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It’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting
- timonoko 6y agoIntroducing "Bob Ross - arc": Almost everytime the painting is momentarily an impressionist masterpiece and then he fucks it up with happy wheelbarrows and Rococo-style detailing.
- didgeoridoo 6y agoThe sweet spot is usually about a third of the way through, when he’s done blocking out the composition and has begun to lay in some good light and shadows. I’d buy a 1/3 Bob Ross non-ironically.
- seumars 6y agoThat would be the stage right before the RUINED comments start rolling in.
- canadianfella 6y agoWhy did you say non-ironically?
- rhn_mk1 6y agoCan you give an example of a painting that started its decline in the middle?
- nerdponx 6y agoHonestly, most of them. Especially the ones in a "denser" forest scene. The Alaska mountain ones are better.
- timonoko 6y agoProblem is that Bob cannot do "air". When he paints the distant misty mountain with full contrasts and color, it will do ok on its own. But then he adds the wheelbarrow with same set of colors and the mountain is not distant anymore and painting becomes annoyingly flat.
- elihu 6y agoMaybe it depends on where you live? From the article, he spent a long time in Alaska. Air pollution may have been a lot less than what people are used to in cities. I had a similar issue with Google maps when they introduced 3D views. (I don't think it supports that anymore, unless they've hidden the feature somehow; I guess they've decided it competed with Google Earth?) Anyways, my impression was "this is pretty cool, but why is it so hazy? Is it like this all the time in the bay area, and so Google engineers think this is normal everywhere?"
- tinus_hn 6y agoCould also be for the same reason N64 Goldeneye has its fog, so you have to draw less.
- criddell 6y agoIt's not a Bob Ross painting until it has happy wheelbarrows and friendly trees.
- pmichaud 6y agoFor me it's the GIANT, NEARLY BLACK TREE SLASHED DIRECTLY THROUGH THE FOREGROUND AND MOST OF THE SKY that he adds right at the end. It's actually kind of funny to watch in the spirit of a cartoon where our plucky protagonist always gets to the end of a potentially nice painting then predictably fucks it up in the same way every time before the curtain closes.
- nerdponx 6y agoHe addresses this in a few episodes. He said he does it to show a full range of possible details and techniques/styles, not because it's necessarily good composition.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- h2odragon 6y ago> “He was about as uninterested in the actual paintings as you could possibly be,” says Kowalski. “For him, it was the journey — he wanted to teach people. The paintings were just a means to do that.” I'm actually impressed that they haven't cashed out on those paintings they hold; wonder how long they'll be able to hold on to cherishing memories before "maximizing profits" displaces them, and crushes any feeling of goodwill the public has towards the custodians of his legacy.
- whateveracct 6y agoi don't know if sentimentality around not cashing out is an issue. Bob Ross already "stars" in a goddamn Mountain Dew commercial after all.
- jessaustin 6y agoI don't think Ross consented to that.
- whateveracct 6y agoI'm sure his estate or Bob Ross Inc or w/e did
- peterpost2 6y agoBob ross namebrand paint and other materials are already kinda overpriced.
- tinus_hn 6y agoThe shows are free, they do have to make money somehow
- svachalek 6y agoThis is an advantage of being a small private company; without pressure to beat numbers every quarter they are free to optimize for the best long term outcome.
- TameAntelope 6y agoThey could try to sell NFTs of the paintings, or do I still not get NFTs?
- jozzy-james 6y agonobody does
- kibwen 6y agoThey can sell NFTs of them, and you can also sell NFTs of them. Anyone can sell NFTs of anything. They're just an attempt to impose artificial scarcity on a post-scarcity commodity (which is to say, bits in a database).
- jozzy-james 6y agoI work in the industry dealing with art/design, and the only thing I really see NFT being useful for is a chain of custody to prove authenticity - but that only applies to newly created works, as with historic pieces you're already at a crapshoot on specialists validating stuff correctly. edit: i use the term 'historic' loosely, i just mean stuff that has been circulating for a while.
- twhb 6y agoThat only works if every owner participates, and if you’ve got every owner participating in the same authority then you don’t need NFTs.
- jozzy-james 6y agosure, i guess the thought is if you break the NFT chain then you essentially devalue your investment. it's an interesting use-case, but don't see it widely adopted in the art market any time soon.
- mannerheim 6y agoWhat prevents a malicious owner from creating a forgery, selling that with the NFT, and keeping the original for themselves?
- nidgood 6y agoDeBeers model of scarcity basically.
- economusty 6y agoExcept the quantity of bob Ross paintings is quantifiable and finite. We will literally be mining diamonds forever.
- riffic 6y agoand manufacturing
- vxNsr 6y agoInteresting that there’s no discussion of forgeries? I feel like with Bob Ross paintings they’re the perfect target for forgeries. No one knows how many real paintings exist, anyone can copy them by just watching a video and as long as you practice the signature a bit yours is indistinguishable from the original.
- amelius 6y agoThere is a program where anyone can become a certified Bob Ross instructor [0]. So I suppose forgery might be just around the corner. [0] https://experience.bobross.com/cri-classes/ https://experience.bobross.com/cri-classes/
- fredophile 6y agoThat shouldn't be a problem. It seems like all the Bob Ross paintings are owned by a very small group. If you buy a Bob Ross painting and the provenance doesn't include any of those people you probably have a forgery.
- vxNsr 6y agoI 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.
- fredophile 6y agoMy mistake. I only skimmed the article since it was similar to a video I'd seen recently on the topic [0]. If they mentioned the flea markets in the video I forgot that detail. [0] https://youtu.be/rDs3o1uLEdU https://youtu.be/rDs3o1uLEdU
- pmoriarty 6y ago"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?
- damontal 6y agoSo odd. I watched a preview of Painting with John on HBO and he mentioned Ross. Said Ross was wrong. Everyone can’t actually paint. Then I wondered if Ross paintings were on the market. Then this thread appears.
- thordenmark 6y agoEveryone can paint. Not necessarily well.
- moksly 6y agoIt’s a nice catchphrase to generate attention for your hbo-series that is now teaching everyone to paint though.
- havernator 6y agoI’d assumed Painting with John was as much about painting as Fishing with John was about fishing. Is he actually, seriously trying to teach people to paint?
- edgarvaldes 6y agoSee Ratatouille's interpretaron of "Everyone can cook".
- davedunkin 6y agoAnyone can cook ≠ everyone can cook. That distinction is the whole point. (And Ratatouille is one of the best Pixar movies.)
- pmoriarty 6y agoWhat it means to paint "well" is completely in the eye of the beholder. Some people value technical proficiency, others emotional impact, yet others conceptual cleverness or originality, etc, etc, etc. Trained artists often value different things in art than the general public, and critics value different things still (and often disagree with other critics). Ultimately it just comes down to personal preference and taste.
- kristofferR 6y agoGreat little New York Times mini documentary (10 minutes) about Bob Ross Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU
- ijustwanttovote 6y ago> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU This is awesome, thanks for sharing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chubot 6y agoI don't know whether learning that he was a drill sergeant detracts from the mythos or adds to it :) But great article overall. It is cool that someone can take such a huge turn late in life.
- _carbyau_ 6y agoEvery other time you throw "drill sergeant" into the mix people imagine instructions being belted out with profanity and insults. I imagine there is an amusing parody sketch in there somewhere.
- DavidWoof 6y agoTLDR; Most are owned by Bob Ross, Inc., who aren't selling them currently. Also, some unknown number is in the hands of individuals who don't know they own a Bob Ross, the article is very vague about this. Not in the article, but it's actually not nearly impossible to buy one. In fact there's one on sale right now for a cool $95K at the Modern Artifacts gallery, who specializes in Bob Ross paintings. I really, really hate this style of article. Here's a question, but before we answer it, here's 25 paragraphs of blather.
- detaro 6y ago> Most are owned by Bob Ross, Inc. For a value of "most" that is <5% of the paintings he created. > Not in the article, but it's actually not nearly impossible to buy one. In fact there's one on sale right now As mentioned in the article.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- edem 6y agoWhat's the TL;DR? The article is beyond my maximum possible attention span. :(
- jwilber 6y agoAwhile ago I tried to train a GAN to let you generate your own ‘original’ Bob Ross paintings. It requiredsome time creating the dataset and lots of tracing, but in the end only worked decently for winter paintings- I’m guessing because of their less complicated compositions and colors palettes. Random facts: Bob Ross is missing his left index finger and avoids including human evidence in his paintings (eg no chimneys). GAN: https://twitter.com/jdwlbr/status/1131244682317484032?s=20 https://twitter.com/jdwlbr/status/1131244682317484032?s=20 Data: https://github.com/jwilber/Bob_Ross_Paintings https://github.com/jwilber/Bob_Ross_Paintings
- paulz_ 6y agoWow that's really cool. Any plans to share the model?
- dusted 6y agoInteresting! Not a critique, but these seem to have a "broadcast tv quality" to them, were the network by any chance trained on the TV show?
- jwilber 6y agoThey 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.
- pmoriarty 6y ago"Today, 1,165 Bob Ross originals -- a trove worth millions of dollars -- sit in cardboard boxes inside the company's nondescript office building in Herndon, Virginia." That's pretty sad, as they're probably at great risk of being consumed in a fire or maybe even being damaged by mildew.
- mcguire 6y agoMy father never watched Bob Ross, but treated his paintings in a similar way. Many of them were nailed up in the garage. He enjoyed painting. It didn't matter what happened to the painting afterwards.