Painting with Bob Ross

In one sense, he’s telling the truth when he says, “It’s your world.” In another sense, it isn’t exactly your world.

Everyone knows Bob Ross. For a long time he did a PBS painting show called The Joy of Painting, where he would teach folks how to paint landscapes full of “happy little trees.” (Now you can watch every episode on YouTube). You know his soft, calm voice as he told you from under his permed afro, “It’s your world.” He explained the freedom of deciding where to put a cloud, a famously joyful, small tree, or a breaking wave. Phrases like, “Anywhere you want ’em” or “It’s your decision; it’s your world”, and a seemingly haphazard, “Maybe he lives right there” (referring to the beginnings of a snow-stacked evergreen).

But anyone who has watched Bob Ross paint knows the truth: it isn’t at all haphazrd or limitless. Ross famously did three versions of every painting on the show, meticulously preparing each piece. While painting on-screen, he was always following a previous version off-screen. The freedom of decision-making and creativity in his wet-on-wet painting technique is both real and constrained. It’s real, because a skilled painter like Ross could put trees and clouds and cabins where he wanted them. It’s constrained by the medium and the necessities of making the paint on the canvas actually look like a tree or a cloud or a cabin. In one sense, he told the truth when he says, “It’s your world.” In another sense, it never exactly was your world. Instead, you must inhabit a world determined by the constraints of the wet-on-wet painting technique that Bob Ross practiced. In this technique, the painter is free, but free within the boundaries of what colors and strokes are required to make water look like water and clouds look like clouds and mountains look like mountains.

The parallel pokes its head up pretty obviously at this point.

As we follow Jesus, we have a measure of true freedom. We act creatively. We make decisions. We walk pathways. We mix colors and stroke our brushes across the canvas. But we are limited by the boundaries of Jesus’ covenant with us. We are not free simply to do an un-qualified “whatever we want to do.” We must be both creative and faithful, because it isn’t our world. It’s the world and the kingdom of Jesus and his Father. Yet through spiritual adoption in union with Christ, we call Christ’s Father, “Our Father.” Jesus then tells us, “your Father delights to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). God offers us the creative constraint of his canvas, his paint, and his brushes, on loan.

For decades I’ve loved Bob Ross, and I had long wanted to paint a canvas of my own. A few years ago, after I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation, my wife bought me a set of Bob Ross paints and brushes, canvas and easel. The finished products were my own, but they clearly copied the style of my big-haired teacher. So also, as we follow Jesus, we will paint our own unique picture, different from our fellow students’, while everyone’s finished pieces will still have the unmistakable look of the Master’s.

So, what is God calling you to “paint” today?