Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Bob Ross 2.0

You may prefer the less challenging English translation over the original text, but one writer in Greece has compared my show... well maybe just me... to Bob Ross.

Bob Ross [Wikipedia], the afro-adorned, soft-spoken wizard of 26-minute oil paintings got famous on PBS and left a void for art education when he passed away on July 4th, 1995.

He was famous for "happy trees" and "happy accidents" and those phrases live on in my show as viewers rattle them off in the chatroom.

I have absolutely no criticism of Bob Ross's work. He filled a void, brought a lot of people happiness and joy by helping them accomplish complete paintings. But perhaps the author sums it up best:
[Dave] sure is not Bob Ross but is a very good effort.

UPDATE:


The author of the article just mailed me an accurate translation:
Many of you have seen Bob Ross, the guy with the strange hair at ET3 (a greek tv channel) that paints in a couple of minutes things that most of us adore (although many "artists" think that they are just "knock offs"). Maybe you are one of those who tried to make their first steps in painting, because of the easiness that Bob Ross presents us. The shows we are watching are already counting 15 years and Bob Ross is not alive.

If you are wondering how a similar artist would be in the WEB 2.0 era, I think that David Darrow is an answer. Daily lessons and live streaming, twitter updates and of course blog, website etc, the Painting Guy does a very nice opening of the art to the public. Maybe he is not Bob Ross but this is a very good work.

If he is streaming right now you can watch him below either way visit his ustream channel.

4 comments:

Perform said...

Bob was how I got started in oil painting and I'm not hesitant to admit it. My parents still have my first effort, which, when I look at it even now, ain't half bad. But Dave, regarding your last sentence, maybe a little something was lost in the translation. Besides the hair.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, wool pants was actually strange hair. Who would have thought.

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Wow. You've arrived!
I think it's funny but at the same time Beverly over here started out with him. He was totally serious too.
Remember the guy with the 'magic white'? He'd paint every panel white and paint into it.

Celeste Bergin said...

..Despite the fact that that Bob Ross was a formula painter and you are not... you are being compared to Ross for his no-airs ways. Huge compliment.