OK -- just one more small (5" x 7" / 13cm x 18cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park. Now I want to see how the public/tourists like 'em before I do more.
For now, I'm working on a painting of Hawai'i and hula dancers -- something just for me. It's unlikely I'll offer the original for sale, but maybe I'll make it available for prints on Fine Art America.
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!!
 |
| 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
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 |
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Arizona Desert with Bunny is my latest painting. The title is somewhat reminiscent of how landscape artists used to title their paintings -- nothing poetic or unusual, just descriptive of what a viewer could see for himself or herself. And "bunny" really should be "desert cottontail rabbit," but "bunny" is cuter and shorter!
The site is somewhere east of Quartzsite, AZ, but I don't remember the name of the place. I normally conceal critters more than I did here, but somehow, a bunny more in the open seemed appropriate.
Enjoy!
Arizona Desert with Bunny 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Western Tanagers is the title, and the subject, of my latest painting. Size is 10" x 8" / 25cm x 20cm.
I was blessed enough to see a male tanager in a desert willow tree at our previous residence. Obviously, these are among the many birdies that display "sexual dimorphorism" where the boys and the girls look differently.
The male is in his breeding plumage; in fall and winter, he loses the red from his head and looks pretty much like the female.
Nature lesson for today!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Borregos CimarrĂ³nes is the title of my latest painting. It's Spanish for "bighorn sheep" which appear in the work.
Otherwise, the hills and open spaces of this special place have long appealed to me, and I've painted this site numerous times, each a little different from each other. In springtime, the wildflowers color the area: yellow brittlebush and red-tipped ocotillo dominate the view. I included the spike-tipped rosettes of agave: people who know desert ecology have observed ocotillo and agave tend to appear together, at least in the California deserts.
Another thing I've noticed here is the ground isn't all a uniform color. I've noticed spotty regions of various tints, like green or red. The colors are quite subtle and don't show in the above photograph. But they DO show in the painting itself.
I imagine I'll do more paintings of this vista, although I'll have to continue working off of photos I've taken in years past. I've since learned that this entire area is part of a University of California at Irvine research center. My human presence could affect their findings and I don't want to contaminate their findings in any way. (Besides, in my old age, hiking in these places is hard on me now).
I plan (for now) on keeping this piece, although I may offer it as a print on Fine Art America. Ahhh...I sure love the desert!
Mark Junge
MarkJunge.com or SouthwestSpaces.com
New painting of a desert cardinal (aka pyrrhuloxia), found in southern Arizona and New Mexico, and southwestern Texas, then south into Mexico.
 |
| Desert Cardinal 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25" |
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Happy 2023 to all the humans and the little (and big) critters on the earth!!
Following is a painting I just finished showing a Bullock's oriole that once graced a desert willow we had at our previous residence. We only saw him once, long enough for me to grab a few photos of him before he took off.
Bullock's orioles are the western version of Baltimore orioles which prefer the eastern part of the country; in fact, where their respective ranges overlap, the two are known to hybridize. Ornithologists have an ongoing debate over whether or not these two birds are really the same species.
The world has some incredibly beautiful birds, and I expect to be painting some of them over the next few months. A gallery owner in Ohio asked me to place some bird paintings in her gallery. That could be a great opportunity to show in a part of the country I've never been to yet!
 |
| Bullock's Oriole 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
We'll see how this all works out. Hopefully for the better!
Mark Junge
A couple of paintings appropriate for the season!
 |
| Mojave Snow 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
 |
| A Colorado Christmas 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
I hope you enjoy these images and that you have a wonderful holiday season!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
It's almost Thanksgiving, and I actually managed to finish a couple of Thanksgiving paintings in time for the holiday. The still life was one I started many years ago and set aside to finish...someday! đŸ˜ƒ The other piece, complete with church and turkeys, is a totally recent artwork.
 |
| Thanksgiving 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm |
 |
| The Blessings of Thanksgiving 14" x 11" / 35.6cm x 27.9cm |
I hope you and yours have a lot to be thankful for and that you'll have a truly blessed Thanksgiving!!
Mark Junge
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). đŸ˜ƒ
 |
| 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 |
 |
| Untitled (so far) 8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm |
Enjoy the season! It's moving through fast!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
I'm an artist...and a hermit!!
Most artists will say creating objects is a part of their nature. It's virtually a necessity, and I get that totally.
But a hermit? Well, some artists are outgoing and gregarious, and some are just the opposite.
I'd say I've withdrawn from the social life partly because I just never learned how to fit in that way. But much of it has to do with not wanted to get hurt by people anymore.
Granted -- no one likes to get hurt. But I'm a bipolar dinosaur -- not severely, praise God, but the depression that comes with it makes hurt a devastating event. And it doesn't always take much.
For example, I'm a Christian who has had friends of both sexes -- including females when they were single. But once they get married, they dropped me like a bag of dirt. And I never understood why -- they never even explained it to me! To "avoid all appearances of evil?" Isn't that a rather extreme interpretation of Scripture?
Well, anyway, it's been an ongoing source of hurt for me -- losing friends just because someone got married.
I actually looked up the topic, and this article seems to take a well-balanced take on the issue. Maybe all but the most conservative (or Pharisee-ish) Christians might see some value in it.
There are other, as I tend to say, "Pharisee-ish" positions I've seen that are incredibly irritating to me, including stands on scientific topics by people who admit they never did well in science classes. (Surprise, surprise!!) Some Christians get addicted to certain interpretations of the Bible that go well beyond any detail the Bible provides.
So I got into the habit of avoiding people and especially Christians. It wasn't a conscious decision when I thought: "I think starting today, I'm going to be a hermit." It just happened, although it does seem to raise the ire of Christians -- we're not supposed to be "loner Christians". I hear the excuses about how I should look past the misguided, sinful efforts of the sheep who come to church looking for...who knows what.
And I always say -- "If I don't have an excuse, neither does the church."
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Two new desert paintings!
The first is one I made while my vision was foggy last month (from films that developed on the lens implants I received after my cataract surgery three years ago). I was able to tweak the painting a bit after I got the laser treatment to remove the films, but there were still things I just couldn't see while the world was blurry -- such as the brush marks and ridges of paint that took away from the smooth surfaces I prefer on my paintings. Oh, well. I guess I can live with it. Below are the images of the entire painting plus a detail showing the two bunnies:
 |
| In the Arizona Sun................... 24"/45.7cm x 61cm |
 |
| Detail -- two desert cottontail bunnies! |
 |
| Lone Cottonwood in Lone Pine....... 8"x10"/20cm x 25cm |
So that's it for now!! More paintings are on the way -- thanks for reading this, and thank you for your support!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Yet another painting of Joshua Tree National Park!!
Rocks 'n' Clouds showcases some hills made of gneiss (pronounced "nice"), a type of rock found everywhere in the local Mojave Desert. These hills happen to be in Joshua Tree National Park, a place that -- as everyone knows -- is one of my favorite places on earth.
I love messing around with things like dramatic lighting and cloud shadows, the latter which I've done here. In fact, I put a lot of effort into painting clouds -- I suspect I'm really a skyscape painter with some desert thrown in! đŸ˜ƒ
So -- I'm tempted to take a break and to start getting into an autumn mindset. I love fall and the beginnings of all the neat and fun holidays that follow! But -- there's lots to do yet in whatever time I have left in this life, so-o-o -- the break will need to be a short one. đŸ˜•.
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
