Monday, May 20, 2024

More paintings from the Eclipse Trip

 I've mentioned before: in April we took a trip to San Antonio, TX to see the total solar eclipse. Well, it was cloudy and all we really saw was the darkness that fell during totality.

But: I did manage to collect material coming and going that would turn into paintings! One of these is Texas! that shows the beautiful Hill Country of that state. Another piece, Desert View, shows the Arizona desert when your back is to Picacho Peak near Tucson. (I didn't include the I-10 freeway or the buildings that are actually out there!)

Click on the images to enlarge them.

Texas!     11" x 14"/ 27.9cm x 35.6cm

Desert View      8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

I STILL want to do a painting of the eclipse itself, but I think I'll take a break from making paintings of this trip and work on some other ideas that have been kicking around in my head for a long time.

Stay tuned!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Saturday, May 4, 2024

The Eclipse Trip

Well, we made the pilgrimage to San Antonio, Texas to see the total solar eclipse on 8 April. But -- it was overcast, and we only saw partial eclipses when the cloud cover thinned a bit. Oh, well. At least when totality hit, it got dark. That was an amazing experience!

I expect I'll do a painting of how the eclipse looked if we had journeyed an hour or two outside of San Antonio (where people got a clear view). Otherwise, we did see lots of great scenery that I've already finished two paintings of, plus a piece which is almost finished. Here are the two I've completed. (Click on the images to enlarge):

Picacho Peak                   11" x 14" / 27.9cm x 35.6cm

Enchanted Garden     11" x 14" / 27.9cm x 35.6cm

"Picacho Peak is in Arizona, and Enchanted Garden is a scene featuring the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, New Mexico. I hope to get these paintings on my website soon. (The URLs are down below). I should mention: we saw a LOT of turkey vultures when we were traveling; thus, the paintings have (or will have) at least one vulture in the sky!

More to come. The trip did seem to energize my desire to paint more (even if I don't really know what I'm going to do with them!)

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com