Joanne Beaule Ruggles' landscape sketch studies are created in pen, pencil, or charcoal in her journals. These expressive drawings capture the essence of a particular place. Along with Ruggles extensive notes about her subjects, these thumbnails provide fertile ground for this artist's creative exploration.
 

Utilizing a loose technique, Ruggles can distance herself from any feeling of preciousness about the resulting drawings and any subsequent need to recreate them faithfully in her painted works.Instead they function as a way for the artist to know her subject. Because of weather or time constraints an interesting scene is sometimes captured instead on film. Translating the color photo into a black and white xerox copy allows Ruggles to analyze its abstract design.

 
A Certain Slant of Light, © 1997

When sketch studies are drawn from these photocopies, the artist places emphasis on the scene's composition and its inherent value pattern. Working in this fashion, the artiist finds herself less inclined to feel obligated to refer to "local (actual) color" as she constructs her paintings.

  To begin a painting, Ruggles establishes a non-representational color "environment" on her canvas with acrylic paint. Drips, scratches, and smears coexist in harmony as the artist intuitively explores color and mark. The artist creates rich history on her painting's surface- building thickness until the work obtains a feeling of abstract soundness. At this point, the painted abstract work is likely to be set aside for some time by this artist - in order to see it again with fresh eyes.
  Within each such an abstract field, Ruggles finds visual cues that begin to suggest the canvas is ready to accept the development of a landscape scene on its surface. Working quickly with charcoal or chalk, the artist expressively draws into the abstract environment using her studies as source material for her ultimate value plan and composition.
 
North County Autumn, © 1997 		Alternately drawing and painting, painting and drawing, Joanne Beaule Ruggles' artwork evolves. Resonating with empathy for the central coast California land that she loves, the paintings speak passionately of that emotional bond.