A View of San Gorgonio

 Finally!! I finished a painting that I've been working on for months. Not that it was a hard painting to do, I just didn't have the time or energy to pour myself into it the way I used to. Must be all part of getting old, I guess.

Anyway, here is San Gorgonio. This is a view of one of the two mountain ranges that make this area a desert. I imagined the scene to appear the way the town of Yucca Valley may have looked before the town existed.

 
I always loved the way the Mojave Desert looks in the spring -- snow on the mountains (not here, so we don't have to deal with it!), and wildflowers blooming on the lowlands. ("Low" is relative -- we're at 3,000 feet elevation). In a place with little color, wildflowers are always a welcome sight.

And, of course, one of my favorite things about seeing and living in the desert is all that open space -- "the vast spaces of the Southwest," as my tagline reads. I'm not claustrophobic, but for some reason, all that space and distance means so much to me. It's almost a touch of the infinite!

Enjoy, and I hope to talk with you again soon.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Halloween Art

 Halloween has come and gone -- too quickly, in my opinion.

Now my thoughts have turned to Thanksgiving, another point in the season that I need to prepare me for Christmas.

But first, here are some Halloween-themed paintings that I finished recently. (One CAN be a Halloween image, but it's really a nocturne that could be thought of as creepy and Halloween-ish). 😃

Hi, Bunny! Hi, Pumpkin       8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm

A Walk in the Moonlight       8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm

The Morning After               8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm

And finally, one painting that is just about autumn, Colorado style near Cripple Creek:

Untitled (so far)                 8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm

Finally, I started on some Thanksgiving paintings that I hope to post here soon.

Enjoy the season! It's moving through fast!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

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

 

 

 

 

Mojave Nocturne

Mojave Nocturne is the latest painting in my ongoing (never-ending?) series of desert paintings. The size is 14" x 11" / 35cm x 28cm, acrylic on panel:

 

It depicts Joshua Tree National Park at night as a full moon rises and shines through the clouds. I've always loved being in the desert under a full moon: the bare ground lights up more than grass or shrub-covered landscapes do, and the place takes on a special magic that must be experienced. And the Joshua trees appear as apparitions from a Halloween night, with many ghostly fingers and arms reaching out to grab you!

Still, in spite of those thoughts, the desert by moonlight isn't at all scary to me (unless one were to step on a rattlesnake in the darkness, but there are no snakes in this painting). The moon, the glowing clouds (when present) and the shapes against a starry sky have a beauty all their own.

Can you tell I love the desert?