Cow study

oil on canvas

12 x 16

available

I have been in Colorado this past week going to grouse leks and looking at birds and landscape. A lek is a patch of ground that a group of grouse will gather on to display and do their breeding rituals. I got a good video of Greater Sage Grouse strutting their stuff - it is too long for me to be able to post here, but I will try to upload it to youtube and post a link, it's pretty amazing what they do! I was fortunate to see Lesser Prairie Chickens and Gunnison Sage Grouse, both of which are endangered. The only down-side is the necessity of pre-dawn arrivals to the grounds, which made for very early wake-ups. The cow study is part on my on-going animal studies series. I used to work in clay a lot, and doing the burnt-umber sepia-tone painting reminded me of sculpting in terra-cotta. Often when I watch animals I feel as if they have an aura of calm surrounding them, something I rarely see in humans,