Bovines
I may have failed as a milkmaid, but I sure have photogenic cows. And I support a local family dairy each week and know the cows who provide my milk. So delicious!
What’s not to love about a cow?
Prepping a canvas for a different sort of bovine painting. I should have vacuumed first.
This photo taken in Yellowstone by my friend is the inspiration. We’ve been bouncing around what it is she wants. Getting my juices flowing again.
I’ve been pondering the horse painting these past weeks of no painting and have a thought or two there to pursue. Imagining is not painting, but I do like painting in my head, too.
Sketching as I ponder.
Henry ponders, too.
A beginning. I primed the canvas with clear gesso. Mixed a blue/green/grey soup of paint and matte medium to lay in some color. Then blocked in the animals with black gesso. More matte medium mixed in and covered the black. The buffalo may dissolve into the landscape, becoming hills. Time will tell. Or I’ll paint over it all and begin again?
Anyway, take it easy.
Love,
Dell
You have beautiful cows. My grandmother had milk cows and sold some of her milk to people in Etowah who likely found it more affordable and more to their taste (old timers). The woman who milked cows for her (as my grandmother’s children increased to 10) would stand by the milk barn and call the cattle by name to come from the pasture or feed lot and barn. “Nancy Bell, Janie, Daisy, Pearly May, Pansy, Fannie Lou”…and so on.
When milking took up and I was at my grandmother’s house, I loved standing on the big board fence and watching the “girls” parade to the barn.
One day, Miss Charlotte called a cow out of the usual order, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle as Rose, uncalled, began to assert her place. Mooing and hip-shoving ensued.
“Now girls! Stop that!” Miss Charlotte hollered.
She let Rose, an elderly cow, proceed, and gave her an apology for the mix up.
I’m so glad I grew up on a farm, and that scenes like this are still in my memory. But you, Dell, helped me retrieve this one. Thank you.
Jerseys are the pretty ones. But love buffalo in the mist.