Check this out. I did this a long time ago. People were asking, so I wrote a post explaining a few things, hardly anyone looked and it was one of my lowest paid posts in history! LOL!
Here's the image I worked with. I wanted to keep it simple because I had to fit it all in only a handful of slides.
And now a short animation.
It's just painting. Starts out with a few lines. It's like how you'd use a paintbrush but rather than dipping the entire thing in the paint, you get it on the edges. Digital though, no mess. You can see how I build it all up. Done deal. Not much to that one but like I said, I wanted to keep it simple for demonstration purposes. I've also come a long way since then and I'm constantly learning. I had to teach myself how to use software that at first was mind boggling. I have this mind that likes to create though and dammit I wasn't going to let a few challenges hold me back.
Woah! Cool!
Not sure when you last tried this, but I bet if you did something similar to this again today, you'd have a better turnout.
There are programs you can use to capture an area of a screen as an animated GIF. You could get a higher framerate using one of those. Take however many minutes it takes you to do the artwork, divide it by 60, then have the program capture like 30 frames every that-many minutes. That way, if you play it back at 30 FPS, you get a minute-long timelapse of your work.
It might be more exciting to watch, but it would also give away more of your secrets. Your call.
This could be a good opportunity for you to branch off onto the Bob Ross career path. Instead of safeguarding your tricks, you could create a widespread painting cult, all your own. We could all be sitting at home painting happy little demon faces with you. I hope you've got a soothing voice.
I like having my own style. It's actually quite important to me. I could follow others, do what others do, but I think I'll come up with something different, something new. If it's been done before or if everyone is doing it, I have trouble becoming interested in it. I could have dropped what I'm doing and started putting unicorn horns on a sloth for easy money, for instance, but that doesn't interest me. I don't see a future in that sort of thing. Artists can follow trends or start their own but I think I'm better suited to being like nothing else. I can't have restrictions on my life. That stuff makes me feel like I'm in fucking jail...and I spent a night there once. Hated it.