Each player begins the game with two bishops, on starting between the king and a knight, the other between the queen and her knight. The bishops move diagonally and have no distance restrictions.
The bishops are referred to as the king’s bishop and queen’s bishop. Due to its diagonal movement each bishop always remains on either the white or black squares.
If you have lost one of your bishops you should try to place pawns on squares of the color that the bishop you have cannot move to. This prevents pawns from impeding the movement of your bishop and allows you to try and control squares of both colors. In this situation the bishop is referred to as the “good bishop” where as a “bad bishop” is impeded by your pawns.