Flowerdy Blue Bird

“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”
– Samuel Johnson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Blue Flowerdy Bird – Watercolor

Another archive bird.  Now days, I’d have outlined it in ink.  It’s fun to revisit these birds, while I try to play catch up.   

About Samuel Johnson

 

Samuel Johnson, the sharp-witted British essayist, wrote the first English language dictionary; his definitions still form the backbone of current dictionaries. He was born in Staffordshire in 1709. Johnson married a widow 20 years his senior and lived in poverty before achieving success with his essays when he was in his forties. Later in life, he befriended the young James Boswell, whose Life of Johnson became the quintessential English biography. Johnson died in 1784.

You’ve never seen a blue turkey in a straw hat, playing the fiddle?

“Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom, which flows through your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

What?  You’ve never seen a blue turkey in a straw hat, playing the fiddle?

Rummaging through the archives again.  I imagine people sometimes wonder what kind of drugs I do.  Just coffee, I promise! 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(born May 25, 1803, Boston, Mass., U.S.died April 27, 1882, Concord) U.S. poet, essayist, and lecturer. Emerson graduated from Harvard University and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1829. His questioning of traditional doctrine led him to resign the ministry three years later. He formulated his philosophy in Nature (1836); the book helped initiate New England Transcendentalism, a movement of which he soon became the leading exponent. In 1834 he moved to Concord, Mass., the home of his friend Henry David Thoreau. His lectures on the proper role of the scholar and the waning of the Christian tradition caused considerable controversy. In 1840, with Margaret Fuller, he helped launch The Dial, a journal that provided an outlet for Transcendentalist ideas. He became internationally famous with his Essays (1841, 1844), including Self-Reliance. Representative Men (1850) consists of biographies of historical figures. The Conduct of Life (1860), his most mature work, reveals a developed humanism and a full awareness of human limitations. His Poems (1847) and May-Day(1867) established his reputation as a major poet.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/ralph-waldo-emerson#ixzz1rvO4bLQ5

Papa Bird Dresses for Easter

“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”
– Leo Rosten

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Papa Bird Dresses for Easter – Watercolor & Ink

I painted this little dude at the same time as I painted yesterday’s mama bird.  I really love his shoes!  I would wear those shoes… much to the horror of my poor “footwear conservative” hubby.  He hates my red high tops.  he he he

About Leo Rosten

Leo Rosten, the Polish-American academic and author, is best known for his seminal The Joys of Yiddish, an amusing look at Yiddish words that have entered the American vernacular. Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1908, he immigrated to Chicago as a child. He wrote dozens of books, including a set of extremely popular humorous stories about Hyman Kaplan, a night-school student struggling with English. Under the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross, he wrote mysteries and film noir screenplays. He died in 1997.

Mama Bird in Her Easter Duds

“For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!”
–Paul Anka for Frank Sinatra

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Mama Bird in Her Easter Duds – Watercolor & Ink

It’s another Eastery image for you.  I painted this during that monster snow storm we had in January of 2011.  I was in a motel room, since it wouldn’t be possible to get out of our steep driveway at home.  We were there for 4 days!  I liked this winter much better!!!

I’m still working on the large acrylic.  It’s coming along nicely.  I really hope I can finish it over the weekend, but we’ll see.  More sneak peeks coming. 

I heard My Way by Frank Sinatra on my way in to work today and I love the words to it, so when I got to work, I looked it up. This is part of that song.  The lyrics of “My Way” tell the story of a man who, having grown old, reflects on his life as death approaches. He is comfortable with his mortality and takes responsibility for how he dealt with all the challenges of life while maintaining a respectable degree of integrity.

“My Way” is a song popularized by Frank Sinatra. Its lyrics were written by Paul Anka and set to music based on the French song “Comme d’habitude” composed in 1967 by Claude François and Jacques Revaux, with lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibault. Comme d’habitude had in turn originally been written in English, titled “For Me”. Anka’s English lyrics are unrelated to the original French song or the earlier English version. “My Way” is often quoted as the most covered song in history.  Source:  Wikipedia

Listen to it here… Frank Sinatra, My Way (Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1971) by waytoblue

Pink & Blue Tennies

“The Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up to it yourself.”
–Author Unknown

Both little pair of shoes were painted from the same photo of a pair of black tennis shoes.  Both shoe paintings are 2.5″ x 3.5″ ATC size watercolors.

Without an author’s bio, this post just seems so short. 

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

The Blue Horse

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

The Blue Horse – 3″ x 5″ Watercolor

Lin (oldrockchick) hosted the WDE at WetCanvas last weekend.  She posted a challenge, to paint one of her reference is monochrome.  This was my response and I had a great time doing it.  Here is what Lin had to say about this wonderful horse reference…

“Max the one-eyed shire horse. One of a rare breed of heavy horses bred at Eglwswrw Shire Horse Farm in Pembrokeshire,Wales. Max lost an eye when he got a thorn in it and it got infected and sadly he had to retire when they couldn’t save it. He was still pulling the visitor trailor round the farm field 2 years ago when we went but they were arranging to retire him as soon as his friend Jackson the ex-drey horse was trained to pull it more slowly. He is a people lover.”



Emerson believed in individualism, non-conformity, and the need for harmony between man and nature. He was a proponent of abolition, and spoke out about the cruel treatment of Native Americans. Influenced by the Eastern philosophy of unity and a divine whole, emphasizing God Immanent, to be found in everyone and everything, Emerson sowed the seeds of the American Transcendentalist movement. He realised the importance of the spiritual inner self over the material external self through studying Kantianism, Confucianism, Neo-Platonism, Romanticism, and dialectical metaphysics and reading the works of Saint Augustine, Sir Francis Bacon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Shakespeare among many others. During his lifetime and since Emerson has had a profound influence on some of the 19th and 20th century’s most prominent figures in the arts, religion, education, and politics.

More information can be found at http://www.online-literature.com/emerson/

Blue Flower Petals

“Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.”
– Mary Ritter Beard



Blue Flower Petals
Acrylic on Canvas

I don’t remember what type of flower this was, but it’s a close up view of a cluster type bloom.  I glazed it afterward with some acrylic medium mixed with blue.  Just something a little different. 

I really enjoyed yesterday’s blog hop.  The best part was getting to know the members of the group a little better.  If you get a chance, click on any of the links from yesterday’s post to see some amazing art.

About Mary Ritter Beard

The American historian and suffragette Mary Ritter Beard was best known for the acclaimed two-volume work, The Rise of American Civilization, which she cowrote with her husband, Charles Beard. She was born in Indiana in 1876. She became a spokeswoman for the importance of women’s history with her books, On Understanding Women and Women as Force in History. She and her husband were controversial, dynamic figures who helped frame the way we view American history. She died in 1958.

Blue Shoes

“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
– Will Rogers

 

Blue Shoes
4″ x 4″ Acrylic on Ampersand Artist Panel

Don’t you know the reference shoes were plain old ordinary black?  I had such a good time painting this!  All the little shadows that give the laces form are fun to play with.  I added all the light I could muster up, just by playing with the shadows. 

Don’t you love Will Rogers!

About Will Rogers

American humorist Will Rogers was considered the Mark Twain of his generation. He was born in 1879 in Oklahoma, of Cherokee descent, and left school early to become a cowboy. In South Africa his showy roping skills won him a job in a traveling Wild West show, and he quickly switched over to vaudeville and film acting roles. He wrote six books and 4,000 syndicated columns. An avid flier, he died in a plane crash in 1935.