Joshua Tree Rocks!

I don't know if Joshua Tree Rocks! is a phrase that would be understood a hundred years from now -- the whole double entendre thing -- but it's the title of my latest painting!

Joshua Tree Rocks!                   16" x 20" / 41cm x 51cm

The title refers to a site located in Joshua Tree National Park in California, USA and the many collections of monzogranite rock formations arising out of the otherwise flat earth. Joshua trees, the Park's namesake, are scattered about, and following winter rains, the place gets wildflowers like these in April or May.

Admittedly, I've never seen many flowers in this particular place. Nearby, yes, but not here. Also, the yellow-flowered shrubs, goldenbush, were once plentiful, but most of them seem to have disappeared even after heavy winter rains. I think the ongoing drought has forced many of them to die, which is unfortunate.

I painted the scene to make the rock formation the center of interest. We artists know how to do things like that, y'know! 😀

In the end, I wanted a beautiful, warm (but not hot) view of a place I love. Enjoy your mini-vacation!

Mark Junge
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com
www.FineArtAmerica.com (for prints)

New Painting of Joshua Tree National Park

At long last, I finally finished another painting of Joshua Tree National Park, CA: one of my favorite places on earth!

So far, the painting is untitled -- but I hope to remedy that situation soon. Size is 11" x 14" / 28cm x 36cm.

The hill-mountain in the background is one of the many formations in the Park that was never named. But I love all of the many peaks it has, and it seems to be my favorite mountain there. I've painted it before from various angles -- this version is the frontal-most I've done so far. More to come I suspect.

The rocks are made of gneiss ("nice") which often look like a HUGE dump truck came along and unloaded rocks and boulders into an enormous pile. Little large plant life occurs on these hills except for some grasses and such. This mountain has a few Joshua trees on the very top of the hill toward the right -- there must be some loose soil there for the JTs to take root and grow.

And, of course, I included a desert cottontail bunny-rabbit hiding in the shadows.

This is one of those scenes that, frankly, was kind of pain to create -- lots of detail. But in the end, I couldn't have done it any other way!

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

"Jurassic Mark"

Who, you may ask, is Jurassic Mark?

Why, that would be ME, of course! It's a name I created for myself after the movie, Jurassic Park came out, and I couldn't resist the play on words. It's even more appropriate when I talk about how incredibly OLD I am! I love to talk about what a Jurassic-aged dinosaur I am, that I'm 150 million years old, and that I love to chase after humans to catch and eat them.

It's fun for me, and I guess the scientist in me enjoys it, too. But as an artist, there's another, additional reason for the dino-handle.

Compare and contrast these two images.

 

The top image is one of my paintings of Joshua Tree National Park. The lower picture is of a poster that was obviously intended to promote the Park.

I work in a very traditional, 19th century style -- I'm not sure if I can honestly call the look "classical realism" or not, although that is my goal in the artwork I make.

On the other hand, the poster has a much more contemporary look, with zonking bright colors and less detail. I've seen paintings by living artists who produce paintings even more colorful and "loose" than the poster.

If you were to go to Google Images and search for "joshua tree paintings," you would find lots more colorful, impressionistic paintings than you would find traditional works like mine. Not that I'm the only one who paints like this, but we seem to be in a vast minority of artists who prefer that look.

Thus -- another dinosaur metaphor. I often feel like I live and work in the past and am somewhat outdated by painters who create in a more colorful, popular way. I know it ain't as simple as that, but it does make me feel like I don't belong in this century, at least as far as art is concerned.

I think I'll go foraging for humans now. You critters aren't the best-tasting meat source around, but you're easy to catch, and I love the way you scream and run...as though that's going to help you. 😄

Mark Junge

www.SouthwestSpaces.com

www.MarkJunge.com

 

Yucca Valley

Yucca Valley is the name of the town where I hang out a lot, and it's also the title of a new painting (the last from 2017):

Yucca Valley              18" x 24" / 46cm x 61cm

This scene is close to, but not in, Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. Yucca Valley is a small community -- but not as small as it used to be -- and still has areas of "wildness" that are suitable for paintings. ☺

All the wildflowers are courtesy of the heavy rains we received in the winter of 2017 -- it's rare that we see this much color concentrated in a small area. Mt. San Gorgonio looms in the distance.

And I actually did see a jackrabbit out there, although I brought him/her in closer and is running to the left instead of the right. Apparently, I got too close to it, and it ran as fast as it could to escape my questionable "deadly" clutches and flee to safety. Then it stopped to see if I was following. (I wasn't!)

Sadly, this spot is within a 55-acre parcel that has been for sale for a number of years. I expect it's only a matter of time before some developer will buy this land and convert it into housing. And everything you see in the painting will be gone except San Gorgonio, which will be hard to find through the haze of rooftops.

For now, all I can do is paint special places like this. And to remember that "this, too, shall pass." As everything does.

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

Here We Are in December!

Well, Christmas is just a few weeks away, and Hanukkah is next week! It's almost time to wrap up another year.

So -- what have I accomplished/

Not much, as it turns out. I'm still running on low energy, and if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a painter, I think I'd be content just to stare out the living room window at our little piece of the Mojave Desert.

But I am actually working on a painting! Not very fast, mind you, but I AM working on one.

It's a scene of a place close to where we live, with Joshua trees, spring flowers (it's winter, and here I am working on a spring landscape -- it figures!) with the snow-capped peaks of Mt. San Gorgonio in the background.

I keep changing my mind about how I want the finished painting to look, which makes me stop painting and just look at the painting and think about it. Visualizing it in my head.

But it is coming along, and I should finish it this month. And then? Another landscape? A surreal image? A post-apocalyptic nightmare?

Who knows? Let's see how the mood settles when the time comes.

C U L8R!!

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



 

Ambiguous Strangers

Ambiguous Strangers is the mysterious name I gave to my latest mysterious and surreal painting.

Ambiguous Strangers       18" x 24" / 46cm x 61cm

As usual, I prefer not to try and explain what's going on here. I like it when viewers read into it their own experiences and viewpoints.

I'm simply painting the ideas and images that pop into my head -- dreamscapes; lands that seem like they could exist, but don't -- except in an artist's mind.

Enjoy, and contemplate!

(This piece and others will appear on a yet-to-be-launched website called www.SurrealMark.com. I hope to have it up later this year).

www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com

Springtime in the Mojave Desert

Springtime comes a little later in the high desert than it does in lower elevations. We're at about 3,000 ft. / 915m, so if you made several trips March - May from the lower desert (where, in some places, the elevation is near sea level) to the Mojave, you would see a progression of flowers working their way up. Except you'd also see different kinds of flowers!

Today for Cinco de Mayo, I took a fast trip through the higher areas of Joshua Tree National Park. I wish the sky would have stayed clear and blue, but sometimes, nature has its own schedule.

Still, the picture-taking was worth it. Sometimes, all I really need are visual notes on what is blooming and where. In some cases, I'll shoot details I might need to paint leaves and flowers up close -- then, the overcast skies can actually be helpful in lowering the contrast of the photos. And I have at least a gazillion or two photos of the Park with the lighting I prefer, but today's pictures add information that I may not already have!

These are a few of the 75 or so photographs I took today:

Inside the west entrance to the Park

Desert mallow in Lost Horse Valley

Near Keys View

Side-blotched lizard

Horned lizard

Horned lizard, same specimen as above

Parry nolina

View into Twentynine Palms

Near Twentynine Palms

I had a good time in the Park, but I simply MUST get me a walking stick -- probably a bamboo rod with rubber caps on each end. Unless I'm hiking on a mostly flat trail without lots of little ups and downs and having to step over things, my ancient knees tend to give out, and down I go!! This time I got a little more scraped up than usual, and I have a swollen area on one of my shins. NO MORE!! Walking stick, or give up hiking!!

Anyway, I hope your Cinco de Mayo was fun. Overall, mine was!

www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com

 

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:

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

6" x 6"

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
 

What to Do, How to Do It

Whenever I start thinking about making money with art, I sometimes consider other styles I could pursue that may be more saleable in southern California while continuing with the ultra-traditional look I really love -- but painting those works for myself.

California impressionism is big in the Los Angeles area. Or: I could try a more abstract version of the desert scenes I love.

Then again, I've always liked the traditional Chinese watercolors of the huge mountains and forests, while somewhere in the view is a tiny human and/or shack, dwarfed by the magnificent scenery surrounding him or her.

I made some mockups of a painting I made years ago to see how it might look if painted in these other styles. My photo-editing software couldn't replicate the look I would create, especially as a Chinese watercolor. So I included an image of an actual watercolor that I would attempt to do as a desert landscape. ☺

Sentinels in Various Computer-Generated Styles

Example of the Real Deal!

I haven't even mentioned the possibility of doing desert scenery as a surrealism image!

So -- which look would YOU most like seeing on your wall??


www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com

Show at Old Town Gallery & Gifts, Yucca Valley, CA

I have a show going on at Old Town Gallery & Gifts in Yucca Valley, CA. (Their website is here).

The reception was on Sunday, April 17th. The show ends on May13th -- just a few weeks from now! So, this would be a good time to run over there and see what you may want to add to your art collection!
 

This is a view of my paintings as one would face to the east. Mostly desert subjects, but not all of them.







  

And this is the view looking toward the west...or northwest, actually.









The three "Under $300" paintings. (They're 11" x 14" and are priced at $175 each).

So -- this is my first local showing in years. A lot depends on how well things go at Old Town Gallery & Gifts before I decide about future shows, although I already have something lined up for June, 2016 in the nearby town of Joshua Tree.

Let's hope!!

Wildflowers in the Desert

April has been a busy month for me. Unfortunately, I've gotten little painting done because of all of the other things that have fallen this month -- doctors, dentists (both which remind me of how old and dilapidated I'm getting) and other stuff.

BUT -- a couple of worthwhile things happened that needed to fit into the schedule. One was my gallery reception -- I'll save that post for next time when I get more pictures.

The other was going out looking for wildflowers outside of Joshua Tree National Park (I may have to go there pretty soon, too).

Unfortunately, the rainfall was less than hoped for, and what rain there was appears to have been quite sporadic. But The Wiffee and I did locate a few places that showed some unexpected splendor.

Near the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, Sawtooth Mountains in the background

Beavertail Cactus in Bloom

Closeup, Desert Mallow

Yucca Valley, CA

We were lucky to have a warm, beautiful day to see these gems. Of course, they look better in real life -- for some reason, photos don't quite capture it. I hope my paintings of these places will.

 

ANOTHER Little Desert Painting

I finished another little desert painting for my "Under $300" series of works -- possibly the last for a while, until I see how well received they are by the art collectors out there!

No title yet, really, so I'm just calling it Joshua Tree 03. The size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm. Obviously (I think!), I wanted to draw attention to the almost-a-silhouette of the Joshua tree against the bright clouds.

I'll be adding this to my website soon, and I expect it will be available in one of the local businesses by mid-April. More on this later.

It will be Easter in a couple of days. Happy Easter!

 

Three Little Paintings

I've been working on some small (8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm) paintings in the "Under $300" category. All desert scenes, of course.

Joshua Trees 01

Joshua Trees 02

Sand Verbena

These, along with future paintings yet to be made, will be available at one of the local businesses where tourists and desert lovers will go and, perhaps, pick up one or more as a suitcase-sized souvenir. Check my website for more information on availability:

 www.SouthwestSpaces.com
 www.MarkJunge.com

 

Where the Sun Sets

Where the Sun Sets -- the latest in my "Art Under $300" series!

Where the Sun Sets                                        11" x 14"

The sun sets in the West, of course, and it actually sets further west than in Joshua Tree National Park (the sun sinks into the Pacific Ocean, as we all know!)

But as a fan of western movies, I've seen enough movie endings in which the hero rides off into the sunset; in fact, it's somewhat of a cliché. And as a fan of the desert, where better to depict a sunset than in the beauty of those vast spaces of the Southwestern desert?

This painting will be available for purchase later in the first week of February 2015 -- I still need to finish the coat of varnish and then give it adequate time to dry and harden. My website (and the specific page on which this artwork appears) is HERE.

Enjoy!

 

Dawn

Dawn is the latest in my series of "Under $300" paintings that I hope to have up on my website (SouthwestSpaces.com) in a week or so.

Dawn                                      11" x 14"

It's rare that I get out of bed in the predawn hours; however, I wanted to be in Joshua Tree National Park to catch those first rays of sunlight streaming across the landscape. So -- I did it! I drove out there in December, 2014 close to winter solstice, when sunrise would be as late into the morning as it could get! (I'm such a night person!) It's nice to be only about 15 minutes from the Park.

No flowers at that time of year, and thankfully, it wasn't especially cold, either. (It WAS cold and cloudy  on the same day in 2015 -- I'm glad I aimed for the previous year!) Just the rock formations that climbers love to climb on, some desert scrub and those cool Joshua trees.

I've been trying to decide if I want to continue painting nothing but Joshua tree artworks, or if I need to vary my subject somewhat. If I could be more efficient with my time, I could do these much faster and not really have to make a choice!

But getting up before dawn would NOT help. ☺

 

Joshua Tree!

Joshua Tree! is the latest in my "Art-on-a-Budget" series -- small paintings that I will offer for $200 USD or less.

As you can see, it's clump of Joshua trees with one of those highly-climbable rock formations that Joshua Tree National Park is known for.

Joshua Tree!      14" x 11" / 36cm x 28cm

In a sense, this is a "historical" painting. The tallest tree in the middle has long since toppled over and died, leaving only the surrounding suckers. This area is now a parking lot with the suckers and some of the small vegetation preserved in an opening in the pavement. The famous Intersection Rock is over to the left, out of the view of the scene which is the entry to the Hidden Valley campground.

The yellow-flowering shrubs are goldenbush (Ericameria linearifolia). Maybe it's my imagination, but they don't seem to be as numerous in the Park as they used to be.

I've painted this spot many times, although no two are the same. It seems to be one of my favorite views in the National Park, and I expect there will be more variations on this theme in the future!
 

Things I've Learned at the Art Show

The art show last weekend came and went ... and NO SALES AT ALL!!! Grr-r-r-r...

I wasn't the only one. Other artists had no sales, or they sold only small, inexpensive sculptures or prints of paintings.

In spite my initial frustration and anger about how it all turned out, I think I picked up on a few things that may help me move ahead.

-- There is no "economic recovery." It's a lie the politicians -- especially the US president -- keep telling us. People liked my work, but I have to offer it more inexpensively.

-- All of the artwork at the show was realism -- no abstract, impressionism or other styles that seem to be more popular in southern California. (However, I was the only "pure" landscape painter -- everybody else had wildlife prominently featured in their works). So there may be hope in continuing to work in my favored style. 
Art shows just don't seem to work for me anymore. They haven't for a long time. And another artist told me many of the galleries in Scottsdale, AZ are closed up -- couldn't make it. This tells me to skip the art shows and to be REALLY careful with galleries -- they will not be my savior. I'll have to decide if I want to approach them at all at this time.

-- All of the paintings I showed received a positive response. I'll continue with desert paintings, but I'll definitely add more other kinds of western landscapes, especially Colorado mountain scenes, with or without ruins of 19th century mines. These two pieces seemed to be the crowds' favorites:




Badlands, 18" x 24" / 46cm x 61cm

Springtime Ocotillo, 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm










So I'll be painting more ocotillos, desert mountains and flowers! And for the local market, I'll be painting Joshua trees with those fantastic monzogranite rock formations, too.


To make these paintings more affordable, I'll have to pass on doing the time-consuming, transparent glazing that I love. It gives the works a stained-glass luminence, but it does take more time to do. So the glazed paintings will be for galleries, a few rare selected shows or for me to keep! I'll offer the "art-on-a-budget" paintings on my website (SouthwestSpaces.com or MarkJunge.com) and to local merchants/galleries who may get tourists.customers who want memories of our beautiful Joshua Tree National Park.

Does this sound like a sound plan? I hope so!! At this point and in this economy, art is all I have. Maybe with the things I learned at the art show, I can still make it!

 

Visions of the Night

As you may know, a "nocturne" is a work of art or music that is all about the night -- typically, night with a full moon.

It's amazing how magical nocturnes are! Provided a landscape feels like a safe place to be in, the darkness + moonlight casts a spell as nothing else can.

I've painted less than a handful of nocturnes only because they can be too dark for people to hang on their walls, especially if rooms are not brightly lit during the evening hours. But I suspect I may do more of them -- possibly scenes that are not desert. I absolutely love the look the full moon gives to the land, as it has been the last few nights during the "supermoon." (Full moon was last night, but it's still lookin' pretty darned wonderful out there!)

Mojave Nocturne

In these two images, you can see I sometimes make the night sky quite blue; other times, I tone it down quite a bit. We don't see much, if any, color when the light levels drop too low. We may think everything looks blue, but it's mostly shades of gray. (The sky MAY have a little blue in it).

What's amazing to me are the color photos (35mm slides) I've taken by moonlight. Given enough exposure, the pictures look just like daylight pix! The relative values, darks and lights in a moonlight scene are the same as they are in daylight -- things are simply darker.

AND -- just a couple of other differences:

1. The brightest stars show up in the nighttime photos;
2. Shadows have blurry edges. The moon moves enough during the time exposures to blur things.

Maybe someday soon!! More nocturnes!
 

Moonlit Desert

 

 

 

 

Wildlife Moments

My newest painting, Looking for Dinner -- Redtail Hawk, depicts what could become one of those nature documentary-types of moments... or it could be nothing at all!
 

Looking for Dinner -- Redtail Hawk               11" x 14"

In the air, we see a redtail hawk sailing effortlessly over the Mojave desert, making one last pass for tasty goodies before the sun sets -- coming close to what could his/her dinner. That cute little desert cottontail bunny-rabbit probably doesn't know about the hawk yet, but it's OK as long as it stays put. But if it hippity-hops into the open, it just may become a meal!

I won't reveal where the bunny is -- I hope you can see it. But I wanted to do a piece that tells a story -- as brief as it is. Prey-predator relationships. Life and (maybe) death in the surrealistic desert.

The setting is Joshua Tree National Park, with some of its namesake plants scattered about. The dominant tree is leaning toward the south -- unfortunately, Joshua trees have a bad habit of growing toward the sun. When they get bigger, they're off-balance, and in time will topple over. Not ALL JTs work out their self-destruction in this way, of course, but it isn't unusual to find places where all or most of the JTs have that characteristic lean.

The small mountain in the background has become one of my favorite geological features in the Park to paint. Most of the hills and formations in Joshua Tree National Park are unnamed officially -- often, the climbers come up with names that they share with each other, but the National Park Service never went around naming everything. So I just call this mountain "the peaks." I like all of the pointy projections for some reason. This paintings shows "the peaks" reasonably accurately (the peak on the far left is shorter than I've made it here).

The hawk is the sharpest item detail-wise and contrasts strongly with the lighted area of the peak behind it. It's also located at one of "golden mean" points of the composition. All this tends to make you look at it, although the JT in the foreground does some of that, too. The bunny, of course, blends into its background -- natural camouflage.

Wildlife moments. Kinda fun sometimes!

www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com

 
 

End of Another Day

End of Another Day is my latest painting It features a view in Joshua Tree National Park in late afternoon. It's spring, but I de-emphasized the flowers and focused more on shapes and lighting.

End of Another Day                                 11" x 14"

This is the first piece I've done in a long time that doesn't include any wildlife -- not even a hawk in the sky. In my mind, there's a fine line between solitude and loneliness -- this time, I was leaning more toward the latter. Lots of space, everything is spread out, long shadows and only rock and plants -- no animals. I think a critter would have added something that people can relate to, and maybe then the viewer wouldn't feel quite so alone out there. (Of course, the critters are actually all around you, watching -- but you don't see them!)

I don't know if I succeeded -- if I didn't, well, not a huge issue. But if you look at this and sense that you may be the only form of animal life on the planet...then I pulled it off!

Enjoy.