Desert Morning

Desert Morning is the tentative title of my latest painting ("tentative" because I have another painting entitled One Desert Morning -- I need to make sure I don't confuse the two).

It's another miniature painting: 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm, acrylic on panel. It features an area which is near -- but not in -- Joshua Tree National Park in southern California, and is visible from SR62.

I always loved these particular hills/mountains, especially when the light brings out the textures, nooks and crannies of the landscape. The yellow blooms of the desert senna shrubs add a little color to the scene.

Enjoy!!

A Rainbow in Stone

 A desert landscape, entirely from my imagination! Well, OK, a desert landscape with elements from various locales assembled together in one scene.

A Rainbow in Stone                      8" x 10" / 20cm x 25"

The background is from Sedona, AZ. The arch is actually a reversed image of Rainbow Bridge, UT (that's where the rainbow in the title comes from; besides, both the arch and rainbows are arches), the plant life is from southern AZ, and the golden barrel cactus are native to northern and eastern Mexico in the state of Chihuahua.

I wanted to do a painting that combined some of my favorite desert scenery, but besides that -- this is somewhat of a rendering of scenery I want to make on my HO scale model railroad.

To me, model railroad landscaping is analogous to a sculpture version of what I paint. It's a painting in 3D. The only things missing are the cloudy skies and distant mountains -- and I may work on that problem, too.

I hope I can succeed in pulling off a scene like this in HO scale!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

In the Mojave (Desert)

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

In the Mojave                                                   8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

Sonoran Desert Moon

Sonoran Desert Moon is the latest in my never-ending series of desert paintings!

The size is 18" x 24" / 45.7cm x 61cm, a size that was always my favorite size, but I don't tend to work that "big" anymore.

The scene is in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, AZ, looking toward the Sonoita Mountains of Mexico. (I've seen the mountain range spelled "Sonoyta" -- I don't know which is the favored spelling). I sort of thinned out the vegetation somewhat, and I've never had the pleasure of seeing the view from a bird's-eye perspective.

In any case, I followed a 19th century Hudson River School tradition by painting the landscape this way. I added cloud shadows and a quarter moon that is partially obscured by clouds. (I actually painted in more clouds than I had intended to, but I decided to leave them. Maybe I'll do another piece similar to this, but with fewer clouds).

Enjoy!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

The Nurse Tree

A nurse tree is one that provides shelter and a certain level of protection for other young plants; in this case, a saguaro cactus. Here, a palo verde tree in bloom offers shade to the cactus, enabling it to grow to a large size without getting burned in the scorching desert sun. (The tree is also giving shade to a desert cottontail bunny-rabbit!)

The Nurse Tree    8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Desert Adobe

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!

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

Alone in the desert! Enjoy!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Finished the Joshua Tree Scene!

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

Detail -- the Bunny-Rabbit!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Still Painting -- Slowly!

 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:

(The road, of course, won't be included in the painting!)

Continuing the continuation!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

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

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

Desert Spring

 Wow -- today's April Fool's Day. Well, as far as I'M concerned, it's April but I ain't no fool!!

I just finished a painting, Desert Spring, which seemed especially appropriate for this time of year. It depicts a scene in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. My focus was on the distant mountain (don't know if it has a name or not). After I varnish it, I'll probably offer it for sale on my website -- links are below under my signature).

On another note, I'm hoping to be able to travel to San Antonio, TX in time to see the total solar eclipse. However, at this writing, it seems possible that much of Texas will be overcast and maybe even raining. This would obviously obscure the view of the sun which would render the trip a bust. We'll see in the next couple of days what the weather forecast says, but we may end up canceling the trip. 😢

Anyway, here's the painting. Enjoy!

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

Commission -- Joshua Tree Sunset

Just finished my second painting for the year and my first commission in a long time!

(The sun isn't as solid white as it appears in the picture -- my paintings can be hard to photograph!)

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

A Joshua Tree Painting

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

Crater Range

Well, another year has come and gone...and so quickly! How is that happening?

I managed to finish only one painting in December. It seems like it took me forever -- but not because it was especially hard, but I had trouble making decisions about it; plus, there were lots of interruptions AND I wasn't feeling very motivated.

But here it is: Crater Range, an area between Gila Bend and Ajo, Arizona. It's a volcanic-looking area that features an Air Force bombing range on the other side of those mountains! (I never heard any bombs going off the times I visited there -- thankfully).

Crater Range         8" x 10"

The size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm. Enjoy!

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

More (What Else?) Desert Landscape Paintings

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

A Desert Wash

 This is a painting of a desert wash in the southern part of Joshua Tree National Park.

This area spawns glorious wildflower color in the spring (if enough rain has fallen at the right time), and even washes -- "rivers" that are dry most of the time -- features bursts of color. In this case, chuparosa shrubs produce red blooms that are much loved by hummingbirds. The smoke tree will bloom -- if it does -- later, most likely in June.

The size of this painting is 5" x 7"/12.7cm x  17.8cm.

Aries

 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

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

Small Paintings of a Big Desert

 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

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Small Joshua Tree Paintings Galore!!

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