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# Is this Twitter bot the next Bob Ross?
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/twitter-bot-next-bob-ross/
- Published: 2017-01-26T21:53:16.000Z
- Updated: 2017-01-26T21:53:16.000Z
- Description: Bob Ross is a man that needs no introduction, but I’ll write one anyway. Bob was a television host from long ago that taught the world how to paint. His signature afro, calming voice, and beautifully hand-painted vistas made him a household name in the 1980s and 1990s, until he lost his battle with
- Author: Caty Mccarthy
- Tags: News, ai, Art, bob ross, bot ross, bots, code, creative coding, generative art, pixel art, the joy of painting, twitter bot, versions, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

Bob Ross is a man that needs no introduction, but I’ll write one anyway. Bob was a television host from long ago that taught the world how to paint. His signature afro, calming voice, and beautifully hand-painted vistas made him a household name in the 1980s and 1990s, until he lost his battle with lymphoma in 1995\. Though Bob has remained a legend, still. And now there’s a [Twitter bot](https://twitter.com/JoyOfBotRoss?ref=killscreen.com) paying homage to Bob’s life’s work.

> Happy Little Painting 594282521-9 [pic.twitter.com/2UZt2UNJQ3](https://t.co/2UZt2UNJQ3?ref=killscreen.com)  
>  
> — Bot Ross (@JoyOfBotRoss) [January 26, 2017](https://twitter.com/JoyOfBotRoss/status/824723934239027201?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=killscreen.com)

Created by [Brent Werness](https://bitbucket.org/R4Unit/?ref=killscreen.com), the Twitter bot generates an endless cascade of new pixelated landscapes, inspired by the great Bob Ross and his work in *The Joy of Painting*. For inspiration, Werness didn’t look to other same-y fractal art or generative work, but to Bob himself. “\[Bob\] often talked of tapping in simple shapes, and he let the brushes and the fact that the paint moved over the canvas add character,” wrote Werness in [a write-up describing the code](https://bitbucket.org/R4Unit/bot-ross?ref=killscreen.com). “So I start also with simple shapes: lines, triangles, and circles which are arranged to coarsely imitate the shapes of the intended objects and then distort it all with a procedural noise function picked to match the idea that you can move paint around on a wet canvas.”

Werness tackled the project as if he were carefully following Bob’s televised process himself: progressing carefully, step by step. For the bot’s code (the bot aptly named Bot Ross), each object in a work is dithered (or, made to look noisy and obscured) separately on a very limited color palette. The end result are meticulously generated pixelated landscapes that would make Bob proud.

*You can follow the Joy of Bot Ross on* [*Twitter*](https://twitter.com/JoyOfBotRoss?ref=killscreen.com)*, and check out the code for the project* [*here*](https://bitbucket.org/R4Unit/bot-ross?ref=killscreen.com)*.*

*(via* [*Prosthetic Knowledge*](http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/156327699361/joy-of-bot-ross-twitter-bot-by-brent-werness?ref=killscreen.com)*)*