Painting in the desert isn't as easy as one might think - so much incrediably bright light and super dry air makes it really hard on your skin. Plein air painting on location is about overcoming difficulties and painting anyway no matter what! On this day I spent a full day at the Sonoran Desert Museum near Tucson, Arizona. It was late March - I wouldn't even attempt this in the Summer or even late Spring. The Sonoran Desert is full of the wonderful sculptural Saguaro Cacti and lots of other types of succulents also. Most of them were flowering due to good rains earlier in the month. We left our hotel in Tucson at 9am in order that I could paint early and be done before the middle and very hottest part of the day. The brilliance of the light made the painting challenging trying to determine color - I had to make some adjustments to this painting back at the hotel. The Desert Museum (outdoors) itself is wonderful and very well worth the visit if you ever go to Tucson. You walk along trails thru the desert which was covered with wild flowers and blooming cacti of all kinds. You could see all the different desert creatures also, birds, reptiles, mammals and insects. A lot are noctural for obvious reasons - there were underground displays with plexiglass caves were you could see the animals sleeping thru the heat of the day. There was a tarantula on display guarded by an older gentleman. I stopped and spoke to him about his charge. He told me that these giant spiders have barbed hairs on their backs to protect themselves from predators. They are not venomous. There was a walk thru aviary for hummingbirds - we saw one sitting on a thimble sized nest. So very sweet. Later in the afternoon I stopped in a remote area to do another painting. While I was there a hiker came by and warned me that he had seen a swarm of wild bees and to be on the look out for them. Luckily, I did not meet up with them.