Tag Archives: Arizona

February Ocatillo

The setting for this painting is of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The time of year is winter. I hike a lot when I’m here and was surprised when I saw the Ocatillo I’ve featured in this painting. The cactus was all leafed out and bushy which I don’t remember happening at this elevation tilContinue reading “February Ocatillo”

Desert Wash

In the desert when the sun has just vanished below the mountains the light shifts in ways revealing colors not seen at any other time. This amazes me. Fact is, color changes all day long and through the night. Our color perceptions are defined by time and space. Yeah, really…..

San Pedro Cactus 2

The San Pedro Cactus is a gorgeous plant. They grow tall and wide and have straight regular columns or can be quite gnarly and contorted, depending on the growing environment and genetic mutations. The one I’ve painted is of the gnarly type. It grows at altitudes of 2-3,000 ft and is a known hallucinogen. What’sContinue reading “San Pedro Cactus 2”

Cad Orange, Ultra Blue

Color theory makes my head hurt. Having said that, I used a limited pallet for this painting, using only cadmium orange and ultramarine blue, black and white and small touches or viridian and cadmium yellow. The canvas was under-painted in a light lavender. As I continue to work in casein, I’m using two complimentary colorsContinue reading “Cad Orange, Ultra Blue”

Marble Canyon is a dusty, hot and out of the way spot where colors of the earth and sky are vivid. The Colorado River is winding it’s way southwest to the Grand Canyon. The United States’ largest birds, California Condors, nest on the canyon ledges, float on the thermals and fish the waters far below.Continue reading

Buckthorn Cholla

The Buckthorn Cactus, botanically known as Cylindropuntia acanthocarpia, is a native of the Sonoran Desert. It’s flowers are yellow or red with shades in between that bloom in spring. The cane-like stalks are covered with thorns and grow in tangled clumps in dry, arid landscape. The flowers are quite showy and bees love ’em.

wild Burros of Maricopa County

When we go fishing at Lake Pleasant in Maricopa County, AZ, we sometimes see some of the burros that live in the surrounding hills and gorges. They’re skinny little creatures but they go and do what they like, a condition of being feral. Desert Life suits them.

Largemouth Bass

Caught in Arizona, this bass bass looks a lot different in color than those we’ve taken in New York. Other features such as the dorsal fins are atypical of what is found in Largemouth Bass. Perhaps this is a hybrid. At any rate, it was caught in Lake Pleasant, AZ. We’ll have to see ifContinue reading “Largemouth Bass”

Up at Lake Pleasant, AZ

The white bass are still biting at Lake Pleasant in Maricopa County, AZ. This is a view of the embankment at the lake shore. Ted’s doing the fishing, I take pictures, pic up fistfuls of discarded fishing line and look for lost Rolex’s on the beach.

Field of Chollas

Chollas are botanically in the subfamily of Opuntioideae, the same family which includes cactus’s with broad, flat leaves. The leaves of the Cholla are round-ish and really spiny. They quickly become stuck to any object that comes close to it. Their spines hurt and aren’t easy to remove once impaled in either fabric, fur orContinue reading “Field of Chollas”

Tonto National Forest, AZ

This is an end-of-day scene looking east. We’d been fishing down in the Salt River, fish weren’t biting, the sun’s sinking and it’s getting cold on the desert. Nothing left to do but walk back to the car and start the hour’s drive home.