Best known for her bovine renditions, with unique compositions and contemporary views, Denise has combined her love of animals and art in oil for the past 20 years.
Denise's focus for the past several years has been cows because "Cows make me smile. I seriously can't look at one and hold back a smile. I don't just see an animal, I see a personality, and that is what I am working to present in my paintings of cows." In 2006 Denise received a commission from the California Milk Advisory Board to paint their famous Happy Cows of the Real California Milk campaign. This led to becoming "The Official Happy Cow Artist", as seen on their website.
Her creative process begins with field work, taking reference photos. Cows being a favorite subject means "field work" can be taken literally, and involves careful stepping!
With a signature "painterly realism" style Denise breathes life
into her subjects, often bringing viewer comments of how "you could just reach out and touch them" and "I expect them to mooo".
I will be starting a painting commissioned by the American Jersey Association soon, so getting great photos of Jersey's has been high on my list for a while, but was still on my list and I was running out of time!
I've recently returned from a trip to Northern California where I had been photographing the Happy Cows for the California Milk Advisory Board's commissioned paintings for the Real California Cheese campaign. Well, the scenery was just beautiful there, and as luck would have it, on the way to the shoot one day a Holstein Dairy beside the main road caught my eye, (cows always catch my eye). The unpaved crossroad appeard to be leading into a scenic valley. The car turned of it's own will down the road, slowly past the Holsteins, and soon revealed the most picturesque Oak tree I could imagine. I got out of the car to take a photo or ten, then drove on to explore this little valley some more.
As I continued on, my excitement grew, did my eyes deceive
me? Could that be a herd of Jersey cows, in a field, in a
beautiful valley surrounded by classic rolling hills with oak
trees? I drove slower, as if caution would increase the
chances that my distance vision was correct. What a thrill to find as I closed in that I had to slow down even more
to avoid plowing into some Jersey cows in the road, and many more in
the adjacent field grazing happily!
The sun was setting quickly, but not before I had the opportunity to meet the owner, and make arrangements to return in the morning to take well over 300 photos. And who was there to help me, but my faithful assistants, shown here being greeted by the girls! I will be posting more updates on the Jersey Commissioned painting, in addition to works in progress as time goes on.
As I continued on, my excitement grew, did my eyes deceive
me? Could that be a herd of Jersey cows, in a field, in a
beautiful valley surrounded by classic rolling hills with oak
trees? I drove slower, as if caution would increase the
chances that my distance vision was correct. What a thrill to find as I closed in that I had to slow down even more
to avoid plowing into some Jersey cows in the road, and many more in
the adjacent field grazing happily! 