Watercolor artist wins award

Donna Greenstein accepted the first place ribbon in the watercolor category in front of an enthusiastic audience at the Aurora Town Hall on the evening of Friday May 6th. Her painting "Cotswold Sheep II - The Royal" won out over more than 60 watercolor entries at the 49th Annual Juried Aurora Art Show and Sale in Aurora, Ontario on May 7th and 8th, 2011. It sold before the show opened.

Donna lives on an organic cow-calf farm in King Township, Ontario, Canada. She was ecstatic to have created the winning painting.

Photo credit: Donna poses with her award winning painting, "Cotswold Sheep - The Royal"

Pastel artist wins award

Cow Art and More artist John Plishka won the 3rd place award for excellence at "The Farm:Images from the Heartland" juried show. The show was open to artists from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. John won for his work "Counting People." The exhibit is at the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois.

Picture credit: "Counting People", pastel on paper

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Q & A with Michael Murray Part 7

How did you get interested in creating art of farm animals?

I've always loved animals as well as art so It makes total sense to me to combine the two. My ideal job would be to work for a zoo/farm taking photographs and creating artwork and maps etc. As my final year project in Product Design I actually designed a cheetah enrichment device which was a system designed to exercise a cheetah within its enclosure, so there have always been animals involved in every stage of my life, and everywhere I go.

Photo credit: "Cricketing Sheep", digital image on photo paper

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Q & A with Beth Dunn: Part 5

Where do you get your inspiration?

For my design work, my inspiration comes ultimately from shapes and color, and significant to client's requests. Traditionally, my inspiration, again, is sparked by emotion and/or events.

Picture credit: "Ram"

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A conversation with Meg Birnbaum: Part 9

Do you ever have goof ups or work you don’t like?

Yes! Sometimes I have to throw out a roll or two of film. When I've been playing around with a more conceptual type of photography I can often see the image in my head before I shoot it or I try to sketch it first to see if it will work, but sometimes it just doesn't. It really is hard to give up on an idea and admit that it just isn't working.

Photo credit: "Shorn"

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A conversation with Lynn Bishop: Part 5

Where did you learn your technique?

Well, I'm not so sure I have a consistent technique. It seems I never approach two paintings in a row in exactly the same way. I've learned a lot by taking classes and workshops in university and art school settings and by studying books about art. The single most important influence, however, was a six-week stint with Charles Cecil at his academy in Florence, Italy, where he teaches classical techniques of drawing and painting. He taught me the sight-size method of working - positioning the drawing surface such that the image observed is the same size as the drawn image - and that helped me solve some major problems I'd had with my drawing. All that aside, it's the innumerable hours at the easel that have taught me the most.

Picture credit: "We Three Sheep", oil on canvas

Click here to go to Cow Art and More to learn more about this sheep painting