A couple weeks back I went on my annual summer camping trip with my friend Danielle. Last year we went to Mt. Rainier. This year we headed to the coast to the La Push area, which was beautiful. We laughed because she would put on a swimsuit and go swim in the ocean and I would sit on the beach in my long pants and long sleeve shirt, jacket, and big hat because I’ve acclimated to living in 90 degree temperatures. not the low 70’s and high 60’s that we experienced. I told her, “These are night time temperatures where I live!” It was so refreshing and a wonderful break from the heat over here in Eastern Washington.
Painting & Sweating!
I’ve been busy the past month and a half. Sweating in the heat wave as I draw, working on drywall in my new studio, keeping the garden watered, and family things.
July Events
Hi Guys! Things are finally starting to open up and here are some fun activities I’m taking part in this month. I hope you are all managing to stay cool and I’ll be sending out an update of what painting projects I’ve been working on soon.
I’m doing a Zoom lecture with the Friends of Manito on July 17th, 11 am-12:30 pm. Click here to sign up.
PAINTINGS OF MANITO AND OTHER SPOKANE SCENES
Join local artist Megan Perkins as she discusses the subject of her paintings with particular focus on ones done at Manito, as well as other Spokane scenes. She will talk about painting en plein air (or “in the open air”) and how listeners can paint in their own gardens or at the gardens in beautiful Manito Park.
Brush on the Bluff is a new event this year. I’ll be painting from 10-1 at location 8 on the map (to be released).
Here’s some more information and check out their website to see the other artists involved!
Watch Artists Paint the Bluff's Scenery
Several artists will be setting up in different locations on the bluff (all within half a mile of Polly Judd Park) to paint the scenery around them. Friends of the Bluff will provide maps to their locations so visitors can take a short stroll, stopping to meet each artist and observe their work. At the end of the event, all of the paintings will be auctioned off and the proceeds will be split between the artists and Friends of the Bluff.
Add Some Color to the Polly Judd Park Sidewalks!
Friends of the Bluff will be providing sidewalk chalk to anyone that wants to help us brighten up the park. Professional chalk artist Stacie Boyer will also be on-hand to answer questions and create her own masterpiece!
Nature-Inspired Art Workshop
The Botanical Alchemists create large-scale nature designs around Spokane for weddings, festivals, memorials, and more. They will be leading a free community workshop all day for anyone who wants to create their own nature-inspired masterpiece.
Art Hike for Families
Take a short walk into the woods with Marit Fischer before settling in on your blankets for a grounding and mindfulness exercise. This will be followed by a brief lesson on the basic principles of drawing and an opportunity for the children to share their work. There are limited spots available, so please visit our Bluff Walks page to register.
Sketching the Palouse
Boy, the month of April (and most of May, I guess!) sure got away from me. My Seasons in Spokane show at the Spokane Art School went great and thank you to everyone who stopped by to see it. Three paintings from that show have now sold and I’m very grateful!
I went on a road trip adventure down to Palouse Falls for a day a couple weeks back and did a bunch of sketching.
We’re making good progress on my studio. My husband took a week off and managed to get most of the dry wall up, including cutting holes in the pieces going on the ceiling to fit around the rafters which was quite the process! Wish us luck on the taping, mudding and sanding. I hear that is challenging!
What have you guys been up to? Are you putting in a garden or planning summer road trips?
Wonder Building Pop Up
Good news guys! I’ve been asking to join a small group of artists, bakers, and local creators for the Saturday Wonder Building Pop Up Market this Saturday, April 10th, 12-3. There will be beignets and High Tide Lobster Rolls and my art. Check out @luckyladybread on Instagram and the Wonder Building Facebook as we get closer to learn more about who is going to be there. I’m excited to get out and show art again and a little apprehensive about how long I’m going to last before I snap and buy a bunch of carbs!
Wonder Building:
835 N. Post Street
Spokane, WA
New Show: Seasons in Spokane
Hello everyone! I have exciting news! I have been hard at work during the past month making new paintings for my show at the Spokane Art School. I decided to go with the theme, “Seasons in Spokane” because we are so lucky to have four full distinct seasons here in Spokane and I wanted to celebrate them.
The show opens April 1st and closes on the 30th. The Spokane Art School is open 10-2. We won’t be having a First Friday reception, but I’d be happy to meet anyone who wanted a personal tour of the work to chat about it, just email me!
I think it will be really fun for people to look at the paintings and decide which season a painting “belongs” to. There’s a couple that I think could go either way (though I, of course, have a preference) and I am always interested to hear what other people think.
What season do you think these paintings belong to?
Stop by the Spokane Art School to see these guys and the rest of the paintings in person!
Take A Class With Me!
Northwest Museum of Art and Culture
Sketch Your Story Date(s):3/25 Time: 5:30p - 8:00p Ages Allowed: 16 - 99
Sketch Your Story
Instructor: Megan Perkins
Thursday, March 25, 2020, 5:30 - 8 pm
Limit: 15
Location: Offered most likely off campus as a live Zoom webinar, or in person at the museum if COVID - 19 restrictions are lifted.*Once you register through the Zoom link that will be provided to you via email upon your registration, Zoom will inform you how to join the program.
Cost: $20, members, $22.50, non-members. *There could well be a small amount of additional costs for art related class supplies if you do not have them available. A complete list of supplies you will need to participate will be provided to you via email at least a week before the class date.
Class Description: This program draws inspiration from two of the museum’s current WWII exhibits that focus on the men, women and children who experienced the Second World War firsthand. Led by Spokane artist Megan Perkins, you’ll begin by learning about sketching techniques and generate ideas for your own sketch of a special place, object, building, family member or heirloom that represents the WWII period for you. You’ll share your sketch and the story behind it in a follow-up virtual session - or in person at the museum if possible - on an agreed to date if you choose to participate.
Corbin Art Center
Drawing on Gratitude 4 weeks | Ages 16+ | Megan Perkins
We are surrounded by wondrous beauty in our everyday lives, but are frequently too busy to fully appreciate what we have. Use drawing and sketching to meditate on the things, places, moments, and people that you are grateful for. Beginners welcome! Supply list included upon confirmation of registration. Class held at the Corbin Art Center, 507 W 7th Avenue. $65 6771 Tues. 4/20-5/11 5-7pm
Intro to Watercolor Painting & Beyond 4 Weeks | Ages 16+ | Megan Perkins
Come and learn the basics of watercolor, mixing colors, choosing the right paper, brushes to use, and how to transform a value sketch into a watercolor painting. If you have already taken a watercolor class before, the instructor will help you go on with what you want to accomplish. Please feel free to bring your own photos to paint from. Supply list included upon confirmation of registration. Class held at the Corbin Art Center, 507 W 7th Avenue. $65 6775 Thu. 4/8-4/29 5-7pm
Spokane Art School
Intermediate Watercolor Online with Megan Perkins
For high school and adult students
$80
Wednesdays, 5 – 7
May 5, 12, 19 & 26, 2021
Taken one of my classes or dabbled in watercolor before? This class will help you build on previously learned skills such as color mixing, making a wash, working wet in wet to help you capture subjects in an expressive, personal way.
Intermediate Watercolor with Megan Perkins
*Pre-registration is required for Art School classes; classes will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Students will be registered ONLY on receipt of payment. Enrollment requirements: 3 students minimum, 12 students maximum (in most cases). Classes with low enrollment are cancelled 48 hours before the class is scheduled to begin.
Refunds and Cancellation Policies: If a class is cancelled due to low enrollment, a full refund will be issued. Otherwise, no refunds will be issued.
Daily Sketchbook Online with Megan Perkins
For high school to adult students
$80
Tuesday, 5 – 7
May 18, 25 and June 1 & 8, 2021
Want to have more creativity in your life? Learn tips and tricks for incorporating a daily sketchbook habit into your life. We’ll learn to compose on the page; draw from everyday objects and then paint in watercolors.
Megan Perkins Daily Sketchbook Supply List
*Pre-registration is required for Art School classes; classes will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Students will be registered ONLY on receipt of payment. Enrollment requirements: 3 students minimum, 12 students maximum (in most cases). Classes with low enrollment are cancelled 48 hours before the class is scheduled to begin.
Refunds and Cancellation Policies: If a class is cancelled due to low enrollment, a full refund will be issued. Otherwise, no refunds will be issued.
Palouse Fields and Belated Christmas
I’m continuing to enjoy painting with gouache. It allows me to do things that watercolors do not and creates a different mood. I’ve been keeping an eye out for inspiration-mostly pictures taken by local photographers as I’m not leaving the house much. I’m so looking forward to warmer weather and getting to paint outside!
How are you all coping these days? Buying flowers? Reading good books or going for walks? I’m doing all of those things (Plus painting the living room wall and selling the couch and other home improvement flurries!) and looking forward to the slowly returning light!
View From Someone Else's Window
I’ve been really feeling the limits on travel and frankly even the ability to be somewhere other than my house now that has been too cold and snowy for outdoor painting for a couple months. So, I have been diving into WindowSwap, a website where people submit short videos of the view from their window. It has been an absolute delight! Not only because there are some really awesome views, but also because I am nosy and I love to see how other people live. There’s a great mix of mundane (view of blocky highrisers) and dramatic (snowy mountain, Brooklyn Bridge, etc). Another thing I love is that because these are videos rather than photos, you get the extra fun of sometimes hearing the environment elements, such as when a tropical rainstorm started during the video of a window in South East Asia or the surprise of birds sweeping into and around the frame of the picture. An absolute delight!
I do wish that there was a back button so I could return to previous views, but alas that doesn’t seem possible, so I just have to take what I can get. Oh well.
Happy Holidays!
Hello again everyone! I hope you are doing well. I write this on the shortest day of the year as a constant rain slowly washes the snow off our lawn, but by the time you receive this, we’ll be on the other side, heading toward lengthening daylight. I wanted to wish you all well and thank you for coming along with me on my adventures. While it has been a wild ride out in the world, in my little sphere, I’ve gotten along quite well with lots of time spent in the garden and out painting on location and learning to use gouache. Loss of income due to the cancellation of art festivals and store and school closures was offset by people reaching out for private commissions so I feel very fortunate. My studio-to-be arrived in its raw state in late April and is still a mess inside, but I have hopes of getting in there before its 1 year anniversary-ah, home improvement projects. I’ve been talking with the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture and the Spokane Art School and we have plans to teach online via Zoom starting around March and I hope to also do Zoom classes out of my studio once it is finished. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what kind of classes you’d like to take from me on Zoom-a Paint & Sip class? Painting skies? Color theory?
Wishing you well in 2021. I hope I’ll be able to invite you all to visit my new studio in the coming year. Fingers Crossed!
Fall's End & Zoom Class!
Still clinging to Fall over here, though it is looking more like…
House Portraits & Fall Dreams
Hi all! I’ve been making the best of our short fall, refusing to be rushed by the snow. I’ve bought apples and decorative gourds at Green Bluff, did some exploring on some family property up north, went to visit the Japanese Garden at Manito Park (sadly closed when I arrived) and did some fall baking. What have you been up to? Do you have a prized pumpkin bread recipe? I’m looking for a good one-and in my mind, that means chocolate, not nuts!
Mt. Rainier Camping & Sketching
Little Spokane River Artist Studio Tour ONLINE
Hi Everyone!
I’ll be posting updates of what I’ve been up to since we last talked soon, but I wanted to get this out quick. We’re coming up on the Annual Littler Spokane River Artist Studio Tour which has gone online for this year. If you love local art, you should definitely check out the website and all the artists participating. Me included! I knew this would be a good excuse to finally try to get a website up and going, especially with the holiday season approaching (I can hardly believe it!). Feel free to poke around in the shop. I’d appreciate any feedback you can give me about it since this online selling process is sure a learning process and if you feel moved to buy something, I’d love that too!
Hope that you are all well and breathing clean air during these beautiful fall days!
Summer Dreaming
We’re hanging out just under 100 degrees right now here at my house and I’m planning on popsicles for dinner. Despite the discomfort, I’m glad that summer isn’t over yet. I’ll hold onto the warmth and daylight and plein air painting for as long as possible. I mean, my tomatoes are just starting to ripen!
Hope that you are all doing well and getting to enjoy the beautiful place we live in in whatever capacity you can.
#the100dayproject2020 DONE!
I made it guys! I completed #the100dayproject2020! 100 days of painting in gouache and watercolor since April 7th. I’m so pleased because this is the longest challenge I’ve ever done and I wasn’t sure I could manage it. Things got really tough around Day 75, but switching to working almost entirely from life either plein air (painting outside) or painting still life, rather than doing master copies really helped bring new life to the project.
I’ve wanted to go out and paint the fields near our house for years, but this time of year was always busy for me with classes and art festivals so it got put off. Well, this is finally the year for it!
Fields, Gardens, Barns & Flights of Fancy
Hello there!
How are you?
I’m hot and bug bitten and slightly sunburned (I leave the sunscreen by the door, when will I learn to PUT IT ON?). I’ve been keeping myself occupied in the garden as the pace of growing has accelerated in the warm weather and out in the fields painting the shifting crops of our beautiful area.
Hope you are all doing well. Are you gardening or walking, reading or at the lake? What are you up to these days?
Springtime Explorations
Still sticking close to home and keeping myself occupied the way I always have, painting and drawing what is in front of me, but also thinking about how different this spring has been than previous ones. Especially, all the students graduating at this time of year and how different their experience has been from expectations. Almost a year ago, I visited Lewis & Clark with a friend of mine who teaches there and took pictures. Now seemed an appropriate time to do a painting of that school as I thought about all those graduating seniors heading off to college or the unknown.
View from the Studio
I’m still plugging along on my #100dayproject, despite the garden providing plenty of distraction on the warmer days. I should be able to get tomatoes and peppers in the ground in the next couple of days!
The first few paintings here are all of our neighbors’s houses as seen from my studio window. This has really been enlightening because it is amazing how different they all look despite the same subject! Atmosphere and light (aka weather and time of day) make a huge difference!
The following paintings are all copies of various master works-the first three are contemporary and I’m afraid I’ve lost track of their names, but the last two are famous paintings by Maynard Dixon and Edward Hopper. You can see a difference in paint handling between the paintings above and those below. Above, I’m working in transparent watercolor, in my usual style, while below, I’m working thickly with gouache to mimic the look of oil paintings. I really do need to collect some master watercolor paintings and try making copies of those! It’ll be interesting to see what I learn as compared with copying oil paintings!
Truckin' Along with my Paints
I’m truckin’ along in my quarantine routine-a morning walk, a little bit of yard work (weeds wait for no one!), painting for my 100 day project (We’re coming up on 25 days, a quarter of the way there!), read (I just finished a book on Maynard Dixon, one of my favorite Western painters), some more painting or drawing and time with my husband. I’ve learned that without the interruptions and days that I need to spend out of the studio, I need to factor in more breaks for stretching after ending up with some intense neck pain from spending multiple days basically looking down all day (painting, reading, weeding, pretty much all the same angle!). I’ve got some house projects and we’re finally getting warm enough that I can start planting veggies and flowers which will help to break up my schedule so that’s good. There will be paintings of our lilac bushes and the neighborhood apple tree blossoms to come. Hold me to it!
Saturday plans include the wild excitement of making our new favorite waffle recipe: Essential Raised Waffles from Smitten Kitchen. The recipe makes a bunch of delicious, rich waffles that have a crisp outside and soft inside. Sadly not for Belgian waffle irons, just the normal type. I like them for breakfast, then we freeze the rest of the batch. Waffles defrost easily in the toaster oven and I frequently have one topped with avocado and oven roasted tomatoes. Delish!
Wishing you all the best!