Before the TV painter Bob Ross’s “The Joy of Painting” show on PBS, there was Bill Alexander, Bob Ross’s mentor. Alexander signed off from his “The Magic of Oil Painting” show with the words: “I hand off my mighty brush to a mighty man, and that is Bob Ross”.
Relations later cooled and indeed some of the famous Bob Ross’isms were originally coined by Alexander, including “happy little trees” and “you have to have dark in order to show light” …although I think the latter probably predates them both.
Bill summed up the painting process perfectly with “You see it and you don’t see it, and you don’t see it and you see it.”
Break-a-Brush!
David
“Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player.” … Bill Alexander
More on Bill Alexander: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-bob-ross-owes-happy-trees-forgotten-painter