Hunn Funeral Home – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor & Ink

“Forgiveness is the economy of the heart.…forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”
– Hannah More

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2014

Hunn Funeral Home – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor & Ink

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything on my blog.  I seem to be doing a lot of art for my licensing portfolio and that’s stuff you just don’t show until it’s time.  So many issues with copyright and so on.

I am taking a MATS Bootcamp class for the next few months and I have decided to share some of that fun with you.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll be sharing a bunch of cuckoo clocks I came up with for the class.  They are mostly creative experiments and will never see the light of day, beyond this blog.  Some will be developed further.  We’ll see.  Until then….

Thanks for checking in. 

About Hannah More

English writer and philanthropist Hannah More, one of the most influential women of her time, is seen as a proto-feminist because she argued for true education for women. She was born near Bristol on February 2, 1745. When her long engagement to a local landowner ended badly, he gave her a yearly stipend in apology, which allowed her the freedom to move to London and write plays. She later shifted to philanthropic work and writing popular religious tracts. She died on September 7, 1833.

Merry Christmas from Lake Eufaula

“A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.”
– Albert Schweitzer

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Merry Christmas from Lake Eufaula - 4″ x 6″ Watercolor Postcard

Have a very Merry Christmas!

About Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer, the German medical missionary, won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work at a hospital in French Equatorial Africa, where he treated and operated on thousands of people, including hundreds of people afflicted with leprosy. He was also an organist, famous for his interpretation of J.S. Bach’s music. Late in life, he worked with Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell against nuclear proliferation. He was born in 1875 in Kaysersberg and died in 1965.

A Lovely, Historic Eufaula Home – 8″ x 10″ Ink

“Some people march to the beat of a different drum… and some people polka.”
–anonymous

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

A Lovely, Historic Eufaula Home – 8″ x 10″ Ink

I really love that quote.  Have you ever turned to the RFD channel and watched Big Joe’s Polka Show?  Yes…. I have, though it’s not something that generally comes up in conversation.  he he  The hubby and I were noticing that the steps to polka are basically like skipping.  Do you remember skipping when you were a kid?  Skipping was always a happy thing to do.   So, next time you are flipping around the channels and you see someone doing the polka, stop for just a minute and you’ll see what I mean. 

This home has a lot of history.  It was built in 1938.  It’s really beautiful, too.  I hope to get it painted this weekend.  If any of you local Eufaula folks know what the significance is of the circle of rocks in the front yard, please tell me about it in the comment section.  The current owner knows it means something, but she doesn’t know just what that is.  There is a big round rock in the center with small round rocks around it.

Gazebo at Posey Park – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor and Ink

“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”
– Sarah Bernhardt

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Gazebo at Posey Park – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor and Ink

This wonderful little gazebo is the center of attention during many festivals and events in Eufaula, Oklahoma.   Tomorrow Clark Davis will be doing his DJ bit from the gazebo during the Eufaula Area Arts Council’s Art Walk and Car Show.  The car show will be at Posey Park.

This is the 7th Art Walk that the EAAC has hosted in Eufaula.  This year the Chamber of Commerce is also hosting a chili cook-off and there will be a golf cart parade at 1:00.  Mike Rogers from KFOX will be doing a live radio broadcast from 1:30 to 3:30.  They are even working on a 10 x 10 chalk drawing at Main and Foley, near the chili cookers, all day.

Our Favorite Place will be open from 9 am. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Portrait artist, Monica Brown will be present drawing portraits on the hour every hour. There are still 3 slots left.. If you like the portrait, you will be able to purchase it for $75. Kim Bultman will also be present playing the piano. They will have coffee, hot chocolate, spiced chai tea and homemade sweets from Made With Love Bakery all day!

Other artists who will be present include: Cheryl Smith, Molly Drog, Lynn Melton, Cindy Gooding, Donna Pearce, Beth Parker and Betty Knight.

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Alexanader L. Posey was born in the Creek nation about eight miles from where the town of Eufaula, Oklahoma, now stands, August 3, 1873.

 

 Alex was to show marked genius in human understanding and an unusual comprehension of the beauty of the soul and the spirit. He was a child of happy disposition, carefree and playful. He grew into manhood with Tom, a full blood, whom his father had adopted. Alex tells in one of his stories about the Creek prophet and medicine man, Chologee. He and Tom had on one occasion placed a dead snake in the path where the old man would have to pass. They waited in hiding to see if he would be frightened.2 This story and other similar ones were evidences of the wit and humor which made him popular with his companions.  More…

About Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt, the French stage and silent film actress known as the Divine Sarah, was born in Paris in 1844 as Rosine Bernard, the illegitimate daughter of a Jewish courtesan. She began her acting career at age 13 and quickly rose to international stardom. Oscar Wilde wrote the play Salome for her. After her right leg was amputated in 1915, she continued to perform onstage with a prosthetic limb. She was very close to her only child, her son Maurice. She died in 1923.

McIntosh County Courthouse – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor

“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work — and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
– Lucille Ball

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

McIntosh County Courthouse – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor

I didn’t add the sock monkey to this painting because it is for sale and a Judge or Court Clerk may want the painting for their office, but may not feel so warm and fuzzy about the sock monkey.  All the individual “business” paintings are sold before I paint them.  I guess you could say they are commissioned.  I’m painting the Post Office, City Hall, Posey Park, the Library, etc., just so that the black and whites can be in the coloring book I’m working on.   Here’s a link to the black and white version of this one.

About Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball, the beloved redheaded comedian, was born in 1911 in New York. She enrolled in drama school — where she was told she had no acting talent, so she became a model. That career led to her discovery by Hollywood. Ball and her bandleader husband, Desi Arnaz, pitched a sitcom to CBS, which refused it, but they went on the road with it as a vaudeville act. The act — about a ditzy housewife and her bandleader husband — was a success, as was the ensuing TV show, I Love Lucy. The show made TV history when Lucy’s sitcom character was pregnant on the air. She died in 1989.

Auntie Faye’s 4″ x 6″ Postcard – Without the Sock Monkey

“What a time to be alive!
There are no ideas that are totally tapped down,
no ideology is adequate to the task of this time.
So it is a time for really alive, innovative people.
I have my oar in the water with everyone else.
I am rowing in the direction I can….
It is great to be alive!”
– Fran Peavey

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Auntie Faye’s 4″ x 6″ Postcard – Without the Sock Monkey

The sock monkey is actually a little town marketing thing we got wrapped up in.  I don’t begrudge the folks at Auntie Faye’s for their decision to take it out for the postcard.  I’m just happy that I know how!   Yay Photoshop and Tara Reed’s tutorial that I purchased a couple years ago.  

I love today’s quote!  It came from Ruth Fishel’s little book Wrinkles Don’t Hurt – Daily Meditations on the Joy of Aging Mindfully.  I love that book!!

Fran Peavey has worked in many fields: college professor, taxi driver, junior high teacher, comedian. For 30 years she has been working as a human rights campaigner, comedian, and social change worker. “For more than half her life…Peavey has been at the barricades, challenging the status quo, trying to build a new culture of peaceful co-operation and social justice…Fran Peavey reminds that ordinary people can make a difference.” David Leser, in “Good Weekend”Fomerly a member of the world renowned Atomic Comics, she teaches “heart politics to social changeworkers around the world.  (copied bio info from Amazon.com)

Auntie Faye’s - 8″ x 10″ Watercolor

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.”
– Abraham Lincoln

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Auntie Faye’s Fudge, Gifts & Etc. – 8″ x 10″ Watercolor

This one was so fun!  They have already put in their order for postcards (yes, I do postcards and business cards) with their building on them.  Some of the businesses are making their Christmas Cards from the paintings, too.  They have asked me to Photoshop the sock monkey out for the postcards.  Bummer.

About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the American president remembered as Honest Abe, is renowned for his strong leadership during the Civil War and for ending slavery in the United States. He was born in a Kentucky cabin in 1809. He taught himself law and passed the Illinois bar in 1837, the same year he first spoke out against slavery. The Southern states seceded in response to his election to the presidency in 1860. Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, mere days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to end the war.

Auntie Faye’s Building Portrait in Black & White – 8″ x 10″

“Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.”
– Phillips Brooks

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Auntie Faye’s Building Portrait in Black & White – 8″ x 10″

I’m busy painting on this one and I should be showing it to you soon.  The store owners always get to see it before you, so it all depends on when James and Linda see it.  I imagine I’ll have it done Monday or so.  They did approve the pencil drawing before I proceeded with ink.  The sign in the painting just went up 2 days ago.  It’s colorful and fun!  Well, of course it is… It’s a Signs by Beth original. 

About Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks, the American clergyman now mostly known for writing the words to the Christmas song, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” was one of the most influential ministers of his time, with his sermons reprinted in major newspapers. He delivered the eulogy at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral. Born in Boston in 1835, he spent most of his life there as overseer of Harvard University, rector of Trinity Church, and bishop of Massachusetts. He died in 1893, and the day of his funeral was declared an official day of mourning.