Until a few weeks ago, the word ‘desert’ conjured up visions of barren desolate landscapes for me. A road trip through Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California and through Sedona and the Sonoran desert around Tuscon, Arizona put a end to that vision. What a magical, strange, Dr.Seuss-ian landscape the desert is, and what amazing presence the cacti and giant rock formations of the area have! As you can see from my sketches I was pretty obsessed with those cacti. I sketched them singly, I tried capturing them at sunset at Saguaro National Park, I drew them at the Sonoran Desert Museum. Cacti are like people. Each one with it’s own stance and posture, it’s unique quirks, and each one ever changing in the shifting light.
And when I wasn’t drawing the cacti, I drew the rocks. From the huge grey boulders my kids climbed at Joshua Tree, to the red rocks of Sedona. And whenever I could, I captured people in my scenes: little tiny ant-like figures, climbers and hikers… how else would you ever guess at the scale of these rocks?
More sketches and stories from my trip on my blog and a complete set here on flickr.
