Joy of Painting

The Joy of Painting was an American television show hosted by Bob Ross that taught viewers how to complete a painting of a landscape in thirty minutes. The show was broadcast on PBS (produced at WIPB in Muncie, Indiana) and developed a cult following.

Each show began with Ross standing alone in a dark room in front a blank canvas. Over thirty minutes, Ross would turn the blank canvas into an imaginary landscape. His efforts were accompanied by a soothing monologue about the "happy clouds" and "happy trees" that he was creating with his brush.

Despite the death of Ross, the show continues to be broadcast and a multi-million dollar spin-off business bearing Ross' name sells art accessories related to the show. 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 Ross's death in 1995, and later by Blue Ridge Public Television in Roanoke, Virginia. Most of the series was distributed by what is now American Public Television.

As of 2006, The Joy of Painting was being shown in many countries worldwide, such as Greek state broadcaster ERT3, Turkish state broadcaster TRT (with the title Resim Sevinci), German television (BR-Alpha), Discovery Real Time (Sky Digital channel 240/Virgin Media channel 271) 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. Reruns are sometimes packaged under the title Best of the Joy of Painting.

Each show began with Ross standing with a blank canvas in front of a black background. In under thirty minutes, Ross 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.

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.