It’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting

They were trained in the paintings data (hence why I collected it!). That quality is from, I believe, the gan having some difficulty figuring out how to color each pixel. But I’m not sure entirely on that, though in the time since I made that, GANs have increased by magnitudes in output quality.

His demysfitication should have been followed up with "keep at it as much as you can, even if nobody else values as much as you do". I find it sad his message got lost; even you can't produce a master piece loved by anyone else (because it is objectively just "bad") your experience is important to you.

It doesn't matter if others like it or pretend as if it is likeable; you made a painting and that's all that matters. It doesn't have to live up to standarts, it doesn't have to be appericated or notice in history. I think encouraging people to feel "this oily matter stuck on bursh is now making shapes I can interpret on canvas" is more than enough.

(I am super drunk and voliating like 3 or more curfew law things, super sorry for the murder of engrish, but I love Bob Ross)

Cherished indeed: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/bob-ross-paintings-smithso... "In a short video report produced by the Times, Joan Kowalski, the president of Bob Ross, Inc., explained that while the company does indeed store Ross’s many works—around 1,165 of them—they lack the resources to do so properly. The video shows the paintings stacked in everyday cardboard boxes, piled together in a bland office space without much of a filing system. “They’re not ‘climate-controlled,’” Kowalski explains with air quotes, adding that it’s not “white glove service.”"

Interesting to think a little about how Harberger taxes would fix this; no one can make the company treat the paintings better or do something more productive with them, because 'property is monopoly' - but if they had to pay a Harberger tax on the tens of millions of dollars those paintings were worth, they would probably discover that they can in fact do something better with them than stacking them randomly like lumber to get moldy in a warehouse or that people would happily take the paintings off their hands...

The shows are free, they do have to make money somehow

I don't think Ross consented to that.

Having dabbled in Bob Ross techniques years ago, that giant foreground tree was the part that ruined my paintings too. Why oh why did I add that?

That would be the stage right before the RUINED comments start rolling in.

Can you give an example of a painting that started its decline in the middle?

Why did you say non-ironically?

No, the sources are horrible. You can easily fake up any number of Bob Rosses and simply say, "ah yes, I discovered another one of the tens of thousands of Bob Rosses which he sold as a young man or whipped out in a charity event in a small podunk place, and the original owners prefer anonymity". In terms of provenance, the sheer number, blandness, and indiscriminate original distribution of paintings makes it sound like a nightmare. If the market were more developed, so selling Rosses wasn't so unusual, I bet forgery would become a much bigger problem (although you wouldn't be able to tell if done somewhat competently - how hard would it be to get paintings and canvases from the '80s and defeat pretty much every possible forensics? that was not long ago at all... We're not talking trying to forge Renaissance masters here.)

I don't think that's true based on the article: they say that he sold 1000s of paintings in flea markets as well as before he became famous, those owners may not know they own a bob ross but the paintings exist and thus there's a plausible explanation for the forgery.

"If you buy a Bob Ross painting and the provenance doesn't include any of those people you probably have a forgery."

But are the buyers of his paintings actually checking, and do those who are buying just to flip even care as long as they can quickly pawn it off to the bigger sucker?

Bob drew 3 copies of every painting you see in The Joy of Painting. The first one is a rough one to get the composition right. The second one is the 'proper' one, and the third one is the one you see him do on TV.

The 'proper' one, the second, was used as a reference during the taping of the show, and was off camera but in Bob's eyeline.

As such, there are NO 'happy little accidents'. Every stroke you saw Bob do was intentional and designed to show you more techniques.

As others have said, it was more about the teaching of a skill, than the actual paintings.

Source: I have watched way too many Bob Ross documentaries.