Sunday, April 20, 2008

"Calves in a Spring Blizzard"

8 x 10" oil/canvas panel

Sold

Last week my husband got called away to Idaho to do a construction job. This leaves me and our trusty Border Collie Bill, to run things. Of course this is usually what happens when he leaves...it either snows, or the cows bust loose and get out on the road!
Anyway, yesterday evening I got real worried about all our little babies. This kind of storm can sure be a calf killer. So I got out the tractor and put out lots of straw hoping they could at least have a dry bed for the night. Sure enough they crawled right in! They're so smart. After that I ran around for about an hour taking photos of them and their mamas, looking just as cozy as can be, blizzard and all!
This morning we awoke to 14 inches of snow and a wind chill hovering around zero. A storm like this is rare for so late in the year, but it is Montana after all. I'm happy to report everybody is warm doing just great!

Yesterday, when I was getting seriously snowed on, I took the time to look around at some other artists blogs. One blog in particular, Karin Jurick's - A Painting Today, is working on an alphabet series and has made it all the way to W. This is amazing to me! So she did this little 6x6" painting of a bunch of guys on Wall Street. Very strong composition and design, nice.
While I was looking at it I thought, well couldn't those guys just be a bunch of cows?! :))
So I thought I might give it a try and this is what I came up with. I REALLY had to focus on shapes and design and not get all fussy about each individual subject. This is so hard for me, because of all the single portraits I do. Anyway, I loved the result and am going to try a few more this week.