"The Painted Desert" Oil paints on Canvas. 16" x 24" painted using old timey ways . . . using a little paintbrush.

I love the desert, or maybe it's the Sun.
The desert is where the Sun shines most brilliantly.

The sand, the rocks, the colors.

Made all the more vibrant by the shining of the sun.
Lizards, snakes, and mountain lions live among the sand, rocks and cacti.

(Mountain Lion Petroglyph, Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark, Petrified Forest National Park.)
The people of the Painted Desert knew the Mountain lion, and it would seem by this "rock painting" that the big cats' claws were to be remembered and feared. This is an early form of a Newspaper on a rock.
My original photo was taken during one of the several trips I have enjoyed through the Painted Desert region.

I found this little guy outside one night making noise.
I don't have a pond. There is no water nearby. No lakes no stream for miles and even then they are dry beds.
Where did he come from?
During the monsoon rains, he crawls out from the sand, looking for aww, a friend.
It takes about three days of rain; and then, a steady choir of croaking, burps and chips fill the night air.

I have eaten these.
The little red fruit. Not bad.
I hear the cactus pear is actually good. It's nice to know I won't starve.
I may make a salad out of these.

And, of course, there is this place, farther north.

I'm working on a Grand Canyon painting.
It wants to be special. I guess in the end, the paintings' tell me what to do.

Deserts are defined by the lack of precipitation they get.
By definition: Antarctica is a desert. No precipitation in many areas of Antarctica.
Dictionaries call them lacking in life or vegetation.

I find life in the desert, I have found my life.