Skip to main content

Cattle Painting

I was recently given many of the art supplies of my first cousin once removed, the artist Noel K. Edwards, who passed away over a year ago. The supplies include oil paints, watercolors, paper, pastels, stretcher bars, canvas, brushes, and more. This is a tremendous blessing as purchasing such supplies is very costly. Even though the paints are very old and many in rather poor condition they can be reconstituted in most cases because they are of very high quality.

Noel was an avid painter of landscapes and wildlife. (I was also able to acquire a number of his works). The animals he especially enjoyed painting were cattle, bison, birds, and dogs. He worked in watercolor, pastel, pencil, and oil. He was always nice to me and (in addition to my mother and Bob Ross) one of the people who inspired me to paint.

As though I were channeling him I have recently begun painting cows. When we lived in Virginia the property where we lived was surrounded by cattle, so they became a part of our life. I loved listening to their mooing, grunts and other noises. There is something inherently relaxing about looking at cattle. So I took tons of pictures and am now starting to paint them using the materials I acquired from Noel. I hope he is pleased! And I hope I can paint them with the same love, care, skill, and feeling that he did!

Comments

positiveminds04 said…
Thanks so much for this. I am writing a research paper on this very topic and your words are so powerful...you will definitely be referenced in my paper. I believe that every person has the potential to be an artist and therefore a priest as Ishmeal Reed describes in Conjure, but the walk counters so much of conventional society that very few folks choose themselves.
Thank you for your kind words!

Popular posts from this blog

Some Observations About Light in Landscape Painting

As I slowly begin returning to painting landscapes the question of light arises. For most of my artistic career I have not been that interested in light in paintings, though I enjoy it in the works of other artists. However in landscape painting light is very important, so lately I've been examining the use of light by various landscapes painters, all of whom would be called "realists." What I found in closely studying their paintings is that they are not strict and mathematical, if you will, about where the light hits. In fact in many realist paintings – those of Andrew Wyeth come to mind – the light is very natural looking at a glance, but then upon closer examination is highly invented. I find nothing wrong with artists taking this liberty. The key to light in landscape painting seems to be to make an effort to simply include it in the work, and not obsess over where everything lines up and how it strikes each object in a uniform way... almost like a Bob Ross paintin

A Notice About My Recent Show Posted In The Parish Magazine

This month my art show at the Liriodendron ends. I want to thank everyone who came out for it, and for all of the nice and interesting comments on my work. Many of the works were familiar to us as they have been gracing the walls of the parish hall and my office for some time. The history behind that is that we needed some decorations for the walls but did not have any money budgeted for that. So, in consultation with the vestry, it was agreed that I could hang my works in the parish hall on a temporary basis. This was always meant to be temporary. One of my professors in college, a sculptor, once told us that it is not good for an artist to be around his own work all the time. I would tend to agree with that. So after the show is over only one or two large pieces will return to the parish hall and maybe a couple of small icons. The work currently hanging in the parish hall is that of my late first cousin once removed, Noel Kavanaugh Edwards. Noel was an artist and naturalist based