This is a painting of a desert wash in the southern part of Joshua Tree National Park.
This area spawns glorious wildflower color in the spring (if enough rain has fallen at the right time), and even washes -- "rivers" that are dry most of the time -- features bursts of color. In this case, chuparosa shrubs produce red blooms that are much loved by hummingbirds. The smoke tree will bloom -- if it does -- later, most likely in June.
The size of this painting is 5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm.
As we all know, Aries is a zodiac sign which references a ram. In this case Aries is a desert or peninsular bighorn sheep.
Actually, this is the second time I painted a bighorn and named him Aries, so the painting is entitled Aries II.
In my opinion, bighorn sheep are the majestic animals of the desert -- so noble, so graceful -- and so endangered. The herd populations are slowly increasing in size, but they've got a way to go in areas that break up their habitat with highways, development, humans...stuff like that.
This scene is in Joshua Tree National Park, although I added the rock pinnacle that the bighorn is standing on, and I added the bighorn, too -- this one actually lives at the Living Desert Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Palm Desert, CA. I think I did an OK job of showing the space the way it would look with the bird's eye view, the pinnacle and the sheepie!
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or SouthwestSpaces.com
Aries II 18" x 24" / 45.7cm x 61cm
Moonlit Hunter is my latest painting. It shows an elf owl (Micrathene whitneyi) in the Arizona desert under the light of a full moon. These sparrow-sized (4.9"-5.7"/12.5cm-14.5cm) critters are the smallest owl species and eat mostly insects.
The Native American pot is somewhat a product of my imagination. It has an owl motiff -- I've never seen a pot like this, but I've seen pottery figurines of owls. So I used the basic design of the figurines and placed them on a pot. The owl is actually sitting on a piece of cholla wood that ended up in the pot somehow.
The winter constellation Orion the Hunter appears in the night sky. It seemed appropriate to go with an owl -- a hunter!
The painting is my own, but it was inspired by a piece by the late Larry Toschik that appeared in an old Arizona Highways magazine. Unfortunately, prints of it were never made available or I would have gotten one.
Enjoy!
Mark Junge
I would call Joshua Tree National Park a big desert!! And a small part of an even bigger desert.
This latest painting shows the Park at the very beginning of sunrise. We were getting sunrises like this every morning for a while, and I'm sure we'll get more when the monsoon season starts up in a month or so.
Anyway, here it is. 5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm. Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
This isn't exactly the newest painting of Joshua Tree National Park, but it IS one I forgot to post here on my blog!!
As before, it's 5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm and can be framed or, according to my notions, placed on a small mini easel for display. Enjoy!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
Yet ANOTHER small (5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.
I stretched reality just a little -- normally, Joshua trees and the yellow-flowered goldenbush don't bloom at the same time. But that's not to say it couldn't happen!
Enjoy!!
Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com
What a combination -- paintings of Hawaii (with hula dancers) and the desert in Joshua Tree National Park!! Well -- somebody's gotta do it! 😃
I wish I was better at painting hooman beans than I am, but I guess I just need to paint them more often. But so far, this is what I'm able to do. Enjoy!!
