Painting With Bob Ross - K & F Design

This past weekend my boyfriend and I decided to try something very ambitious. We attempted to follow Bob Ross and recreate two of his paintings. We both chose different paintings so we did not have the same paintings hanging up next to each other. We have both liked Bob Ross’ paintings, but I never imagined I would ever attempt to make one. In fact oil paint had always been kind of intimidating to me. This was the first time I had ever worked with oil paints or even heard of gesso. His paintings always seemed so detailed and complicated. I still do not know how Bob Ross can pull out these paintings in less than 30 min., but I was pretty surprised how well ours turned out. It took us both several hours to complete our pieces, but we were both pretty pleased with ourselves by the end. Throughout the entire process we both said countless times “whoa hold on Bob I am not there yet”, as we quickly drop everything to pause our videos. I am sure it would have been quite amusing to watch. I did the painting with the cabin, and my boyfriend did the mountains. The Bob Ross video I followed was Cabin in the Hollow season 31, episode 5. My boyfriend did not write down which video he watched. So, I am sorry I do not have the season number or anything for you. If you are interested in making the round succulent wall hanging planters seen in the background of the picture below, then check out how I made them here. https://kandfdesign.com/diy-round-succulent-wall-hanging-planter/

Our “art studio” consisted of small tray tables covered in blue tarps for protection. We also used small tote lids as our paint pallets. We did not skimp on the paints though. Once we watched several Bob Ross episodes and chose which paintings we wanted to attempt we took notes of all the colors, brushes, and other supplies we needed. In order to do this we needed to watch the episode again all the way through to jot down all the colors he says at the begins as well as every paint brush and tool he says he uses throughout the episode. It took a lot of searching to find all the paint colors and supplies for a reasonable price. So, a good amount of prep work went into this. Some of the supplies we needed were: Liquid white, to cover the entire canvas at the beginning to help things blend. Paint thinner to clean the oil paint off of the brushes. My particular painting required the gesso. Several different sizes of spatulas and brushes. And of course the oil paints in several different colors.

Here are a few links if you would like to attempt a Bob Ross painting of your own. We bought all of our oil paints separately, because we needed several colors that the sets did not include. However, a set might be better for you if your particular painting has similar colors to the sets or you do not care if the colors are off a bit. You actually do not use that much oil paint. So, the little tubes will get several uses out of them. We may attempt to do more paintings in the future since we have all the supplies and extra oil paint. We did need more paint thinner than we expected. So, I would get a bigger container of this. The paint brushes are better with a little rougher bristles. Depending on the painting you do you may need other fancier brushes as well. If you attempt to follow a Bob Ross video please share how it turns out. Remember there are no mistakes just happy accidents.

I recently found some frames at Hobby Lobby that fit our canvases perfectly. I am so glad I decided to buy them. They add a nice touch to the canvases.