Megan Ellahi’s paintings have the power to pull the viewer into a world where a simple stroke of her brush brings to life the breathtaking vastness of the Alberta landscape this Airdrie artist treasures.
“I love being outside. I love the colours of being outside,” she explains. “Whether I choose a different time of day or season, I always have options of what to paint.”
Working from photographs, Ellahi uses acrylics to create stunning images. Her skill with the brush and mastery of colour and light flow onto the canvas with scenes of threatening summer skies, still marshes and wheat fields undulating like ocean waves.
Self-taught, Ellahi learned how to paint from her great uncle, but put it aside as a teenager. Years later, after she was married, she was diagnosed with a muscular disease that affects her lungs. The illness became isolating and, even though she kept busy volunteering, once her three daughters were attending school, she found herself often alone.
“My kids were in school, and I didn’t have anything to do, so my husband bought me all new paints to try and help get me back into it,” she says.
Painting became a way of expressing how Ellahi was feeling about being alone and about being sick, especially during COVID-19, where a constant cough from her illness was concerning to people.
“It was a difficult time, and I didn’t want to put everything I was feeling on my family,” she says. “I found I could get it out through my painting.”
However, Ellahi’s landscapes didn’t reflect her struggles. There was a happiness in them that came from family trips to the mountains.
“We did a lot of camping and day travelling in Kananaskis and Banff. It was the power of the mountains and feeling small around them that made the challenges I was facing seem smaller,” she says.
Ellahi’s process flows as organically as her subjects.
“I pencil in the scene about half the time,” she explains. “Usually, I just start painting a mountain, or the sky, and let it evolve. If I make a mistake, I go with it, and, if it looks good, it just becomes part of the piece.”
With guidance from local artist Deb Lawton, Ellahi learned to navigate Airdrie’s art community. She’s exhibited in the library, at Kraft & Co. Law, and at Jam’s restaurant, selling several pieces.
“Being an artist is solitary,” she says. “You spend a lot of time with yourself, which is why it’s important to connect with other artists.”
Like her passion for the mountains, making these connections is important to Ellahi.
“I’m the event director for the Airdrie Arts and Culture Council, and we often hear that nobody knows where to start,” she says. “So many people have reached out asking how to get connected, and this is something we’re trying to make happen.”
Her advice to emerging artists? “There are so many opportunities on social media to find people who are in your area. Try to connect with them. Don’t give up. Keep going. Eventually, someone will see your art and like it.
Find more of her art on Instagram @rose.brushed
EDITOR’S NOTE
Megan Ellahi was the Amazing Airdrie Women Courage recipient in 2025 and lives with pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive condition that gradually replaces healthy lung tissue with scar
tissue. Ellahi endures daily chronic coughing and diminished lung capacity. Despite completing all the necessary medical testing for a double lung transplant, she faces an uncertain wait.
Read more about her at airdrielife.com/community/amazing-airdrie-women-2025-meet-the-nominees
