More things than you would think are beautiful simply by lavishing that attention via paint and drawing that elevates it.

And then other people can see that too, they can see what I see.

Hi, I'm Megan Perkins.

I am a watercolor artist and I paint local Spokane scenes, landscapes and landmarks.

I've kept sketchbooks forever since I was very small.

I use that to sort of record the world around me.

We traveled quite a bit when I was a kid.

We went to Italy when I was in high school, and so I knew that when I went to Gonzaga, I wanted to go to the Gonzaga in Florence program.

I spent a year in Florence, Italy, and went to 23 different countries.

So this is Japan.

This one has some really cool like stickers and things in it.

When you're out there painting and drawing, you know, it takes anywhere from 20 minutes on the low end to maybe 2 hours on the long end to complete a drawing, and people notice you.

Because I'm painting on location, I've gotten to have conversations with people all over the world.

I've had strangers go well out of their way to help me when we didn't even speak the same language.

Traveling and then painting abroad is just a really strong reminder of all of our common humanity and our love for a place, whether we traveled from far away or whether that place is home.

This is garden Flowers demo from painting in Garland for the art school.

This is Manito, I did a class where we painted in this garden this past summer, and I did a demo right like around here.

And as I was painting, we got into it and then the sprinkler system, I hear the sprinklers is the pop pop pop, and we all get up, flee!

Run!

I've been teaching art for at this point about a decade, and I teach at the Corbin Art Center, the Spokane Art School and the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture.

I teach watercolor classes and then classes on keeping sketchbooks and on daily drawing or drawing habits, sketching that kind of stuff.

I have a class coming up where it's titled Painting a Cozy Corner.

Where the idea is, is look around your house, find maybe there's a spot you love, your spot on the couch, your kitchen, your porch, your favorite place.

And then we're going to spend time sort of really enjoying that place by drawing it and painting it.

And you're going to memorialize it in a way.

The point that I want to get across to people is that many people, particularly beginning students, have a really high expectations of themselves about they have to make a magnificent masterpiece, glorious painting, something of Italy, something of a cathedral.

Frequently when you're starting out, the idea of trying to paint the outside of a cathedral is that's a big subject.

That's pretty hard.

Why not focus on something that's a little closer to home, that's a little simpler and that you have a personal connection to.

My goal for all my students is to encourage them to make as much art as possible and to enjoy the process and to have a connection to it that helps sort of propel them to keep making work, because that's the way you get better; little bites at a time.

Well, I think when we don't have art in our local community, we lose a certain level of joy.

Art makes the city beautiful.

You'd have boring flat utility boxes without anything cool on it.

There would be no garbage goat, which I think would be a travesty.

Art brings people together.

It's a way to celebrate, it mark important parts of our lives.

It creates a special sense of place, you know, a uniqueness, a distinctness.

The reason why we like to travel to other places is because it is different.

So the way that we make art in response to our environment here in Spokane is part of what makes Spokane amazing.

It is an expression of our beautiful landscape and our people and our history and our culture.

Which is why it would be interesting for someone from Italy or Florence or Ireland or whatever to come visit us.

They wouldn't want to do that really, if we were the same as Ireland and vice versa.

It's creating a sense of place that is unique from anywhere else.

So without that, we all become sort of a homogenized blob.

That's not very interesting.

Art is an expression of self, and that could be across individuals or as a full city.