Little Pink House – A Barbados Portrait

“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”
– Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Copyright Beth Parker Art 2012

Little Pink House – 24″ x 48″ Acrylic Painting

Saturday was a wonderful day!  I happened to be hanging out at Our Favorite Place, a gallery where I have paintings, when this painting sold!  Yay!!!

I was commissioned to paint this one, then before I even started it, the lady fell into an unexpected financial bind and I let her out of the commitment.  I decided to paint it anyway, to stretch my wings and paint large.  It’s from a photo of a little pink house in Barbados.  I have always loved it and am tickled that it is now loved by someone new.  I feel very blessed!  🙂

About Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Russian classical composer best known for the Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballets, was renowned for his passionate melodies and for bringing Western music into the Russian tradition. He was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk in 1840. He taught music until a widow offered her financial patronage, then retired to the country to compose full time. He never met his benefactor. He died in 1893, just after the first performance of his Sixth Symphony, the “Pathétique.”

 

I See You! – Frog Painting

“No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.”
– George Jean Nathan

Do you think a frog can clench his fists?  😀

I See You!

2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor and Ink ATC

I painted this little guy on a flight to Barbados in 2008.  I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I wonder why I never painted in the leaves?  🙂

About George Jean Nathan

George Jean Nathan, the acerbic American drama critic, was renowned for what he called destructive theater criticism, which helped shape a more serious theatrical community and paved the way for modern critics. He was born in 1882 in Indiana. He and H.L. Mencken coedited the magazines Smart Set and The American Mercury. Although he found little to like in the theater, he became a fierce champion of the playwrights he did appreciate, including Eugene O’Neill and Sean O’Casey. He died in 1958.

Little Pink House II

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
– Truman Capote

Yay!  It’s finished!

Little Pink House II

24″ x 48″ Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

The painting continues around the edges of the canvas, eliminating the need for a frame.

I took this picture with my Little Pink House II painting leaning up against my real pink house.  he he   This painting has been quite an adventure!  It’s like 10 times larger than I usually paint, so every square inch was a totally new experience for me.  I’m ready to do another one.    🙂

You may remember that the first Little Pink House is 4″ x 8″.  It is painted from a Barbados photo by Valri Ary.  It was Valri, who originally inspired me to go bigger with this one.  A progress shot is here.

Valri and I went to Barbados back in September of 2008.  I remember seeing a lot of these wonderful little houses.  That makes this painting even more fun.

About Truman Capote

The flamboyant American author Truman Capote is best known for his book In Cold Blood, the true story of the murder of a wealthy Kansas family. Written in a literary style, it spawned the creative nonfiction genre. Born in New Orleans in 1924 and raised by relatives in Alabama, Capote moved to New York when he was nine to live with his mother. He was a larger-than-life personality, known for his colorful attire, his lisping voice, and his outrageous statements. He died in 1984.

Little Pink House II

“Just don’t give up on trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
– Ella Fitzgerald

Little Pink House II

24″ x 48″ Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

Well, I have started.  This is so huge for me.  I was intimidated by the large size, but once I started it, I was fine.  All I have here is the blocked-in base coat.  If you look close, you can see the original 4″ x 8″ painting at the top of the easel.  The reference photo by Valri Ary is at the bottom.

Here is how well it fits into my studio.  I think it’s going to be okay.  My studio is an odd shape and not very big, but the painting is right behind my desk, so I can use my wheely chair or stand comfortably.

Check out that jar of gray goop that the brushes are in.  That is a bar of Ivory soap and water.  I soak my brushes for a bit before I clean them at the end of a painting session, and they come out sparkly clean and baby soft.   I learned that on a blog somewhere and I wish I could remember who to thank.  *sigh*

The commission for this painting was withdrawn before I even got the deposit, due to a financial emergency in the buyer’s life.  I decided to paint it anyway and grow from the experience.  In fact, being the optimist I am, I bought a three pack of these large canvases.

**doing a happy-dance**  🙂

About Ella Fitzgerald

With her three-octave range, a purity of tone, and a wonderfully expressive voice, singer Ella Fitzgerald has been called the voice of American jazz. She was born in 1917 in Virginia and began singing professionally at age 16. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” launched her stardom. Her best known recordings include the Cole Porter and George Gershwin songbooks; she also toured with Duke Ellington’s band. She died in 1996.

Bridgetown, Barbados

“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
– James Bryant Conant

Bridgetown, Barbados

8″ x 8″ Acrylic on Ampersand Artist Panel

This is Broad Street, from Valri Ary’s WDE at WetCanvas.  Of course, I waaaay simplified it.  There was a lot of noise and I couldn’t wrap my head around all of it.  Okay…. I didn’t know how to paint it.  🙂

I think I should have painted all the people with their arms up in the air, screaming, “Help me, I’m falling!”.  I had my perspective down pretty good, until I added the ground.  All the people should be sliding to their left.  Oh well.  I had fun and that’s what counts.  There are no perspective police in my world.  *giggle*

About James Bryant Conant

James Bryant Conant, the American chemist and educator, is known both for his role in the Manhattan Project — which developed the first nuclear weapons — and for his innovative tenure as president of Harvard University. Harvard had been a finishing school for the rich; Conant turned it into a world-class research university and created aptitude tests to choose students by ability. These tests became the basis for the SAT. He was born in Massachusetts in 1893 and died in New Hampshire in 1978.

Little Pink House

“We strain to renew our capacity for wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again.”
– Shana Alexander

Little Pink House

8″ x 4″ Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

This is painted from a WetCanvas WDE reference photo by Valri Ary.  It’s in Barbados and Valri and I went there together in September of 2008.    It was so wonderful and it’s hard to believe it’s already been two years ago.

I also live in a pink house.  (It was my husband’s idea.  hehehe)  It sits on a hill overlooking Lake Eufaula and has  become a landmark from the water.  “Go the the pink house and turn left to go to the dam or turn right to go to No. 9 Marina.”  Last weekend, someone told us they have been calling it the Mary Kay house.  We’ve been in it for 5 years and that’s the first time we have heard that one!  😀

Here are some other views of this little painting.

Look here to see the beginning of a 2′ x 4′ version of this.

About Shan a Alexander

Shana Alexander, the pioneering American journalist who was the first female staff writer at Life magazine, was best known for her combative “Point-Counterpoint” segments with conservative James Kilpatrick on 60 Minutes, which became fodder for a long-running Saturday Night Live spoof. She was born in 1925 in New York City. Her first assignment as a journalist was to interview the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. She wrote several nonfiction books, mostly true crime accounts. She died in 2005.

Barbados Ornament – November 4, 2009

“It’s tempting to sit and wait for life to come to you. But it can’t, it’s too busy. Life is out there. You have to go for it.”
–Harry Beckwith

Barbados Ornament
4″ x 4″ Watercolor

I guess you’ve noticed that I have been doing some of my Christmas cards. I am trying to paint cards for my family before it becomes a hurry-up-and-rush pressure type of painting. In October and November, I can paint with relaxation and nice thoughts of the recipient, rather than the pressure of the season.

I love being able to do these cards. Since I try to paint something every day, if I can, I have been putting my little paintings on birthday & anniversary cards for my family. They really seem to enjoy them.

Harry Beckwith has advised 31 Fortune 200 companies in 17 countries and won the American Marketing Association’s highest award, for clients including Target, Wells Fargo and Microsoft.

His four books have earned over $21 million in sales in 24 translations. His first, Selling the Invisible, spent 36 consecutive months on the Business Week best seller list, and appears on numerous “best business books of all time” lists. He also is featured in The Ten Secrets of World’s Best Business Communicators and over 90 other business books.

Harry graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and from University of Oregon School of Law, which led to a law clerkship to a federal judge.

In 1986 he was named creative supervisor of Carmichael-Lynch, four times Advertising Age’s choice as America’s most creative agency.

Harry serves on the Board of Directors for the Stanford University Department of Athletics, advises a cancer foundation, and teaches second grade part-time. A co-founder of one of the world’s premier road races, the Cascade RunOff, he has run more than twice around the world since 1975.

A father of five boys and a girl, he lives overlooking a Minnesota forest with two of his true loves: his wife–the author Christine Clifford Beckwith–and his work.

Barbados Beach Shack – August 31, 2009

“No great deed, private or public, has ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.”
– Leon Wieseltier

.

Barbados Beach Shack

6″ x 6″ Watercolor

I took this picture when I was there in September of 2008.

Last December, I painted this same beach shack with acrylic on a 4″ x 4″ gallery wrap canvas. I didn’t look at the first painting at all, when I painted this watercolor. To look at the two of them, side by side, is fun. They are so different! I’m not really sure which one I like the best. I do like them both.

About Leon Wieseltier

Leon Wieseltier, the sharp-tongued literary editor of The New Republic, has used his role to deliver brilliant, scathing put-downs of intellectual fads and pretense. He was born in Brooklyn in 1952. He studied Jewish history and philosophy at Columbia, Oxford, and Harvard’s Society of Fellows. He won the National Jewish Book Award for the memoir Kaddish, about his year of mourning after his father’s death.