The biography of Bob Ross by Maria Korea. A little golden book biography illustrated by Jeff Crother. Robert Norman Ross was born on October 29th, 1942 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
His mother, Ali, taught him to love and respect wildlife. Bob learned that to make friends with trees, all he had to do was talk to them. Growing up in Florida, Bob would find and take care of injured animals, including snakes, squirrels, and armadillos.
Once his parents found him nursing an alligator back to health in their bathtub. Bob's father, Jack, was a carpenter. When Bob was in ninth grade, he decided to quit school and trained to be a carpenter, too.
While working with his father, Bob lost the tip of his left index finger in an accident. Bob decided that woodworking wasn't for him. He joined the United States Air Force when he was 18 and shortly after was sent to live on a base in Alaska.
Alaska's dramatic landscapes and snowcap mountains were unlike anything Bob had ever seen before. Inspired by his surroundings, Bob took his first painting class in Alaska. Though he enjoyed painting, he was frustrated by his teachers who preferred abstract art to realism.
Bob wanted to learn how to paint a tree that actually looked like a tree. One day, while watching TV, Bob discovered a show called The Magic of Oil Painting. The host, a German painter named William Alexander, who lived in Bob's home state of Florida, completed a landscape painting during each 30inut episode while explaining his technique.
Bob was fascinated. Bill Alexander used an oil painting technique called alap prima or the first attempt in Italian. Also known as wet on wet, this approach allows artists to finish paintings quickly by applying new layers of paint without waiting for previous layers to dry.
Bob kept watching Bill's shows, and he practiced the weton wet technique until he mastered it. Before long, Bob was painting landscapes on the backs of gold panning tins and selling them for $25 a piece. In 1981, Bob retired from the Air Force as a master sergeant and moved back to Florida to study in person with Bill Alexander.
Bob even joined Bill's company as a traveling instructor. In one of Bob's painting workshops, he met Annette Kowalsski. Annette saw his talent and knew he could be a big success.
Annette and her husband became Bob's business partners. Together with Bob's wife, Jane, they started Bob Ross Incorporated, launching a line of paints and brushes. Although Bob's hair was naturally straight, he saved money on haircuts by getting a perm, a curly hairstyle that can last a long time.
He didn't really like the look, but it became the company's logo, so he never changed it. At first, the company struggled. Bob's shopping mall painting classes attracted only small audiences.
Annette bought local newspaper ads and even set up a telephone hotline to generate buzz. Eventually, their big break came in the form of a TV show. The Joy of Painting first aired on January 11th, 1983 on PBS.
Over the next 11 years, Bob would film 403 episodes. In each, he stood in a dark room with a blank canvas with a smudge here and a pallet knife scraped there. He'd bring an imaginary landscape scene to life in half an hour.
But the joy of painting wasn't just about the masterpieces Bob created. It was about sharing the experience with his viewers. He believed that anyone could be an artist and that art should be accessible to everyone.
On his show, he used just 13 paint colors and only a handful of tools. Like Bill Alexander, Bob explained his process step by step so that the viewers could paint along with him. But many people tuned in simply to watch Bob and to listen to his calm, soothing voice as he painted his happy little trees.
Bob remained an animal lover his entire life. Occasionally, animals that Bob was helping to rehabilitate appeared on a show, and these included a baby raccoon, a fawn, an ally named Hoot, and perhaps the most famous of all, Peepod the Squirrel. The Joy of Painting is considered to be the most popular art show in history.
People from all over the country and the world turned on their televisions and turned to Bob for inspiration. Bob died on July 4th, 1995, but his legacy lives on. Today, there are more than 3,000 official Bob Ross instructors worldwide.
And although he never received recognition from the art world during his lifetime, you can now find some of his paintings in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History's permanent collection. Bob Ross didn't just teach people how to paint. He taught people to believe they could paint.
So the next time you need a little encouragement, just think of Bob's friendly voice saying, "You can move mountains. You can do anything.
