2015 November 5: My photo-of-the-day is an experience that I want to remember, so I took a pic of my computer screen (cropping out the messy papers on my desk!).
For the past several days my family has been enthralled with watching twitch.tv's continuous stream of all 403 episodes of "Joy of Painting" -- an older television show hosted by (now deceased) artist Bob Ross; it aired from 1983 to 1994. I remember watching it on television (and enjoying it immensely) when it was originally shown.
For any who are not familiar with twitch.tv, it began as a website for gamers (um, a quite interesting sub-culture of mostly young people with often appalling chat language) ...People live-stream as they play video games and talk to viewers in chat. My sons visit the site often, and although I don't watch it much I am fascinated that streamers can actually make a decent living doing this!
Twitch is now expanding to include a "Creative Channel" in partnership with Adobe; it is for artists, crafters and builders ...People who live-stream as they sketch, watercolor, create in Photoshop, compose music, create costumes, etc. To launch this new channel, they held a non-stop "Joy of Painting" marathon.
We, of course, have not watched all 403 episodes ...but for days we have left "Joy of Painting" running in the background whenever we are home. It became part of our daily routine to periodically rush over to our computers to see the paintings every chance that we got.
I have been fascinated to see the reaction to this "retro" art: At any given time, there were 40,000+ people (and a total of 3 million unique viewers!) watching the stream. Many of these young people were "meeting" Bob Ross and his style of art for the first time.
Filtering out all the completely unacceptable (to an adult, at least) comments, I have found the crowd reaction to be surprising and touching: When Bob Ross puts on a dark layer of paint, there are collective gasps of "Ruined!" in the chat. As the painting takes on form, cries of "Beautiful!" take over. At the end of each episode, everyone signs off with a "ggwp" (not the usual "good game, well played" that they use on the video game channels -- but, of course, "good game, well painted").
In this often jaded, cynical corner of the internet, Bob Ross (with his slogan of "There are no mistakes in art, only happy little accidents," and his trademark "happy trees") has been embraced. Knowing from our 2015 vantage point of his untimely death in 1995, people are poignantly touched when he talks on the show about how happy he is to be alive.
As one journalist covering this event put it, "Together we are enjoying this wonderful man's gift to the world, basking in his serenity, sharing in his joy, touched by his teaching. Many of these temporary inhabitants of Bob's world are already concerned about what they will do when the stream is over. How will they fill the void in their lives that Bob's departure will leave? For them, and for me, it will be a period of mourning."
Back to reality: Watching this event has reminded me that photography is as wonderful a form of art as Bob Ross' oil paintings ...and can be just as powerful in impacting people!
I TOO LEARNED TO PAINT WITH THIS REMARKABLE MAN 'S JOY OF PAINTING AND CONTINUE TO MOURN HIS LOSS BUT I TOO, DO WATCH HIM ON CREATE TV 2 TIMES A WEEK AND HAVE IT PROGRAMED ON DVR SO I WILL NOT MISS HIS WONDERFUL PAINTINGS AND ALWAYS HAVE TIME AND ROOM TO GROW AND IMPROVE MY PAINTING SKILLS. I STARTED PAINTING WITH BOB ROSS BACK IN THE 80"S AND CONTINUE TO WATCH AND PURCHASE ONLY HIS PRODUCTS. I HAVE THE FIRST 7 BOOKS WHEN HE FIRST STARTED THIS PROGRAM WITH ALEXANDER. I AM SO PROUD TO BE ONE OF HIS FOLLOWERS STILL AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. THANKS FOR SHARING. FAV.
@merrelyn@congaree@tonygig@demelo Thanks for your wonderful comments! I meant to shorten this narrative, but got interrupted and didn't get around to doing so. Ann, that's awesome that you still follow Bob Ross and actually use his products!
I'm sure his lessons are on DVD somewhere or you can go on You Tube type in his name and some of his tutorials might pop up. I know a lot of people made fun of his style, but it can't be denied that he opened more doors for people to enjoy art than had ever been opened before.
