Reverse Stealing

Excerpt from this posting:

"...Another friend, an actor, used to embrace the criminal aspect of shoplifting..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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Sleeping Daughter

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I think it is very important for artists to work from life instead of photographs and this was brought home again as I painted these studies as my daughter slept. Not only is so much more seen with the eye but I want to be a painter of living things. It's a chance to experience the shifting cool hued light from the window play off her perfect skin. To watch blues and greens tint pale hollows before the forms turn under rosy cheeks. Color drains from her lids as she loses herself in sleep but in an instant she's ruddy-colored again and flipping her head back and forth. I paint the thumb back in again as she settles and, no....the palette knife comes out and I scrape the thumb out again -- oil is a fluid medium where images can easily be pushed around. Painted heads are what is left over from afternoon sessions spent watching perfect forms perfectly alive even in sleep. And now she's in a different pose and it's onto to a new sketch or back to an unfinished one close in posture. Then her eyes are open and I'm the one being watched. Years from now I'll enjoy pouring over photographs but for now I'll enjoy sitting with her when she sleeps -- the paintings an instant reminder.

I recognize hand signals that my infant daughter sends as she sleeps because my two-year-old used the same ones. Clutching and blanket-sucking signal a sensitivity to sound and foreshadow a fitful sleep but when my wife returns to top off the tired baby with a good nursing then she's knocked out flat on her back, hands open and arms stretched wide.

Baby Taco
In a bunting she called a baby taco, our maternity nurse could fold a cotton blanket perfectly around our new daughter. Flailing arms and legs remained tucked in tight, and with her thick black hair and olive skin our Eskimo baby slept contentedly in her cocoon. When we attempted to fold the wiggling limbs into the blanket our version of a human origami was so pitiful that the wrap needed more attention than the infant. As the baby got older, anything within reach was pulled up into her mouth and then we (thought we) had to worry that the blanket wouldn't allow her to breathe. If her bedroom seemed a little too quiet a welcome sight was the little girl out cold and arms up in the surrender posture.

-Doug Rugh

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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-Doug Rugh

Break the Pickle

Creation of Man by Michelangelo

Excerpt from this posting:

"..."Yes, that's right. That's break the pickle." We both stared at the picture, each of us trying to figure out who does the tickling..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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Oeuvre in a Box

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...Maybe someone, another painter perhaps, lays out 50 cents for the only two frames that weren't split at the corners, and knocks out the paintings when they get home..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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-Doug Rugh

Painting Blind

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...Da Vinci recommended staring at stains on the walls for inspiration and I just looked for the beginnings of details and pulled the rest from memory banks..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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-Doug Rugh

Color Study

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...A whole host of other aspects which can be followed individually like instruments in a symphony become something entirely different as a whole, complicating the matter and insuring that painting remain an art and not a science..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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Cape Cod Parent

Figure studies - 12" x 9" - oil/panel.


Excerpt from this posting:

"...and my wife just shook her head (end of subject.)..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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Cape Cod Artist

Bog at Dusk, 12" x 9", oil/panel.

Excerpt from this posting:

"...I guessed the artist to be in his late twenties and I hadn't seen him around before..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
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102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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-Doug Rugh

You, Too, Have Asked...

Saint Luke painting the Virgin by Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, 1515. Note mahl stick in hand.

Excerpt from this posting:

"You are being handed this card because you are in good company. Like 9 out of 10 men (and most women) who come up to me while I'm painting on location you have just asked, "What is the stick for?"..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
Epub and PDF formats
102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

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-Doug Rugh

Dear Gladys (Not Your Real Name)

Excerpt from this posting:

"...We have a game we play. I say, "Are these your keys?"

And you say, "I've never seen them in my life."

The next Sunday the keys are still on the counter. I say, "Here are your keys."

You say, "Thank you," and put them in your pocket..."

This journal entry is now available as part of a compilation in ebook form:

Specifications:
Epub and PDF formats
102 Entries
26,700+ Words
95 Full-Color Illustrations (Oil paintings by the author.)
2006 - 2010

More information here.