The Surreal Desert

The Surreal Desert -- that's the title of this scene in Death Valley, California. The raven wasn't actually in that particular spot that day, but since ravens do inhabit this lunar-landscape-on-earth, painting one into the view is well within the realm of possibility.

The desert is a surreal place, anyway, but so many sites in Death Valley take surrealism to a new level without even trying. And since surrealism is my favorite style of art (although I don't paint "pure" surrealism very often anymore), Death Valley is my kind of place -- as long as I'm not lost there without sunscreen and water!

Mojave Light

It seems appropriate somehow to share a painting with sunlight breaking through the clouds. Today was Epiphany--the day the liturgical church celebrates the arrival of the Wise Guys to worship the young Jesus.

The scene is close to where we live (for any of you readers who know this area, this is near the base of the Yucca Grade, facing east). It's hard to see in the picture, but spring flowers pepper the landscape. The painting size is 8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm.

Happy Epiphany!! Enjoy the Mojave light.

Resolve Not to Resolve

I never did care much for making New Years resolutions. The resolutions I tend to hear about are things we should resolve to do every day of the year -- lose weight, quit smoking, spend more time with family and/or friends, make more art (well, OK, that last one is something only we artists would think of!)

Still, I can think of things I really want to focus on this year. I wouldn't call them resolutions, exactly, but these are things I intend to focus on in 2009:

• Exercise more and get the weight down (I'm a diabetic -- I ignore these issues at my own peril);


• Paint LOTS of small paintings -- more options for sales;


• Look for marketing opportunities that are not art shows or galleries.

For other areas of my life:

• Make more art sales so we can get the credit card debt paid down (we've had to use CCs just to pay bills!);


• Take to heart something a friend in Colorado told me about -- stop contacting "friends" who make no effort to contact me. After a while, it feels like I'm chasing them, and I've lost the motivation to try and keep up with them.

Wish me luck! Regardless, I resolve not to resolve.

Thoughts of Spring...

...and it's only the second day of 2009.

But spring must be in the air. The desert bighorn ram on the left was acting rather amorously toward the ewe on the right.

"Where have ewe been all my life?"

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!