A 73-year-old Japanese artist took YouTube by storm

I'll add that for whatever reason you don't want sound on, Ishitani videos are just as good (perhaps better) silent!

And I thought they were talking about Kiwami Japan who makes knives out of various materials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ

I know it's not classical art, but I think it's still rather artistic to re-imagine a knife with new materials.

David Bull is magical. There are certainly some good lessons to learn in how magnetic his videos and storytelling skills are, considering few would list hour-long woodblock printmaking videos a thing they would recurringly watch on Youtube. But here we are.

~120k subs and he’s an American.

I mean I guess if you skimmed the title briefly I could see how. But to me that guy seems not comparatively popular on YouTube (and title was talking about taking the world by storm), and working with a Japanese medium and living in Japan still isn’t the association I have when title says Japanese Bob Ross.

I met him very briefly while in Tokyo. He was closing up his shop for lunch and he stepped out for a minute while we were walking past after eating our own lunch down the street. I would have thought he was a tourist or somebody leaving a shop maybe but recognized him instantly from his excellent youtube videos.

He was very nice and quietly energetic and funny and obviously passionate about his craft -- exactly as he is on his videos. He was taking a break for lunch and has his shop closed for a bit. We said we'd be back but ran out of time and never made it back to his place when it was open.

It was an odd juxtaposition to walk about a block away and be confronted with the cacophony of the local Don Quijoti.

1 - https://mokuhankan.com/

He also does thrice-weekly Twitch streams: http://twitch.tv/japaneseprintmaking/videos

He’s using gouache. You can get a set of gouache paints, but if you want to experiment, just get a white and mix it with your watercolors to build opaque colors.

There are opaque watercolors, otherwise called gouache.

I disagree. Even though paintings use simple techniques doesn't mean it's not art. It's liked by the people, doesn't matter what experts consider high quality or not. And you're saying like democratizing act of painting has nothing to do with art, his overall contribution to culture was probably not less than Picasso or any other high known painter.

Art for arts sake I guess. That’s what is best about Ross. Paint because it brings you joy. Learn and hone techniques and find yourself improving over time.

I’d say he certainly was an artist. If he was a good artist or not is a matter of opinion. Certainly from a technical and conceptual point of view there’s good argument he wasn’t exceptional. But certainly his work, or the labor of his work, has been appreciated by many.

I'm not really a huge fan of his work, but I think Bob Ross is in the Smithsonian permanent collection. Kinda impressive for "Not an artist" I think!

You and I are artists in our own way.

Maybe not professional artists where we get paid to partake in our creative outlets.

On the other hand, Vincent Van Gogh only sold a single painting in his lifetime.

Bob Ross was more professional artist than most. He is still widely known for his work teaching people how to create new creative works.

I would say Bob Ross is more famous for being an art teacher than for being a great artist, and I think his fame is rightly deserved there. He never claimed to be a Money or something like that, he just tried to spread the joy of painting :)