Thank you my friends for showing up, taking an interest and supporting me on this wild art adventure! I really appreciate you.
Christmas letter included below along with some favorite winter scenes. This year’s Christmas card image is the Vista House on Mt. Spokane. Suggestions for next year’s Christmas card welcome. :)
See you in the New Year, you awesome people!
Love,
Megan
Merry Christmas Friends!
It’s been a busy and full year at our new house. I can hardly believe that this time last year, I was hustling to get paintings made for my group show at the Art Spirit in Coeur D’Alene. I made the biggest watercolors I’ve ever painted for that show and really feel like I grew my skills both in terms of scale and emotive capability, which I am proud of. Despite the busy-ness, I also managed to participate a bit more in my Women Painters of WA group, showing work with them in Clarkston, Chewelah, and Twisp (upcoming) and visiting a gallery owned by a fellow member in Moses Lake. As the previous sentence implies, I’ve been beebopping around the state quite a bit. I traveled to the 3rd annual Sketcherfest in Edmonds to attend a workshop, artist talks, sketchbook tours and to meet regional and international artists. It’s so inspirational to see what other artists are making and doing! Towards the end of July I attended an overnight paddle and camping trip for the Spokane Riverkeepers as a painting instructor and had an absolute blast. A highlight was rafting all the canoes together in the middle of the river to paint the sunset followed by a starlit night paddle where the river reflecting the sky made me feel as if I was in a globe of stars. I’m already looking forward to next year.
Closer to home, I enjoyed observing our land for the first time in all the seasons-buttercups in spring, swathes of oxeye daisies in the wilder parts in summer, the ruckus of nesting season with the birds calling and flitting everywhere (thank you to the Merlin app for telling me who was in the yard each morning!), rose hips and snowberries in the hedgerows in the fall, hoarfrost on the branches in winter. I did some painting in my sketchbook to capture it but I also spent a lot of time scraping and painting outbuildings while our flock of ducks looked on and offered copious advice. After painting buildings, I focused on making garden beds; killing off grass, putting in edging and planting. Thank you to everyone who shared plants. I will be thinking of you when they come up in the spring! It will be a riot of color and shape that will be so fun to paint!
Luke had an adventure figuring out haying this summer. Our property is a slope with a stream at the bottom so each field is a separate micro biome that required changing the settings on all of the equipment so that was a challenge. Thank goodness he is handy and has haying experience from his youth. We also had some adventures with the plumbing (ah, old houses with big trees nearby), but the most unusual and, in a way, strangely enjoyable challenge we faced was losing internet for 2 weeks when our provider’s tower got hit by lightning. Luke got a portable satellite internet for work and I attempted to make do with data, but AT & T doesn’t have great coverage for our area so I spent the two weeks feeling like I was back in the early dial up days-I could get internet if I wanted it but it was slow and limited so I lived my life like it was the 90’s and if I needed to send a photo to someone I drove to my sister in law’s house and sat on their porch to use their Wi-Fi! And yes, if you were wondering, of course I made the dial up noise whenever I opened the browser on my phone. :) I spent most of the two week period reading, painting, and being outside working on projects rather than scrolling on a device and frankly, if you can manage it, I recommend it!
Wishing you stars all around you, flames in your hearth, and peace in your soul now and in the new year,
Megan
Sketched from life at the Davenport.
Gaiser Conservatory Holiday Lights
Who doesn’t love the Garbage Goat?