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The Joy of Painting was an American television show hosted by painter Bob Ross that taught its viewers basic techniques for landscape oil painting. Although Bob Ross could complete a painting in half an hour, the intent of the show was not to teach viewers speed painting. Rather, he intended for viewers to learn certain techniques within the amount of time that the show was allowed. The show lasted until 1994, a year before Ross's death.

Production[link]

Broadcast by non-commercial public television stations, the show was first produced by WNVC in Falls Church, Virginia, through the early-1980s, then WIPB in Muncie, Indiana from 1983 until 1994, and later by Blue Ridge Public Television in Roanoke, Virginia. Most of the series was distributed by what is now American Public Television.

International broadcast[link]

As of 2006^[update], The Joy of Painting has been shown in many countries worldwide, such as Greek state broadcaster ERT3, Turkish state broadcaster TRT (with the title Resim Sevinci), BR-alpha in Germany, Discovery Real Time in the UK, NHK in Japan, EBS in South Korea and Once TV in Mexico, ATV and ICable TV in Hong Kong, IRIB in Iran and the Colombian state channel Canal Capital.

The show continues to be broadcast in syndication on public television stations, and continues a multi-million dollar spin-off business bearing Ross's name that sells art accessories related to the show. Re-runs are sometimes packaged under the title Best of The Joy of Painting.

The show airs regularly on the PBS digital subchannel Create.

The show's theme is "Interlude" by Larry Owens, for Networkmusic, Inc.

Format[link]

Each show began with Ross standing with a blank canvas in front of a black background. In under thirty minutes, he would turn the blank canvas into an imaginary landscape, using the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, in which the painter continues adding paint on top of still wet paint rather than waiting a lengthy amount of time to allow each layer of paint to dry.^[1] Combining this method with the use of two inch and other types of brushes as well as painting knives allowed him to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds. Each painting would start with simple strokes that appeared to be nothing more than colored smudges. As he added more and more strokes, the blotches transformed into intricate landscapes.^[2] The paintings featured colors like titanium white, phthalo green (a color used often, but in small quantities), phthalo blue, prussian blue, midnight black, dark sienna, Van Dyke brown, alizarin crimson, sap green, cadmium yellow (or "cad yellow" for short), yellow ochre, Indian yellow, and bright red. (In earlier seasons, he used burnt umber and permanent red.) As he painted, he instructed viewers regarding the techniques he was using and added his trademark soothing comments describing the "happy little clouds" and "happy little trees" that he was creating with his brush. He would also mention snippets of his own life, including his military career and the time he spent in Alaska, family anecdotes, and his affection for small animals, which he raised and set free. The show would occasionally feature a video of Ross with a baby squirrel or deer. He became known for his soothing tone and reassuring comments; "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents." Each program was shot in real time with two cameras: a medium shot of Ross and his canvas, and a close-up shot of the canvas or palette.

Occasionally, he would introduce a guest painter to host an episode. Guests included Dana Jester^[3] and Ross's son Steve.

Video game[link]

In March 2006, AGFRAG Entertainment Group announced that it was in the process of developing a video game based on The Joy of Painting for the Nintendo DS and Wii console systems and for the personal computer. The games would focus on the art of painting in the Bob Ross style.^[4] In December 2006, Bob Ross Incorporated dropped developer AGFRAG from the project and began searching for a new developer.^[5]

DVD releases[link]

DVD releases are grouped into collections such as: - Barn Collection - The Bob Ross Workshop - Seascaping Collection - Waterfalls Collection

Funding[link]

• The Martin/F. Weber Company
• Michaels Arts and Crafts Stores
• North Light Books/The Artist's Magazine
• Hobby Lobby

and the Bob Ross Memorial Fund for Closed Captioning.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bob Ross's official website
• The Joy of Painting at the Internet Movie Database
• The Joy of Painting at TV.com

Joy of Cooking, often known as "The Joy of Cooking", is one of the United States' most-published cookbooks, and has been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. It was privately published in 1931 by Irma S. Rombauer, a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri, who was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband's suicide the previous year. Rombauer had 3,000 copies printed by A.C. Clayton, a company which had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book. In 1936, the book was picked up by a commercial printing house, the Bobbs-Merrill Company. Joy is the backbone of many home cooks' libraries and is commonly found in commercial kitchens as well.

First edition (1931)[link]

In 1931, Rombauer, a recent widow needing a way to support her family, self-published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat.

The book was illustrated by Rombauer's daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who directed the art department at John Burroughs School. Working on weekends during the winter of 1930-31, Marion designed the cover, which depicted St. Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking, slaying a dragon. She also produced silhouette cutouts to illustrate chapter headings.^[1]

Much slimmer and more conversational than later editions, the original Depression-era edition included sections on canning, pickling, and instructions on how to use meats such as squirrel, opossum and raccoon.

1962–1964 editions[link]

In 1962, the year of Irma Rombauer's death, a revised edition of Joy was published. This edition was released without Marion Becker's consent. Subsequent releases of the book in 1963 and 1964 were essentially massive corrections, and Becker was known to swap copies of the 1962 edition for later corrected versions.^{[citation needed]}

This edition was published in paperback format (most notably, a two-volume mass market paperback edition). It is still widely available in used bookstores. The 1964 edition was also released as a single-volume comb-ring bound paperback mass-market edition starting in November 1973 and continuing into the early 1990s (ISBN 0-452-25665-8).

1975 edition[link]

The 1975 edition was the last to be edited by Becker, and remains the most popular. More than 1,000 pages long, it became a staple in kitchens throughout the country. Though many of the sections may feel dated to the contemporary American palate, many home chefs still find it a useful reference and it is still widely consulted. The foreword to this edition explains that Becker's favorite recipes include "Cockaigne" in the name, (e.g., "Fruit Cake Cockaigne"), after the name of her country home in Anderson Township, near Cincinnati, Ohio. ^[2]

The 1975 edition remained in print, primarily in various inexpensive paperback editions, until the 75th Anniversary edition arrived in 2006.

1997 edition[link]

After the 1975 edition, the project lay unchanged for about 20 years. In the mid-1990s, publisher Simon and Schuster, which owns the Joy copyrights, hired influential cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli, formerly of Willam Morrow, and editor of works by Jeff Smith and others. Guarnaschelli, under the supervision of Rombauer's grandson Ethan Becker, oversaw the creation of the controversial 1997 edition, published by Simon & Schuster's Scribner imprint. The new edition kept the concise style of its predecessors, but dropped the conversational first-person narration. Much of the book was ghostwritten by teams of expert chefs instead of the single dedicated amateur that Irma Rombauer had been when she created the book. The 1997 version is fairly comprehensive, covering a great deal of detail that is not traditionally part of^{[citation needed]} American cooking; however, it deleted much information about ingredients and frozen desserts.

Originally sold with the title The All-New, All-Purpose Joy of Cooking, it was reissued in February 2008 with the title The 1997 Joy of Cooking after being sold for some time alongside the 2006 edition.

75th Anniversary Edition[link]

In 2006, a 75th anniversary edition was published by Scribner, containing 4,500 recipes and returning Rombauer's original voice to the book. The new version removes some of the professionalism of the 1997 edition and returns many simpler recipes and recipes assisted by ready-made products such as cream of mushroom soup and store-bought wontons. The 2006 edition also reinstates the cocktail section and the frozen desserts section, and restores much of the information that was deleted in the 1997 edition.

The new version includes a new index section called "Joy Classics" that contains 35 recipes from 1931–1975 and a new nutrition section.

Other special editions and printings[link]

In 1995, a hardbound edition illustrated by Ginnie Hofmann and Ikki Matsumoto was released.

In 1998, a reproduction, described as "a perfect facsimile of that original 1931 edition", was released.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Mendelson, Anne. Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America The Joy Of Cooking. Scribner, 1996.

External links[link]

• Official site
• Publication history
• Biography by Author Irma Rombauer's daughter. Part of a series of Notable American Unitarian biographies

Robert Norman "Bob" Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter, art instructor, and television host.^[1] He is best known as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a television program that ran on PBS in the United States.

Personal life[link]

Ross was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and attended school until the ninth grade.^[2] Raised in Orlando, Florida,^[3] Ross enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at age 18^[2] and was living in Florida early in his military career when the Air Force transferred him to Eielson AFB (in Alaska), where he first saw the snow and mountains that later became recurring themes in his artwork; he developed his quick-painting technique in order to be able to create art for sale in brief daily work breaks.^[4] Having held military positions that required him to be, in his own words, "mean" and "tough," "the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross decided that if he ever moved on from the military, "it wasn't going to be that way any more," "vowing never to scream again".^[4] Ross discovered after beginning his sideline in painting that he was soon able to earn more from selling his work than from his Air Force position. After leaving the Air Force, he studied with Bill Alexander before becoming famous worldwide with his own television program, The Joy of Painting.^[1]

Ross had a son, Steven, from his first marriage to Lynda Brown. Steven occasionally appeared on The Joy of Painting and is a Bob Ross–certified instructor.^[1] Ross and Lynda's marriage ended in divorce in 1981. Ross married again, this time to Jane. Jane died of cancer in 1993,^[1] and Ross himself suffered from lymphoma in his later years. In early 1994, Ross cancelled The Joy of Painting to continue battling the disease, with his final show airing on May 17, 1994. On July 4, 1995, Ross died at home and was survived by his ex-wife Lynda, his son Steve, a half-brother, and a full brother.^[5][6] He is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Gotha, Florida.^[7]

Ross had a brother Jim, whom he mentioned in passing on his show.^[8]

Television show[link]

Ross was the host of the public television series The Joy of Painting. The show ran from January 11, 1983 to May 17, 1994 and still^[update] appears in reruns in many broadcast areas and countries, including the PBS oriented Create. During each half-hour segment, Ross would instruct viewers in the art of oil painting using a quick-study technique that kept colors to a minimum and broke paintings down into simple steps that virtually anyone could follow. Art critic Mira Schor compared him to another PBS television host, noting that the softness of Ross's voice and the slow pace of his speech was similar to Fred Rogers.^[9]

Ross later founded his own successful line of art supplies and how-to books, and also offered painting classes taught by instructors trained in the "Bob Ross method," building a $15 million business.^[2] In a 1990 interview, Ross mentioned that all his programs were donated free of charge to PBS stations and that his earnings came instead from sales of his 20 books and 100 videotapes (the total to that date), as well as profits from some 150 Bob Ross-ATE teachers and a line of art materials sold through a national supplier.^[4] Ross also mentioned on the show "Towering Glacier" (#2341) that he donated all the paintings made on the show to PBS stations around the country to "help them out."^[10]

Ross also filmed wildlife footage, squirrels in particular, usually from his own garden. Small animals often appeared on his show, even during some of his trickier works, as he would often take in injured or abandoned squirrels and other assorted wildlife and look after them.^[4]

Painting[link]

Ross utilized the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, in which the painter continues adding paint on top of still wet paint rather than waiting a lengthy amount of time to allow each layer of paint to dry. Combining this method with the use of two inch and other types of brushes as well as painting knives allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds. Each painting would start with simple strokes that appeared to be nothing more than colored smudges. As he added more and more strokes, the blotches transformed into intricate landscapes.^[11][12] Ross dedicated the first episode of the second season of "The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross" to William Alexander, explaining that "years ago, Bill taught me this fantastic [wet-on-wet] technique, and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you [the viewer]".^[13]

Ross noted that the landscapes he painted — typically mountains, lakes, snow, and log cabin scenes — were strongly influenced by his years living in Alaska, where he was stationed for the majority of his Air Force career. He repeatedly stated on the show his belief that everyone had inherent artistic talent and could become an accomplished artist given time, practice, and encouragement, and to this end was often fond of saying, "We don't have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents."^[14] Ross was well known for other catchphrases he used while painting as he crafted "happy little trees".^[15] In most episodes of The Joy of Painting, he noted that one of his favorite parts of painting was cleaning the brush, specifically his method of drying off a brush, which he had dipped in odorless thinner, by striking it against the thinner can and easel. He would smile and often laugh aloud as he "beat the devil out of it." He also used a palette which had been lightly sanded down which was necessary to avoid catching the reflections of strong studio lighting. At the end of each episode, Ross was known for saying, "so from all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy painting, and God bless my friend."

When asked about his laid-back approach to painting and eternally calm and contented demeanor, he once commented: "I got a letter from somebody here a while back, and they said, 'Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.' That's for sure. That's why I paint. It's because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news."^[16]

Rivalry with William Alexander[link]

Bob Ross was a student of William Alexander, who hosted the public television series The Magic World of Oil Painting from the early 1970s until 1982. On his show, Alexander highlighted his mastery of the alla prima or wet-on-wet style of oil painting in order to promote his paint supply business, Alexander Art and his painting classes. Ross later became a Bill Alexander instructor. His series, The Joy of Painting, was picked up by many of the PBS stations that carried The Magic World of Oil Painting.^[17]

At the beginning of The Joy of Painting's second season in 1984, Ross dedicated the show to Alexander and Alexander filmed a promo for his former student: "I hand off my mighty brush to a mighty man, and that is Bob Ross."^[13][17] In 1987 someone from Alexander Art told Ross that they could not keep up with the demand generated by the The Joy of Painting and suggested that Ross start his own line of art supplies.^[17] As Bob Ross Incorporated grew into a $15 million a year business Alexander told the New York Times that he felt "betrayed" by his one-time student: "He betrayed me. I invented 'wet on wet.' I trained him and he is copying me -- what bothers me is not just that he betrayed me, but that he thinks he can do it better." ^[18]

In popular culture[link]

This "In popular culture" section may contain minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivial references. (May 2012)

In "Derbez en Cuando" and "De Nuez en Cuando", two mexican comedy shows by Eugenio Dervez, who parodied this painter as "Bob Atroz"

Bob Ross was parodied in the Comedy Central program Tosh.0 in an episode where Tosh dressed up as Ross while conducting an interview with an artist from the web.

In 2006 a character loosely based off of Ross was featured in the popular comic based cartoon The Boondocks. In the episode an art teacher, Ross, takes Riley under his wing to help him improve his Graffitti.

Family Guy included a parody of Ross in the beginning of an episode.

An easter egg on homestarrunner.com features Marzipan dressed up as and painting like Ross.

He was also parodied by Benny Hill in a short gag, where his character is surrounded by wildlife and some animals end up attacking him. On a similar gag, parodied Ross is painting, then when he turns back to the camera a lady comes into scene and distracted Ross paints her buttocks in error, then she slaps him in the face.

During the Powerpuff Girls episode "Roughing It Up", Professor Utonium pays homage to Ross while he and the girls are painting in the woods, even using Ross's "happy little trees" catchphrase.

In season 2, episode 3 of Dilbert, "S02E03 - Art", a character sharing many traits of Ross named "Rusty Shanks" is shown demonstrating bizarre takes on abstract art, including painting using ones own head as the brush. The character is quickly hushed off-stage by men in black suits apparently sent as enforcers to collect outstanding debts from Rusty.

See also[link]

• Wet-on-wet

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bob Ross

• Bob Ross Incorporated
• Bob Ross at the Internet Movie Database

The Ready Set
Jordan Witzigreuter in 2009.
Background information
Origin	Fort Wayne, Indiana
Genres	Pop, pop rock, electronica, electronic rock, electropop, synthpop, dance, dance-pop, techno, alternative rock, emo
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Decaydance, Sire, Beluga Heights
Associated acts	Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, Never Shout Never, Allstar Weekend, Breathe Carolina
Website	www.thereadyset.com
Members
Jordan Witzigreuter

The Ready Set was formed on November 17, 2007 in the basement of Witzigreuter's childhood home. Jordan Witzigreuter is the lead vocalist and sole member of the act. Witzigreuter generally writes and records on his own, using a backup band when on tour. He has once stated, "The Ready Set is, always has been, and always will be just me." The name was adopted due to the artist's concerns that his last name, Witzigreuter, would be difficult for people to pronounce. Jordan resides in his hometown, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Pete Wentz signed The Ready Set to his label Decaydance Records on November 24, 2009.^[1][2] Wentz assisted Jordan in releasing his debut full-length I'm Alive, I'm Dreaming.

It was announced on September 3rd, 2011 that a new EP, [1], would be released on October 11, 2011, but the date was later pushed back to November, 2011.^[3]

In an interview with Just So You Know, he stated he hopes to release a full length album in Fall of 2012. He also said he will have some other things being released before that.^[4]

Studio albums[link]

Extended Plays[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Ready Set

• thereadyset.com – official website