The story behind Cows in a Paddock at Yarra Glen

Yarra Glen is a small town of the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. This was the first in a series of small paintings of Yarra Glen; this scene was just down the road from my home I would walk past this paddock of cows daily.

The day the source photo for this painting was taken was towards the end of a long drought. The grass was almost straw as it grew. One of the best things about painting photorealism is that you don’t have to paint it exactly as is – you can play with the colors, emphasize (or deemphasize) the various elements. Or even altogether remove them. In this painting, I manipulated the hue of the grass a little bit. It’s just a little bit more green – a little bit more cheerful.