Field of Cows: If You Paint It, They Will Come

My Acrylic Landscape: "Field of Cows" - on Canvas Board (11" x 14")

I recently started a painting class at The Contemporary Austin with the fabulous Clair Gaston.  This is a beginner's class and we students had a choice of using acrylic or oil paints.  I chose acrylics.

Our first painting was a still life -- several objects arranged together on a table.  Specifically, we did what is called a "value study," a painting that uses only white, black, and shades of gray to mimic the values -- from lightest light to darkest dark -- of the objects.  Here is a photo of mine:

"Still Life Value Study" - Acrylic on Canvas Board (11" x 14")

This painting may not look especially exciting, but I feel proud of it. I was learning how to make gradations of gray and then use them to create a sense of depth to the objects.  

Here's a secret -- I later did a still life in color and almost pulled my hair out in frustration!  Using black, white, and gray was so much easier.  I still have the unfinished color painting gathering dust in my art space at home.  

A later assignment was to select a photograph of a landscape and paint it in color. I chose a photo of cows in a field.  

The first step was to draw the scene on my canvas.  I then mixed paint colors on my palette, making an effort to reproduce as closely as possible the colors in the photo.

Pencil Sketch of Cows in Field

Below you can see the progression --  from painting the multicolored sky, adding the large tree trunk, then painting foliage on the large tree, the small background trees, white cows, and lastly, final touches and markings on the cows. (I learned these  black and white cows are Holsteins.)

Actually, after I had painted the background and the trunk of this large tree, I decided I didn't like what I'd painted (mostly I wasn't happy with the thick look of the tree), so I painted over what I'd done and and started all over again.  This took a few hours.

Getting close to being finished...

And ta-daaaa....the final version:

"Field of Cows"