Irwindale

Remember that old song about the lazy hazy crazy days of summer? Well, for me, it's mostly been about lazy! Good grief!! It seems like all I want to do these days is nuthin!! Maybe mess around on my laptop, but that's about it!

Well -- at least I did manage to get a painting done last month -- a small (8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm) landscape of a place called Irwindale, which is also the title of the piece:

Irwindale isn't in the desert, but it's close enough to a desert-y look to suit me. It's east of Pasadena, CA which is east of Los Angeles. It's an area where lots of these yuccas (pronounced "yuck-ah", Hesperoyucca whipplei), also known as the Lord's Candle, bloom in mid-June if southern California had enough rain during the winter months -- a rare commodity these days.

I live about a two-hour's drive from here, so I rarely get to see this view anymore, assuming the yuccas survived the scant rainfall they've gotten over the years of drought. I hope they're still there -- I'd like to see them again.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Advancing Time

 

Advancing Time is my latest (surrealism) painting. It's essentially a redo of the very first serious painting I did: men seemingly running from a clock that is chasing them as the sun goes down. The size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

What does it mean?? Not really sure -- I'm sure something bad is in those runners' futures if/when the clock catches up with them. Maybe it has something to do with our futures as well.

I'll admit I'm concerned about our future and the future of our country. Perhaps the painting is simply an expression of concerns I have and the ominous evil just beyond the horizon. Something's coming, and it ain't good.

But for now, enjoy the time we have, and look for the beauty in our lives.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

The Visit

 I've been in the mood for some surrealism lately. So I'm holding back a little on making desert landscape paintings and I'm doing some small surrealism works!

The latest piece -- The Visit -- combines surrealism and a bit of desert landscape! 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

Even though I paint surrealism, I never try to explain what the images mean, usually because I don't know what they mean. In this case, I wanted a scene of a human walking through an otherworldly desert, similar to something one might see in a dream.

In fact, dream imagery is critical to my way of working -- dreams that might be a little disturbing, but the scenes are not nightmarish. This is the Salvador Dali-ish world I love to create. Some modern-day surrealism is too pretty, or too much a mere assemblage of seemingly unrelated objects thrown together in a view, or scary/ugly monstrous animals or mutated humans. Not my thing at all!

So is this female on a vision quest? Is she lost? Dream-walking? Heading into an unknown future, good or bad (as we all must)? Don't know!

All I know is: there's something freeing to me about doing these kinds of paintings. Let's face it -- I'm a surreal kind of guy. AND PROUD OF IT!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Dry Times

Dry Times refers to the droughts we in the West often get stuck with. It is also the title of my latest painting depicting some dry times in Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.

Dry Times                                      18" x 24" / 46cm x 61cm

This year, some of the Joshua trees did bloom -- we had some rain, and it stayed pretty cool - cold most of the winter -- just the way JTs like it! Also, Joshua trees bloom earlier than the annuals and shrubs do, so it would be unusual to see flowers on the trees AND all over the desert floor at the same time. It does happen, but things have to be just right -- and this year, they weren't.

So I painted the scene pretty much as it appeared the day I last visited there. We can see the green creosote bushes, the gray blackbrush, the pale yellow Indian ricegrass and the reddish-brown seedpods of wild buckwheat.

But no wildflowers! 😢

Well, I love the desert whether springtime color appears or not. But the color sure would make it prettier!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

 

Kaua'i Shores

 

As much as I love the desert, sometimes I get romanticized images of Polynesian islands in my head.

When we took a trip to the Hawaiian Islands in October 2019, I had hoped to see places that resembled the pictures I have in my brain, but we never did find places like that on our too-brief trip.

So I've taken to painting real-life scenes but with a certain, uh, embellishment! 😃

Kaua'i Shores         8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

The foundation of this piece is Tunnels Beach (aka Makua Beach) is northern Kaua'i in the Hawaiian Islands. The plant life is imaginary but is based on real plants that grow on Kaua'i, but not necessarily this close to the ocean. The only animal I depicted is the Hawaiian honeycreeper, the red bird sitting on the tree fern -- difficult to paint, since it's VERY small on the painting!

More Polynesian 🌴🌴🌴paintings to come, but now it's back to the desert 🌵🌵🌵 in the studio🎨!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Joshua Tree National Park

 

Sheesh! I haven't been over to nearby Joshua Tree National Park for a long time. It IS one of my inspirational places to go for doing paintings, after all. (Of course, the Covid-19 shutdowns didn't help).

So I went there today! Weather was pleasant-to-warm, no high winds and I was in the mood. Besides, I needed some fresh material for paintings, and it's just good to go there once in a while!

Had to do some hiking and a little climbing for the picture of the red barrel cactus -- but I think it was worth it!

Oh -- and I saw a couple of lizards, too. This one is a female side-blotched lizard. (The other was a horned lizard, but I couldn't get a clear shot of that little guy).

Cute, huh?

I had hoped to make it to some other spots, but sunset came all too quickly, so -- another time. Soon. Before the oven heat begins. Such is life in the desert!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Firerock

The latest painting -- Firerock, 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

Firerock (aka Red Mountain) is the volcanic mountain out there which I believe is on the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community south of Fountain Hills (NE of Scottsdale), AZ.

This is how it looked when I drove through there to set up for an art show in Fountain Hills. A storm had just cleared up, and the desert had all these beautiful colors. I added some clouds, and I deleted the homes and gated communities that had been built where I showed open desert in the foreground.

I went by at the right time. The following evenings, the area wasn't as colorful. On occasion, timing is everything! 😃