Concrete Cows – Digital Print

Concrete Cows – Digital Print

About the image:

If you know Milton Keynes, you’ll have heard of the Concrete Cows. So when I was commissioned to do a series of Paintings of the City, I knew I needed to include them. But how to reference an organic creature in the geometrical style of architecture. I had a brainwave when the Concrete Cows appeared by the Big Tree in the Open circular arena space in Midsummer Place. Look from above. The tree was very much alive when I created the piece, mainly from imagination. I thought a Winter tree would be a good way to let the cows be seen. Sadly, I didn’t realise how prophetic this image would be. The cows were only meant to be temporary, but the tree had been built around and intended to stay. Sadly not for very lone.

This painting is part of the Milton Keynes Project and features in the book. The brief: to create art inspired by the iconic structures around MK. A series of 20 paintings commissioned by Fringe Art MK Westbury

12 Paintings were exhibited at Project Space in Milton Keynes 13th June – 6th July 2012.

Coming to Milton Keynes in 1988 I found an established but still rapidly developing city. I was intrigued by the conscious aim to create something new. From the layout of the roads and redways to radical experimentation with architecture. Design and everyday living sitting side by side.

Milton Keynes dares to be itself. Not a pale imitation of traditional urban life.

As a new city it stands out and as such has a very different character from most cities in the UK. Milton Keynes developers chose a new way to be, and that’s what this series sets out to highlight. The architecture reflecting the life and vision. From the dominance of buildings such as the Point to the everyday unobtrusiveness of the underpass and shopping centre. My aim is to show the MK the residents know.

I aim to depict buildings, not as static constructs but as frameworks around which the plays of everyday life are enacted. Buildings would not exist without people. They echo their creators both the people who design and those who build them. Likewise the people who inhabit a building are influenced by its spaces, breathing life and energy into it. The paintings are like these lives, sometimes ordered, but other times chaotic; simple but also complex; isolated and yet connected.

The MK Project – I was commissioned to do a series of paintings of Milton Keynes by MK Fringe in 2012. The Milton Keynes Project consisted of 20 paintings intended to show the Milton Keynes that locals know and celebrate the glorious, innovative architecture of the city.

The original picture was created in England in 2012. This is a digital print copy on watercolour paper.

How the original Painting was created

The original picture was initially drawn with pencil onto watercolour paper. These lines were then drawn over using masking fluid and then painted using watercolour paint and acrylic ink. Salt was also used in the process and some of the ink blown around using a straw. Once the painting was dry the masking fluid was removed to reveal the finished painting.