Another Joshua Tree National Park Painting!

 Yet another painting of Joshua Tree National Park!!

Rocks 'n' Clouds             08" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

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! 😃

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. 😕.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

San Gorgonio

 Mt. San Gorgonio is one of the two mountains that cause this area to be a desert. It, along with Mt. San Jacinto and the associated mountains, form the "rain shadow" that makes the rain fall on the coastal side of the mountains, but tends to exclude rain from here; hence, desert.

🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵

San Gorgonio is also the title of my latest painting:

The size is 11" x 14" / 27.9cm x 35.6cm. This piece will be a "thank you" gift to a couple that helped us out while The Wiffee was in a nursing facility. (By the way, she's out now and is doing fine). Sometimes the yellow flowers don't photograph as prominently as they appear in the painting, but hopefully, you get the idea.

Meanwhile, painting will be interesting for a while -- the lens implants following my cataract surgery have developed a cloudy film, giving everything a dreamy look. Treatment is fast and easy -- laser treatment. But getting in to see the ophthalmologist has been quite a challenge! Soon, I hope!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Paul Gauguin

For a lo-o-n-n-g-g time, I've loved things Polynesian. But now I've going to commit an act of sacrilege. Maybe even heresy! 😮

Paul Gauguin was an artist who lived and painted in Tahiti. He focused on the vahines there more than, say, landscapes. Fine. Except -- I never got into the style he preferred. In short, I'm not a Paul Gauguin fan!!

I think he had the skills to work in a more academic way, although I could be wrong. A detail below from one of his paintings, Two Tahitian Women (1899) is actually kind of nice, and it appears he was capable of rendering faces.

The painting as a whole, however, just doesn't work for me. The classical realism approach doesn't call as much attention to itself as the subject and workings do, and if handled right, can elicit powerful emotional responses. That's where MY interests lie.

Two Tahitian Women       Paul Gauguin,1899-detail

Two Tahitian Women         Paul Gauguin

Images like the one below speak to me much more powerfully:

A Girl Defending Herself Against Eros
William Adolphe Bouguereau,1880

Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

 

For a Future Painting of Glen Eyrie, Colorado

 I saw the following painting by my art hero, Thomas Moran, when we lived in Colorado Springs, CO during the '90s:

The title is Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods. These are two separate and adjacent properties in Colorado Springs, and I always wanted to do a painting like this.

Trouble is: Glen Eyrie is privately owned by the Navigators, a Christian parachurch organization and book publisher. I never had a chance to go there looking for the site that Moran painted.

Over the years, I've been looking online for photos that might help me make a similar painting to Moran's. And I FINALLY found it on Google Maps!!

Here is the pic:

As you can see, it appears to be close to the spot where Moran made his sketches and watercolor drawings. The spire is called Echo Rock and is actually a short fin of sandstone that we're seeing on edge. Moran's painting has a few changes from reality, but that gives ME a chance to paint a scene similar to his while making it truly my own.

Looks like Moran had to do some significant climbing to get to this spot -- I never could have done that!!

Hope to start on it soon! Wish me luck/pray for me!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com