Watercolor Wednesday: Morning Bugle

Hello! I can’t wait to share my newest painting, Morning Bugle, with you on this Watercolor Wednesday, but I owe you a quick explanation about where I’ve been:

Where Have I Been?

It’s been a minute since I’ve shared anything here on Unbound Roots, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down in the past couple years with the best of intentions to connect, but I wasn’t ready. The past four years have been A LOT! The COVID-19 pandemic, dealing with long COVID symptoms, a terminal diagnosis for my father, the death of my uncle, selling of our house, building a new home, the death of my dear father, a breast cancer diagnosis for my mother just two months after my father’s death, my mother moving in with us after falling very ill from her immunotherapy, the death of my grandfather (my mother’s father) when my mother was at her sickest, my mother moving back home after seven months (I still miss her daily presence in our home), and healing as we get back to our new normal. Life trials can be tough, and it’s amazing how they can zap any of the creative juices.

Writing, painting, woodworking. Nothing felt right in the past four years. Instead, I was focusing on one-day-at-a-time and one-foot-in-front-of-the-other. Sleep (not easy), exercise, helping my children with their homeschool work, visiting with my dad before he passed, being there for my mother, seeing loved ones, preparing healthy meals, keeping a clean house, and working on the final touches on our new home were the only activities my brain had room for. All I can say is THANK GOD for the support of my husband and children, exercise, and daily devotions. These three things kept me somewhat sane over the past few years. It wasn’t until this past September when something began to change within me.

On the Road to Recovery

Two months after my mother moved back home, my little family of four took off on a long road trip through Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado in early September, 2025. I could go on forever about our trip, but I’ll keep it short. Mountain hiking, hot spring swimming, horseback riding, fly-fishing, rock-hunting, and wildlife viewing renewed something in me. I was able to focus on the present while we experienced new and wonderful things. I remember being home for a couple of weeks after our road trip and saying to my husband, Jake, “I feel happy and content. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way.”

Grief is a fickle thing. No one can tell you exactly how you’ll feel, when you’ll fall, when you’ll start to pick yourself up again, or what your new normal will look like. There is a general grief process (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), but nobody can prepare oneself for how this process will feel. I know my grief started the moment my father gave me his heartbreaking diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis in early 2020. It was the same awful disease that had invaded his father and both of his brothers. We all knew what his outcome would be. The trials that came after that diagnosis in the next four years just compounded what I was already trying to process. It was ROUGH! In September, the fog of these trials began to lift.

Painting, writing, and woodworking – I was starting to feel the pull again, and it felt SO GOOD! I was finally in a place where I could let joy back into my life. So, here we are! I’m ready to share my words and paintings with you all again.

Morning Bugle

“Morning Bugle” is the first painting I’ve wanted to complete in years. Yes, I’ve finished a few other paintings for myself and others, but this was the first painting I was looking forward to – the first painting I’ve felt inspired to paint in years. This painting was born from an experience in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Thirty-seven degrees at 4:30 a.m. in Rocky Mountain National Park, my friend Jen had us up early trying to glimpse the ever-elusive moose. Jen is known as a moose whisperer, and the impressively large mammals seem to flock to her. I have never been lucky enough to see a moose in the wild, but I hoped to change that.

We pulled into a parking lot next to a large mountain meadow. I knew we must be in a good observation area as wildlife photographers lined the parking lot with their huge, fancy lenses on tripods waiting for the first light of dawn to break. Promptly, we heard an eerie, high-pitched trumpet sound followed by a series of grunts. Sending chills down my spine, the bull elk’s morning bugle was emblematic of the wild, untouched landscape we were immersed in. When dawn began to break, dark silhouettes of the elk herd began to emerge. Their presence was special to our whole family, but I’ll never forget the beauty of hearing that morning bugle. The bugle that inspired my first enjoyable painting in years. The bugle that signified that healing had arrived.

I introduce you to Morning Bugle – a painting that portrays my vision of what the bull elk must have looked like as he bugled in the wooded mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park on an early, chilly morning in September.

 Experiences

Shortly after the morning bugle brought the sun up, two bull moose put on a show that had us all breathless. Powerful sparring between a younger, smaller bull moose, and a larger, older bull moose kept us captivated. Jen, our moose whisperer, was as enthralled as we were. After the sparring, the two moose sauntered up near where we were parked giving us all an up-close experience with the amazing animals.

As Christmas and the new year knock on our door, I wish you and your loved ones a year full of grand experiences. Experiences that enthrall, renew, and inspire. I look forward to more inspired paintings and writing in the new year!

Love, Erin