Potboilers

An artist friend sometimes makes references to "potboilers," which he defines thusly: "pictures painted with sales as their motive, to keep something in the artist's soup pot... "

I think all artists paint potboilers; in fact, some well-known artists produce nothing BUT potboilers, essentially making the same artwork over and over and over again ad infinitum because they know they will sell.

Other artists, myself included, prefer to branch out a little more than that, perhaps to our detriment, professionally speaking. But I do have a few potboilers of my own.



These are scenes I've painted a number of times, albeit in different sizes and atmospheric conditions. I even once painted the piece on the left as it appears by moonlight.

The scenes are in Joshua Tree National Park. These images tend to be well-received, especially if they are "suitcase-sized" -- small enough for a visitor to pack into a suitcase to carry home, wherever that is. In this case, both paintings are 8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm, and if they're unframed, they could easily be packed and carried away.

I painted these views from pictures I took in the early 1980s. These sites look a little different today:



The spot in the painting on the left is now a fenced planter surrounded by a parking lot. The largest of the Joshua trees has long since fallen over (they do that, unfortunately), and trash dumpsters are now between the clump and the rocks.

I haven't had time to go back and locate the other scene, but a paved road now exists in that area, and I'm sure it also looks different today.

In any case, scenes like these seem to speak to Joshua tree lovers, and as long as I keep sizes and prices reasonable, I normally can hope these potboilers will sell. We'll see: they'll be in the September show at the Twentynine Palms Art Gallery.

Wadda Difference a Week Makes

Last week it was short-sleeve weather, albeit a bit on the cool side.

This week -- rain and snow in the high desert! All week!

The El Niño thing has clearly arrived. In some ways, it's good -- California really needs the rain. Unfortunately, the rain comes all at once, and sometimes it's a bit much to deal with.

And as much as I hate being in the snow, I'll have to admit it is pretty -- and makes for fun paintings.

The photo shows the distant hills of Joshua Tree National Park as seen across the valley in our little town. I could see using the hills (without the buildings in the foreground) in some dramatic desert scenes, complete with snow-covered Joshua trees as they sleep through the winter storms.

More Infrared Ocotillos

I'm still painting my life away, but I thought for now, I'll post another one of my infrared photos of the desert. This scene shows an ocotillo in Joshua Tree National Park.


This is one of those views that screams "Desert!" to me -- lots of open space, and the special forms of the plantlife there.

I can imagine this will be a painting some day -- either in color or in "infrared" black and white. I think it'd make a great piece either way!

Summer in the Desert

Visiting the desert in summer is often thought of as being condemned to hell: torrid temperatures, rocks that melt, no signs of life anywhere except for the human tourist wondering why s/he came to this place of torment.
Well, a little of that is true. It does get pretty hot out here, although the temperatures haven't been as high this year as they sometimes get. Also, here in the high desert, we tend to be about 10 degrees cooler than Palm Springs and the rest of the Coachella Valley.

Flowers are scarce, especially during this dry year we've had. Wildlife, even cold-blooded critters like lizards and snakes, stay in the shade or underground until it cools off. The greens, yellows, blues and other colors of spring are long gone. The annuals that produced the flowers are also dried up and blown away, leaving little/no evidence that they were ever there.

BUT -- for a desert lover like me, the "off-seasons" still draw me into places like Joshua Tree National Park. In early morning or late afternoon, lizards are darting under dormant shrubs or rough boulders. Ground squirrels brave the heat to do whatever it is ground squirrels do. Coyotes trot along, looking for a tasty goodie.

And for me, brown and blue is my favorite color combination. I'm sure that's part of the reason why I love deserts. And let's face it: this time of year, my colors dominate.

The heat and the occasional monsoonal humidity does get to me. But the desert keeps the rare beauty that only deserts possess.

Jumbo Rocks

This is a new painting of an area in Joshua Tree National Park called Jumbo Rocks. I'd say it's a good name for the place!

The size of the painting is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

WIP

WIP stands for "Work In progress."


Following are a set of pictures showing progress on a painting I'm currently working on:

"A" is the original photo I made of a scene in Joshua Tree National Park in California. I like the look of the place, but I think it could use a little more "oomph."

In "B," I've finished the sky (complete with a setting sun) and distant granite formations. The foreground is mostly blocked-in as well.

Now I'm at a point where I need to think about where to locate the foreground Joshua trees. Sometimes I'll locate objects exactly where they are in nature, but in this case, I wanted a more intriguing composition.

To help me with my composition before making the major commitment of painting over my hard-worked sky, I placed a sheet of glass over the painting (which is dry at this point) as you see in "C." (The glass is heavily scratched because I sometimes use this sheet as a palette, scrapping dried paint off with a single-edge razor blade). I paint some rough sketches of Joshua trees on the glass, scrapping off images I don't like, making adjustments until I think I see what I want.

Then I painted in the Joshua trees. In "D," the trees are blocked in, and I'll add details during the next painting session. Then all I should have to do is finish the foreground shrubbery, maybe add a critter of some kind, and I'll be done!

Composing an image is often a "no-duh," but sometimes a little help can be nice. It may already exist in a photo I'm using, or I may make a detailed pencil sketch or even a small painting so I can see it before working on the "real" piece. But this time, the old "paint on the glass" stunt seemed to do the trick!

Woe Is Me!!!

Gloom and doom, gloom and doom...

Today's my birthday. I'm 60 years old! The big six-oh. Good grief, I'm SO old. I guess that's why I use the name "Jurassic Mark" as a handle sometimes.

I know, I know...getting older beats the alternative!

I decided I deserved a small bouquet of flowers, although I didn't pick them. These are Mexican goldpoppies that I found in Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Desert Flowers

While many parts of the country are still in the throes of winter (some friends in Colorado are looking forward to being snowed in soon), it's springtime in the desert!

We didn't get as much rain as in previous years, so the flowers are not as numerous as I've shown here. This is how it looked LAST year. No augmentation was needed!

This view is near the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, CA.

Joshua Tree National Park in the Fall

Ahhh...fall in the Mojave Desert, with electric reds, oranges and yellows. Well, maybe not so electric. In fact, maybe those colors are REALLY subtle.

But they are there: the rusty-red seedheads of wild buckwheat, the (somewhat) orange dormant shrubs and the yellowish flowers of autumn-blooming rabbitbrush. Oh, yes, and the reddish tail of the redtail hawk. (Look carefully--the hawk is in flight in front of the Joshua tree on the left).

Another fact of life in this part of America -- you may have noticed that the Joshua trees in this painting seem to have a slight tilt to the left, specifically toward the South. Joshua trees have an unfortunate habit of growing toward the sun. For small, herbaceous plants, that wouldn't be a bad thing, but when you're a heavy Joshua tree, you don't really want to do that. As the tree grows, it becomes off-balance, causing the tree to lean more and more southerly until it finally topples over.

That's life in the Mojave desert. The seasons change, the subtle colors of fall come and go, and Joshua trees fall over from the weight of their own asymmetry as they reach for the sun.

Is there anything we can learn from this?

A Lazy Day

Good grief! I sure didn't get much done today -- too sleepy. I really need to start going to bed earlier!

I also need to get the latest painting photographed and posted. In the meantime, here is a detail from a larger painting I completed a few years ago. There's nothing like the desert in the spring! Good for a lazy day!

A Happy and -- yes -- A PROSPEROUS New Year!!!

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"!

Desert Water and Desert Critters

One doesn't think of the desert as being a place where water collects. Yet, in Joshua Tree National Park, there are places where we can find water!

One such place is Barker Dam, constructed by 19th century white settlers/cattlemen who wanted to make sure they'd have a year-round water supply.

Of course, other critters besides cattle like having water around. In the painting I've shown (a commission I did a few years ago), the first view shows the entire painting. The second view is a detail, showing a scrub jay, undoubtedly looking for some tasty bugs who enjoy the aqueous environment.

Besides bugs and birds, this little lake attracts coyotes, bighorn sheep and other residents of an otherwise arid region.

Where there is desert water, there are desert critters.

Wotta View Mr. Keys Had!!

I love Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park. Lots of potential for doing paintings!!

Keys View is named for Bill Keys, a pioneering type who settled and worked in what is now the Park. The distant mountain is Mt. San Jacinto, part of makes the desert a desert by blocking rain-carrying clouds that come from the west (which is to the right).

Someday, I need to paint this place. Many times over!!

Art Rocks

A Thing from space! An uncouth being, risen from the dead for Halloween!

No, it's just another petroglyph. Like the other petroglyph I shared, this one is also in Joshua Tree National Park, not far from the previous one.

But as before, how do we know what this rock art means? How accurate is the depiction? What if the ancient artist simply rendered what s/he saw? Does the thought make you wonder what else might exist among us, possibly unseen by our modern-world eyes?

Welcome to rock art, where art rocks!

Portrait in Rock? Or...?

Whoa!!! It's autumn, and here's a picture of a football!

No, wait -- maybe that's a mask, with a big frown, furled eyebrows and faint eyes and nose.

Maybe it's a portrait of an extraterrestial.

Hard to say. It's one of the petroglyphs in Joshua Tree National Park. I doubt that the ancient ones who made this rock carving knew what a football was, and we today can only guess as to its meaning -- if it has a "meaning" at all. Maybe it was simply the equivalent of a modern-day doodle, as we might scribble on a piece of paper (a much easier process than chiseling into rock!) when we're feeling a little bored.

I'm sure I'll say this again, but sometimes I wish I had a time machine. There are SO many things I'd love to know. Of course, having a TM would open up the possibility of changing things in the past that could affect the world today.

Maybe it's safer just to guess about the past ... and keep alive our wonder and amazement about things we can't really know about.

Lotsa Space -- No Time

Here's another picture from my quick trip to Joshua Tree National Park yesterday. As you may know from previous posts, I like to paint scenes like this: lotsa space, overlapping mountains that become more obscured by distance, and the surreal forms of the desert.

You may be asking yourself: "Self -- why does this Mark Junge dude keep posting photos of the desert instead of his paintings"? Well, frankly, it takes a long time to get paintings done, especially when life gets busy (like, for example, going into Joshua Tree National Park instead of the studio). But I've also lost time from having to get some work done on our pickup truck, wedding anniversary stuff, having to convince our mortgage lender we have enough flood insurance (yes -- flood insurance...we live in the desert on a hillside!) and other distractions.

However, you can, of course, visit my Website (http://www.southwestspaces.com), which hasn't been updated in a while, but at least you can see some paintings! And someday, you may see a painting of the above photo.

If I can find the time.

A Desert Lizard

I made a quick trip to Joshua Tree National Park today for some inspiration and to see how the fall-flowering shrubs were doing. I didn't see as many flowers as I would have liked, but there were some. Perhaps I can post some pix of scenes that inspire me beyond belief to paint.

But first, I must share a picture I took of a lizard. I think I saw more lizards than flowers. Cute little guy, isn't he? Or she? I don't know how to tell males and females apart. I'm sure, however, they can tell; otherwise, we would soon run out of lizards! Regardless, I expect this little lizard (about 6"/15cm nose to tip-of-tail) to appear in some paintings someday.

I'm not sure of the species, but I believe this is one example of a side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana). The coloring varies somewhat, and this one appears to be banded rather than blotched. But you know--even lizards gotta do it "their way"!

More desert pix to follow.

Fall in the Desert #2

This photo was taken a few minutes before the one in the previous post. It doesn't really show seasonal clues, but I like the overlapping mountains -- a common sight in the desert.

Fall in the Desert #1

Many parts of the country have definite seasons. You can look at a picture and easily guess the season by the way the natural elements look. In the desert, the seasons have their differences, but the differences are subtle, and you have to know what to look for.

I took the attached photo this afternoon in Joshua Tree National Park. In many ways, the picture could have been taken at any time of the year, and it would look virtually the same as this one. But this photo holds two small clues that reveal what season it is:

(1) the rusty-red seedheads of wild buckwheat dot the landscape; admittedly, these can persist pretty much throughout the year;

(2) the real clue, a little hard to see in this view, but it's there -- the rabbitbrush is in bloom with goldenrod-yellowish flowers. Rabbitbrush is an autumn-blossoming shrub common in many places in the West.

Subtle, huh?