Caroline Shotton - Hay Wayne

HAY WAYNE
As I mention in the notes for ‘We can be Heroes’, Elliot, my youngest son, loves his costumes. Unsurprisingly he has quite a few, and amongst them is a sheriff’s outfit. So out came the camera again and we produced some brilliant reference photos for me to work from. I much prefer working from life, so alongside the photos I have the costumes hanging up in the studio with ‘portraiture’ lighting directed onto them. He wouldn’t put on a pink shirt, even though I informed him John Wayne wore one in his films, so he opted for blue, but the cotton fabric texture was enough to go on and I simply painted it pink and shaded it accordingly. The hat’s purposely a little out of proportion, but it’s a cow dressed up so I didn’t want it to be perfect. Even though the painting has ‘Wayne’ in the title, this piece is generic in terms of gender. It’s up to the viewer to decide. It could be a little girl dressed up, being ‘the boss’ for a day because she has a Sheriff’s badge on, or a boy really getting into character by wearing a pink shirt! The title is a nod to John Wayne and Constable’s famous painting of hay stacks. It has a happy feel about it, like a “hello there” and staring back at you is a little cow trying to act all grown up, with an unconvincingly stern, “I’m the boss” expression!