Mt. Rainier Camping & Sketching

I grew up on the west side of the state and I loved all the green and how lush it was, but I didn’t really appreciate HOW GREEN it is there until I lived on the other side of the Cascades in a high desert for a couple years.

We were lucky to be at Mt. Rainier National Park during peak wildflower bloom and it was wee bit chilly, thanks to the elevation but we found a sheltered spot and I did this painting of lupine and indian paint brush and yellow daisies carpeting the hill.

My friend playing her ukulele and a quick sketch of the wildflowers. It was an interesting trip because we had to camp on a forest service road because the most of the campsites in the park were closed due to tree fall danger (perhaps the rangers weren’t able to clear them earlier in the year because of Covid closures/lay offs?). No bathrooms and no running water besides a nearby stream, a 37 degree night and springing a leak in one of the air mattresses contributed to a bit more roughing it than we were initially planning but we still had a good time.

I stopped on the way home to sketch these windmills near Vantage. There’s a rest stop with a great view of them as you travel east. I sat at a picnic table and was grateful for the wind (even though it was warm) because it was still in the mid 90’s as I did this. I could feel sweat dripping down my back as I rushed to finish this. Despite the discomfort, I tried to embrace it. Soon, we’ll be in the time of year when I can’t seem to get warm and a 40 degree day is excitingly balmy! That what sketchbooks help me celebrate-living in the moment.

Lake Crescent

One of the highlights of this summer was getting to make a quick foray up to the Olympic Peninsula with a dear friend. She was kind enough to share with me one of her treasured places-Lake Crescent. We had quite an adventure getting there (over 10 hours of travel for me) and tent sites can’t be reserved at the camp ground near the lake so when we finally got there after a major road closure, we found that the campground was full. Quick Googling found us another campsite not too far away and we were able to spend the night there and the next day, we woke up and had this view to look forward to. Lake Crescent in all its glory. Worth it!

My friend, Danielle, is an experienced camper. In fact, my first experience camping was when I was 10 years old with her family. While I pretty much never camp (This is the first time in nearly 5 years!), Danielle has carried on the tradition of camping and has picked up all sorts of outdoor skills and supplies. This is a tiny chimney style stove that she used to boil hot water to make us coffee and instant oatmeal one morning. Do you guys go camping?

This was the view from our campsite. I could see why this was Danielle’s favorite campground in the area! Lake Crescent is incredibly clear and I was fascinated by the way the color of the lake changed depending on the depth of the water. I painted this as the light shone through the trees and adorable duck families paddled by. A great memory.

Our campsite was just yards up from the lake front and we had a great view through the trees. We hung Danielle’s hammocks and we had our morning coffee and contemplation in them. I, of course, chugged my coffee and put it down so I could draw. These little stuff sack hammocks sure are fun and I can’t believe how easily you can set them up. I may have to buy one!

Danielle has a camping tradition of playing the ukulele and singing around the campfire after dinner (multi-talented, this friend of mine!). I painted this by the light of the dying campfire, using memory to mix colors. Her face should be much redder due to the fire, but I’m quite pleased with how it came out, especially the contrast between the warmer colors of her face and the cooler ones on her hand and uke where her phone screen light (for reading lyrics) shone up at her. Ah, the magic of camping!

In the grand tradition of National Parks, Lake Crescent has a historic lodge that’s heavy on the dark wood and has a giant fireplace. My favorite spot was the sun porch-windows all the way around with views of the lake and great light. I painted this while enjoying a mojito and it’s a miracle that I didn’t drink my paint water or put my brush in my mojito.

Photo credit: Danielle Curl

More camping adventures with Danielle doing the work and I sketch. 😄😝 I drew her progress from right to left across the pages and she started a fire with flint and tinder, split wood for smaller slivers and built the fire into something to cook our sausages on!

Photo credit: Danielle Curl

This is probably my favorite painting from the trip to Lake Crescent. This is the Devil’s Punchbowl, the deepest part of Lake Crescent. You can see down over 40 ft and that is not at all close to the bottom! It was cold, SO COLD, but also, so beautiful. Danielle lasted longer than me, you can see her swimming in the far right sketchbook page. Freezing to death, I got out of the water and onto a rock to make this painting using water from the lake. It was very windy so I had to clutch my supplies to keep them from blowing into the water, but on the plus side, I dried out quickly for our walk back to the car!

What’s been your favorite trip or adventure this summer?

Slice of Life

Here’s a look at what’s been in my sketchbook and on my table recently.

We went on a trip to visit my husband’s aunt at her guest ranch-Eden Valley Ranch up in the Okanagan back around Easter. They are at a higher elevation and nearly to the Canadian border so it was interesting to see how much further behind the plants were here than back in Spokane.

I accidentally used a watersoluble pen on this sketch, but the bleeding ink creates a really great effect, capturing the sort of greyed tans and greens of the land just barely coming out of winter (this was back in April).

I’m doing spring cleaning around the house and trying to clear space both physically and mentally!

This door on Howard Street is a favorite of mine. I see it whenever I head to the group of galleries over on Adams Street for First Friday. It’s just so dramatic! I’ve never been inside. To be honest, I think the interior will disappoint me after the door!

The Parkade, captured at sunset with some dramatic clouds. I think of the Parkade as an enormous animate sculpture, a head with broad shoulders looking over downtown and Riverfront Park. I love to watch the way the light moves on and across it.

I’ll be at Art on Blacktop up at 29th Ave Artworks in my fancy new white tent June 21st-23rd! I’d love to see you!

And thanks to everyone who came out to see me at Artfest this past week. I really appreciate it!

Final Kolkata Adventures

We spent some time in the South Park Street Cemetary, a historic walled cemetery that housed many British citizens from the colonial era. It was extremely sobering to see the ages listed on many of the large monuments. It was rare to see an age over 40. According to a booklet we got at the office, British citizens who traveled to India lasted about two monsoon seasons before succumbing to tropical diseases.

This was the largest obelisk in the cemetery and it is even bigger in real life. I had to squish it a bit to fit it on the page!

There were many monuments in this style and homeless people lived in them years ago before the cemetery was restored.

This is the Marble Palace, an enormous house of a very wealthy family that still lives in one wing. It is a museum now. We had to pay a bribe to get in because you’re supposed to fill out paperwork with the government to get in, but our Indian friends told us that that process is so impossible that it is better to just give the guard money. We did and were lead on a tour through rooms filled with classical sculpture, huge Chinese vases, and more. The floors were elaborate inlaid marble and oil paintings papered the walls. The lights were turned on as we entered a room and turned off as we left. There was a sense of decaying grandeur in the air.

I was constantly agog at the beautiful outfits of the women out and about on the streets.

The pollution resulted in pink, hazy sunsets, most obvious out in the countryside.

A leftover from the first post! This is my husband doing sudoku in the Telegraph newspaper.

Many of the stores in Kolkata were tiny, sometimes just alcoves with the proprietor sitting on a shelf. This store was just down the block from our friend’s house and we got our water from them. They didn’t speak much English, but whenever they saw us coming, they’d get out the water! Doing this sketch in the neighborhood attracted around forty people in the hour and a half it took me to do it. I had a group of older gentlemen move their bench so they could sit directly behind me and watch my every move!

I spotted this pink and blue house on a walk around our friend’s neighborhood. Buildings are so much more colorful in India than in the US.

There was a frame shop by our friend’s house and they had a collection of Jamini Roy prints in their frames.

Our trip to India was remarkable-a land of many contrasts and incredible energy, but I have to admit that it is good to be home!

Sketching in Kolkata

Kolkata traffic is astounding-cars, trucks, motorcycles, these three wheeled autos, everyone honking and weaving through the streets cutting each other off. Serious accidents are rare because nobody can get up enough speed to damage each other because there are just too many other vehicles in the way. Still, the number of pedestrians crossing the street or standing in the road was BONKERS. Plus, of course, the cows in the road. We took Ubers because renting a car would be suicidal and that way we didn’t have to worry about communicating the address to the driver-it just went directly to their phone.

This is the main temple at the Belur Math complex in Kolkata. This is probably my favorite sketch from the entire trip. We found a place in the shade and I spent a little over an hour doggedly working on this sketch, trying to finish before they kicked us out (they close midday and then open again in the late afternoon). As was usual, we attracted a lot of attention and people drifted over to either ask us for a selfie (For real, so many requests while we were there. We had to have a strict no selfie policy or else that is all we would have been doing!) or to see what I was up to. We had some nice conversations with some other families enjoying the shade as well.

This is one wing of the enormous family home of Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel prize winning poet and writer. It is HUGE museum about him and his accomplishments and the world events surrounding his life at the turn of the last century. Because it is technically a home, we had to take off our shoes and walk barefoot through the rooms and displays.

I have no idea why there are terracotta pots/vases tied to this tree. I saw several trees like this on our adventures, but I couldn’t ever get a satisfactory answer.

A montage page, bits and pieces of the day. The cab was drawn from a photo because none of them stay still long enough for me to draw. I nearly got run down by it just trying to take a picture!

Trying to draw fascinating flowers in the Botanical Garden, but had to give up partway through this drawing because of the mosquitoes. Too many bites and they swelled up HUGE so I decided to move on.

A colorfully paintined storefront door on the left, and a sculpted framed relief of Ganesh on the right.

On the left: A doorway with what I think might be Kali over looking it and on the right, an older couple walking in front of a worn wall.

We went to the zoo because Luke had never seen a live tiger before. We saw several and got to hear them roar which was a smidge hair raising. I loved all these pink birds and managed a couple sketches before wilting in the heat-around 95 degrees with 70% humidity.

One more post to go!

Final UK Sketching adventures

As promised, here is the last of my sketching adventures in the UK, mostly of things I brought back and a little bit of sketching on the way home.

This guy is currently hanging on my mini-Christmas tree in my living room and making me so happy! I love the crazy bangs on the cow and the fact that he is playing the bagpipe. ADORABLE.

I confess, I haven’t actually eaten this. I stashed it in my luggage in case I needed a snack at some point in our journey and then forgot to eat it or throw it away so it came all the way across the pond with me. I cam down with a cold as I was flying home so I didn’t want a candy bar for a couple weeks afterward as I recovered and now it is old. What does one do with an old, strange foreign candy bar?

My beloved blue luggage, sketched while waiting in Seatac for my flight home to Spokane to distract myself from the way my sinuses were pounding.

I drew various bills during the trip and drew the coins when I got home (coins and a couple of fivers were what was left at the end of the trip, no worries, I’m sure I’ll be back in the UK eventually!), adding paint all at the end. Money in the UK is interesting and shows how we’re a bit of an odd duck with our purely paper, one size, all green money. This stuff is plastic-y (goes the wash great, but apparently can get stuck together which is no good when paying bills!), has clear sections, is different sizes at different denominations and comes in all sorts of colors. I enjoyed seeing the difference between bank notes issued by the Bank of England and those by the Bank of Scotland. A theme among everyone though? So many drawings of Queen Elizabeth!

Artist's Eye in Edinburgh

Here is the second to last blog post about my sketching adventures in the U.K. this past August! If you’re getting this on my email newsletter, feel free to click through to the blog to see my previous sketches in Ireland! Updates about my Artist’s Eye on Spokane Book Kickstarter and the shows I’ll be at this holiday season.

Now: SCOTLAND!

We continued on from Dublin to York (didn’t manage to do much sketching there)and then up to Scotland. This is the York Train Station which when it was built in the late 19th century, was the largest train station in the world. I got this scene sketched in pen before Dad came careening around the corner to tell us that our train was here and we needed to MOVE. Mom and I grabbed our stuff and booked it down the very long platforms and caught out train to Edinburgh. I painted it later based on some quick photos and memories.

Fancy British train snacks. They really love their trolley carts here.

The moody view from our hotel at one of the various volcanic mounds surrounding the town of Edinburgh. It rained and was in the low 60’s which was very confusing coming from Spokane August weather.

We had dinner in the castle before the Edinburgh Tattoo (an event that has been on Dad’s bucket list since he studied abroad in York in college). I got a seat at the end of the table which I loved because the view was AMAZING! We had haggis (surprisingly good!) and I was delighted that they piped it into the room and back out again.

I wore all the clothes that I packed for the night show of the Edinburgh Tattoo. It was 50 degrees and rained at the beginning of the show enough that my pen wouldn’t write on my paper and I had to switch to pencil. Luckily, the rain cleared up and we were wowed by a Lebanese performance group riding horses and drumming, a Swiss troop that lit their drumsticks on fire, and SO MANY bagpipes.

Sketched while waiting for fish and chips at the Doric in Edinburgh. The Walter Scott monument peeked out from above this wall. It is the largest monument to a writer in the world. Edinburgh is a very literary city.

Next up: Adventures in trying to get home and what I brought back.

Ireland is Gorgeous!

We spent several days roaming about Ireland. I know that the UK experienced a severe drought this summer, but it rained several times while we were there and, as a Spokanite, I hadn’t seen rain in months. It was excellent but confusing.

This is a college that was a short walk from our hotel. The rest of the family decided to go to bed early (It was 8pm but we weren’t adjusted to the time zone yet!), but I decided to walk back despite the stormy skies and try to get in a quick sketch. I sat just inside the wrought iron gates in case they closed at a certain hour and I’d have to Indian Jones my way through before they locked me in (High stone walls are everywhere in Ireland!).

This drawing got made because we made a miscalculation about when our train back to Dublin left and I got a spare hour to sketch this Gothic beauty that was across the street from the station.

Painted later.

O’Neil’s is a sprawling pub in Dublin that had multiple bars on multiple floors. We sat near the Whiskey Bar, but there was also the Lounge Bar, the Wine bar, and more (SO many staircases!)! Food was downstairs and some of it was a deli/cafeteria style but it was also a to-order restaurant. In conclusion, we were so confused and ended up spending a ton of time there trying to figure out what we needed to do to get some food!. We were there so late, we decided to hang on just a little longer when we learned there was going to be live music. We were rewarded for our patience. I drew a million whiskey bottles.

Surprise live music at the bar! It was fabulous and there were two Irish dancers who performed mere feet from our table. One of those magical moments of travel where you luck into something amazing.

We took a little prop plane from Ireland over to England. I was going to give my brother my window seat just to be nice, but then I saw this view and told him, “Offer revoked!”

Megan Sketches in the U.K.

It is the summer of international travel for me! I jaunted off to the UK with my family-Ireland, the UK and Scotland this time!

Ireland seems to be filled with musical people and listening to this performance reminded me how much Irish music has spread all over the world.

Adorable dsesserts and amazing dancers!

A quick sketch before an ENORMOUS bowl of mussels for dinner in Dublin.

Small sketches of views from the train during which there was singing by passengers. In the US, if people sang on public transit people would kick you off the train!

Ireland seemed to have a lot of buildings with a strong divide between upper residential floors and commercial ground floor. I loved the bright green of this building and the amusing name of the bakery.

Leavenworth Weekend

At the end of June, I went off to a weekend in Leavenworth with a group of my college friends to celebrate our 30th birthdays. We stayed in a house twenty minutes out of Leavenworth with a hot tub and a killer view of the mountains.

Since we were up on a ridge, it was both windy and COLD early in the morning. I did this on the deck wrapped in a blanket with a mug of hot water.

It was the Accordion Festival at Leavenworth so we got serenaded by a lot of polka. A concert was going on right behind me as I sketched the fancy facades of these buildings.

Sketched a friend sitting in the window at a restaurant as an accordion parade went by. Then I ate a giant soft pretzel and was very pleased with myself.

Sketching in Japan

This is the last of my blog posts about my trip to Japan. We spent the last part of our trip in Kyoto and then Osaka. I'd love to go back. Perhaps I can connect up with Spokane's sister city Nishinomiya!

At every hotel we stayed at, they had yukata or "lounge wear" for visitors to wear while staying in the hotel. This was one of my favorites-a classic white and indigo cotton robe decorated in simply "mon" shaped designs.

This pond was full of koi, several of whom leaped out of the water to catch the bugs hovering above the water in the evening air.

Waiting at the airport in Hong Kong for our 8 hour lay over. 

Watching TV in my seat nook on the flight home. Thanks to Dad's crazy mileage points, we flew First Class home to the US and it was AMAZING.

Back to my beloved Alaska Airlines and the commuter flight from Seattle to Spokane. I decided to make the 40 minute flight a good reason to be really minimalist with this sketch.

Artist Adventures in Japan pt 2

We were fortunate to see Mt. Fuji. Normally she is shrouded in mist. I grew up just south of Seattle and a common phrase there, usually uttered in celebratory tones, is, "The mountain is out!" Back there, "the mountain" is always Mt. Rainer. In Japan, "the mountain" is Mt. Fuji. I love the stamp I got at the post office half way up the mountain. It is SO CUTE. 

Stone lanterns were everywhere. I was also thrilled to discover that many locations have stamps as a continuation of Japanese pilgrimage culture and I made a dedicated effort to find the stamps everywhere we went and put them in my sketchbook.

I have never experienced so many fancy toilets as I did in Japan and that is thanks to the Toto Toilet company! These toilets play music, have warmed seats, bidets, and more. They have control panels! Crazy!

This Sarubobo Doll is a folkcraft supposed to represent a monkey. They were frequently made by Japanese Grandmothers and given to their grandchildren for good luck/good fortune. Depending on the color they can be for good wishes in school, work, love, and more. The red was the most common and I think it is for a sort of general good fortune.

This was a simple temple not far from our hotel. In a quiet moment I ran out to sketch it. 

Kenrokeun Garden is a beautiful walking-style garden that reminded me of a Japanese Versaille. In thirty minutes I did this speed sketch of a bridge of a river of purple irises. I wish I had had more time to do them justice.

One more post to go about Japan!

Japan Adventures

So to add to the excitement of finishing my 52 week painting project, at the end of May I took off for Japan with my parents and brother for a little family adventure. We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Takayama, and Osaka. I had a great time and I'd love to go back to Japan just for a painting excursion, though I'm feeling very lucky that we just missed the earthquake in Osaka.

Kando Myojin, a shinto shrine in Tokyo. We watched a BMW get blessed by a Shinto priest in traidtional garb.

At most shrines there is a stand or two for people to tie on their wishes and prayers, often on small wooden boards. This one was absolutely packed!

Collaged paper with kanji and hiragana on it (left), calligraphy done as a religious prayer/act by temple staff in exchange for a donation to the temple (right).

We were in a tour group for the first part of the trip as we shuttled around to all the different cities.

On the bullet train, my brother looking out the window.

We left Tokyo and headed up into the mountains and some smaller towns. More to come!

Costa Rican Rainforest Adventures

Well, it may not seem to make much sense, starting off a blog called "Artist's Eye on Spokane" with a post about a trip to Costa Rica, but I'm doing it anyway. A test run to make sure that everything is working (Is this on? Can anybody hear me?) and it is the most exciting thing to have happened to me recently. Plus, who doesn't like pictures of exotic places?

So! To start off, I'm Megan Perkins, artist and explorer extraordinaire (Hey, I'm writing this, that means I get to style myself however I like!). Last October I was on my way back to a trip to Hawaii when I did a quick painting of an Alaska Airlines airplane while waiting for my flight to board.

Long story short, when I got home, I put this picture up on social media and Alaska Airlines found it. They shared it on their Instagram account where it became one of the top nine most liked images for 2016. An Alaska Airlines representative emailed me to ask for my address because they'd like to send me something. "Sure," I told them, thinking "Alaska Airlines totebag!"

Guys, it was two round trip tickets to anywhere Alaska flies!!! OH MY GOSH, I was SO excited. Costa Rica stood out for obvious reasons (WARM, TROPICAL, and I've never been there!). I immediately began planning and we left mid-April for 10 days in the (nearly) equatorial country, exploring volcanic national parks, rain forests, rivers, and cloud forests.

Guys, I know this may come as a surprise, but it is WET and misty in a cloud forest!

There are a lot of exotic looking plants. Some were familiar, house plants where we live. Others, I had no idea what there were!

Strangler fig wrapping this tree

I had some time to sketch the view into the rain forest canopy. So much green!

I drew some of the plants we saw often with notes about what I learned about them.

Orchids were also common and super impressive!

Let's end with a picture of the beautiful Quetzal. Worshiped as a god by the Aztecs, they are colorful birds with stunningly long tail feathers and slightly mournful call. As a child, I had an A to Z Animal Pop Up Book and, you guessed it, Q was for Quetzal. I never thought I would actually see this magnificent bird in person, but now I can say that I have and what an experience it was.