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The Joy of Painting

Artist Bob Ross
  • Posted at 11:53am
  • 13 September 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 4 comments

After yesterday's ordeal of jet planes smashing into mountainsides, it's time to wind down with some laid-back programming – and it doesn't get much more placid than the "painting hour" on Discovery Real Time. Every weekday morning, 60 minutes of tranquillity kick off with The Joy of Painting.

It's presented by Bob Ross, a man who makes Whispering Bob Harris sound like Fearne Cotton trapped on a malfunctioning rollercoaster. Bob Ross died in the mid-1990s, but his shows are still widely syndicated, providing comfort, encouragement and a great big Afro haircut for the viewing public.

To say that Bob is softly spoken doesn't really do his honeyed tones justice. He would have made a terribly ineffective sergeant major, and if he'd tried to be a sheep auctioneer, things would have quickly spiralled into a woollen nightmare of confusion and bleating.

But as a TV painter, you have to say that he was supremely qualified. He was never scared of silence – he just let his brush, dabbed in a bit of burnt sienna, do the talking. And when he does deign to speak, it's purely to fill us with the power of positive thought.

"We're going to put all kinds of happy little things on the canvas," he says, with a smile that would have remained fixed even if his car had been written off that morning by joyriders. "Remember, everybody needs a friend," he adds, applying utopian social theory to the act of painting a few bushes.

When a flatmate and I were both going through messy relationship break-ups a few years ago, watching Bob Ross paint riverbanks was the only affordable therapy available. He didn't make us think that we could actually paint, but he did manage to briefly create a world where "happy trees" replaced spiteful ex-girlfriends.

If this were a well-structured TV review, I'd now point out the myriad contrasts offered by the subsequent programme, Crawshaw Paints Oils, but it's pretty much identical. Except Alwyn Crawshaw's beard is whiter, he's sitting on a beach in Devon rather than standing in an American TV studio, and he talks a bit more than Bob does.

In fact, at one point during his laborious reconstruction of a low-tide scene at Newton Abbot, he said, "Isn't it lovely when I don't talk?". And I thought: actually, yes. Why pretend that we're able to replicate this painting with the items we have to hand – a tin of magnolia and a broom, in my case – when we can just watch a nice bloke paint a pleasant picture.

There's something delightfully nostalgic about programmes like these, reminding you as they do of 1970s shows like Out of Town with Jack Hargreaves, or the Art of Origami. I suppose we're lucky that there's still one area of television that hasn't been overrun by brash presenters screaming their lungs out. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time until we see shows like Paint Along with Graham Norton, or Celebrity Watercolour Face-off. So enjoy Bob and Alwyn while you still can.

The Joy of Painting and Crawshaw Paints Oils are on at 9:00am and 9:30am weekdays on Discovery Real Time (Sky 250, Virgin 271, Freeview 42).

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Comments

  • Posted on 15 April 2009
  • at 8:01am
  • by jelly belly

this program is a little gem and inspired me to paint, long may it continue and god bless bob ross.

  • Posted on 18 December 2008
  • at 11:45am
  • by antony

The joy of painting, a classic series thats inspired many I'm sure.

  • Posted on 13 September 2007
  • at 2:14pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT

You could pitch the format to Endemol, Rob. You never know.

  • Posted on 13 September 2007
  • at 12:59pm
  • by robsoft

Combining both of your program ideas there Rhodri, I for one would pay good money (double my licence fee, possibly more) to see someone forcibly stuff the business-end of an emulsion-laced yardbrush into Norton's endlessly yipping maw.

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