Other Eyes

View a larger image. Cranberry Bog at Dusk, 30" x 36" - oil/canvas

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...And then you notice that the paintings are all a little cock-eyed and that your host is looking at you...a little sideways too. You're both in sync. Just not with each other unless you're seeing through their eyes..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Hidden Corner at Nobska Beach

Hidden Corner, 11" x 14" - oil/canvas

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...as long as my palette doesn't get too wet and turn my oils into emulsions. The overcast skies, tent-lighting to photographers, bring out the intensity of colors..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Taking the Fork in the Road

Excerpt from this posting:

"...I'm in Paris and he's never left the farm. I had been spending time on the periphery dazzled by the bright lights and I come back and he's just sitting under the tree with Ferdinand smelling the flowers..."

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.

Chiaroscuro

View a larger image. Mending The Sails, 35" x 35" - oil/canvas

Excerpt from this posting:

"...the root words of chiaroscuro -- light lifting the tonal veil of darkness -- are both clear and obscure. Folds become beautiful when a little mystery (and shadow) is added..."

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.

Gone Postal

One day when I was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design I found a confusing card in my mailbox. Fitted through punched holes along the left side were varied thicknesses and lengths of natural looking yarns and neatly hand-written next to each sample was the color name. Words like: alfalfa sprouts, tofu, granola, spirulina, tahini. If something out of the ordinary happens at an art school the first assumption is that an art event is taking place but on the other hand I felt this was a personal message to me. Did I recognize any of the hues as colors that I might wear? The other students had a more current sense of couture and perhaps someone was trying to let me know that I was projecting the not-so-chic tones of the health-food store. It remained a conundrum until months later.

Another time someone was kind enough to leave a note with this advice written in small letters:

I was sitting next to you in class and I couldn't help noticing that your ears needed cleaning. Just thought you'd like to know.

A fresh Q-tip was taped to the card. I say kind because the note was unsigned allowing the Samaritan to give helpful guidance while avoiding the embarrassment of a whispered take-aside. I quietly slipped the Q-tip into my bag and walked out of the busy hall. Maybe it was the guy at the library's front desk who I mistakenly passed unshaven one day who put his hands on his hips and said, "There's such a thing as personal hygiene you know!"

It wasn't until later when I was sitting with some people in the textile department that someone described getting the same note with the Q-tip. The guy we were with said, "I put hundreds of those in people's boxes. I got bored sitting in the mail room all day." I realized instantly that the crunchy-granola color samples were probably just an old weaving project that he had done and rather than discarding his trash he could disseminate it and give it new life. Nobody gets letters anymore.

-Doug Rugh

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.

Neither Then Nor Later

View a larger image. Dories, 6" x 9" - oil/panel

Excerpt from this posting:

"...that free the thinking and the doing: a perfect place of art..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Just Undo It

Lemon Twist (detail) - oil/panel

Excerpt from this posting:

"...as I carved a flourish a little too long my fingers searched for command + z to undo my last action. Instead, as in all things handmade the path is forward and a better state of the art becomes history. The flourish by necessity becomes even longer and more decorative; a mistake requiring a creative answer..."

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.

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

More information here.

Perpetuating a Might Have Been

Excerpt from this posting:

"...someone was quoted as saying that Degas had said (it may have been another person quoting something a little different from someone else): "Orange lightens, green neutralized and violet darkens." As a young art student I thought I had found the "secret" in an old library book because when I experimented..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

The Color of Color

Excerpt from this posting:

"...our brains are used to subtracting this pervading tint from what we see before us..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Color Mixing Secrets

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I suppose few make the attempt to master color mixing because it seems complicated (aren't there millions of colors?) The subject has come up because someone asked about the colors I would choose for a limited palette. Since I'm on a self-imposed exile from the technical aspect of painting and because I've come to the conclusion that the only way to have a command of color-mixing is to discover it for yourself, I've tried to boil down everything I know about the science in the following principals (at the risk of appearing evasive):

Black and white are blue (I know this is a secret because I've never found it elsewhere.)
Add two and change three
The triad is the key
Light beats dirt
The dull cannot become pure again
A fluted column lacks unnecessary material (this is the response to the limited palette question of which there are many shapes)
The core shares axes
Complexity competes with purity
The vision is changed by the viewer
Switch domains and become contrary
Start with one and the rest follow
All according to the rules of proximity
And bound by the laws of gravity

I'd like to give a small framed oil sketch to the first person who can decipher these clues. Email me privately for confirmation.

-Doug Rugh

Fog Induced

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...Streetlights behind trees cast their limbs across thick fog like projected holograms and remind me of warm summer nights walking around a Woods Hole (add boat and fog horns for effect) transformed into an overblended monochromatic underpainting..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

John Singer Sargent's Palette

Excerpt from this posting:

"...The perfect palette is an improvement on the arm..."

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.

Camera Obscura: Light in a Dark Room

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"Girl in a Red Hat" by Vermeer

Excerpt from this posting:

"...A friend who is an engineer that sends laser light to the moon visited the studio the other day and we got to talking about the camera obscura (a projected image box that Vermeer had access to.) Now, every few days he calls me into his office so can see the improvements on a rig he set up in his window..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Rose Colored Glasses

View a larger image. 5" x 7" oil/panel.

Excerpt from this posting:

"...I lost my glow back in the studio when I looked at my colorless panel. The pink light of the setting sun no longer tinting my drab colors..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Heat in the Firehouse

Excerpt from this posting:

"...Photographs can capture one or the other but because of limitations in value range aren't able to portray what the eye can see. Pigments have similar limitations but the artist must use optical tricks to simulate the illusion..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Pallid and Pretty

Excerpt from this posting:

"...I now have doubts about the use of arsenic for bathing and have always had them about the use for beauty. Regretfully, I let by a few apple seeds as a child and that may be the source of a slight tinge..."

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.

-Doug Rugh

Painting with Two Colors

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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.

A Knife, A Face and a Bit of Color

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Excerpt from this posting:

"...it is the chance to revel in pure color. Trowel on the thick paint and when it is just right, like a Polaroid developing, the truth kicks in..."

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.

Diffusion and Halation

This is a detail from a larger painting.

Excerpt from this posting:

"...This is an effect that is around us everywhere in our daily lives but we trick ourselves into not seeing it (few artists are aware of it partly because many work from photographs) but it's obvious when you look for it..."

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.

-Doug Rugh