Saturday, April 22, 2017

Earth Day Celebration!


Today is Earth Day -- 22 April 2017. I'm glad this tradition has found an ongoing place for people to reflect on what we need to do to save the planet...and ourselves.

Every Earth Day, our little town has a celebration in the town's community center, with arts and crafts vendors, displays and info from environmental groups, music, face-painting and other fun and educational stuff. I decided I would do a little experiment and paint a bunch of little landscapes (6" x 6"/15cm x 15cm; and 4" x 4"/10cm x 10cm) and sell them with mini easels so they would be considered tabletop art instead of wall art (a common excuse is: we're out of wall space, no place to hang more art). And they would be very low-priced -- $25 for the 4x4s, $45 for the 6x6s.

This was how my setup looked at opening time:

Earth Day,paintings,miniature art,tiny paintings,art show

As you can see, I brought along a few framed wall-art pieces, too. Here are images of what the miniature paintings look like:

art,paintings,desert,landscape,Southwest,Joshua Tree National Park,wildflowers,flowers,desert cottontail rabbit,bunny,ocotillo
6" x 6"
art,paintings,desert,landscape,Southwest,Joshua Tree National Park,wildflowers,flowers,moon,moonlit,Arch Rock, Skull Rock
4" x 4"


Thankfully, the fee for showing was not very high -- selling just one 4x4 would cover that. Turns out -- I sold TWO 4x4s.

Another artist friend and I agreed -- this is why we don't like doing art shows anymore. Doing them can be quite expensive, one works one's rectum off getting ready, the artist can go through a lot of exhausting work just setting up and tearing down -- and the return for all this may well be zero or close to it.

So -- for whatever reason, these types of venues just don't work for me. I really don't understand why, and I don't feel like wasting the time or money on trying to figure out why.


www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com
 

Friday, April 14, 2017

Pastoral Landscape


I've sure gotten behind in my blogging!! Between being sick in March, finishing a painting, putting my 3" x 5" note cards together (see the previous post) and now preparing for a show next weekend, it's been a little crazy!

Well, here is the latest painting:

art,painting,meadow,trees,green,cattle,cows,Herefords,Black Angus,Hollsteins,river,creek,water,cow parsnip,wildflowers,clouds,distant mountains,traditional,classical realism
Pastoral Landscape                                18" x 24" / 46cm x 61cm
As you can see, I've depicted a small herd of mixed breeds of cows. One managed to cross the shallow river and is hoping others will follow her to the other side. The scene could be a pasture in the high country of Colorado; in fact, the painting was loosely inspired by the way the Double RL Ranch (Ralph Lauren's spread) looks near Ridgeway, CO.

I couldn't resist including some cow parsnip with the cows. This is the plant with the clusters of tiny white flowers. Apparently, some people are sensitive to this plant which can cause a severe poison ivy-type rash if one brushes up against it. (Apparently browsing herbivores can eat the stuff without toxic effects). Also, insects tend to avoid munching on cow parsnip, too.

I've been wanting to do a classically-styled landscape like this for a long time, and I've finally done it!

Enjoy!

Mark Junge
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com