The 10 legged-two butted-one headed cow...

Okay, so that's really not the title of this piece.  It's what my sister called it the first time she saw a picture of it on Facebook, and I have to say I kinda agree with her.  This painting was I guess you could call a 'spur of the moment' idea.  I'd taken a photo of a group of our cows chilling under a grove of trees on a particularly hot October afternoon about two years ago. Last spring, I found myself sick of school work and art assignments (imagine that).  I just needed to do something for myself (or I was avoiding doing some project that I really should have been working on instead). 

This picture was taken maybe an hour or two after I started working on it.  My first painting instructor in college beat it into us that we should completely cover the canvass with paint within the first class period.  I'm not sure I agree with that because I find myself working too fast.  I don't stop and think about where stuff really should be.  Yes, it's good to get things blocked out and situated, but don't rush.  I catch myself painting something, not liking it, and then painting over it only to realize I painted the exact same thing again.  I'll do that at least twenty times and it drives me nuts.  It's like when you're learning a dance step or a soccer move and you just keep doing the same motions over and over again.  It is imprinted in your mind and in your muscles and you just cannot stop repeating it. 

So this picture was taken sometime in late summer.  I don't think I touched the painting again for another few months after I initially started it.  That's kinda the down side of going home to a farm for the summer.  If there isn't something that should have already been done an hour ago, you can certainly find something to do.   But I did have a due date.  I was trying to get it done before the Iowa County Fair.  I'm pretty sure I've been to the fair every year since I was born.  I bet between my dad and my four other sibling we've entered something in every category.  Except for goats, goats aren't allowed on our farm...according to my father.  That story to come another time.

 But, I did end up getting it done in time for the fair and I won a special merit ribbon.  Two years in a row, I won the Dorothy McNeil Best of Show Award, something I'm really proud of.  My painting that I posted before won in the Junior Show my last year.  However, I was actually relieved that I didn't get it this year.  A very beautiful painting in the folk art category won it and really deserved it.  A fellow Pioneer and Drawing III classmate won in the Junior Division.  Actually, I think all my entries received blues...but that's because they were the only ones in there class...

Any who, I'm not entirely happy with how this one turned out.  It got a little too much on the cool side for me and that cow face could use a bit more work.  But, that's how you learn.  I need to slow down and work out the composition, but I also need to not over think and over work my work...if that makes any sense.