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.
