Peaceful Hideaway. Painting #51. Peace, Beauty, and Serenity

Peaceful Hideaway is my 51st painting! Take a stroll down to that perfect little fishing spot tucked away from the world, and relish the beauty of the day secluded in a peaceful hideaway. This one is sort of a hybrid.  Half Bob Ross, half  original. 

The Inspiration

The inspiration for this painting came from a trip to Maine.  I had visited my family for a couple of weeks at the end of summer. When I went to Maine, I went out on the canoe with my sister to go fishing.  We paddled for miles! Caught a lot of fish too! 

It was so incredibly peaceful up there in the north woods on the water.  Peaceful, quiet, and beautiful.  I love it up there in the summer. We were floating along in the canoe casting out our lines and taking in the peace and beauty. I knew I had to paint something from there. 

When I got back to Florida, I carried on my normal tradition of watching Bob Ross before bed.  I was watching one episode and the painting shown during the intro started to look a lot like the peaceful waters of Maine.  I had to find that episode and watch it. So I did. 

That episode was S13E7 of The Joy of Painting. I followed along with about half of it before I did my own thing at the end.

Materials Required

Here are the colors and equipment I used.

Whether you want to continue on your journey after painting your first masterpiece from the Bob Ross Master Kit DVD or painting for the first time, here are the colors and equipment you will need for this painting. The kit includes most of the colors you need to paint this painting in particular as well as many other spectacular Bob Ross masterpieces. Getting this kit will eliminate the anxiety of buying the right brushes made of the right materials or the right oil paints with correct firmness or pigment ratios. Everything you need is there and ready to go. 

Colors

• Alizarin Crimson
• Bright Red
• Cadmium Yellow
• Dark Sienna
• Indian Yellow
• Midnight Black
• Phthalo Blue
• Phthalo Green
• Prussian Blue
• Sap Green
• Titanium Hwite
• Van Dyke Brown
• Yellow Ochre

Mediums

• Liquid Hwite!

Equipment

• 2 Inch Brush
• 1 Inch Brush
• #6 Fan Brush
• Large Palette Knife
• Script Liner Brush

In this episode, which I followed for about the first half, Bob uses his oval brush. I didn’t have that so I just used the one inch brush which worked perfectly fine.

Tips

Since this is sort of an original, I won’t break it down on how to paint every feature. It is painted using Bob’s standard techniques. I will offer a few tips I learned or realized about some of the features from the episode.

Creating Depth

Value is key to creating depth. Features farther away in a landscape have a lighter value. As things get closer to you, they become a bit darker. This is demonstrated with the background trees. The first layer is a light blue and the layer in front of that one becomes darker by adding a bit more of the Prussian blue. Remember to create a misty area at the base of the rear feature.  That also helps to create depth.

You can bring some layers of trees closer to you while maintaining the illusion of distance by adding some subtle green highlights. This is a technique that got me to use this episode as inspiration. Simply tap the color lightly onto the blue while leaving some space to keep that illusion of distance. Push it back even further by softening the edges with the big brush.

Final Thoughts

Besides the resemblance to the Maine scenery, there were a couple other reasons I liked doing this one.  I liked the distant trees.  I wanted to try that technique.  The subtle highlight way in the back looked cool to me as well as the rusty colored trees.  I thought that color peaking through was a nice touch and something I can see in nature sometimes.  

I hope you enjoy this painting. If you’re looking to try something relatively simple to try out, this is a great one to do.  It’s fairly simple.  No complicated elements or colors to mix.  Have a question? Comment below.  Subscribe to my blog to stay up to date and be notified when a new post is live and learn more about the Bob Ross method and how far it can take you as a new artist. Want this painting for yourself? It is available in my Art Store or my Etsy shop. You can also follow me on all my social media sites.

Happy Painting!