Moonlit Hunter

 

Moonlit Hunter is my latest painting. It shows an elf owl (Micrathene whitneyi) in the Arizona desert under the light of a full moon. These sparrow-sized (4.9"-5.7"/12.5cm-14.5cm) critters are the smallest owl species and eat mostly insects.

The Native American pot is somewhat a product of my imagination. It has an owl motiff -- I've never seen a pot like this, but I've seen pottery figurines of owls. So I used the basic design of the figurines and placed them on a pot. The owl is actually sitting on a piece of cholla wood that ended up in the pot somehow.

The winter constellation Orion the Hunter appears in the night sky. It seemed appropriate to go with an owl -- a hunter!

The painting is my own, but it was inspired by a piece by the late Larry Toschik that appeared in an old Arizona Highways magazine. Unfortunately, prints of it were never made available or I would have gotten one.

Enjoy!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Hula and the Desert

 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!!

                                    Moonlight Hula         11" x 14" / 27.0cm x 35.9cm

                                  Untitled                            5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm

The Surreal and the Desert

 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.

Memories of the Dark                                                   11" x 14"/27.9cm x 35.6cm

Hi Desert in Bloom                        7" x 5"/17.8cm x 12.7cm

In the meantime, have a blessed Easter! Be on the lookout for more paintings!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Allosaurus and the Queen of Blood!

April has been sort of an interesting month, art-wise. We took a trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona (I needed to see cactus!) and a quick daytrip to nearby Joshua Tree National Park. We had hoped to see lots of flowers, but there weren't very many.

I finished a painting for a friend who wanted an image of herself as the Queen of Blood, a top-tier vampire in a spooky scene. I also made a quick drawing of an allosaurus, a Jurassic-period carnivorous dinosaur. I identify with being a dino, while the friend sees herself as the Queen of Blood!!

I think the Queen of Blood isn't too scary, but if you're sensitive to ghoulish/Halloweenish scenes, you may not want to look beyond the Allosaurus drawing.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Allosaurus

The Queen of Blood

Halloween Time!!

Tomorrow night is Halloween!! While I don't go overboard with it, I do enjoy the season and reflect on the sights and experiences I had as a kid on Halloween.

Appropriately enough, I did manage to finish a couple of paintings with a Halloween theme. (If I ever complete the book I have in mind filled with end-of-the-year visions, these two will be in it!)

Ghosts     14" x 11" / 36cm x 28cm

The Morning After        8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

I enjoy painting seasonal images like this when the season is going on, but it's hard to get as much done as I'd like in the time that I have. I need to work on seasonal paintings when it's not the season!

So I hope you have/had a fun Halloween and then you began to reflect on the next holiday -- Thanksgiving!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com