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.

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!

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.