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.

Wickenburg, ARIZONA

After leaving Sedona (see previous post) we moved on to Wickenburg which is about a 2 hour drive from Sedona on Route 89 (South and West of Sedona) - Wickenburg is in saguaro cacti country and looks the way you expect Arizona to look! We stopped at the Museum of the West that has a gallery of wonderful western paintings including works by George Catelin, Edgar Allen Payne and Thomas Moran etc. They were also featuring a fabulous collection of plein air paintings of the region by such well known painters as Matt Smith and Ralph Oberg.

Outside of Wickenburg we stopped on a side dirt road to paint a desert scene of cacti etc. It was hot, windy and my eyes couldn't take too much of it before I felt dazzled. Here is the painting I did - painting those saguaro cacti isn't as easy as you may think! Dealing with the heat and glare of the treeless landscape is also a challenge. Desert sand is embedded into this oil painting! and a few desicated desert bugs.

Nr. Flagstaff, ARIZONA

ARIZONA

On September 14, 2001 my friend, Tiah and I drove from San Jose, California to New Mexico on a long planned painting trip. We had originally intended to fly, but, because of the events of September 11, all the U.S. airports were still closed. We decided to rent a big comfortable American car and drive instead. It took 3 days to reach Taos, New Mexico. Along the way, we stopped to paint from time to time as the spirit and scenery moved us. Just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, we took a dirt road out into the mesa area and stopped to paint the gathering storm clouds. This painting was done as a response to the boiling and building thunder clouds that seemed to emanate from the mesa tops. Exciting high desert color, and primal and apocalyptic feelings are reflected in this "plein air" painting that I did on the side of the road. I was so charged with the energy of the scene that I actually howled like a wolf at one point in my painting process! My friend Tiah appeared to accept my weirdness with no comment - which is great in a travelling companion! More on this road trip later