Creative Visions: Cow Parade

Here is Flower by the Susquehanna River, Front Street, Harrisburg. She and the rest of the herd in Riverfront Park will remain here until the June 26 auction. The auction will be held at the Farm Show Complex (where else?)

"Flower" made an appearance, along with 30 of her herd-mates, at Boyds Bear Country in Gettysburg on March 27 and 28. She was stationed in the garden-themed area on the second floor. Soon she will find her place along the Susquehanna River in Riverfront Park.

Visiting Flower at Boyds Bear Country was quite a treat. First, it's always fun to see so many wonderful cows. But it was especially fun to watch people interact with Flower. When we arrived, a family had set their baby on her back to take a picture. Then another parent posed her little girl in front of the cow. In fact, so many people were admiring Flower that it was hard for us to take pictures of her!

The adventure began on Friday, February 6th, 2004. We arrived just after 1 pm at the moo-ternity ward. Actually, it was the G.R.Sponaugle and Sons warehouse in Harrisburg. There, Della became the proud mother to "...a cow by any other name."

As you can see, the new born came full-sized and was carefully protected by a layer of bubble-wrap.

The cow spent a few days grazing in the garage. After all, she is a grazing cow. There are three kinds of cows which will be part of the cow parade; standing, grazing and reclining. The next step was to carefully moo-ve her to the warmth of Della's studio. It is a large and heavy cow, but two people can carry it. (We have to admit that it's hard to get a good hand-grip on the rear end!) It reaches a total length of 84"!

After settling into its temporary pasture, the wrap was removed. The three-dimensional 'blank' canvas was finally unveiled.

The cow's name is "A Cow By Any Other Name..." Several things moo-ved Della to create this design:

"First, the town that I live in. Camp Hill used to have a big a skunk problem for several years. We even made the front page of The Patriot News because of it! My thought processes then went to the skunk from Disney’s “Bambi” - the little skunk who loved to smell flowers. Finally, Camp Hill recently was recognized by Communities in Bloom. So this cow brings two black-and-white creatures who are not known for smelling nice with a garden of flowers that does smell nice."

The series of images below show how a once blank canvas is moo-ving along.

1 Salem isn't sure what's going on here.	2
3	4
5	6 she's down!
7 pansies have popped up!	8
9	10 Now Daisys are popping up.
11 A rose garden is also taking root.	12
This is it - finished!

Flower (as we had come to call her) has a couple of lady bugs - one in her ear which is easy to see. The other one is on her belly. You'll have to crawl under her to see that one!
She also has a bee on her nose - thanks Mom for the idea!
Flower spent a weekend at Majors Autobody getting a covering of clearcoat.

This is the original image that was submitted to the Cow Parade committee.

My final thoughts about this project:

It sure was different - painting a three-dimensional object like this! Painting some areas like the "armpits" was difficult. The challenge for me was the timeframe; I was one of the last artists to receive a cow. I wish that I had had more time to add as many flowers as I originally wanted to.

I enjoyed this project so much that I would love to have another at home to do! (I kind of miss the ol'girl).

It was a great experience, and I would quickly and happily do it again. Meeting all those people who were trying to see all the cows and getting the cow books autographed was fun - some of their stories were very funny!