More Snow

Good grief!!! We knew it snows in the Mojave desert. But we moved from Colorado, in part, to get away from THIS much snow!

It started snowing in the early morning hours, it's snowed all day, and it won't stop until early tomorrow morning.

At least snow IS pretty. It's just a pain if you have to go out in it. I was outside today, knocking snow off of tree and bush branches before the weight of the snow could break them.

The picture on the right shows a Joshua tree with its north-facing side totally coated with snow. (Compare with the photo from Monday, 15 December). The lumpy snow on the ground is covering a forest of cholla cactus. The second picture is of a couple of house sparrows who don't seem to be bothered by the weather around them.

Wahttizzit???

Confused arrows trying to point the way???

Dinosaur footprints???

Mysterious symbols left by ancient extraterrestrials???

Abstract art???

Nah. These are just tracks left by some Gambels quail in the snow.

Desert Snow

It's been snowing here this morning, and continues to do so as I write. Snow in the desert is actually not that unusual. What would be unusual is if the snow sticks around for more than a day.

We get it all in the Mojave -- a little snow in the winter, and blazing heat in the summer.

I wonder if we'll have desert snow for Christmas??

Sonora

I visited the Living Desert again today, specifically for the purpose of getting photos of some of the critters in their "Wildlife Wonders" program. In case you've forgotten, the Living Desert is a combination desert botanical garden and zoo specializing in desert animals. "Wildlife Wonders" is a showcase where desert critters perform things they do in nature, only they perform them where we can see them.

The accompanying picture shows Sonora, a female Harris' hawk, silhouetted against the sky. Her "job" is to fly to an observation point (in this case, the skeleton of a saguaro cactus), then fly to the peak of a nearby hill to get and eat a tasty morsel (a thawed frozen mouse). Afterwards, she divebombs back into the amphitheater and exits through an opening in a fence. The divebomb can be hard to catch on a camera, since she can easily be traveling 80mph (129km/h). I have caught her in her dive, but so far, the resulting pictures aren't worth showing, 'tho' they may still be useful for paintings.

At this time, this is the best picture I have of Sonora who, I expect, will appear in a painting sooner or later. As a painter, I have the advantage of being able to refer to other pictures to fill in the silhouette with some color and details.

This silhouette would strike fear into the little hearts and minds of any mouse that saw it.

Yet ANOTHER Small Painting

Probably the last in a series of small (8" x 8"/20cm x 20cm) -- the last for a while, anyway.

This piece shows a beavertail cactus in bloom among some rocks in Joshua Tree National Park. I guess that's why I titled it "Beavertail on the Rocks"!

Why Not Impressionism?

You've seen my paintings (online, anyway, if not in real life), so by now, you know I work in a fairly traditional/academic way with just a hint of surrealism to add a little mystery. Three-dimensional brushmarks are minimal, if they exist at all.

And one characteristic that you can't see online (or in any reproduction): I paint in transparent glazes. The paintings have a stained-glass quality, an Old Masters-style "inner glow" that, frankly, adds a lot of time to the painting process. After all, when you paint a layer and let it dry, then paint another layer and let it dry, and again and again and again ... it's a little like making the same painting mulitple times, but on the same canvas or panel. There are many times when I feel if I did abstract work or even Impressionism where globs of color are applied quickly, often while working on site in the great outdoors (my paintings must be done in the studio), life might be much simpler. In fact, my sales might even increase: Impressionism is a more popular style in the USA than the academic style I prefer.

So why not Impressionism? Well, I don't really have anything against that look. I've seen some attractive pieces that were done that way.

However, an impressionistic piece draws attention to itself as a painting. By working as I do, I can do subtle things in paintings that wouldn't seem believable if the painting was much looser; in fact, some of those things might seem like mistakes. Plus, honestly, I really like the look of the Old Masters, including works created in the 19th century. I love the "inner glow" of a Rembrandt portrait or other artwork, which--in many examples--elevates an otherwise ho-hum painting to a higher level because of the sheer beauty of glazes and other techniques that tend to go with them.

At some point, I'd like to discuss some of the techniques of the Masters and how I incorporate some of those methods into my own work.

The attached image is Madonna and Child with Book by Rafael (who did some fabulous glazing on this piece!) The original painting is in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA. The Museum Bookstore sells prints of it, but they don't do justice to the painting.

Small Desert Painting

Another in my series of small (8" x 8"/20cm x 20cm) paintings of the desert!

(BTW, don't forget -- my Website is http://www.southwestspaces.com/. Since the small paintings are already at the Christopher Morgan Gallery, please contact him directly if you're interested in acquiring a small -- or a large! --painting).