First Encounter of Design

I remember my first positive encounter with design. I was 8 years old, and I was flipping through the television channels when I came across Bob Ross, an American painter creating a landscape of some sort. Bob used a wet-on-wet oil painting technique in which he paints an area of the canvas and continues to paint over that wet area before it dries. He starts out with what seem to be smudges but continues to add more smudges until the result is something amazing. The painting that I first saw him do was a landscape of a beautiful lake and a small house surrounded by a forest and mountains, many features he is known for. 

The mountains contained different tones of white, gray, and black. The picture seemed as though you were on top of the mountain yourself. It was absolutely amazing. The lake seemed so pure with its bluish/greenish/yellowish color. Every color seemed to blend so well. Going up the shore, the color of the water changes color, because the sand is more exposed to the sun. The forest surrounding the lake seems so eerie yet so gentle. Everything seemed so detailed, yet watching him paint so effortlessly was jaw-dropping. The trees in the background have less detail, something you notice in real life when anything is far away from you. You notice how well the depth plays into this painting. Ross works with every angle of the picture. It is simply amazing. The shack or hut that he painted on the side seems very mysterious. It looks like a rundown hut with its creepy black/brown tint. You wonder if someone really does live there, the rest of the landscape seems so peaceful, you wonder who wouldn’t want to. Every level of the painting has its own mood behind it. The moods contradict one another, sometimes you feel happy and at ease with the turquoise colored lake. This painting is how I first noticed and understood design and how color plays a great impact on painting.