My painting: "Lazy Grazing"

Not just any cows, these are Jorn's "stupidest bunch of cows ever."
Mr. Roland Jorn is the maple syrup king of Door County.

10" x 12" Oil on RayMar Panel.
Copyright 2009.
This painting was sold Sunday afternoon at the gallery.

Started this painting on Thursday morning at 8:00 AM. Next day at noon we had to turn in all of our work for the Gala Preview. Three to four paintings would hang on the wall, and at least two in reserve in the back room to hang when paintings sold.

Well . . . the cows hadn't cooperated earlier in the week, so this was one last chance to look for them. I only had an hour to paint this morning since I was required to paint from 10:00AM - 3:00 PM at a designated location. These weren't the cows that I went looking for, but they were cooperative cows just by being there. Mr. Jorn said, "These are the stupidest bunch of cows ever." My friend, Jon Browning, also says that cows are stupid. Who knows. I just know that they are curious, and the moment that you find a bunch you want to paint, you stop, and get out of your vehicle, and they all get up out of their reclining positions and come forward and block the view of them that you wanted to paint. (Kind of like painting in China, or India.) Now you have to wait for them to realize that you are going to paint, get bored and go away and be the cows that you wanted to paint in the beginning.

Jeez, they are stupid. They could have just stayed lying down and looking good, and that would have made it easier on all of us. But no, once they are up and wandering off, they just keep moving. So . . . I feel fortunate that I could get a painting of them at all before they walked over the hill at the back of the painting.

I took a workshop with Ken Auster who said that if you paint a group of anything, you only had to make one of the things look like it was, whether it be a person or cows, or whatever, and the viewers mind would fill in the rest. It's a good thing to remember. What I hate about this photo image of my painting is that you really can't see the true colors in this painting. The cow colors look pretty good, but the rest of the field and trees just don't represent the colors of this painting. So take it for what it is and know that it had more greens and violets, pale oranges, even if it was a misty kind of morning after a night of rain.