Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Cow Who Jumped Over The Moon


I painted my little bovine friend last week. I intended to paint a friendly cow and most likely a girl but I think she's just going to have to be a "he" because somehow "Bessie" isn't feeling like a good fit, namewise, for my hefty range rover.

Occasionally, the woman who conducts the art class I take gives us an assignment to paint with some kind of restriction-- whatever she can think of to mix things up-- it can be to use our fingers as brushes or to paint with your left hand if you're right-handed and vice versa OR to paint without a model, picture, or under drawing. Basically, using only the image as we have it in our heads. Last week, the challenge she gave me was to paint an image from my head using only three colors in, get this, less than five minutes. I was counting my lucky stars (no celestial pun intended) because I figured this challenge would get done, one way or another, without breaking too much of a sweat. So... that was last week. My boy cow was painted fast--in fact, I did make the less than five minute time requirement (with only seconds to spare)-- and then left to dry til the next class.

So fast forward a week... When I checked on him yesterday, he looked a little different than I remembered him and some of the colors had changed slightly after drying. I thought he resembled the moon's surface, texture and hue wise. My brain totally went with it. Before long I was mumbling childhood nursery rhymes and thinking about dishes running away with spoons. So whether it's his countenance that looks like the swiss cheese face on the moon, the colors that look sort of moon surfacey (is that even a word?) or simply his oh-so-implied lunar leap, this guy has earned his title... The Cow Who Jumped Over the Moon!

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