Denise Rich, California's premier cow painter, joined us in Northern California wine country this year at the Real California Milk commercial shoot. Click here to go to Denise Rich's website and see more of her work.

To find the perfect Happy Cow images worthy of painting, Denise took hundreds of photos of real live cows from every angle and viewpoint. Once the perfect shots are in hand she transforms the pixels of a digital camera to the brushstrokes of an oil painting, in a style she calls "painterly realism," which is finished on either canvas or panel.

Click on an image below to see and learn about the painting.

Although she paints a great number of black and white cows, she doesn't use black paint. Instead, she prefers to custom mix her own custom colors to create a unique 'black' that slightly varies for each piece. Her specialty is capturing the character, personality, and posture of cows, and as a result, has gained a sizeable following among milk, cheese and art lovers alike.

Just like the Happy Cows, Denise Rich is a California native. As a child she spent hours hanging around her grandmother's painting studio and getting watercolor lessons from her father, and at the age of nine she helped start a group that raised money for homeless animals.

Combine her foundation of artistic expression with her ability to appreciate animals as individuals and it's no mystery that Denise is quickly becoming recognized as "one of the [dairy] industries biggest up-and-coming artists..." (Holstein Foundation's Art Auction catalog.)

I paint because I love to,
I paint cows because they make me smile.

The first time I visited a dairy I was hooked. It was just me, my camera and an entire herd of cattle. Up close or from a distance, their demeanor was intriguing to me. Calm, curious, just happy doing their thing.

That's why I do it, because the cows always make me smile. I hope my paintings make you smile too.