Winter Glory

I have been on quite the hiatus and neglecting my Bob Ross lessons. “Funemployment” was much shorter than expected. In fact, I never actually qualified for payments. I left for Anchorage on August 16^th and on September 16^th I started as an associate at one of the oldest and more prestigious law firms in town (hereinafter “The Firm”). One face to face interview and I was hired. I never knew I was so employable. Also, quite honestly, I never saw “law firm” in my future. As the liberal, artsy, crunchy hippie, the corporate world did not appeal to me. I figured I should try it before I knock it, so here I am. For the past month I have been sitting in my penthouse office that stares out at the Chugiak Range, working my butt off defending insurance companies and wrongfully discharged employees.

Most surprisingly, I love it. Absolutely love it. I have responsibility. I work with great, experienced professionals and deal with really interesting topics and cases. Possibly the best part is that I am not working 80 hour weeks. The Firm really respects personal time and as one of the partners said during my interview “you can only look at those mountains for 9 hours before you have to get out in them.” They meant it.

That is the other reason for the hiatus. This is my first fall in Anchorage and it is amazing. It has been dry and beautiful, as opposed to summer which I heard was wet and more wet. The mountains right now are an amazing mix of yellow and crimson with white termination dust topped peaks. I have been out ptarmigan hunting, hiking, jogging and enjoying the sights. I think it will be good inspiration for painting during the cold winter months.

However, after six weeks of exercise and lawyering my right brain was screaming for attention and I made it a goal to paint this weekend. I resisted the urge to hit up the bars so I would be energetic and clear headed for the latest lesson. I of course broke that promise because my buddies and I went on an epic ptarmigan hunt up Turnagain Pass which involved me taking a 40 foot slide down a steep mossy bank and having to grab a bush to keep from going 100 more feet. That deserved a couple beers once I got home.

I did take it semi easy and woke up early Sunday morning to head to Michaels for more titanium white and some extra brushes. Bob recommends having multiple 1 and 2 inch and fan brushes so I followed his advice. Big mistake going to Michaels though.. Michaels overcharges like crazy. If you want to do the Bob Ross method, mail-order supplies from Dick Blick. They are the best art supply store hands down with super fast shipping and you spend half the money.

I got home, broke out the supplies, turned on the DVD and was ready to paint “Winter Glory.” It was a very white snow scene and it stunk. Seriously, on ice. I totally hate it.

It was my junior curse. Third tries are usually bad. How many great bands put out a great debut album, a stellar second album and a throwaway third album? You get too experimental trying to find your voice and just blow it. Well “Winter Glory” is my throwaway. As much as I was dissatisfied with the first two, they were on the whole good. Not so much here.

Everything that could go wrong did. My background colors and sun didn’t come out right. My mountains look like lumps of dirt. The pink and blue tinted snow colors were too dark and didn’t stick and break correctly on them. I was left with patriotic looking humps. My background banks were too steep and did not have good form. My evergreens were blobs and I, for some unknown reason, stuck the shading on the wrong side of the tree. My reflections barely reflect. You get the point.

The big problem again is that I am still learning the paints, e.g. how to mix them, how to load the brush and how thick to put them on. Bob does it with such ease. He mixes the paint in a perfect brush-width size area and taps the paint into the bristles ever so perfectly. I, on the other hand, end up with a sloppy pallet full of wasted paint mashed into indiscernible colors and slathered three inches up the stem of the brush.

But, as Bob said this lesson, “You can’t have light without dark. You have to have bad days so you know when you have good days.”** Bob, of course, is right. I need to have a bad painting so when the next one comes out good, I will know it. Thus, I’m not deterred. In fact, I am now more determined than ever to master wet on wet oil painting. I had a set back and am ready to move on to bigger and happier clouds. I think this weekend I am going to try to knock out another lesson – if I have spare time while working on my cardboard robot Halloween costume. Until next time, happy painting and God bless.

**Bob also said “only do one bush at a time” which I thought was equally prophetic and applicable to life.

Painting #2: Peace Offerings of Summer

Painting #1: Mountain Summit

The Bob Ross quickening has commenced. After picking up odorless thinner, a container – which finding a sealable container is harder than you would expect - and a garbage can for the beater rack, I attempted my first wet-on-wet oil painting. Well, first I watched the introductory video where Bob Ross, in his soothing voice, explains the different tools and paints and basically hawks his wears. Then it was the half hour episode Mountain Summit.

I have mixed feelings on the results. Objectively, the painting isn’t bad – you can tell it is trees and water with a mountain in the background – but as with every project I do, I am not satisfied. The colors are not as vibrant as Bob’s are, nor do my clouds, trees and bushes have much form.

My major obstacle is learning the materials. The Bob Ross method claims to let you see quick results and my first painting was decent, but I have to get to know the tools more confidently. The wet-on-wet method is based on blending small amounts of wet paint on the canvas. The canvas is first covered in a thin layer of very oily paint, aptly named liquid white, liquid black or liquid clear. When the thicker colors are applied it blends to vibrant colors for the background, water and reflection. Thicker paint is then applied as a dark shadow color. Thinner bright paints which stick to the thick darker colors are applied over the shadow color making the bushes, trees and mountains.

This method requires a lot of blending and a soft touch. When Bob Ross says “pretend you’re a whisper” he’s not joking (or just talking stoner). I am used to using acrylics and gobbing on thick paint. Fluffing the base of the mountains and the clouds damn near destroyed them and crisscross brushstrokes are also tougher to master than you would think.

My other problem was that I think I used too much liquid white. Thus after applying the background pthalo blue mixed with black, the titanium white for the clouds did not stick and my clouds blended into the sky. Also the colors of my mountain and trees did not stick well to the canvas. I had to gob it on so when I blended out my mountains they spread and I was left with a lot of mountains in the background. When I went to put the bright colors on my trees and shrubbery, they also didn’t stick and I started to make mud. I realized that adding liquid white to the color thinned it out enough to stick so my last batch of shrubs and trees (in the foreground) are much better.

The pine trees that Bob paints so easily are by far my biggest challenge. Loading the right amount of paint onto the fan brush and using just the corner went beyond me. The tree color also had trouble sticking on the canvas which combined with even worse brush control left them too fat and not cone shaped enough.

On the good side, I think my mountains do look alright, even if they are kind of big. The pallet knife makes snow very well and I even made a smaller mountain in front. I want to perfect mountains and work on making grass and tundra come up them halfway so they more closely resemble the mountains around here.

Overall it was a valiant first effort. I have nine one hour instructional videos left. I’m not sure what the extra half hour is going to bring, but I can use all the tips I can get. I am also hoping the hour long format will be slower. Bob races through his paintings because he can. I had to keep the remote by my side to pause and rewind. As I said, it was an encouraging first attempt. I am still a long way away from reaching Bob’s painting Zen, but then again the Dahli Lama wasn’t trained in a day either.