A-MAZE-ing Cows

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”
– Henry Miller

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Aztec Cows… or if you please… A-MAZE-ing Cows

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These are the cows patterned after the Aztec bookmark, but it looks more like a maze to me.  I haven’t tried to follow the path, so I don’t really know if you can get from point A to point B. 

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These are the same cows I painted in this post.  Happily, it sold as soon as it hit the internet.

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About Henry Miller

 

The bohemian American novelist Henry Miller is best known for his sexually daring autobiographical novels, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, and for his love affair with benefactor Anaïs Nin. He was born in 1891 in New York. His writing blossomed after he moved to Paris in 1930 but was banned in the United States for its erotic content. Miller eventually won the right to publish in the U.S., becoming an icon of the sexual revolution. He died in 1980 in California.

Blue Cows in a Glorious Sunset

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under it’s roof.”
–Barbara Kingsolver

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Cows in Sunset – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor

Isn’t this one fun?  The photo reference was by SkattyKat at WetCanvas.  The cows were in a fenced area in bright daylight, but not in Bethville!   And as you may have guessed…. they were not blue.  **giggle**
I’m getting ready to start another commission.  It’s a beautiful home in the Kansas City area.  Sneak peeks will be coming soon.

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times in her adult life she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.

Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), and Flight Behavior (available Nov. 6, 2012). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than fifty literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines. Click here to view complete bibliography.

Cross Livestock Auction Design

“Security is a superstition–it does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.”
– Helen Keller

 Copyright Signs by Beth, LLC 2012

Cross Livestock Auction Logo

I thought I’d do something a little different today.  I have been working on this logo for 2 weeks.  It was hard for the client to settle on the right critter.  The rest of it I had on day 1.  Funny how logo design goes.  This is going to be a great account and is starting with a bang.  Their first auction is Tuesday and they need several signs by then.  So much for my weekend off.  

About Helen Keller

American author and activist Helen Keller was born in Alabama in 1880; she became blind and deaf after a childhood fever. When she was 7, Ann Sullivan famously coaxed her out of her sullen, angry shell and taught her to communicate. From then on, Keller took on the world. She graduated from Radcliffe, traveled the world visiting sweatshops and speaking out for the powerless, helped found the ACLU, and wrote eleven books. She died in 1968.

Colorful Cows

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”
– Thomas A. Edison



Colorful Cows
4″ x 5″ Watercolor

I had a little time alone last night, so of course I headed right to the studio.  I had fun playing with my watercolors on a piece of cheap paper.   Weeeeee. 

About Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison, the American inventor who made his early fortune with the stock ticker and the phonograph record, is credited with inventing the light bulb — although he simply improved upon the original idea by making the bulb burn longer. Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio. He was a dreamer in school; his teacher called him “addled,” and his mother taught him at home. He used the money from his inventions to set up a lab with a number of employees; he held a record 1,093 patents in his name. He died in 1931.