A Happy and -- yes -- A PROSPEROUS New Year!!!

More "Vast Spaces"

As I may have mentioned at least (?!?) once, one of the things that makes the Southwest so attractive to me is all that space. Gazing into the night sky is awe-inspiring, yet with the naked eye, one really can't judge how far out there it all goes.

But in the deserts, the distances may not be infinite, but the views are somehow more manageable to us human beans. On a clear day, one can see many, many miles/kilometers until the earth fades into the sky.

I've attached a picture I took on a trip to Canyonlands National Park in 2007. The rock at the top is Mesa Arch, and the view through this "window" is amazing. Even in the relatively flat noon-ish lighting, this scene is spectacular -- and not because I'm some fantastic photographer. The landscape is what it is.

Some day I'll paint this and feature it here and on my Website (which, of course, is http://www.southwestspaces.com/). It'll be yet another example of "The Vast Spaces of the Southwest."

Sonora -- More About Her

As I mentioned in a previous post, Sonora is a female Harris' hawk who "performs" at the Living Desert in Palm Desert, CA. Her routine spotlights a little of her hunting prowess.

In the top photo, she's emerging from an opening behind some rocks. She flies to the top of a saguaro skeleton (you can see her on top of this structure in the 12 December 2008 post), from where she looks towards the top of a nearby hill where an employee has placed a mouse (previously frozen, now thawed). Sonora then flies to the hilltop, eats the mouse, then "divebombs" back into the amphitheater (middle picture) where she lands on the rocks and enters the opening from whence she came (third pic), returning to the ethereal world where raptors dwell.

It's an amazing little show. All the critters do what they do in nature, but they do it in a way so we can see it happen. I've been able to collect a number of pictures of critters I will want to paint (and have already painted) in a much shorter period of time than if I had been in the field.

The Harris' hawks (including Hudson, a male who flies back and forth over the audience's heads) seem to fascinate me the most. I LOVE those little guys!

Christmas Lights

Si-i-g-g-h-h-h ... the day after Christmas. For me, the party is over, even though we'll leave our decorations up until January 1st. If we were REALLY traditional, we'd put the decorations up Christmas Eve and leave them up until 6 January, the Feast of the Epiphany, which commemorates when the three wise guys were the first gentiles to acknowledge the baby Jesus as our King. As you may know, the Christmas season runs from Christmas Day to Epiphany, twelve days long -- the "twelve days" of Christmas we sing about (with a partridge in a pear tree and all that).

So--no doing art the last couple of days. I made the turkey on the 24th (makes it SO-O-O much less stressful on the 25th!), visited families on the 25th and afterwards went to a town with a neighborhood that always goes all out with their Christmas displays.

Except this year, we had driving winds and rain, so although the storm was over by the time we got there, some decorations were knocked over and most weren't even turned on. But a few homes were lit up. I inserted a photo (sorry it's blurred -- no tripod!) showing half of the display from one of the houses.

I hope YOU had a great Christmas -- with lights or not!

Merry Christas to All!

Bunny Prints

The snow is mostly gone now. But I couldn't resist showing another photo of footprints in the snow. A bunny's footprints.

Can't you just imagine the little critter hippity-hopping along in the snow, looking for some tasty goodies to eat? And looking totally cute doing it?

Winter Solstice

Winter solstice (or summer, or the vernal/autumnal equinoxes) would probably be ordinary, run-of-the-mill days for me. I don't have pagan beliefs, so other than the fact that today is Sunday, I did go to church. But I didn't take part in any of the local solstice celebrations that occurred in the area.

However, as a photographer (or at least, a photographer whose "instant sketchpad" is the camera and its resulting products), winter solstice is special in a number of ways:

1. Dawn is later in the morning -- I don't have to wake up so darned early if I want to be "out there" at sunrise for a shoot;


2. Here in the northern hemisphere, the sun is as low in the sky as it's going to get, reducing the time wasted waiting for the sun NOT to be overhead with its boring lighting;


3. The sun is as far south as it's going to get for the year.

This last point was important for creating the painting I've shown in this post. This view, south of Palm Desert, CA, has become one of my favorite scenes. If you were standing there seeing the landscape before you, you would be facing northeast.

During the other times of the year, the sun is further to the left (north), resulting in a backlit scene which can be dramatic, but in this case, I preferred sunlight to come from the side. That only happens in the morning in winter, and winter solstice is the best day of the year to find that lighting at this site.

The problem? It's winter. No flowers. But he-e-e-y-y ... I'm an artist! I can fix that!

So -- the lighting in the painting is from when the sun is furthest south -- on winter solstice. (I should know -- I was there a few years ago). The flowers, of course, are from spring. I've combined elements from two different times of the year in this painting. Plus, I added the bighorn sheep ram, which actually do live in this area.

This scene has been popular with the Palm Springs - Palm Desert crowd, especially with folks who visit from somewhere else in the country. In a sense, my paintings of this place show everything that is good about the desert: the flowers, the red-bloomed ocotillo, the overlapping hills that extend a great distance, and an example of the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep. And I was able to combine the best of two different seasons, including the magic lighting of winter solstice.

Wanna celebrate solstice, anyone?