Autumn in the Desert

The Big Morongo Preserve is a marshy area in the middle of the desert. It's located about 20 minutes north of Palm Springs, CA.

Lots of cottonwood trees, close relatives of aspens, grow in this natural oasis. Fall arrives here later than in many other places of the country -- the cottonwoods are pretty much at their color peak. Some of the color will linger until Christmas.

There really aren't that many opportunities to paint the desert in a way that uses bright hues. As much as I love the place, deserts can be rather drab most of the year. So the golden yellows of the cottonwoods are a welcome change.

Desert Painting in the Dutch Tradition

It was time for a desert painting that emphasized drama over "prettiness"!

Even More ACEOs

This is a grouping of newly-completed art cards. I showed some to the local nature museum, and they want to buy ten of these!

So I finished up the seven seen here, and they already have three that I showed them when I talked with them last week.

Let's hope sales will continue to pick up!

More ACEOs

A long time ago, I posted some info about ACEOs (Art Card Originals and Editions). I still make these little guys, and I even have some on eBay right now.

Besides eBay, I managed to get the gift shop in a local nature museum interested in buying ten art cards from me! So Ill be busy trying to get these ACEOs done ASAP so I'll have some $$$ to put in the bank!

Above is a sampling of what I've been up to.

In the meantime, one of my galleries asked for a local (Palm Springs area) scene that would be really dramatic. It's a large painting, so I'm trying to get it done, too.

And I must be worn out -- I feel sleepy all the time. What's up with that?

Well, it'll all get finished -- hopefully soon, but eventually in any case.

Another Lizard

Another lizard painting, that is.

This seems to be a popular lizard around here. At the Open Studio tours two weeks ago, I displayed my first version of this little guy (or girl -- not sure which). Since then, I've made two other versions of that piece, making slight changes to the images, mostly by curving the tail.

By request, then, I painted this!

Autumn -- but Not in the Desert

Last Sunday, The Wiffee and I took a trip to the mountains for a few days. It's been very busy for both of us, and although I, especially, still had much to do, we agreed a change of scenery (and getting away from this sweatshop!) would be a good idea.

So we stayed in a cabin owned by a friend in the Lake Arrowhead region. While not an area that could be described as having utterly awe-inspiring vistas, it still was beautiful, and I could see paintings coming out of this in the future.

Even better were the fall colors we saw. Granted -- the colors were not as rich and varied as a maple forest in Vermont or as fluorescent as the golden leaves of aspen in the Rockies. In fact, oak trees ranged brown-yellow to yellow green. But they added another dimension to the dull greens of pine and cedar.

This picture shows a different species of oak that was planted in one of the mountain towns. Most of the leaves on this and similar trees were a deep rich red, suitable for Christmas if not the fall holidays.

While the desert gets fall colors of its own, they're nothing like this oak tree. As much as I love the Mojave, sometimes one needs to go where traditional fall colors shine in all their electric glory.

Happy Halloween

Tomorrow is Halloween, the first of a set of holidays that normally gets me pretty excited.

Actually, when things are looking up and I have at least a little time on my hands, mid-late September begins to set a mood with me. It's fall, even though -- here in southern California and especially in the desert -- we really don't see signs of autumn yet.

But thoughts of fall prepare me for the rest of the holiday season, beginning with Halloween. For some, Halloween is derived from Sanheim, an ancient Druid/pagan day that today might be interpreted as truly satanic.

But for me and, I believe, many others, Halloween is simply a time to have fun: to dress and act outrageously in ways that would be totally inappropriate any other time of year. I enjoy outfits people come up with, even costumes that turn those people into zombies, ghosts, witches or other uncouth/undead beings from hell. It's all for fun, and anybody who might take things too seriously would, IMO, do so anyway without using Halloween as an excuse to go off the deep end.

Following is the other autumn holiday, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. After Christmas, it feels like the fun is over, and I tend to go into somewhat of a funk, unless I have specific things lined up for the first of the following year to get excited about. (Needless to say, those "things" usually involve art in some way!)

Following is a detail from a Halloween image I painted last year. I want to submit it to a greeting card company later in 2010 and so for that reason, I don't want to show the entire painting just in case some unethical types out there want to use it and approach the greeting card companies before I do.

Happy Halloween!