Happy New Year...to You and to All the Little Birdies, Too!

 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

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

A Winter Painting and a Christmas Painting!

 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

One shows the aftereffects of a rare snowstorm in the Mojave desert of Joshua Tree National Park; the other is a Christmas scene in a home somewhere in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. (The mountain outside the window and in the painting over the fireplace are the same mountain: Mt. Sneffels, my favorite Colorado Mountain to paint!)

I hope you enjoy these images and that you have a wonderful holiday season!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

 

Thanksgiving Paintings

 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! 😃 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

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Halloween Art

 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). 😃

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

And finally, one painting that is just about autumn, Colorado style near Cripple Creek:

Untitled (so far)                 8"x10" / 20cm x 25cm

Finally, I started on some Thanksgiving paintings that I hope to post here soon.

Enjoy the season! It's moving through fast!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

An Artist -- and a Hermit!!

 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 Desert Paintings!

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!

Then, after my vision was cleared up, I started and finished a smaller painting showing the entrance to the Alabama Hills region at Lone Pine, CA. You've undoubtedly seen views of this magnificent area in movies -- Clint Eastwood's Joe Kidd and Kevin Bacon's Tremors come to mind -- with the east face of the mighty and rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range in the background and "rock piles" littering the desert floor. Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states, is the cluster of points to the right of center.

As one enters this special place, a lone cottonwood tree appears to the north of the road among one of the rock piles. We happened to see it in early November, and the golden yellow made it a star shining in a blue and brown vista! So this was what I painted:

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

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