Character Neighborhood – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor & Ink

“Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”

–Emily Dickinson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Character Neighborhood – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor & Ink

Yes…. That house really was pink.  It was even brighter, but I toned it down.  (HA! Me…. toning down?   It’s rare, but it happened.)

I really loved these houses.  When I was little, I remember my grandpa having a front yard like that.  It’s a neat memory.  I imagine, when they were built, they were quite fancy, but have been forgotten, in favor of those huge homes we see these days.  I found these cute houses with Google street view.  They are in Kansas City.

Emily Dickenson

In 1830, Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed. While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not certain that this was in the capacity of romantic love—she called him “my closest earthly friend.” Other possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.   More…

Napa Auto Parts Building Portrait – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor & Prismacolor Fine Art Pens

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain; if I can ease one life
from aching, or cool one pain, or help one
fainting robin unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
–Emily Dickenson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Napa Auto Parts Building Portrait – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor & Prismacolor Fine Art Pens

This is another fun little building portrait.  I am having such a great time doing these portraits and the business owners are having a great time, too.    I am encouraging them to use them to market their businesses.  They will be using the digital images for their Christmas cards and stuff like that.  I’m working on Auntie Faye’s Fudge Shop now and that building is colorful and fun.  I can’t wait to show you. 

Emily Dickinson

In 1830, Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed. While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not certain that this was in the capacity of romantic love—she called him “my closest earthly friend.” Other possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.  More….

Lighthouse – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor

“Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
–Emily Dickinson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Lighthouse – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor

This little postcard was from another reference from jlloren at WetCanvas.  This is what Joel had to say about the photo… “The northern most province of the Philippines is Batanes. Here is their light house courtesy of my friend, Irah.”

I almost didn’t use a sharpie on this one, but ended up doing part of it. 

Emily Dickinson

While Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.

Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered 40 handbound volumes of nearly 1800 of her poems, or “fascicles” as they are sometimes called. These booklets were made by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems in an order that many critics believe to be more than chronological. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions (some are even vertical). The poems were initially unbound and published according to the aesthetics of her many early editors, removing her unusual and varied dashes and replacing them with traditional punctuation. The current standard version replaces her dashes with a standard “n-dash,” which is a closer typographical approximation of her writing. Furthermore, the original order of the works was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued for thematic unity in these small collections, believing the ordering of the poems to be more than chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) remains the only volume that keeps the order intact.
Source:  www.poets.org

Masters Study – Van Gogh Portrait of Joseph Roulin

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;  If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Into it’s nest again, I shall not live in vain.”
–Emily Dickinson



Masters Study – Van Gogh Portrait of Joseph Roulin
2.5″ x 3.5″ Gouache on Art Spectrum Colourfix

This is my third Van Gogh study.  The other two are here and here.  The original Van Gogh painting is here.

Looking back at these, reminds me that I should do more.   The other Masters that I studied on ATCs are John James Audubon, Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, Emile Bernard, Fernando Puiqaudeau, George Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gauguin.  Can you imagine? 


Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed. While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not certain that this was in the capacity of romantic love—she called him “my closest earthly friend.” Other possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.  More on Emily Dickinson here.