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.

Itty Bitty Little Farm Truck

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this:  act as if it were impossible to fail.  That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.”

–Dorthea Brande

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Little Farm Truck – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor

This little painting is hanging in the hubby’s bar at the house.  That truck in real life is only about an inch long.
I’m leaving for Kansas City in the morning, so unless I figure out how to do this from my phone, I’ll be off line until I return on Tuesday.  I am so excited!   This is one adventure I am really looking forward to.  Have a great day!

Dorthea Brande

American author, lecturer and magazine editor, Dorothea Brande, was the youngest of five children born to Frederick S. and Alice P. Thompson of Chicago, Illinois. Alice Dorothea Alden Thompson was born in Englewood, a Chicago community, on 12 January, 1892. Both of her parents were originally from Maine and had previously lived in Delaware where her three oldest siblings were born. Her father was employed as a manager at local business in the Chicago area. Brande attended the Universities of Michigan and Chicago, earning her Phi Beta Kappa key at the former. She went on to work as a newspaper reporter in Chicago and later as circulation manager for American Mercury magazine during the time of H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan. In the 1930s she became an associate editor of Bookman magazine and later its successor (1934), the American Review. In the years to come Brande would also operate a nationwide correspondence school for aspiring writers and tour on the lecture circuit.  More…

Sneak Peek at the Cow Progress

“Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilization and mental culture.”
– Anandibai Joshee

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2013

Cow Belly Sneak Peek

Here’s a little look at what’s happening to the cows I posted yesterday.  It looks like a tattoo artist wandered into the pasture and found a couple willing victims.  he he he

About Anandibai Joshee

Anandibai Joshee, also referred to as Anandi Gopal Joshi, was the first Hindu woman to receive a medical degree. She was born on March 31, 1865 into the constrictive Brahmin class in India. Born with the name Yamu, she was married at age nine to Gopalrao Joshi, who renamed her and educated her in secret, watching her grow more independent. She secretly flew to the United States to become a doctor and intended to treat Indian women, who were not given medical attention at the time, but died of tuberculosis on February 26, 1887 at age 21.

Auldirth Joins Ormside – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor and Ink

“The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Auldirth Joins Ormside – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor and Ink


Dominic posted photos of farm areas near Auldirth and Ormside on WetCanvas last weekend.  (I’m assuming they are in the United Kingdom, where Dominic is from.)   I combined the two to get this little view.  So fun to do!

About Frank Lloyd Wright

The influential American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, father of the Prairie Style, is most famous for designing the Guggenheim Museum. He was born in Wisconsin in 1867. His buildings have strong geometric lines and often mimic their environment. He believed that form and function should be one, and that the way people live in a space shapes the space itself. His personal life was tumultuous; he married three times and lost his beloved mistress to a fire at his home. He died in 1959.

Wide Open Space - Illustration Friday

“Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.”
– Margaret Cho

I love that quote!

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Wide Open Space – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor

There’s something about wide open spaces.  I love farms and rolling meadows.  This was painted from a photo by Bonnie (Artastic) at WetCanvas.  The sunset really was that color in the photo.  Space is the word for Illustration Friday and I chose this image as this week’s entry.

I have already installed graphics on a travel trailer this morning.  Today’s forecast is for 111 F and I swear, it’s well on it’s way.  I’m getting too old for these extreme temperatures.  I know…. whine, whine, whine. 

About Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho, the outspoken Korean-American comedian and actor, made television history as the first Asian-American with her own TV series, All American Girl. She was born in 1968 in San Francisco and has mined her life for extremely successful one-woman shows, including I’m the One That I Want and Notorious C.H.O., both of which spawned albums, movie versions, and books. When not touring with her comedy, Cho works now in Hollywood as both an actress and a director.

Winter Wheat – 6″ x 6″ Watercolor & Sharpie

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
–Burton Hillis

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Winter Wheat – 6″ x 6″ Watercolor & Sharpie

I saw a black and white photo of a tractor in the midst of some Kansas winter wheat crops in a newspaper and it spoke to me.  This is what came from my brain, while thinking about the wonderful winter wheat crops in Oklahoma.  When we drive from Eufaula to Oklahoma City, I love seeing those bright green fields of color, surrounded by all that is a dull wintery brown.  This is going to be a larger acrylic painting.

Burton Hillis seems to be an elusive fellow.  I couldn’t find much of anything on him.  I did find the statement below, which I like very much… even if I can’t whistle.   Hey,  I can hum!  

Burton Hillis speaks of whistling as an outlet for the joy and peace that well in the heart. Moreover, he strongly believes that one who whistles cannot be harboring any meanness or malice deep in his heart. Whoever hears an angry person whistle?

 

Read more: http://purpleslinky.com/humor/burton-hillis-and-others-on-whistling-and-humming/#ixzz1lzGLF1Ph

Little Red Farm Truck

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame someone else.”
– John Burroughs

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Little Red Farm Truck – 5″ x 7″ Watercolor & Sharpie

This is another painting of the same truck, from the photo by Elainesq at WetCanvas.  It’s so fun to just make up what that old rusty truck could look like all cleaned up. 

John Burroughs was born on April 3, 1837 on his family’s farm in Roxbury. He spent his youth working on the farm and exploring Old Clump Mountain. His favorite place he called Boyhood Rock, where he would sit and study the ways of Nature around him.

He was a teacher, a journalist, a treasury clerk in Washington, DC (where he met and befriended Walt Whitman), and a bank examiner before returning to his beloved Catskills. In 1871, his first book Wake Robin was published. In 1874 he bought a small farm in Esopus, and devoted himself completely to his writing. Later, he would divide his time between “Slabsides“, his summer retreat at West Park, near Esopus, and “Woodchuck Lodge” in Roxbury.

Source:  Catskill Archive

Felt, Idaho Landscape

“Laughter is the closest distance between two people.”
– Victor Borge



Felt, Idaho Landscape – 4″ x 6″ Plein Air Watercolor

When I was in Driggs, I visited a cute little shop called Magpie Beads.   The owner of the shop told me about a wonderful spot to do plein air paintings.  I followed her directions through Tetonia, then north to Felt.  Felt is just a dot on the map, but the views surrounding it were breath taking!!  I pulled over on a hill and was lucky enough to be there while a tractor was motoring about the landscape.  It was really wonderful!    I believe this painting is going to be the inspiration for a larger acrylic painting.  I’m thinking 24″ x 48″, since I have a blank canvas that size.  Weeeee! 

About Victor Borge

Danish pianist Victor Borge was affectionately known as the Clown Prince of Denmark. Born as Børge Rosenbaum in 1909 to musician parents, he began playing piano at age three. After a stint as a classical pianist, he began combining music and jokes. His anti-Nazi jokes landed him on Hitler’s enemies list. In 1942, he was named Best New Radio Performer by the American press. His Comedy in Music show on Broadway was the longest running one-man show in the 1950′s. He died in 2000.

4 Paws to the West – 8″ x 8″ Acrylic

“I have always believed that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
– Hermann Hesse

I like that!



4 Paws to the West – 8″ x 8″ Acrylic on Black Gessoed Aquaboard

This is my favorite of the three acrylics I did from my 4 Paws vacation cabin.  I literally sat out in front of the cabin and sketched it with chalk onto the black aquaboard.  I took my artistic liberties, of course, but the view was that spectacular.   They are still doing the square bales there, and everybody had huge stacks of them, stored up for winter.  I’m sure people thought I was weird, taking photos of hay.  I just loved it! 

It was such an inspiring place to have my own private painting retreat.  I can’t wait to go back there!

Here are the progress shots…




I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  Be safe. 

About Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse, the Pulitzer Prize–winning German writer, became extremely popular in the 1960′s and 1970′s for his deeply spiritual novels spiked with Eastern philosophy. He is best known for the novels Siddhartha, The Glass Bead Game, and Steppenwolf. He was born in 1877 in Germany and immigrated to Switzerland in 1912. Hesse was exposed to Eastern thought from childhood: His grandfather taught Indian studies, and his mother had been born in India. He won the Noble Prize in Literature in 1946. He died in 1962.

4 Paws Southwest – 5″ x 5″ Acrylic

“A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it’s an undo-it-yourself project.”
– Abigail Van Buren



4 Paws Southwest – 5″ x 5″ Acrylic on Black Gessoed Aquaboard

This is the view (from my brain) to the southwest of my wonderful 4 Paws vacation cabin in Driggs, Idaho.  What a wonderful place!   I haven’t worked on paintings like this for a while and I enjoy the process so much.  I used Golden Fluid Acrylics and apply many, many layers before they are done.

Here is the progress shots…



These little paintings really look better in natural light, but you kinda get the gist. 

About Abigail Van Buren

Pauline Phillips, better known as Abigail Van Buren, wrote the syndicated “Dear Abby” column for 46 years. She was born in 1918 in Iowa. She had never written professionally when she contacted the San Francisco Chronicle‘s editor and said she could do better than their current advice maven. Her version was an instant success. Her twin sister, Esther Lederer, became an advice columnist under the name Ann Landers. Phillips retired in 2002; her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, took over her column.

Ohio Barn

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
– Carl Jung


 
Ohio Barn - 10″ x 7″ Watercolor on Masa

This was another fun one.  I quit fiddling with it after an hour and a half, to let the simplicity remain.  Masa paper makes me want to fiddle with detail, because it’s so much fun to see it develop. 
The image was from Catherine at WetCanvas.

We got a little rain shower this morning!  It was wonderful.  It may not do much to help our drought, but it was great, just the same.

About Carl Jung

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who originated such well-known psychological concepts as the archetype and the collective unconscious, has provided inspiration to people ranging from Joseph Campbell to Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was born in 1875 in a small town; he studied with Sigmund Freud before parting ways due to the radical difference in their views of human nature. Jung is considered second only to Freud in his influence on modern psychology, particularly in the area of dream analysis. He died in 1961.

Pennsylvania Farm

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”
– St. Francis de Sales

….and Land by Landing!




Pennsylvania Farm

9″ x 6″ Watercolor

I dearly loved the whole process of painting this.  I enjoyed the depth and shadows and the various hues of nature.  I started to put Christmas lights on the trees and changed my mind.  I guess because it’s sunny and it just wouldn’t be right for lights to show up well on a sunny afternoon. 

The reference photo is by Momomare at WetCanvas.

About St. Francis de Sales

St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622), known as the Gentle Saint, was bishop of Geneva. His motto was, “He who preaches with love preaches effectively,” and his religious texts, including Introduction to the Devout Life, have resonated with many non-Catholics. Pope Pius IX proclaimed him a patron saint of writers. Some consider him a patron saint of the deaf; he invented a form of sign language to teach a young deaf man how to communicate.

Pumpkin Harvest

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
– Freya Stark




 Pumpkin Harvest
4″ x 6″ Watercolor and Acrylic Postcard

I painted the pumpkins with acrylic, then came back and finished it with watercolor.  This is a compilation of a couple images by Chelsi, plus a hint of my own imagination. 

About Freya Stark

French-Anglo travel writer Freya Stark was one of the first Western women to see the deserts of the Middle East. She was born in 1893 in Paris and spent her childhood split between her father’s family home in England and her mother’s in Italy. Her first book, Valley of the Assassins, brought her grants to continue her travels. She focused on remote areas of Turkey and the Middle East, seeking cultures that the modern world had not yet altered. She died in 1993 at age 100.

Lily Farm

“By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.”
– Winston Churchill

 

Lily Farm
6″ x 6″ x .75″ Acrylic on Ampersand Artist Panel

This is the scanned version of this painting.  The lily is really a little too orange in this scan.    I took the photo below, on the hood of my jeep in bright sunlight.  That’s more like it! 





This is a combo of a couple references.  I took the picture of the lily at our local community garden.  The hay bales came from Sundiver’s reference in the WetCanvas reference image library (RIL).  If you haven’t discovered the RIL at WetCanvas, you have to go take a look.  They have a lot of beautiful images to paint from.  Here are the ones I have uploaded over the last three years.   You may realize that I’m a little weird, if you look at too many of them.  *giggle*

When my husband saw the early painting (below) he asked me why I was painting a field full of dough wrapped hot dogs (pigs in a blanket).  He is too funny.  He also does not “get” this style of art at all.  He tends to enjoy my more realistic paintings. 


 

Winston Churchill

The American author Winston Churchill (1871-1947) was known during his lifetime for his historical and political novels.

Born in St. Louis, Winston Churchill went to Smith Academy, then attended Annapolis. He served briefly in the U.S. Navy, working as an editor for the Army and Navy Journal, and then joined the staff of Cosmopolitan Magazine. He had been encouraged to write during his years in the Naval Academy and soon began a career as an author.
Churchill’s first novel, The Celebrity: An Episode (1898), satirized the era’s literary and fashionable world. This book introduced him to the public and gave him practice in portraying two kinds of characters that eventually loomed large in his works – the politician and the business tycoon.  More…

Cone Flower

“We cannot swing up on a rope that is attached only to our own belt.”
– William Ernest Hocking

 

Cone Flower
5″ x 7″ Golden Fluid Acrylic on Ampersand Aqua Board panel

My favorite artist, Don Tiller, uses blue trees a lot, but I haven’t quite pulled it off.  This may get re-worked. 

I am hosting the WDE in the All Media Art Events forum on WetCanvas this weekend.    If you have never participated in the WDE (Weekend Drawing Event) you may want to try it.  We paint with a 2 hour time period in mind.  We don’t have to finish our piece in 2 hrs, but we post our progress at 2 hours if we aren’t done.  It’s fun.

The AMAE forum is actually where I learned to paint again after a 30 year absence.  I have only been painting now for 3 years and I have grown in leaps and bounds, thanks to my generous friends at WetCanvas.  They have given me so much encouragement!    Give it a try. 

About William Ernest Hocking

William Ernest Hocking, the idealist American philosopher, wrote 17 books, mostly on the philosophy of religion in modern life, and taught philosophy at Harvard for 29 years. He was born in 1873 in Cleveland to devout parents of modest means, and it took him ten years to finish college while working. In his books, he explored mysticism and the nature of God as well as the conflict in the Middle East. He died in 1966.

Tobacco Farm

“How I relate to my inner self influences my relationship with all others.  My satisfaction with myself and my satisfaction with other people are directly proportional.”
–Sue Atchley Ebaugh

 

Tobacco Farm
5″ x 7″ Golden Fluid Acrylic on Canvas Panel

I had a great time doing this one.  Again, I started with a black gessoed canvas and drew my lines in with watercolor pencil.  Here is the base coat.



You can see, if you compare the two, that it developed a little differently than it began.  I just played with layers and layers of color, until it felt done.  I have been enjoying the acrylics lately.  I seem to go through phases.  Watercolor / acrylic / watercolor  /acrylic.  No… my head is not spinning. 

Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Funny thing happened when I did a yahoo search for her bio.  The first listing was a link to my blog!   It was because I had this sentence on that post…

“I looked up Sue Atchley Ebaugh, but couldn’t really find out anything about her.  She has some great quotes out there, but no bio, that I could find anyway.”

Quiet Farm

“True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”
– William Penn

 

Quiet Farm
4″ x 6″ Watercolor Postcard

This was a fun little card to do.  I wanted the buildings to be kind of off kilter and playful, but I got a little too mired in the detail and forgot the whimsy.   I seem to only have succeeded in making the buildings a little crooked. 


Funny thing, my husband likes my realistic paintings a lot better than my normal (ha ha ha …normal???) style.  When he sees my bright colored fun paintings, he gives me the fake smile and small nod that many of us recognize.

Lesson #4 in my flying adventure last night.  The storms stayed away long enough for me to get a lesson in, so off I went.  I did a bunch of multitasking last in my 1.3 hour lesson.  Okay, here’s an example of one of my touch and go operations.  Are your seat belts fastened?


Accelerate to 55 knots then pull back on the yolk to take off, but don’t pull back too far or you’ll stall.  Get your altitude to about 1500 ft,  while keeping the plane straight and level.  (keep the nose up, keep climbing,  rudder, ailerons, rudder *sigh*)  Then make a 90 degree turn and proceed to about 1800 ft,  (keeping the nose up and plane level and straight) then turn 90 degrees left, while taking out some power, keeping the nose down or up (to keep the horizon line in the right place) and decrease power to about 2100 rpm, aiming for a 90 knot airspeed.  When you are level with the end of the runway, add carb heat and slow to 85 knots, flaps at 10, and turn 90 degrees left for the base leg.  Then, flaps at 20, keep the nose down (putting flaps in makes the nose rise), reduce airspeed some, make 90 degree turn into final, flaps at 30, reduce airspeed, keep the nose down,  (not too far) center up with runway, keep it at the right altitude, after going over the highway, pull the throttle almost all the way out and head for the landing, keep the nose up, full flaps, throttle all the way out, let it kind of settle above the runway then pull back the throttle and land, pull back, pull back, pull back… whew! ….. carb heat in, flaps all the way up, yoke in, full throttle to 55 knots and pull back to take off again……

I think I did that (or something like it *giggle*) about 6 times.  I did have to go around once, because I was too high.  (no… not on drugs, just in altitude. he he)  All in all, it was a very good night and I was exhausted when I got in my truck to go home.  Then a 45 minute drive home.  Whew!  How much fun is that? 

About William Penn

William Penn is remembered as the founder of Pennsylvania; the democratic government he set up became the model for the United States Constitution. He was born in 1644 in England. After he was arrested several times for preaching Quaker ideals, he decided to found a settlement in America. He drew up the “Great Treaty” with the Delaware Indians to ensure they were paid fairly for their land and toured Europe marketing the new colony. He died in 1718.