Bob Ross - The Grandeur of Summer (DVD Special)
Hi everyone! Coming to you here in beautiful British Columbia for a special 'Wellness Day' edition of Bob Ross Reviews. It’s 7am and I’m talking to no one on a very cold beach, so I can’t claim that I’m totally ‘well’ in every sense of the word. But let’s do this anyway. I watched a one-hour DVD Special of a man painting a mountain and here is my review.
We begin with Bob gesturing to the brilliant front-row seats that he’s reserved just for us on an hour long ride through this rollercoaster of painting excitement! The finished painting flashes on screen; a fine looking carrot on the pole of life. Bob now suggests we treat ourselves to a nice tall glass of cool iced tea, ironically the one thing that’s least suitable for the twists and turns of a rollercoaster. But he has our best interests in mind. He knows that with a beverage in hand, we’ll take things slow and work at our own pace.
As if to really drive home the point of taking proper time, a screen of suggested painting supplies interrupts our feverish current pace. The screen remains frozen indefinitely, and the sands of time seem to be resting on their laurels. Our iced tea diluting, we’re forced into stillness, a time to contemplate on our early impetuousness of seeing ourselves with an already finished product before even laying paint onto the canvas. 45 second pass, 10 deep breaths have been enjoyed, and we emerge refreshed and ready to paint.
A new screen pops up. It’s another list of tools. We fast forward. Our iced tea is basically just tepid water at this point.
As Bob builds a happy little cloud, we get some advice on how to join in it’s carefree existence; “And you don’t necessarily have to put a cloud where I do” Bob says, “If you think it lives somewhere else, then that’s where it ought to be”. Sage advice. Especially now that social media is a thing and you can create Facebook events for your moving day to guilt your friends into helping. Or book an AirBNB and pick up a happy little contact rash from unfamiliar bedsheets.
After building a great big mountain, we shift our attention towards the front of the painting and start to build a foreground. Bob walks us through dropping some almighty trees in front of all our hard work just for the heck of it. But should we really be covering up our past successes with new challenges? What if our tree turn out to be those gross ones that die in five years and host hornets nests? Without skipping a beat, or probably even realizing it, Bob throws down on the topic of hesitation; “So often we avoid these things because they’re big” he laments “But it’ll end up being some of the most beautiful, delicate things.“
Yes, Bob knows that sometimes we cheat ourselves out of great experiences because the initial investment seems to risky, like when you ask for a spoon at an asian restaurant, or your friend tells you about this great TV show you should watch and you ask how many seasons they’ve done and your friend says “7 seasons, and they’re hour-long episodes” and you would literally rather lose them as a friend than download the goddamn thing.
Minutes later, our world is shattered as soon as we put the finishing touches on our masterpiece. Bob chuckles at our adventure into the world of trying something new. “It looks like a lot of detail” he pauses, “but you hadn’t hardly worked at all. Isn’t that fun?”
Is Bob joking? This was absolutely exhausting. This was an hour and we finished our iced tea ages ago, we’re practically dehydrated. Is he “negging” us? We already bought the DVD Bob, there’s no need to be insecure.
Neither of those things are the truth. Bob knows the real challenges lie ahead of us, not in the moment. The details that we put the most work into will be our joy, and we’ll barely realize we worked at all.
Thanks everyone, have a great weekend!