Beautiful Oops

For this project I started with a spot of ink on a piece of paper to be turned into something of my choice. The right ear of the smaller cow is the ink spot that I started with and I created a scene with two holstein cows in a field. To create this piece I first sketched the major color contours of the cows in hard graphite. I then applied oil pastel to the cows by layering black, brown, and white to create the dark colors and by layering grey and white for the light parts. I then added the background starting with the grass and moving the the fence and then the trees and sky on the horizon. I chose to make cows because when I saw the ink spot I immediately thought of the horn or ear of an animal. I chose cows specifically because the dark color of the ink remained consistent and realistic with the colors of a holstein cow. Color was probably the most difficult element of this piece to manipulate because the oil pastels required a lot of blending in order to attain a specific hue. I think my use of space in this piece was effective, especially considering my limitations due to the fixed position of the ink spot. I think that I effectively placed the cows in the space and they appear to rest in the grass without floating, and appear to be drawn to scale.

I applied a high horizon line in this piece to accommodate the cows in the position that the ink spot put them in based on the position of the smaller cow's ear. I also used selective focus to some extent. The cows have more detail than the background or foreground to make them stand out as the focal point. This project evolved in that I started by drawing only one cow but added the second, bigger one to better fill the space.

In this piece the sky is dark on the horizon in contrast with the bright colors of the grass in the foreground to show a storm rolling in. It is said that cows lie down before it rains and it is for this reason that these cows are lying down in the field. This project relates to my life in that I live in a rural area in Maine and often see cows lying down in fields near my house. However, I have yet to find a direct correlation between this behavior and storms. I think this piece could be stronger if I had been able to create a greater level of detail with the oil pastels. I think that a lot of the piece appears messy and I think with a finer material the piece could have looked better as a whole.