Brahman Cow Art | Painting Little Red

Today is start a new painting day. It seems that I’m building a collection of Brahman cow art works. This is Little Red.

Not so little anymore, though. It’s a Brahman that belongs to one of my granddaughters who has a birthday soon. So I’m painting her favorite cow. Her Mother, my daughter, raises this breed.

This painting is actually going to also be practice for the next painting on my to-do list, which is also a Brahman cow. But on a much bigger scale. Little Red will be an 8 x 10″, in Ozark oil pigments. Just finished my fresh set of paints yesterday, in preparation. The next painting after this will be 24 x 36″. So I’ll use a good bit of that fresh paint in the first two paintings started this year.

I haven’t gotten started on Little Red, yet, but I’ll get some paint on the canvas (board) today. It’ll be the first of the cow art for this year. But after the next one, then I’ll move along to my birds of prey I had planned.

Progress on the Brahman Cow Art

The first thing I’ll do is paint in the underpainting. It always takes me a little while to begin. A little procrastination. I like to set up the space, hang my reference and be around it for a bit of time first. Almost like waiting on the pot of coffee to finish percolating. But when I start, I’ll add the progress pics here as I go. This one is a commission, and the next one will be also. If you’d like to see the art I have on hand that is available, here’s the link. No other Brahmans, though. Those have all been spoken for. If you have one you’d like me to paint, send me an email: madison@wildozark.com.

Adjustments Needed

Something didn’t look right about the cow’s space, so I made some adjustments to both the cow’s space and the space where the field ends and the bluff begins. Now it looks better. This Brahman cow art in progress needs to dry some now. I can’t hold the canvas without smearing off the paint on the edge, as you can see in the last pic, above. And I can’t paint without holding it. LOL. So that slows things down a bit, but it’s probably a good idea to let the background rest a day or two anyway before I make a muddy mess of it all. More to come later!

Slowly, slowly

Now that I’m working on the cow, I’m trying to go very slowly and not get into a rush. The contours and colors of this breed are so tactile and rich, I want to carefully lay the color down in layers so I don’t lose that. So now I’ll have to leave this alone for a day or two to let it tack up better.