Cows in a paddock at Yarra Glen

The story behind Cows in a paddock at Yarra Glen

Yarra Glen is a small town on the rural fringe of Melbourne, and in 2009 it was home. This paddock was a daily sight on the walk from the house — cows, wire fence, dry grass rolling up toward the ranges. It was inevitable it would become a painting.

The Yarra Valley had been through a long drought. The grass in the paddock was closer to straw than pasture. Photorealism does not require slavish fidelity to the source photograph, and here the grass was shifted slightly toward green — a small act of optimism that the painting is more cheerful for.

This is the first in a series of small Yarra Glen paintings from this period. The scale is modest, but the detail demanded by the dry grass and wire fencing in the foreground is anything but.

Source image of realism painting …