It’s so Hot at these Heights! – 3″ x 4″ Inktense and Sharpie

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream – whatever that dream might be.
–Pearl S. Buck

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

It’s so Hot at these Heights!  – 3″ x 4″ Inktense and Sharpie

The word of the week at Illustration Friday is Heights.  Susan (Surob) at WetCanvas posted a photo of a squirrel, all sprawled out trying to cool off on a hot day.  I thought it was perfect for this week’s theme.  Check back tomorrow for another one.

Are you wondering what Inktense is?  Inktense pencils are like watercolor pencils, except the color is very intense and after it is dry, it’s permanent, like ink.  Here is a photo with part of the sky still in the pencil form.

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Today is the 20th anniversary of Signs by Beth, LLC!  I can’t believe I’ve had my sign shop for 20 years.  I should be celebrating somehow.  Can’t celebrate with the hubby because he has been wanting me to retire for the last 10 years.  My business is the thing that keeps me away from him.  I can see what he means, but it’s still something to be proud of.  WoooHooo!  There!  Celebrated. 

Heights - Illustration Friday

I had to post the photo again, because when Facebook picks this up, sometimes it posts the last photo and I didn’t want the half done sky to show up on Facebook. 

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, stationed in China. Pearl was the fourth of seven children (and one of only three who would survive to adulthood). She was born when her parents were near the end of a furlough in the United States; when she was three months old, she was taken back to China, where she spent most of the first forty years of her life.

In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received word that her mother was gravely ill. In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.
More on Pearl S. Buck can be found here.