Head in the Clouds
I have a special fondness for paintings done on location because there's no better way to feel what it was like to be there. Their hurried sketchiness doesn't detract from the realism and it's a realism that photographs can't capture because they won't select, as a person can, for the salient features. Although, if you happen to be there and aren't paying attention you might miss the experience as well. Often the focus of what I'm after with these small 5" x 7" panels is to capture that time of day and a sense of the weather. Looking at the painting now I can feel the wind in my face as I looked into the light of the passing clouds and I remember not seeing the painting until I was done.

It usually happens, especially outdoors trying to capture a changing subject that includes clouds and water, that the artist has no time to look at his own painting and that may be why this little painting takes me back so clearly: because the process is about absorbing the mind in the subject and really looking and experiencing. When I was a kid I had a book called Zen of Seeing that was about achieving an experiential realism that was above and beyond pictorial realism and that's exactly what I'm talking about here only I hope to add an oil painter's and a picture-maker's knowledge as well.

It happens like this: What should I paint? Wow, look at the light in the clouds. Set up. Work quickly to capture the moving sky remembering what it was moments before and anticipating how it's going to become. Periodically survey the scene for unexpected events. Feel the wind on the left side of the face and then brush in the waves and then back into the clouds. The palette and hands move colors around automatically. Realize the sky is completely changed: stop. Stand back and see what happened. Just as a song or a smell can take me back to a long past memory, this painting will always take me back to that afternoon on the beach.

©2006 DOUG RUGH. Artwork may not be reproduced without permission.