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…

A Happy Old Orange Truck in Bethville

“We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.”
– Etty Hillesum

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

A Happy Old Orange Truck – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor & Sharpie

I painted this from a photo by rue d’oak from the WetCanvas Reference Image Library.  It was actually rust and green and it was in a city environment without the hay in the back.  I like this way better, but I’m grateful for the WetCanvas RIL for the inspiration. 

About Etty Hillesum

Etty Hillesum, less famous than her contemporary, Anne Frank, lived a short life of great courage. She was born in 1914 in the Netherlands to a Dutch father and a Russian mother. She studied law, Slavic languages, and psychology. Hungry for knowledge, she cut down on food in order to buy books. She went voluntarily to the Westerbork camp to help fellow Jews interned by the Nazis. Her letters detail her experiences; her more meditative diary focuses on issues of faith. She died at Auschwitz in 1943.

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

Pink Farm Truck

“Hope is not a dream, but a way of making dreams become reality.”
– Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Pink Farm Truck – 4″ x 6″ Watercolor & Sharpie

In the reference photo by Elainesq at WetCanvas, the truck was under the barn awning and was actually rusty and tired looking.  I drug it out into the open and gave it a fresh paint job. 

About Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens

Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens played a major leadership role during the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960′s; his reforms include reciting the liturgy in modern languages, expanding the role of laypersons, and opening a dialogue with other religions. He was born in 1904 in Brussels. Wealthy relatives wanted him to study economics and manage their fortune, but instead he entered the priesthood. He was witty and charming, with an enthusiasm for soccer. He died in 1996.