All new: "In the Mojave" is a scene in Joshua Tree National Park, CA. This involved one of the few times in my life (years ago) when I scrambled up a boulder to get more of a bird's-eye view.
8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm, acrylic on panel. No AI. Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
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| In the Mojave 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
Desert Adobe is a painting where my imagination took over. The distant mountains are based loosely on the Coxcomb Mountains of Joshua Tree National Park, CA. But the rest of it, including the house, are figments!
I wanted to create a sense of aloneness. Would someone living here ever feel lonely? Is the house even occupied, or is it abandoned? Who knows?? I'll leave that up to the viewer!
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| Desert Adobe 8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm |
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
I mentioned last time I was working on a scene from Joshua Tree National Park, and I posted the photo I was using as a reference. Well, it's finished!! I even included a desert cottontail bunny-rabbit, which I haven't done in a while since it's a little hard to paint them when the artwork is small!
One Desert Morning 18" x 24" / 45.7cm x 61cm
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| Detail -- the Bunny-Rabbit! |
Mark Junge
Here it is, June already, and the year is almost half over!! Good grief!!
Late last month I went into nearby Joshua Tree National Park before the heat would set in and dry up whatever wildflowers were left. Even so, there weren't as many as I had hoped, but I still got some awesome material for more paintings.
I'm working on one now, although I'm being rather pokey about it. I seem to have developed a major lazy streak!! (But then -- after being a workaholic for so many years in college and after, I think I'm entitled).
This is a hill I'm painting numerous times before, each a little different from each other:
Continuing the continuation!!
Mark Junge
Just finished my second painting for the year and my first commission in a long time!
Anyway, the painting is 22" x 28" / 55.9cm x 71.1cm -- larger than I've been doing in a long time! Joshua Tree Sunset is a scene in the National Park of that name, one of my favorite places on the planet.
Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
FINALLY!!! I finished my first painting for 2024!!
This is a view I saw many years ago from the Boy Scout Trailhead in Joshua Tree National Park, California. I haven't decided on a title yet, but I'll come up with something. When I do, I'll offer it on my website. The size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Two more desert landscape paintings -- one small, one mini! Both are of Joshua Tree National Park.
JT12 5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm 
Dawn II 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm
As we all know, Aries is a zodiac sign which references a ram. In this case Aries is a desert or peninsular bighorn sheep.
Actually, this is the second time I painted a bighorn and named him Aries, so the painting is entitled Aries II.
In my opinion, bighorn sheep are the majestic animals of the desert -- so noble, so graceful -- and so endangered. The herd populations are slowly increasing in size, but they've got a way to go in areas that break up their habitat with highways, development, humans...stuff like that.
This scene is in Joshua Tree National Park, although I added the rock pinnacle that the bighorn is standing on, and I added the bighorn, too -- this one actually lives at the Living Desert Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Palm Desert, CA. I think I did an OK job of showing the space the way it would look with the bird's eye view, the pinnacle and the sheepie!
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or SouthwestSpaces.com
Aries II 18" x 24" / 45.7cm x 61cm
I would call Joshua Tree National Park a big desert!! And a small part of an even bigger desert.
This latest painting shows the Park at the very beginning of sunrise. We were getting sunrises like this every morning for a while, and I'm sure we'll get more when the monsoon season starts up in a month or so.
Anyway, here it is. 5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm. Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
This isn't exactly the newest painting of Joshua Tree National Park, but it IS one I forgot to post here on my blog!!
As before, it's 5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm and can be framed or, according to my notions, placed on a small mini easel for display. Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Yet ANOTHER small (5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.
I stretched reality just a little -- normally, Joshua trees and the yellow-flowered goldenbush don't bloom at the same time. But that's not to say it couldn't happen!
Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
What a combination -- paintings of Hawaii (with hula dancers) and the desert in Joshua Tree National Park!! Well -- somebody's gotta do it! 😃
I wish I was better at painting hooman beans than I am, but I guess I just need to paint them more often. But so far, this is what I'm able to do. Enjoy!!
OK -- just one more small (5" x 7" / 13cm x 18cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park. Now I want to see how the public/tourists like 'em before I do more.
For now, I'm working on a painting of Hawai'i and hula dancers -- something just for me. It's unlikely I'll offer the original for sale, but maybe I'll make it available for prints on Fine Art America.
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Yet another small painting of the desert (specifically, Joshua Tree National Park in California, USA). I want to see if I can squeak out one more painting with the tourists in mind (to be sold locally), but for now, this is the latest. Enjoy!!
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| Dawn II |
Mark Junge
A coupla more small (5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm) paintings of Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA. Maybe three more to do, then I'll either place them somewhere where tourists might see 'em and get 'em as souvenirs, or I'll offer 'em at a boutique our church is having in mid-May. We'll jus' hafta see!
These will NOT appear on my website. They'll be sold with mini easels to set the pieces on, and I'd rather not have to deal with packaging up the easels and the paintings for shipping.
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Good grief -- I just realized I didn't post at all during March!!
But now it's April, I survived April Fool's Day, and I'm moving forward -- finally!
I finished two paintings last month. One is a somewhat surreal piece which, as usual, I can never really explain. The other is a scene from Joshua Tree National Park and is definitely a miniature painting -- 7" x 5" / 17.8cm x 12.7cm. My plan is to make several (or many) paintings this size and make them available as tabletop pieces to the many tourists who visit the National Park. They'll be offered with mini easels, or the collectors can have them framed if they prefer.
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| Memories of the Dark 11" x 14"/27.9cm x 35.6cm |
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| Hi Desert in Bloom 7" x 5"/17.8cm x 12.7cm |
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
A couple of paintings appropriate for the season!
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| Mojave Snow 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
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| A Colorado Christmas 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
I hope you enjoy these images and that you have a wonderful holiday season!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
"Desert Sunset on a Bunny." ON A BUNNY????
Well, yeah...if you've been following this blog for a while, you know I'm addicted to cute little bunnies, whether domesticated or wild. They (along with guinea piggies) have gotta be the cutest critters in God's creation!
So I often place desert cottontail bunny-rabbits in my desert scenes, watching the viewer before the viewer notices the bunny! I hope this new piece continues the tradition.
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| Desert Sunset on a Bunny 11" x 14" / 28cm x 35.6cm |
This scene is in Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.
Mark Junge
Years ago, I was in Joshua Tree National Park on a cloudy day, and I was lucky (or blessed) enough to be in a spot where the clouds opened up just a little and shone a spotlight on a Joshua tree in front of a monzogranite formation. It didn't last long, but I was able to get a few pictures of it on black-and-white film before the spotlight disappeared.
Sadly, I don't know where that roll of film is today, although I know I still have it SOMEwhere! But between my memories and more recent photos I took to provide the details, I was able to reconstruct the scene as I saw it (except the sky was a more solid gray, not as dramatic-looking as I painted it. Size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.
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| The Sun and the Rain |
I also finished a piece showing a handsome desert bird -- a Phainopepla (pronounced fane-oh-PEP-la). They look sort of like black cardinals, but they aren't cardinals at all.
On the left are the birds' favorite goodies -- desert mistletoe berries. Like the Christmastime mistletoe, the desert variety is somewhat parasitic, and birds that eat the berries (like our friends, the Phainopeplas) drop the seeds, typically after it passes through their digestive tracts, and the seeds are deposited on some unsuspecting, innocent plant to grow and begin the cycle anew.
But the birds have those neat crests on their heads, black feathers (females are gray) and red eyes. They're quite striking and are about 8" / 20cm long. The size of this painting is, like the above piece, 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.
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| Phainopepla |
Mark Junge
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| Quenching the Land 16" x 20" / 41cm x 51cm |
