Saturday, December 7, 2013
Some New Drawings of the Desert
I've been drawing more than painting lately in my efforts to produce artwork that should be affordable to almost anyone. Here are two of the latest batch of drawings:
Labels:
Art,
Desert,
Drawing,
Joshua Tree,
Joshua Tree National Park
Monday, November 18, 2013
Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak 18" x 24" |
So I tweaked it, and I (personally) think it looks better now.
Pikes Peak is the mountain west of Colorado Springs, CO. This view shows the mountain in early September after a storm covered the hill with snow. It's early morning, and this is how it appears if you visit the Garden of the Gods Club, named after the Garden of the Gods -- a series of red sandstone rocks and spires in the middle distance. Pikes Peak is one of Colorado's "14ers" -- the elevation at the top is at or over 14,000 feet above sea level.
Colorado has some spectacular scenery, and this area is certainly no exception
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Saint Jacinto's Spring
My latest painting:
Primavera de San Jacinto (Saint Jacinto's Spring) 20" x 24" |
It's springtime in the desert! Mt. San Jacinto is west of Palm Springs, CA and is one of two mountain ranges that makes the desert what is is by blocking most rain clouds that arrive from the west.
This is the north-facing side of the mountain. I always loved the abrupt rising of the mountain from the flat plain, the result of earthquake activity that lifted this hunk of earth up into the air. The other side of "San Jac" has the rolling foothills that one expects with mountains, and also features green grass following the winter rains.
But this side receives little rain, and the vegetation shows it.
Still, the view takes on a rugged beauty all its own. This is the beginning of the California desert, and my own little desert world begins right here.
Welcome to Saint Jacinto's spring!
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Inspirational Desert Paintings
It seems that I either haven't had much time for painting lately, and/or I've just been too tired. I started a desert painting that is taking forever to get done, and I had hoped to start and finish at least two, maybe three, smaller Halloween-themed artworks before the day actually arrives. I haven't even begun those pieces yet!
As an alternative, I'll post an image of a painting by an artist buddy, P.A. Nisbet. Some of his paintings appeared in an art magazine back in 1987, and they had a profound impact on me and the direction I was to take in my own art.
Magic Kingdom P.A. Nisbet oil/canvas 36" x 48" |
The area depicted in Magic Kingdom is the Pinacate region of Sonora, Mexico. Some of southern Arizona looks much like this. I'd love to visit this place, but a local naturalist wrote an article about the illegal drug activities that go on there and the efforts that the police make in trying to bring it under control. I wouldn't feel safe there, but maybe one day, Pinacate will once again return to being a place of sublime beauty and peace.
To see more of this artist's work, click here.
Labels:
Art,
Desert,
Painting,
Paintings,
Traditional/Classical Art
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Drawing the Desert
I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to make some small colored-pencil drawings that I could sell for a much lower price than my paintings. At this point, I've made a little over 20 drawings, and hopefully I can do a few more before Saturday. I'll be attending a local craft fair, which will be somewhat of a marketing test for the drawings. We'll see if selling lots of inexpensive drawings is more do-able than selling a few, expensive paintings.
Here are a few examples of what I've been up to. Each is 8" x 10" (20cm x 25cm) sketched on colored paper. None are titled or framed.
Labels:
Art,
Art Show,
Desert,
Drawing,
Joshua Tree,
Joshua Tree National Park,
Mark Junge Art
Monday, August 26, 2013
New Painting: "Silver Ledge"
I FINALLY finished a new painting that I was frantically working on to enter in an exhibit. I still gave the piece all of the TLC it deserved, but I think I've been painting more than I've been sleeping!
Silver Ledge, 18" x 24" |
Far in the distance sits Bear Mountain. Much of the region displayed the glorious golden yellows of fall aspen, but this view seemed to show few aspen and lots of Colorado blue spruce.
The Silverton area was known for producing lots of mines, many of them silver. But the Silver Ledge's primary commodity was tungsten. It also extracted smaller amounts of gold, silver, lead and zinc.
The painting shows how the mine looked the last time I was there -- September, 1997. I understand efforts were being made in 2010 by a preservation group to prevent further deterioration of the minehead and also to cleanup the tailings which were leaching lead, zinc and copper into Mineral Creek (which runs below the embankment on the left and off into the Valley).
I've been wanting to paint this image for almost seventeen years -- and I've finally done it! It isn't the desert, but the site is in southwestern Colorado and we can see lots of distance from this spot. So it fits my tagline which you would find on my website and on my business cards: The Vast Spaces of the Southwest!
Monday, August 12, 2013
More Inspiration!
As a landscape painter, I love it when I stumble across artworks that I've never seen before that manage to take my breath away once I "discover" them.
Curescanti Needle, Colorado George Frederick Bensell, ca. 1875 |
This is one such painting. I had Googled images of Colorado paintings, and this is one of the items that came up. Curescanti Needle is located in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (one of the country's National Parks) near Montrose, Colorado. I suspect the artist took some liberties with how the place actually looked, but some 19th century painters did that -- they were more interested in capturing the mood of a place than re-creating every rock and tree that exists.
OK, it isn't a desert painting, but I still love it, and I DO paint Colorado scenes on occasion (in fact, I'm working on a Colorado painting now). The size is 66" x 48"/168cm x 122cm and is in a private collection. Lucky peeps!!
Very inspiring!!
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