Jun 14, 2014

2014 Summer Newsletter


A note from Hillary Osborn & Doug Rugh, Osborn & Rugh Gallery, Falmouth, Cape Cod.

Scroll down for upcoming events.

Hillary's first plein air piece of the season, Little Island, 12” x 18”, oil/canvas.

"Sometimes a piece seems so effortless but I think this one is complete as it is: it captures the place so well". -Rugh

“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” - Edward Hopper 


C O N T E N T S

HOURS
NOT COMPLAINING
DVD RELEASE

SAMPLING FROM THE EASEL

UPCOMING EVENTS
(Workshops, Exhibitions, Studio Tour & Jazz Stroll)
NOTECARDS
EBOOK
EASY LAYAWAY PLAN
CUSTOM ART
ART FOR THE HOME
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
QUICK LINKS

"Summer Read", 5” x 7”, oil/panel, Doug Rugh.

"This was done at Stoney Beach with my stealth painting kit.". -Rugh


“Art is colerful and awsum.” - A. Rugh, age 7

H O U R S
Wednesday - Sunday 10 – 5 (Tuesdays by chance)
Other times visit by appointment.

NOT COMPLAINING
Twenty years ago the goal was simple but challenging: to find a way to continue painting throughout the year. That was huge. And then it was to try for another year. And then another. Now that we’re in our 14th year of being full-time the challenge as working artists is to keep seeing things with a fresh eye. For a creative person it’s a mental necessity and not a career strategy. Artwork that is borne of inspiration is reflected in the work – it can’t be faked – and success comes from the ability to find artistic ways of looking at familiar subjects. Support for art is fickle but while we are painting we forget our struggles and enjoy the satisfaction that aesthetics can bring; that is a reward in itself. Once back from the fuzzy right-brained world even the great Michelangelo whines (about painting the Sistine Chapel):

I've already grown a goiter from this torture, hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy (or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison). My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket, my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush, above me all the time, dribbles paint so my face makes a fine floor for droppings! My haunches are grinding into my guts, my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight, every gesture I make is blind and aimless. My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's all knotted from folding over itself. I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow. Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts are crazy, perfidious tripe: anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe. My painting is dead. Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor. I am not in the right place—I am not a painter. 

Every artist knows the feeling but, mysteriously, we still plow ahead. And as we ready our French easels for the landscape painting season we anticipate how we are going to approach the landscape this summer after new lessons learned through winter investigations. We’ll start different compositions, search out new places (please invite us to private access spots!) and revisit many of our favorite ones from a new perspective. Nature never repeats itself and artists also quickly become bored. An important part of being a creative person is having all the tools in place so that when that light is just right on the fluid scene before us we can quickly get brush to canvas before it all changes with the wind. It’s a life’s work. As we carry on, and we do a lot of new paintings each year, we take great delight in making pictures and hope that others appreciate them as much as we enjoy making them.    

-Doug Rugh

 Newly Released
PORTRAIT DEMO DVD
Connoisseurship Series
"Capturing Character in the Oil Portrait Sketch"
Doug recently completed a portrait demonstration DVD available through the gallery. In the video Hillary poses for two live sessions while Doug shares his method for capturing a likeness. Images and videography by Nick Mortell.


Sampling From the Easel

“Twilight on Mill Pond”, 24" x 30", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

"This was an unexpected moment on my way home from the studio one evening. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and couldn’t get this image out of my head.” –Osborn

"This painting gets a lot of attention in the gallery and she did this from memory and sketches. In it you can see her natural love of the landscape." –Rugh

“Picker’s Delight” (in progress), 40” x 30”, oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

“We are surprised that most visitors to the gallery don't notice the setup at right. Picker's Delight takes the viewer into a visual maze of light, texture, form, line and space and it becomes the artist's playground.” –Osborn

“I enjoy complex subjects and working on a painting over an extended time.” –Rugh


“Maple”, 9” x 6”, oil/panel, Osborn & Rugh

“The collector asked that we work on this together. We’ve never done that before." –Rugh


 “Friends, Stoney Beach”, 16" x 24", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

"I had a flock of small children standing behind me as I painted this picture. I asked the kids what the painting needed and one shouted out 'A bird on the rock!' - so I painted it in. After that their suggestions never stopped.” –Osborn

"What could be better than two friends warming up on the rocks at Stoney."  –Rugh


“Highfield Settee”, 14" x 11", oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

"Doug was able to capture not only the beautiful intimate settings at Highfield but the way the light traveled over the elegant forms of architecture.” –Osborn

"I painted a series of small vignettes in different rooms throughout Highfield Hall over several years. I was pleased to see most of the series together on display in the dining room (March/April)."  -Rugh


Color Investigations, 8” x 10” each, oil, Hillary Osborn

"I had fun in the midst of the cold gray and colorless days of the winter season painting these studies. It was a reflection of my spirit and not the environment.”   –Osborn


"Connor", 14” x 11” , oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

"One of my favorite paintings by Rembrandt is a small Christ head in Philadelphia. I saw Connor at Coffee O. and asked him to pose." –Rugh


"A Bog in Cataumet", 11” x 14” , oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

"I love a day where the fog hangs in the air. The mist stayed around all morning while I painted this quiet scene. Life was still at that moment.”   –Osborn

"Of all the colors, green has a huge range in hue. The oil medium is perfect for that because it has a richness that others don't. Brushwork is just right here too."  –Rugh


"Grasses, Squeteegue". 11” x 14”, oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

"This is a great example of the textures outdoors. It ranges from the glass-like still waters and soft morning haze of the sun to the coarse and bushy carpet of the grasses in the foreground.”–Osborn

"This is my play with green hues.” –Rugh


Painting alla prima en plein air (for the trilingual). 8” x 12”, oil, Hillary Osborn

"What a day this was to paint. Glorious! The sun came out at the end. I was breathless.”–Osborn

"I drove by and saw Hillary out here buffeted by the wind and racing to finish before the storm. Those are the most exhilarating times to be a landscape painter.” –Rugh


Doug's first plein air piece of the season, "Path, Little Island:, 12” x 9”, oil/canvas.


"Land and Sea". 18” x 30”, oil/canvas, Osborn

"Her Uncle Warrener and the Group of Seven influence Hillary's work.” –Rugh


"Sailing Around the Island", 24” x 30”, oil, Doug Rugh

"Rich summer colors, sunlit beaches and a cool ocean breeze invite you to untie this line and drift into a dream.”  –Osborn

"We play with light all day." –Rugh


“Nonamesset”, 12" x 18", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

"You can feel the breeze."  -Rugh


“Valentines Roses”, 24" x 36", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

“I reworked the background on this painting and then the color of the roses became more saturated. This was a progression of my winter color studies" -Osborn

"We watch many of our paintings go through different incarnations. Interestingly enough, experimenting with color inevitably leads to playing with gray.” –Rugh


“Woodneck Summer”, 8" x 14", oil/panel, Doug Rugh

"The best atmosphere on the Cape comes from those hot hot days.” –Rugh


“Chinese Lanterns”, 16" x 20", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

“Another painting done over the winter with a more colorful palette." -Osborn


“Sundial", 12" x 9", oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

“I love how Doug can hone in on a subject out in the vast landscape and see a smaller universe." –Osborn

"This sundial on this handmade stone wall won't take daylight savings time into account but it is accurate nonetheless. That is, when you’re on Cape time, where two-ish is as precise as you need to know." –Rugh


“Figs and Limes”, 20" x 24", oil/canvas, Hillary Osborn

"This was a set up for my students over the winter. At the end of class I was going to take it down. Standing next to the table looking down on the flowers I got caught up in movement of the flowers & figs and grabbed my palette and started to paint." -Osborn

"The outcome of all the work she has done with the little color studies can be seen (especially in the original) where brushstrokes of broken hues enliven fields of color." –Rugh


“Sailing Delight”, 15" x 30", oil/canvas, Doug Rugh

"This scene is an amalgam culled from many tranquil afternoons watching the light play on Cape waters." –Rugh


Hillary taking advantage of the gray skies to paint the vibrant hues (with only one leg in the road).

Upcoming Events

WORKSHOP
Outdoor Landscape Painting with Hillary Osborn
Saturday June 28th, 8:30 AM – noon.
Raindate: June 29th.
Location: to be announced. $125
Please contact the artist for more info and to register. Hillary also gives private and semi-private lessons. More info.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION
July 5 – August 20, 2014
Hillary Osborn will be included in “Shimmer”, the summer juried exhibition at the Copley Society, Boston.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION
July/August 2014
Hillary Osborn & Doug Rugh will be included in an exhibition at the State House, Boston.

WORKSHOP
Portrait Painting with Doug Rugh
Saturday August 2, 9 AM - noon
May be outdoors depending on weather. $150
Please contact the artist for more info or to register.

STUDIO TOUR
 Saturday, August 9, 2014
Hillary Osborn & Doug Rugh will be included in a local tour of artist's studios.

TALK
Connoisseurship Series
"The Art in the Frame: a Lecture and Demonstration of Gilding Techniques"
Osborn & Rugh Gallery, Saturday, August 30, 5 – 5:30 PM, light refreshments
By Margaret Kean, BA History of Art and Museum Studies, Smith College. Undergraduate focus in the conservation of furniture and gilded picture frames, with internships at Historic New England, Williamstown Art Conservation Center, Smith College Museum of Art, and Barrett M. Keating Conservators. 

UPCOMING EXHIBITION
 September 5 - October 3 2014
Hillary Osborn & Doug Rugh will be included in the "September Invitational", Creative Arts Center, Chatham.

MUSICAL EVENT
October 3, 2013, 6 - 8 PM
Falmouth Jazz Stroll at the Osborn & Rugh Gallery
Musicians to be announced. We always enjoy having these musicians in our studio. Start off the Jazz Stroll from this historic end of Falmouth.

 OSBORN TALK
Connoisseurship Series
December 2014, Osborn & Rugh Gallery 
"Lowrie Warrener and Canada's Group of Seven"
Hillary Osborn Lecture on her artist uncle who painted in Muskoka, Canada and knew Emily Carr and Lauren Harris of the Group of Seven, Canada’s most famous artists.


NOTECARDS
Assorted Oil Painting Reproduction Notecards (with envelopes) now available in the gallery.

 EBOOK BY DOUG RUGH
“The Artist’s Conundrum: An Oil Painter’s Journal”
(94 Oil Illustrations, 34,200 Words)
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

EASY LAYAWAY PLAN
0% - $90 - 36 month
We have some visitors who return each year to the gallery who would like to own works but believe it is out of their reach. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to hang our paintings in their home and offer free shipping and a 10% discount for our collectors (who have one of our paintings in their collection or who buy 2 or more). We also offer a layaway plan with 0% interest and no finance charges with a $90 per month minimum and a 36 month maximum. It’s only the price of a dinner out or a utility bill a month which leads to owning a wall-sized work. We will custom tailor a plan to fit your needs. Please ask.

“The cool thing about artists is that you can paint whatever you want, ...unless its a commision.” -L. Rugh, age 9

CUSTOM ART
Request a Painting, a Subject of your Choosing
One of the benefits of being an artist run studio is that we can work directly with collectors to create paintings of subjects that are dear to them. We are frequently asked to do commissions of favorite landscapes or people and we also do pet portraits and copies of master paintings that are in the public domain. We would be glad to talk with you about what you envision a painting might be. All you need to do is let us know what the framed size and the subject should be. Landscape Commissions Portrait Commissions

ART FOR THE HOME
In the gallery we offer pamphlets that are a guide for those interested in learning more about purchasing art as an investment. We also welcome the opportunity to offer our input when adding art to your home. If you are remodeling or are looking to decorate a new interior let us bring by a selection of work for you to sample with no obligation. Information

Happy Summer!,

Hillary Osborn & Doug Rugh

“Round the Bay, 20" x 30", oil/canvas, Doug Rugh



ABOUT
HIllary Osborn and Doug Rugh, a husband and wife team, are both Cape Cod artists who share combined gallery and studio space at Queen's Buyway in the historic neighborhood of Falmouth, MA on Cape Cod. Both artists have been full-time since 2000 and create gallery works and commissioned works in oil including landscapes, still lifes, florals, and figurative and interior paintings. Rugh also accepts portrait commissions.

QUICK LINKS








Queen's Buyway,114 Palmer Ave.,Falmouth, MA 02540, Cape Cod, (508) 548-2100

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