Sonora

I visited the Living Desert again today, specifically for the purpose of getting photos of some of the critters in their "Wildlife Wonders" program. In case you've forgotten, the Living Desert is a combination desert botanical garden and zoo specializing in desert animals. "Wildlife Wonders" is a showcase where desert critters perform things they do in nature, only they perform them where we can see them.

The accompanying picture shows Sonora, a female Harris' hawk, silhouetted against the sky. Her "job" is to fly to an observation point (in this case, the skeleton of a saguaro cactus), then fly to the peak of a nearby hill to get and eat a tasty morsel (a thawed frozen mouse). Afterwards, she divebombs back into the amphitheater and exits through an opening in a fence. The divebomb can be hard to catch on a camera, since she can easily be traveling 80mph (129km/h). I have caught her in her dive, but so far, the resulting pictures aren't worth showing, 'tho' they may still be useful for paintings.

At this time, this is the best picture I have of Sonora who, I expect, will appear in a painting sooner or later. As a painter, I have the advantage of being able to refer to other pictures to fill in the silhouette with some color and details.

This silhouette would strike fear into the little hearts and minds of any mouse that saw it.

Yet ANOTHER Small Painting

Probably the last in a series of small (8" x 8"/20cm x 20cm) -- the last for a while, anyway.

This piece shows a beavertail cactus in bloom among some rocks in Joshua Tree National Park. I guess that's why I titled it "Beavertail on the Rocks"!

Why Not Impressionism?

You've seen my paintings (online, anyway, if not in real life), so by now, you know I work in a fairly traditional/academic way with just a hint of surrealism to add a little mystery. Three-dimensional brushmarks are minimal, if they exist at all.

And one characteristic that you can't see online (or in any reproduction): I paint in transparent glazes. The paintings have a stained-glass quality, an Old Masters-style "inner glow" that, frankly, adds a lot of time to the painting process. After all, when you paint a layer and let it dry, then paint another layer and let it dry, and again and again and again ... it's a little like making the same painting mulitple times, but on the same canvas or panel. There are many times when I feel if I did abstract work or even Impressionism where globs of color are applied quickly, often while working on site in the great outdoors (my paintings must be done in the studio), life might be much simpler. In fact, my sales might even increase: Impressionism is a more popular style in the USA than the academic style I prefer.

So why not Impressionism? Well, I don't really have anything against that look. I've seen some attractive pieces that were done that way.

However, an impressionistic piece draws attention to itself as a painting. By working as I do, I can do subtle things in paintings that wouldn't seem believable if the painting was much looser; in fact, some of those things might seem like mistakes. Plus, honestly, I really like the look of the Old Masters, including works created in the 19th century. I love the "inner glow" of a Rembrandt portrait or other artwork, which--in many examples--elevates an otherwise ho-hum painting to a higher level because of the sheer beauty of glazes and other techniques that tend to go with them.

At some point, I'd like to discuss some of the techniques of the Masters and how I incorporate some of those methods into my own work.

The attached image is Madonna and Child with Book by Rafael (who did some fabulous glazing on this piece!) The original painting is in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA. The Museum Bookstore sells prints of it, but they don't do justice to the painting.

Small Desert Painting

Another in my series of small (8" x 8"/20cm x 20cm) paintings of the desert!

(BTW, don't forget -- my Website is http://www.southwestspaces.com/. Since the small paintings are already at the Christopher Morgan Gallery, please contact him directly if you're interested in acquiring a small -- or a large! --painting).

Religion and Politics

Religion and politics -- these are topics of conversation that are best avoided at parties. At least, that's the traditional wisdom for anyone who doesn't want to get caught up in pointless, nonproductive arguments.

I belong to four online forums for artists. Three of those have moderators who insist on keeping the topics related to art. The fourth is mostly that way, but it also features a sort of "let's chat about whatever" where one can start or participate in any subject that's on one's mind.

Prior to the November elections, some of the threads dealt with politics, led mostly by a few people who felt quite passionately about then-candidate Barrack Obama. The problem was: some of us, myself included, felt the pro-Obama folks weren't looking at Obama's claims with any degree of skepticism at all. If we asked for the Obama-ites to offer explanations or evidence that supported those claims, we were treated in an insulting manner and -- needless to say -- were not given explanations or evidence. The forum moderator, in fact, threatened one of the Obama-ites with banishment from the forum if she didn't restrain herself, so this person avoided outright flaming -- but the comments were still insulting.

Now -- I have a Masters degree in microbiology. I did research in college and in several jobs afterwards. A procedure exists for looking at evidence, asking questions and looking for the holes, and trying to find the answers to questions to whatever extent that is possible. The political "discussion" on the forum would not cut it in circles that are used to dealing with evidence -- certainly not science; I'm sure lawyers would have had a field day with it as well.

Mind you -- none of this has anything to do with where I or others stood regarding Obama or McCain. This was strictly about the lack of critical thinking on the part of adults who, I'm sure, are convinced they "won" the discussion.

And the result of all this? Many forum members have not appeared on the forum since the election -- not, I'm convinced -- because Obama won the election, but because we have hard feelings about the way the Obama-ites conducted themselves. The worst of the insulters is still there; in fact, after the election, she brought up the California Proposition 8 "anti-gay marriage" initiative -- but this time, nobody took her bait. A few of us, in fact, sent each other private messages, and we agree this person has a compulsive need (seriously bordering on mental illness) to be the center of attention and to win regardless of her methodology. I and one other forum member have worked with or around mentally ill people before, and what we were seeing was disturbing. Unfortunately, the pro-Obama extremist got away with it, and I don't know if I or the others will return to that forum.

We didn't discuss religion (although it has come up before in this forum), but we did get into politics. I guess we allowed ourselves to get sucked into an unreasonable situation with unreasonable people. And I fear we all lost continued opportunities for building an online community of other professional artists.

Religion and politics -- these are topics of conversation that are best avoided at parties. And online forums.

Sundance

I was in Palm Desert today running a number of errands (I always run myself into the ground when I'm there!) and visited the Living Desert again, as I often do when I'm in Palm Desert. My favorite thing to see is the "Wildlife Wonders" show where the critters do what they normally do, only they do it on cue.

My absolute favorite critter is a Harris' hawk named Hudson who flies back and forth over peoples' heads, often close enough to smack people upside the heads with his wings -- but I love it! However, Hudson had the day off, and the other Harris' hawk (Sonora, a female) is on sick leave right now.

But the Living Desert also has other raptors, although the close encounters with them are not as close as the encounters with Hudson.

One of these critters is Sundance, a female redtail hawk. I've painted redtail hawks in landscapes before, but I was always limited to just a few photos I've been able to take over the years of redtails. So the more pictures I can get of Sundance (along with Hudson), the better equipped I'll be for making more paintings with hawks in them.

Also, Harris' hawks are more or less limited to southern Arizona scenes, while redtails are more widely distributed throughout the US. That increases the options for hawk-"infested" landscapes besides the Sonoran desert.

Whenever I see a hawk catch prey, I always feel a little sorry for the prey. Yet, hawks are beautiful animals and efficient predators, they have an important job to do and I'm always thrilled to see them in flight.

Yucca

For the benefit of anyone who hasn't spent much time in the West, the name of this plant is pronounced "yuck-a." (Some people tend to call it "you-ka").

I've shown another one of my recently-completed small paintings (10" x 8"/25cm x 20cm). Rising in the background is Mt. San Jacinto. The San Jacinto Mountains are a large part of why the land off to the left (including this spot) is desert while the area to the right is influenced by coastal weather patterns. The mountains form a "rain shadow" because their elevation is high enough to block most of the moisture-laden clouds that come from the ocean.

A scene like this is classic Palm Springs, CA. Spring flowers (the yellow-flowering shrubs are called brittlebush -- Encelia farinosa), yuccas in bloom and Mt. San Jacinto which lies immediately west of Palm Springs. If we get enough rain this winter, the desert will look like this next March and April.

Including that yucca!