Just stick it at /usr/share/games/fortunes/bobross and be sure to do `strfile bobross` on it, then you can do `fortune bobross` any time, without having to make an HTTP request :)
How about a Markov Chain analysis? Given position and known adjacent color(s), pick a pixel color, repeat for all pixels. Given the number of source pictures and distinct similarity, might give interesting results.
That sounds like it might be a really interesting experiment. A potentially even more interesting result might be doing something like this for multiple artists and comparing results. I just need to find a corpus of decent quality photos of artwork for various artists.
My high school art teacher absolutely hated Bob Ross, and routinely encouraged us to look beyond symbol and watch out for "happy little trees" appearing in our paintings. But somehow I can't fault Bob Ross even now that I'm doing professional graphics & illustration work, and maybe the last line of this article explains why. There was a bigger picture and a more substantial social contribution that didn't really have anything to do with the art style.
Can you expand on why your art teacher didn't like him? I realize that landscapes aren't the most interesting subject to most people, but I can't seem to find fault in taking the time to create art by hand, even if the process is a bit formulaic.
I think the key phrase there is "look beyond symbol" - when you're illustrating something that has lettering, for example, one often starts writing out the letters instead of illustrating the shape of the letters.
The same thing commonly happens when drawing eyes - people learn a technique for "how to draw an eye," and when they move on to a full portrait, instead of trying to reproduce or illustrate the image they see before them, they call their internal "draw an eye" function.
You may wish to listen to Grayson Perry's Reith Lecutres from last christmas. He talks, amongst many other things, about how "beautiful" is apparently the worst word you could possibly use to describe a piece of contemporary art. It shows that you are using the wrong set of criteria, by postmodern standards.
Theoretically, it's meant to be judged by the statement it makes. However, the most interesting thing about the lectures is the episode where he explains what makes art Art. Spoiler alert: quality, aesthetics and concepts have nothing to do with it. Something is "Art" (as in saleable product) only if somebody from a tiny, moneyed elite says it is, and for no other reason. I found this frank admission quite startling.
leviathant is correct. My art teacher started each beginner class with a survey that asked students to draw "a house," "an eye," "a tree," etc. He then compared the typical student's drawings with real photographs by pointing out the differences in proportions, "you couldn't even walk through this door," etc.
In general he related things back to symbol vs. reality, the way the brain falls back on abstraction and its unique symbol-vision, and then showed us how a study of proportion and negative space gave us more practical creative power than we had back in symbol-land. He would put a bunch of chairs and objects on a table, wrap it in plastic, and say, "let's all draw that. Start with the negative space." This all goes back to Dr. Betty Edwards' works. In my experience I was even better at analyzing and approaching cartoony, symbolic styles after this practice than I was before.
Edit: Getting back to your question :) I think my art teacher was annoyed by an attitude of "how cool is Bob Ross--look, he's sharing his tree technique where he uses a fan brush," kind of squandering (in his opinion) an opportunity to finally show the public how to see, an opportunity to equip them with useful mental tools for approaching any kind of art.
I can't speak to this specific teacher, but as an art school grad I can say there is a really sad strain among teachers to denigrate anything a) pleasingly figurative, and b) commercially successful. Thomas Kincaid is painted with the same brush, his landscapes are conventionally pretty, if a little kitschy, and wildly lucrative.
A surprising number of fine arts professors in modern art schools couldn't draw a convincing likeness if they tried and fewer make a healthy living so there is a tendency to snipe at those more successful.
"Art School Confidential" is a great movie if you want a picture of what it's like at art schools today.
Surprised noone has mentioned this yet, but here's why I'm not a fan: He didn't teach creativity, he taught techniques. Anyone who watched him enough could follow the techniques to create a painting with mountains, trees, bushes, etc. But in the end, you are left with nothing original or inspiring.
To compare with programming: Bob Ross did the equivalent of teaching non-programmers how to copy-and-paste specific snippets of code. It's enough to patch together a sloppy program--which may or may not work--with the snippets you're taught, but it doesn't give the ability to solve problems with code.
Indeed, it does. I found the bit about the chimneys interesting. His denial of society in his paintings and focus on nature was new to me, as I never had a comprehensive analysis of his work. This could be related to his time in the army.
Someone posted the bobrossquotes linke above, and it had this little gem in it:
Oooh, if you have never been to Alaska, go there while it is still wild. My favorite uncle asked me if I wanted to go there, Uncle Sam. He said if you don't go, you're going to jail. That is how Uncle Sam asks you.
alias bob="curl http://bobrossquotes.com/text.php"