I greatly enjoyed these interesting five little known facts compiled by Mental Floss about Bob Ross, the iconic and soothing host of the show “The Joy of Painting” which taught thousands of people how to create landscape oil paintings.
Before Ross became a TV painter, he spent 20 years in the United States Air Force and retired with the rank of master sergeant. In fact, an early assignment to Alaska helped expose the Florida native to the snowy mountains and evergreens that would become staples of his art.
Viewers might find it surprising that the serene Ross was an Air Force sergeant, and it sounds like the painter thought it was a little odd himself. He later told the Orlando Sentinel, “I was 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. The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it.”
As a former Alaskan, I’m going to go ahead and take credit on on behalf of the 49th state in the union for inspiring Bob Ross. He’s now officially an honorary Alaskan. Now I’m off to grab brushes, some paint, and create a few happy little trees and mountains.
California based artist Mike Stilkey uses the spines and covers of piled old books as a canvas upon which he paints to form larger, often wonderful images. When asked in a recent New Yorkerinterview on how he selects the books, Stilkey said:
I consider several aspects of the book when I’m selecting for a painting. One factor is the color of the book cover, another is the material of the cover, and a third is the title of the book and how this relates to the narrative of the piece.
Artist Bill Guffey has been traveling all over the world and painting scenes that capture his eye to share on his blog. By traveling I mean, he’s logging on to Google Maps Street View to virtually visit and paint the world! As one Metafilter commenter wrote:
“So now Google needs to add “Impressionist View,” “Romanticists View,” “As painted by [fill in your favorite artist] View,” etc.”
Artist Jeff McMillan’spainting, “All Together Now” brings together various pop culture icons for a nice group picture. Finger snaps to whoever can name them all.
The concept of July 4th as “Oil Independence Day” or “Energy Independence Day” has been floating around for several years: everyone from bloggers to magazines to the Speaker of the House has touted the concept. This July 4th, New York-based artist Michael D’Antuono will add his voice to the debate with the unveiling of the paintings Dependence and Independence in Washington Square’s Garibaldi Plaza.
D’Antuono recently raised a furor with his painting The Truth, which celebrated President Obama’s 100th day in office. The painting portrayed the president wearing a crown of thorns and posed as if crucified — the religious right was not amused. The new paintings like won’t stir up the same level of vitriol… let’s hope they do stir up more meaningful conversation on our energy future, though.
The paintings will be on display in Garibaldi Park from 10am – 4pm.
The Daily Mail tells of how the celebrated artist David Hockney has been creating mini-paintings on his iPhone and emailing them to friends. Pretty tech-savvy for a 71-year-old:
Artist Danny Roberts has been painting portraits of the faces behind blogs. May I kindly suggest that the next subjects in this series come from a certain blog at the Sundance Channel?
How could this not be a good idea? Let’s take nine of the world’s most ambitious, prolific, talented, and hard working artists (all from LA, in this case) and invite them to come together and bring whatever work they want to show. This is one of those shows I could rant on about, like Victoria Reynolds’ stunning meat portraits, or Llyn Foulkes pop culture mash ups, or Jeffrey Vallance’s selections from “Blinky, the Friendly Hen” (a childhood favorite), but it’s really better for me to shut up and for you to just see the show for yourself.
Nine Lives March 8 – May 31, 2009 at The Hammer Museum, featuring work by Lisa Anne Auerbach, Julie Becker, Llyn Foulkes, Charles Irvin, Hirsch Perlman, Victoria Reynolds, Kaari Upson, Jeffrey Vallance, and Charlie White.
The concept of July 4th as “Oil Independence Day” or “Energy Independence Day” has been floating around for several years: everyone from 
