When we were at the Farm Chicks show in June, one of the booths was selling big (24″x36″) black and white prints on bond of old looking cattle. Of course, cheapskate frugal that I am, I thought to myself, “I can do that”. So, I set off to do it. Luckily, I picked up at the Farm Chicks some former 1953 FFA student’s bovine breed study and identification kit, which is a fancy way of saying cow flashcards. They are really cool 5″x7″ black and white photos of all sorts of cows and perfect for this project. I picked out a healthy looking speciman to experiment on.
I scanned the cow card into the computer. I have photoshop elements and I am still quite a novice at it…but, I was able to cut the cow out, scale it up and place it on a blank 24″x18″ sheet. I then saved it as a pdf which I then sent to my blueprinter. Now you could send it or take it on a memory stick to anyone who does large scale printing.
Now, here is where I need help and would welcome any ideas on finishing this project….I could have left it plain on the bond paper, but I wanted a more finished look, so I brushed on an acrylic medium,dried it, painted the grass green and painted the sky light blue. This caused the paper to contract and rumple somewhat. I think if I had mounted it on a substrate such as foam core first, and then did my finishing it may have stayed smoother. More experiments for me…
So, here is the cow for you to experiment on. I am off to work on a chicken one now, then I think I should do some old buildings…
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