What heifer next?

WHEN artist Caroline Shotton was looking for inspiration, she didn’t expect it to come from the field of cows over the road. But capturing their behaviour and disgruntled looks on canvas, she has calved out a career and cheered up the art world with prints such as ‘Have I got Moos For You’.

Caroline trained at Central Saint Martin’s in London and did abstract work and murals for the commercial sector. It wasn’t until she gave up work when she fell pregnant with her first son, Sam, that she started drawing cows.

“I wanted to paint something for his nursery that would make him smile and could be his friend,” she says. “I was literally walking the dog, saw the cows in the field and it gave me the idea. At first glance, they seemed gormless, but on closer inspection, they seemed to have a warmth and innocence in their eyes.

I thought, no one is going to want a massive cow’s head on their wall, but a gallery took it straight away.”

Caroline has drawn more than 200 cows since then with original prints selling for £5,000 each. An ordinary print costs around £600 and there is a selection of cufflinks (called cowflinks), keyrings, bags and bottle stops featuring the prints.

The paintings started off with old fashioned names such as George and Mildred, but she has since produced a whole range of scenarios with titles such as ‘Diamonds Are for Heifer’ and ‘Last Udders at the Bar’.

“They’re getting fluffier and I’m drawing a lot of young cows because most of my inspiration comes from my children playing in the hay and mud,” says Caroline. “Everyone can imagine cows getting up to stuff when they’re not around so it’s easy to put them in different comedy scenarios.”

WITH a field full of cows across the road, she doesn’t have to go far for inspiration.

Many orders come from farmers, some of whom have even donated the odd prop.

“I did a piece for an exhibition called Hairy Bullocks and had difficulty finding hair for it,” she says.

“When I explained the problem to one of the farmers, he cut off some hair from one of his cows and sent it to me.”

Talking to farmers has been a learning experience and often provides ideas for sketches. “One chap had over 200 cows and knew every one by name, he told me there was a hierarchy and they’d line up in the same order to be milked every day,” she says.

A lot of people ask for prints to be named after their children or pets.

Caroline has also had some odd requests, one for cows scuba diving and another for a cow dressed as Elvis. “I had to turn those down, it wasn’t in keeping with what I was doing,” she says.

The latest collection, Hay Days, which will go on show in Harrogate, will feature a set of limited edition boxed canvases. They all have the trademark textured and coloured backgrounds, and have a playful theme with the cows eating, playing, flirting and snuggling up in the hay.

‘That’s Amour-Hay’ was inspired by the scene in Lady and The Tramp where the dogs share a plate of spaghetti and are drawn together by a single strand when they realise they are in love. Caroline has swapped the spaghetti with straw and the cows sit at a makeshift wooden dinner table sharing a romantic pile of hay, illuminated by a candle in a milk bottle. Other titles in the collection include ‘Hay!...He Started It!’, and ‘Hay, You’re It!’.

Working from a studio at her home in Oxfordshire (with either Bach or Depeche Mode blasting out), Caroline often has the cow prints around the house while she does the finishing touches, the only downside is that her sons Elliot, four, and Sam, seven, get extremely attached to them.

“Instead of toys they have both asked if I can do them a cow painting for Christmas,” she says. “Elliot wants a cow in a bathtub with a mohican called ‘Moohecan’ and Sam wants an army cow with a camouflage background.”

• Caroline will visit Castle Galleries in Harrogate on December 17 from 1pm to 4pm to coincide with the launch of her new collection Hay Days. Visit castlegalleries.com