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
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
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
Totem and Turkey Vulture is the tentative title of my latest painting.
Wow -- another year has slipped by us and is well underway!! Happy 2022!!
MY happy part of the new year will be delayed for a while -- The Wiffee and I both came down with Covid just before New Year's Day. Nothing all that serious (so far), mostly just fevers, coughing and being tired. But unless something goes really wrong, I expect by February we'll be our usual sassy selves.
Painting has pretty much ground to a halt for now, but at least I can share my last artwork from 2021. I hope you'll like it.
Meanwhile, thank you for your support!
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| A Light in the Forest 10" x 08" / 25cm x 20cm |
Sheesh! I haven't been over to nearby Joshua Tree National Park for a long time. It IS one of my inspirational places to go for doing paintings, after all. (Of course, the Covid-19 shutdowns didn't help).
So I went there today! Weather was pleasant-to-warm, no high winds and I was in the mood. Besides, I needed some fresh material for paintings, and it's just good to go there once in a while!
Had to do some hiking and a little climbing for the picture of the red barrel cactus -- but I think it was worth it!
Oh -- and I saw a couple of lizards, too. This one is a female side-blotched lizard. (The other was a horned lizard, but I couldn't get a clear shot of that little guy).
Cute, huh?
I had hoped to make it to some other spots, but sunset came all too quickly, so -- another time. Soon. Before the oven heat begins. Such is life in the desert!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
