Sonoran Desert - Tumblr Posts - Page 2
04/08/19 - Catalina State Park, AZ - OUT FOR A HIKE - This morning, the plan is to hike part way up the slopes of the Catalina Mountains to the Romero Pools. It’s supposed to take about two hours each way; but with the smorgasbord of cacti in various stages of bloom all around us, that may no longer be a realistic objective: all the picture taking is really slowing us down. Nice problem to have in my book …. as long as we don’t run out of water or succumb to the heat.
Foothill Palo Verde (Parkinsonia microphylla), Molino Canyon, Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona.
it's been a minute! enjoy these weird clouds from last weekend!
Phoenix Great Room An illustration of a sizable, open-concept, Tuscan-style kitchen with a beige floor, a farmhouse sink, recessed-panel cabinets, dark wood cabinets, marble countertops, a marble backsplash, stainless steel appliances, two islands, and multicolored counters is shown.
This shows a 3 inches square patch, or thereabouts, of a 12 x 9 inch painting in progress. It’s the view out of an imaginary room’s window: desert tree (desert willow?) in the foreground, purple mountains off in the distance, a clear blue sky. The desert is largely an amalgamation of places I remember. The tree is a very specific one — a portrait, perhaps — I photographed on a hike a couple of years ago.
I wound up painting it twice. The first time, the colors were too vivid and dark, and didn’t give that feeling of desert light. So I sponged as much of the gouache away as I could, started again, and wound up with something much better.
Imaginary Shelter by Heather Lee Birdsong, 2021, gouache on paper, 12.125 x 9 inches.
I began this by painting the architecture in blues, and realized I couldn’t settle on a color for the “figure” (the triangular polygon at the doorway) until the scene visible through the window and doorway was done. I masked off the painted areas, then worked the desert landscape as a whole (with ghost flower, lupine, desert primrose, creosote, and desert willow). I peeled the masking off to see how it was all coming together, and went to sleep with the blank polygonal space glaring.
In the end, I pulled the color of the polygon figure from the farthest mountains. I grew up in an asphalt-covered bowl of desert edged by mountains. When I felt most desperate to escape, someone told me that they could never leave, that they would miss the mountains. The sentiment struck me as absurd — the mountains were far away, an ever-present backdrop and nothing more, their ruddy faces empurpled by the vast amount of atmosphere between us and them. Even though leaving (many years ago now) was the best thing I ever did for myself, I do miss the purple mountains.
Great Room Phoenix Large tuscan-style open concept kitchen with a beige floor and a farmhouse sink, recessed-panel cabinets, dark wood cabinets, marble countertops, marble backsplash, stainless steel appliances, two islands, and multicolored counters is shown in the shot.