Cows By the Lake - Nearly finished

"Cows by the Lake"
24X36
Oil on Canvas

Click on image to enlarge the view.

Larger painting than usual, which is why I haven't posted to you for a while. There are Work in Progress posts on this painting if you scroll down on the blog. I may still darken the water a bit and I haven't signed it as yet. Otherwise this is mostly finished.

Lots going on here with porch construction and taking care of my Dad's ailments, too, so the process has been slow. Since I love animals, painting the cows was a lot of fun. This time I gave them a nice place to be. At least if I were a cow I think I would like to be there.

Cows By the Lake -WIP - Stage 3

"Cows By the Lake" WIP
Stage 3
24X36
Oil on Canvas

Finally today I had some time to work on the cows. Between the putting away of Christmas...and my 92 year old Dad, who has been needing a lot of extra help for the past few weeks...and the porch construction (contractors coming and going unpredictably)...and my daughter and her dog adding to the chaos, it has been impossible to find any time to paint. I think I had more time when my children were little. At least they took naps and went to school. Now it is interruptions all day long.

It's very grey and rainy here today, so this is once again a photo under incandescent lighting in my studio. The blue sky got totally washed into grey somehow and I was not able to get it back with photoshop. Anyway, here is another WIP shot.

Tomorrow I have a funeral to attend. A friend and fellow artist died Thursday...a lengthy fight with breast cancer. She was heroic. And a really good artist ....now we've lost her. Monday is when we are going to Charlotte to celebrate my daughter's birthday, which is actually Tuesday. Contractors are due back Monday afternoon, too.

So....I guess all I can say is I'll be back ASAP....

Cows By the Lake - WIP - 2nd Stage

"Cows By the Lake - WIP
24X36
Oil on Canvas

Some more work on the trees today. Daylight photo, so you can see the colors better, but now the light from the windows in the back of my studio are shining through a bit...showing the stretcher bars through the canvas. Anyway...I'm about to dive into the cows and foreground.

More to come as I get to it...

Cows By the Lake - WIP

"Cows By the Lake" - WIP
24X36
Oil on Canvas

(Took the picture at 10:00pm and the light is awful...sorry. Will do better in the daylight.)

Nope...I didn't fall off the planet. The holidays are just as busy at my house as yours, and even afterward this year. We are having a new front door and new porch constructed at the front entry of our house. Because the weather is just so frigid, the construction guys are hit and miss with their schedule. And who could blame them? They can only work outside in the cold so long and are coming in short intervals. This is making for a long project that was supposed to be done the week after Thanksgiving. The work-stoppage around that time was due to torrential rains. Maybe I should re-think my ideas of construction next time and plan for spring and summer? Eh?? Ya think???

So in between holiday duties, taking care of things for the 92yr. old Dad, keeping all of us in food, clean house and laundry, tending to the two 4 footed friends, and the porch construction, etc., I have managed to get this far on a painting. It's the largest painting I have done to date. There is a reason for this. Some few years ago, as I love to do, I was shopping the local antique market and came across the most gorgeous painting of cows in a Texas landscape...as large as this painting, but framed in a classic gold frame. The price was way out of my reach. So it haunts me. I remember staying a very long time studying it. And I went back to it two or three times just to look at it. The cows were white, relaxing by water, sky, trees, and depth with detail to make me swoon. A very adept hand had done that painting. I do not remember the artist, unfortunately.

So now....there is a wall in my kitchen that is telling me it needs a landscape with cows in the manner of that painting. This is the beginning of my shot at it. I expect this to take me a good bit of time due to the size....and including the interruptions. (The porch is not close to completion and with the cold weather I expect this to go on for a while yet.) So far I have been working in the trees and just sketched in the cows and water area.

Stay tuned...