit left out a lot.  I would have been better off cueing up an episode of The Joy of Painting and watching it as I went along.

The evergreen trees were easy, but the paint is so wet you really have to be careful not to muddy up the colors.  When Bob tells you to load the brush full, he means it. Using the palette knife takes a very light touch as well.  It turns out that I’m fairly good at cutting off a little roll of paint, but not so great at actually using it.

Like any new skill, painting this way takes practice.  I think I shall try again.  I like doing this–it’s quick, it’s fun, and I enjoyed creating a happy little world, even if my trees look a little bit pissed off.  Despite the horror of this first attempt, I think Bob would be proud of me for trying.

———-

It’s a day later, and I wanted to add a thought.  The most important thing I’ve learned from this? It doesn’t have to be perfect. Despite my mistakes, people have responded favorably to my lame attempt at art.  I’m happy with the painting, even though it isn’t as good as I’d hoped.  It’s still better than I expected.

And that’s about all we can do.  If our endeavors turn out fabulously, we’re golden. But silver is still pretty nice too.

Happy Independence Day!  For me, it’s Not-So-Happy-Wish-I-Were-British Day.  Or at least Wish-I-Were-In-London Day.

I miss this.

Photograph: Elizabeth West

You might wonder why I’m so attached to England.  When I was a kid, my auntie married an Englishman  and moved to London (they’re divorced now, though she is still there).  This fascinated me–growing up in a small Missouri cow town, I had no concept of foreign places.  Getting Christmas presents from her thrilled.

I corresponded with my step-cousin in high school.  Pen pals were a big thing back then and since we had no internet, we wrote letters.  We sent each other teen magazines and painted nail varnish colo(u)rs on our missives.

Jackie magazine, 9 June 1979.  I had this one, until my mum threw out all my mags and comics while I was at music college.  GAH, MUM!!!

Image: crazyaboutmagazines.com

When I turned eighteen, my parents’ graduation gift to me was a two-and-a-half week trip to London to visit Auntie, then-Uncle, and cousins.

I fell madly, passionately in love with it.

I wanted to go back, wanted it crazy bad, but it just didn’t happen.  So I tried my best to put it out of my mind.  It didn’t exactly go.  It lurked silently in my system until last year, when unrelated conversations with both European and American friends brought it roaring back to life.  A bit like how the chicken pox virus hangs out in your spine, only to cause shingles later.

I’ve changed a lot since that first visit, in various ways:

• I’m not as picky. Seriously, my auntie thought I would starve to death; I barely tried any foods.  The last two times, I ate everything that didn’t eat me first.  Including haggis and black pudding.

This is delicious and there is no way I would have touched it back then.

Photograph: Elizabeth West

• I’m more experienced. At eighteen, I could not have planned an independent trip to Scotland or Wales.  Also, it’s lucky London is such an easy city to get around in.  I was the most clueless, small-town idiot ever and I’m surprised I didn’t get mugged or fall into the Thames.

Me at 18, in Regent’s Park rose garden.  Oh my God, what a dork.  #TBT (yeah, sorry, I know it’s not Thursday)

Photograph by random English person using my camera

• Technology has caught up. In the 1980s, no one had a smartphone.  Everyone had a London A-Z.  They still sell this marvelous map of the city, because not everyone has a phone (or wants one), but let’s face it; you look like a tourist standing around flipping through it.  And besides, the print has shrunk–oh, sorry, it’s my ancient eyes.  Well, bollocks.

Getting old ain’t for sissies.

Image: imagerymajestic/freedigitalphotos.net

Now everyone has their faces in their phone screens. You pause somewhere to check the directions and it looks like you’re texting or reading email (be careful to watch for phone snatchers, however).  So thank you, Google maps, for helping me blend in and still get around.  An updated A-Z made a great souvenir instead.

I’ve no idea when I will return.  Right now, I feel very much like I did after that first trip, wondering when or if it will happen again, and thinking it’s out of reach.  But I’ve learned one more thing since that time: anything can happen.  Anything at all.

Let’s hope anything does.

———-

UPDATES

1. Secret Book is becalmed. I’ve slowly realized that it’s a much larger and more involved project than I thought.  The amount of research I still have to do to write convincingly about subjects of which I know nothing staggers me.  I’m still working on it, never fear.  The main priority is still to actually finish the book, but it will be the sketchiest first draft I’ve ever written.  I think that’s part of the problem; I’m headiting too much instead of just writing Blah blah blah check this later like I usually do.

2. Brian Keene says he is finished critiquing Rose’s Hostage. I hope I get it back now.  I’m still trying to work out a subplot for a sequel.  The book did get a minor rewrite already; I replaced an interrogation scene with a MUCH better version.  It added to the word count, but fuck it.

3. A friend is beta-reading Tunerville.  She’s my consumer test person; her job is to see if it’s readable.  I’m nervous because I want her to like it.  (She did like Rose’s Hostage.)

4. I have three queries out on Tunerville at the moment. No word from anyone, but there’s always hope.

That’s all I have today.  Later this week, look for a vocabulary post, and by next weekend, I will post a review of the sequel to Knight of Light for you.

Everybody have a safe and happy Fourth!