La Vache Qui Rit

 The second of my paintings today out at Grasshopper Loop in La Honda, CA. 8.5x5" gouache on paper. "Purple Cow".

Painted from memory in about 20 minutes while waiting for others to finish. My thought was to do something I never do in a way that I never do it, and that's exactly what this was.

So here's the childhood poem that inspired it by Gelett Burgess:

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!

La Vache Qui Rit indeed! He's laughing at me for sure. 

For the record: I painted this with some old dried up gouache that I don't normally use and just splashed around, which I never do. Found a lovely fat squirrel mop brush I don't normally use (not precise enough.) Painted an animal, which I do very rarely, much less from memory. Yet somehow Ms. Moo came out pretty well. My city bred buddy turned tail on the trail hours earlier when he ran across the small herd of cattle. I went out to look and started laughing, as there was not a bull to be found; they were all girls and dairy cows are as docile as can be. So I came back singing him "Wooly Bully". 

Mattie told Hattie, 'bout a thing she saw. Two big horns and a wooly jaw. Wooly bully, wooly bully.