Cows Don't Like their Picture Taken

Every evening – an hour or so before sunset – the cows come down the hill, drawn by some unseen force to eat grass that perhaps looks a little more delicious in the late afternoon hours.

“Ah! A great photo opportunity” I thought to myself.

I first took a picture from my upstairs window. I didn’t like the pole in it and the camera wasn’t sure how to take the screen into account when it was trying to focus. So I slipped on my shoes and headed out to get closer to the cows.

I first tried my zoom lens. With the sun getting lower in the sky the light wasn’t very good for a zoom. So back to the house I went and traded out the lens.

Now it was getting a little darker and with the shorter lens I had to get closer to the cows. They didn’t seem to mind and were probably wondering what I was doing. They watched as I got closer – curious as to why a stranger would find them interesting.

By now the sun was even lower so I hurried closer to get a couple of pictures. The cows tried to act uninterested, but when I got close they all had to look. Maybe they thought I would have a lump of sugar in my pocket. Oh wait. That’s horses. (This is all new stuff for a city boy.)

So I got all focused and ready to take the picture. Well… my camera decided it was dark and the flash popped up.

Click.
FLASH!
Mooooooo!

You can tell they are looking right at me with the flash in their eyes.

And off they ran. I don’t think cows like camera flashes. I thought I had started a stampede! Oh no! They’re going to crash through the fence and trample women and children and cause widespread ruin and destruction!

That’s what I feared anyway. Notice how far away they are in this picture taken just a few moments after the first picture.

For all of you who live in the country or who love the country I have a new watercolor ACEO you might be interested in. It is the standard 2.5” x 3.5” painted on 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper. It is mounted on a playing card to make it nice a sturdy. You can find it in my Etsy shop.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29793753

China Cabinet Inspiration

Inspiration and Beautiful art can be found in places other than on canvas hanging on the wall.

Introduction:
I have totally neglected my art blog all summer. It has been a busy summer searching for a new house, finding one, that offer falling through, thinking we had sold our house, that falling through, then finding the perfect house and figuring out how we can get into it and have our son and his family move into our house while he tries to sell his house in OKC. It's been very confusing and time consuming and draining and has used up all of my creative time.

Beauty can happen anywhere:
This morning I cleaned the glass to our china cabinet that has been in storage for a year and arranged china and crystal in the cabinet. I probably spent 40 minutes on my cleaning/arranging project.

You may be thinking that putting china and vases and bowls and candlesticks in a china cabinet should take about 10 minutes and then you can move on to more important things in life. But this is where the "art" kicked in. A good painter or home staging designer or stained-glass artist will compose a piece or arrange a room where your eye wonders through the painting or room or glass piece and is drawn into the painting, pausing here and there, keeping your interest... Good composition is what makes a painting one you want to look at again and again. Decorators carry the theme of a color throughout a room just like a nice painting. Beautiful stained-glass pieces are more than pretty glass in the sunlight, they have movement in line and color.

I guess now I need to go home and take a picture of my china cabinet to put on here.

Results:
A beautiful arrangement of dishes, candlesticks, bowls and more in my new dining room.

Now I've got the old artist juices going and I'm ready to get some paint and canvas out. Of course I'll still be distracted by the new house since every wall is boring beige. I have many days of work to do with all of those giant sheet rock canvases!
But I really need to get some new things in my Etsy shop and I need to start blogging again, so I won't do all of the walls all at once.

Now it's your turn:
I hope you find some inspiration today and more importantly, I hope you create some beauty today. Go work on your bookshelf or china cabinet.