Fall's End & Zoom Class!

Still clinging to Fall over here, though it is looking more like…

THIS…

than THIS.

Oh well. Maybe next year? It looks like I’ll get plenty of practice painting snow this winter.

I bought a pumpkin and some decorative gourds at Green Bluff back in October and they are still hanging out on my studio table. I decided to tackle them in gouache on tan toned paper.

Swan gourd! And now for the Big Announcement-I’m going on ZOOM! Read more below.

ZOOM CLASS! I will be teaching a “Paint and Sip” class with the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture on November 19th, 5:30-8. Sadly, we aren’t able to do it in person so the Sip part will be BYOB, but it will be a live class where you paint along with me as we paint a scene of Riverfront park-the Clock tower and Pavilion.

There’s still time to sign up here!

Wintry Scenes

This is a 5” x 7” painting of the Spokane falls when the sun has just gone down below the horizon and the Pavilion is starting to light up. With the lack of color in the landscape at this time of the year, I’m clearly digging on dramatic lighting to bring the color!

8” x 10”, Monroe Street Bridge on a slightly overcast winter day.

3” x 5” painting of the Philanthropy Center. I love the warm stone and orange-red roof on these cold winter days and the gnarled trees planted in the median. I actually did this painting AFTER the larger painting below because I wanted to see if I could do most of it wet in wet and have softer edges for mood rather than focusing on the architecture.

8” x 10” painting, done very deliberately. Which do you like better? This one or the little study?

4” x 6” study based on a photo snapped while waiting for a light one evening.

9” x 12” final. I love the granulation in the dark paint!

I’m painting like mad trying to get ready to hang work at the Rockwood Retirement Center (They have a HUGE wall for me to fill!) and have some new paintings at the Custer’s Spring Show the first weekend of March. Hope you all are well!

Winter is Here!

Hoo boy guys, we haven’t seen much snow yet, but last night, the high at my house was 15 degrees! As I write this on Sunday afternoon, the furnace keeps kicking on to keep us warm!

Other signs of winter and the holidays? Amaryllis for sale at all the grocery stores! I love these flowers. They are so dramatic. I like to track the unfolding of their blooms in my sketchbooks every year. I’ve got all of mine stashed in a dark closet, trying to prep them to bloom sometime in January and I have high hopes that I’ll get at least a couple of flowers out of them, but it is still hard to resist buying an already blooming plant at the store when I pass by!

I did this demo at my last watercolor class to demonstrate how to make something look further away when we were working on landscape and reflections. More water, less color intensity, and softer edges are key!

Here’s another demo from this class, this time also addressing sky. The sky is typically a darker and redder blue up high and gets lighter and yellower toward the horizon (all the dust and dirt and particles in the air). Clouds are way softer than you think and definitely not just white! The colors from the ground below reflect up into cloud bottoms! For reflections, dark objects usually reflect a little bit lighter than they actually are and light objects a little bit darker! There you go! A quick lesson. Have fun!

Now here are my last two holiday shows of the season (You can always find my stuff at Pottery Place Plus and the From Here Store all year round!):

Urban Art Coop’s Holiday Market which is THIS weekend. They have an paid preview night on Friday where you can meet the artists and get delicious nibbles and are open for free Saturday and Sunday. The show is managed by the co-op so if you want to chat with me in person, your best bet is my next show: BRRZAAR, Saturday December 14th at RiverPark Square Mall! Yes, the MALL. Now this was a great show last year with lots of amazing stuff (I bought a print of a giant marmot rampaging through the Monroe Street Bridge whipping the gondolas over his head.) so you should definitely brave the crowds and come!

Urban Art Co-op 3209 N Monroe St, Spokane, WA 99205

Friday- opening night 6-9pm light food 5.00 suggested donation at the door
Saturday- 10am to 6pm
Sunday- 10am to 4pm

RiverPark Square Mall in downtown Spokane!

Liberty Building Painting-Watch my Process

I was comissioned to paint the Liberty Building and just recently finished the commission. It was quite large-22” x 30”, which is a full sheet of Arches Watercolor paper and I wanted to do justice to one of my favorite places in Spokane (The home of both Auntie’s and Pottery Place Plus, makes it dear to my heart).

I started by doing sketches on site, trying to figure out proportions and settle on a size for the commission.

I counted windows and was surprised that there were more on one side than on another!

After I got the ok from the patron, I went to my final drawing and transferred it to the watercolor paper and began inking.

Inking is a slow and deliberate process.

A shot in action as I waited for the sky wash to settle down. I tackled the largest washes in the background and the road since I wanted soft edges between the road and the background.

Next the brickwork!

Working my way down.

Full color!

I had so much fun tackling this great subject in a big way. I can’t wait to visit it in its final home! Right now, it is at the printer, so 11” x 14” prints of this guy will be available soon!

Hope some of you can mak it to the show this weekend! It’s always a good time and supports the historic Woman’s Club!

Fall Love & Art Shows

Siemer’s Farm up at Greenbluff! This was drawn on location, sitting on the ground in the pumpkin field.

The Golden Hour!

Teeny Autumnal Road scene (3” x 5”). I’m loving playing around in this smaller format becuase it lets me experiment with colors and compositions quickly and have a lot of fun.

Another 3” x 5”, this time inspired by sunset on a wet road seen this last year on my drive. This guy will be for sale at the Spokane Art School Holiday Small Works and Ornament show November-December!

I’ll be at the Woman’s Club Holiday show on the second weekend of November. I always look forward to spending time with all the other cool artists. I’ll have a bunch of my calendars! Come get your Christmas presents!

I will also be the Custer Christmas Arts & Crafts Show at the Spokane County Fair Grounds November 22-24th. It is $7 at the door for the whole weekend. This is my first time doing this show and I’m excited to see how it goes!

Sketching at the Spokane County Fair

I always enjoy visiting the Spokane County Fair. I explore all of the animal barns, check out the crafting section (special interest in knitting and quilting), and pop in to marvel at the GIANT pumpkins and towering sunflowers, before wandering off to eat something unhealthy on a stick. No rides for me, but I do enjoy watching them-all flashing lights and color. What is your favorite thing to do at the fair?

I came out of the animal barns to the rear view of the carnival rides. I loved the colorful tent and Ferris wheel and sat down right there to draw!

Amazing Eurasian Eagle Owl.

My September Spokane Coeur D’Alene Living Magazine column using sketches from a visit to the fair two years ago, pigs and a really fun bear ride where people climb into the cavity of the bears and ride around and around and around. No thank you for me, but cute to look at!

My animal sketches for this year at the Spokane County Fair. I forgot my stool so all of these were drawn standing up and color was added from memory while sitting on the bleachers. I always enjoy exploring the animal barns at the fair and the chance for an up close look at the different species. It can be challenging drawing a live subject but I feel like you learn so much more about the animal than you do when you draw from pictures.

GIANT PUMPKINS (that is all.)!

I will be at this show this year at Kay’s art studio! This is my favorite show of the year to visit so I’m so excited to be a part of it. An extra bonus is getting to snoop in the artists’s beautiful gardens and studios as well as ll the fabulous artists.

There I am in the fourth column! I hope to see you there!

ARTIST'S EYE KICKSTARTER FUNDED!

WOO! It is so exciting to announce that my Artist’s Eye on Spokane Kickstarter has officially fully funded! I’m so happy to be able to make this book and get it into people’s hands. Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far, whether that has been by pledging to the Kickstarter directly, sharing or telling someone about the campaign, or just sending me good vibes. It’s all appreciated!

And if you’d like to get a book or a print, its not too late! The campaign ends on the 30th! Books will be available after December 15th at Pottery Place Plus, but this is your last chance to get your name listed in the back of the book as a supporter AND to get a custom Artist’s Eye on Spokane design stamped inside your book!

Clicke HERE to grab a copy of the book.

The number has gone up even more since this photo was taken. As I’m writing this, we’re just above $5,600 dollars, which brings me to the next item!

A custom Artist’s Eye on Spokane stamp! We blew past that stretch goal ($5,500) in one day, so now everyone who buys a book through the Kickstarter will receive a stamp on the inside of their book!

Thanks again everyone. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Regularly schedule updates will resume soon. I have the very last part of my UK sketchbook to share!

My Painting On the Inlander Cover!

Sorry for dropping off the radar recently! I’ve been in the UK, came down with a cold, and working away like mad. My painting on the cover of the Inlander was part of all that work! I was surprised to find that they published the Fall Arts Issue two weeks before October (Fall Arts month in Spokane), but it was a delight to see my work on the cover of the magazine. I always look forward to the Fall Arts Issue and am super honored to have been asked!

YAY!

Here is the original painting on watercolor paper which shows how much color shifts when printing, especially when you’re going from white watercolor paper to grey newsprint!

This is the cover of the Fall Arts Pull Out inside the newspaper. Surrounded by wheat and with the way the past few summers have been, it isn’t surprising that this is what came to mind when I thought of fall around here.

Live sighting last week at Spokane Art Supply!

Other exciting news: If you are going to be out and about for October’s First Friday (which I highly recommend!), I have four paintings in Terrain at the Jenson-Byrd Building (It’ll be like a scavenger hunt to find them in the hundreds of pieces of art showing!) and my painting of the Gaiser Conservatory all lit up with holiday lights will be hanging at the Chase Gallery All-Media Show in City Hall. If you want to attend Terrain, I highly recommend going early before the crowds get too bad or buying tickets to the Preview Night on Thursday.

If you’d like to keep up with me more regularly and you do the social media thing you can follow me at Artist’s Eye on Spokane on Facebook (as well as Megan Perkins Art) and as @artistseyeonspokane and @perkins_megan on Instagram.

Playing at the Paulsen Penthouse

The Paulsen Building is a historic seventeen story building on Riverside. It has a beautifully decorated exterior and the lobby (which is accessible to the public!) has a painted ceiling, ornamentation above every door, and a display of old elevator mechanics. The Paulsen Penthouse used to be owned by Helen Paulsen and her husband started living there in 1957, according to a Spokesman Review article. Helen lived there in the '80's, even after her husband died, but currently the space is used by Bozzi Media as an event space.

Being out on the deck at the Paulsen Penthouse. The view was fabulous, all of Spokane spread out below me, but being right up by the rail made me a little dizzy so I decided to focus on the beautifully adorned crown of the Paulsen Building.

While I was up there, the sunshine began to be eclipsed by the grayer weather. I was still caught up in the details even though my fingers were going numb.

So I decided to go inside where this lady caught my eye for obvious reasons. She was a part of the frieze on the fireplace mantel.

There were plenty of beautiful details to be found down in the lobby as well. This is a carved element on the stair newel post.

One pattern lozenge from the painted ceiling.

Engraving on a wall decoration I think.

The lobby with it's painted ceiling and multiple friezes and carved ornaments are open to the public. If you're ever walking by on Riverside, you should definitely stop in!

Sketching at the Steam Plant

The Steam Plant building in downtown Spokane is a restaurant and brewery and houses offices and store fronts as well, but the name is a remnant of an older time. The building was an actual functioning steam plant for 70 years according to their website. It didn't shut down until 1986. Renovated with a vision toward making the most of the industrial space, many elements of the Steam Plant's past remain which create a unique atmosphere. I know I'm sounding a bit like an ad for the Steam Plant here, but I have a soft spot for creative reuse, adapting to the surroundings and reusing old material in new and exciting ways, so I was thrilled by the aesthetics of the space. There's a lot of inspiration there! 

This is a corner in one of the side rooms of the building. I loved the abstract composition created by the girders and pipes and the way the lighter elements emerged out of the darkness.

I worked my way across the page from left to right in order to not smear the paint (I'm right handed). Painting this was slow work, but worth it for the final result!

Walking by, this caught my eye. I think it is the front of an old boiler room, but don't quote me on that. Now it is a window into a private dining room, wallpapered in thin pipes. 

The pipes that run down the wall here trickle water into a trough made by cutting a large horizontal pipe in half. You can see the fixture it ran through on the left size just above the table. Creative thinking with a great result!

This is a sketch done in a long vertical sketchbook two years ago. Done while sitting on a window ledge of the Davenport Hotel (carefully avoiding their decorative spikes!) just before going to the Broken Mic poetry reading at Neato Burrito. The stacks of the Steam Plant are an iconic part of the Spokane skyline and I hope they always will be!