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The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, puzzled. You might be puzzled about my image until you learn more about the inspiration behind it (unless you area Russian avant-garde movie poster buff). The cow in the picture is puzzled as to why her hooves are in a different part of the picture and why she has two tails! She’s also a bit scared about what that means. The image itself reminds me a bit of a puzzle, in that it looks like you need to rearrange the pieces for it to make sense. Here is my puzzled moo:

This picture is a new version of an old image I did in 2004. When I heard the prompt this week was puzzled, I immediately thought of this image because it’s always reminded me of a puzzle in the way it looks and how I pieced it together the first time. The original image was done February 26, 2004, as part of a year long project. For a whole year (366 days because it was leap year), I drew/painted a cow a day. This image came towards the end of the project, when I was trying to find more creative ways to draw my daily cows. Here’s my first image:

I’ve always liked this drawing … probably because I always liked the poster that inspired it. When I was trying to think of a cow to draw that day, I remembered a movie poster by the Stenberg Brothers and decided it would look cool with a cow instead of a person. Here’s the Stenberg Brothers poster for the 1929 movie A Fragment Of An Empire:

My first image is almost a direct representation of the original, although bovine themed and with English words. The one I did today still recalls the original, but when you look at them side by side, they’re very different. The new image is closer to my style both now and when I used to be an abstract painter.

My style was, and still is, influenced by graphic images in advertising and art. In 2008 I did another series of cows that played with the idea of using a single cow and a simple palette to create multiple graphic images. They aren’t directly related to any art or artist, but the style is influenced by graphic art images. Here’s the first cow:

And here’s a sample of the cows I created off of this one image and turned into my own poster. I actually like them better all together, rather than as separate images. Still need to get this poster framed …

BTW, I first fell in love with the Stenberg Brothers when MOMA held an exhibition of their art. I w