Longhorn Pasture

4x9 watercolor on Canson 140 lb cold press sketched yesterday and painted today using American Journey and Daniel Smith paints. I photographed this longhorn named Cuernos (Spanish for horns) on the Tierra Linda ranch by Kerrville. His beautiful black and white markings made him a standout in the hill country pasture landscape. I used a black and white photocopy to work from and the colors are imaginary. COPYRIGHT 2022 Kay Smith

California Cow - (demo) Midland TX Worshop/Day 26 of 30 Challenge

24x18 acrylics on canvas that was today's lesson for my Palette Club workshop in Midland, TX.  We used palette knives to apply thick applications of paint, lifting paint, scraping back, then overall enhancing colors.  My photo was of a black and white Holstein that is now red and white.  I've done two other variations of it.  Look closely in its right ear (our left), and in lower right where I've stamped California in red orange using an old strawberry plastic basket cut up for stencils.

Here are some of the painters hard at work:  L to R Dee Kemp, Somita Fekete, Alicia from Houston, Mary Tucci, and Nancy Henderson.


Since 9-1-15, I've posted daily works on Leslie Saeta's #30paintingsin30days challenge she hosts annually on her blog Slices of Life you can see HERE.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2015 Kay Smith.

Cows at the Farm

15x22 watercolor on 300 lb cold press paper, begun yesterday then finished after work this evening. This scene is on our home place between Ackerly and Vealmoor TX and I photographed this cute brown calf et al years ago but never painted it. You can see the old cement stock tank in the background and of course dust everywhere. I especially liked the long evening shadows from the animals' bodies across the picture plane foreground. Fence posts were negatively painted and Daniel Smith pigments were used.  Splattering was done to indicate rocks, hoofprints, and debris in the foreground.