NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — It’s safe to say there’s no other working artist with a following like Fritz Proctor IV.

Proctor, 23, first made headlines as a teen curator at Buffalo’s Albright Knox Art Gallery, is a TikTok sensation.

The audience for his video shorts grows daily — now past 4.3 million followers — all because of a simple procedure familiar to most painters: Proctor mixes and matches colors.

Selecting colors from his palette, Proctor is able to expertly match any color, from the milky brown of a slice of bologna to the bright orange in a hot pepper to the dark green of an Incredible Hulk toy.

The “music” in his brief videos is the sound of his palette knife tapping his workspace, marking a percussive beat as he blends an assortment of colors to match whatever item he is attempting to replicate.

Proctor, who graduated from Niagara Falls High School and still has family in the region, is now married to a photographer, Blair Proctor, and lives in Boston.

In an interview, he talked about how his life has changed since he’s gone digital.

Q: I just watched your videos on TikTok, and clearly the world loves them. How did you get started?

A: It all started at the beginning of the pandemic. I was painting a lot in my basement studio here in Boston and part of my studio process was to mix colors to match the color of Home Depot paint cards. It makes it a lot easier to think of what color I need in certain parts of my painting to get the right color. I would mix that color perfectly and apply that paint to the canvas. My wife suggested I make videos of it and I did.

Q: Did that first video get views?

A: The first video took off right away. It got thousands of views. I just kept with it. I just kept making more because people were commenting, “This is so great,” and “I love it.” The thing that makes me happy is a lot of young art students are saying, “This is inspiring,” and that makes me want to work harder. Also, people with anxieties find it therapeutic. They tell me, “I have anxiety, and watching these videos calms me down.”

Q: The videos are entertaining but you don’t use music, which is kind of the point of TikTok, right?

A: I try to not use music because I think the sounds of the process are very important for the viewer. It’s a bit academic too. A lot of people will watch who aren’t really interested in art, but they’ll watch a video of an artist mixing color, and all of a sudden they’re taking part in an artistic experience. They’re gaining knowledge without even knowing it. You get a really wide range of an audience of artists and art lovers and those who know nothing about art.

Q: Who is your inspiration?

A: My inspiration is Bob Ross from the PBS show.

Q: You are quite different from Bob Ross, but I bet he would love your videos.

A: He’s another character people find therapeutic. People say Bob Ross invented ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). It’s a bit of a scientific term, but I put the term in my tags a lot. It’s a medical term that’s become really popular online. It’s people making sounds or doing things that viewers find pleasurable and relaxing. There are YouTube videos online of people playing with toys or popping bubbles. Bob Ross would put his brush into the mineral spirits and tap his brush. There are a lot of sounds in a Bob Ross show.

Q: So, how many followers do you have now?

A: It goes up pretty quick. On TikTok, it’s at 4.3 million followers, and they are from all over the world. My comments are in Korean, Thai, Spanish and Russian. I try to not incorporate too much language so they have that reach and they’re relevant everywhere.

Q: People in the industry must be paying attention to you now. Have you had any offers?

A: I have a manager now. She approached me. She takes care of brand deals. I’ve been able to quit my day job working for the Massachusetts park system; I was a sign designer. Just recently I was able to take that big leap. I was able to quit my job and be a full-time artist.

Q: How’s that going for you?

A: I just had a big show at BAM!, the Buffalo Art Movement. It was very successful. I sold a lot of paintings, which was really nice, and a lot of people reached out and told me they went to the show. It was a difficult time at the height of the pandemic. People went out to see the show anyway and that means a lot.