QUIET WEATHER
Quiet Weather - 12×16 Original Watercolor by Jenn Newman on 140# Fabriano 100% Cotton Paper
If you have ever experienced rain in the Sonoran desert, there is nothing quite like it.
The colors come to life. The dust is washed away. Rocks, plant life, the ground - everything seems brighter and deeper. You can feel the collective gratitude for the washing over.
There’s also the smell of creosote. It’s intoxicating, and very specific to the Sonoran desert. Creosote grows wild here, and when the rain hits this desert plant, the smell fills the air.
When the desert heats up, we all long for rain. In a climate where we only get a few inches per year, you can imagine the gratitude we feel when it arrives.
“Quiet Weather” emerged from that feeling. I painted it on a typical sunny day here in the desert, perhaps more as a prayer for the onset of monsoon season. July and August are the times we wait longingly for monsoons to sweep in late day and clear the air and give us momentary relief from the desert sun.
The irony is that monsoons are active, dust-filled and vociferous - with lightning and thunder cracking throughout the skies. Sometimes the desert looks wind-whipped and littered afterwards … but there is that sense of deep relief and refreshment.
Rain brings life to this blooming desert. May it come through this summer, and may we all experience the quiet weather that reminds us renewal often arrives after the storm.
