I don’t seem to do things the normal way.
For example, if I say I don’t do a particular subject, you’ll probably find me doing it at some point not long after I said it.
I said many times in the past that I don’t do portraits. We know how that ended.
Recently, I told a new friend on FaceBook I don’t do animals.
Yup. You saw that coming.
Meet my brindle bull.
I was scouting a few years ago for painting subjects with another artist friend of mine, Joan Frimberger. It was a Spring day and in Oklahoma that always brings the promise of storms. We stopped in front of a small field of bulls and this guy seemed quite curious about these girls so close to his fence.
It wasn’t a very good fence. Or at least I didn’t think so when seeing that huge animal on the other side of some flimsy looking wire. I know next to nothing about bulls and in my mind he was working up an unpleasant end for me. So he was named before he was painted.
In the end, he really was just curious, I believe.
Mostly.
A combination of imposing presence and inquiry. Is it the tension of ‘should I? shouldn’t I? or ‘never say never’. It all goes together. Fabulous painting.
Thanks so much, Ingrid! It very much was a moment of pause. For both of us!