I was honored to be selected to paint two cows for the Austin Cow Parade!  

The cows were on display in downtown Austin in the summer and fall of 2011, and were then auctioned off for charity - Dell Children's Hospital. 

My cows sold for $39,000!  

(Yes, I was paid for creating the cows, but nothing close to that.)

The first cow I did was COWJUNTO - a play on words referring to conjunto music - the Tex Mex music so popular here.  COWJUNTO was so popular it wound up on over 1500 websites online.  Here is the story of the creation of COWJUNTO in picures:

Pat Sullivan, Christy Taylor and Mike Sullivan and I loaded a blank fiberglass cow into Pat's pick up truck to haul it to my house.

Blank cow in my living room.

After I drew the design on the cow, I had help from Christy Taylor (under the cow) and brother Pat Sullivan and his wife Susan Sullivan.

And some help from grandson Wyatt Landry who is gluing jewels on the cow.

After the cow was painted it moved to my front porch into a temporary spray shed to put on 6 coats of spar varnish to protect it from sun and weather.

I took the finished cow on parade in my hometown of Elgin before delivering him to Cow Parade Austin.  This picture includes Mayor of Elgin Marc Holm, my grandson Wyatt and me.

COWJUNTO on parade in Elgin next to City Hall.

A kiss for COWJUNTO.  Christy Taylor smooches the cow and grandson Wyatt and sister-in-law Susan in background.

At the preview party for all of the cows for Austin Cow Parade (at Long Center for the Performing Arts) myself (with ukelele), my brother Mike Sullivan (piano accordion) and Rudy Munguia (button accordion) play conjunto music - notably "Hey Baby, Que Paso?"

Left - offering of accordions at the preview party.

Right - an udder of musical notes (close up).

COWJUNTO's first home was on Lady Bird Lake in Austin.

But she was soon moved to downtown Austin in front of Mexicarte Museum at Congress and 5th Street.

Accordion playing brother Mike tries to play the accordion cow.

Then I was asked to create another cow!  Once again my living room became a studio.

I called this one FLAMENCOW!

Grandsons Orion Landry (under the cow) and Wyatt Landry helped paint the cow, especially in hard to reach places when Granny didn't want to lay under the cow.

Flamencow puts on her makeup and gets some jewelry and shoes.

She gets skirts and mantilla and fishnet stockings (with a seam in the back, of course).

She moves to the front porch for coats of spar varnish.

What a wild girl! (unusual piercing)

FLAMENCOW arrives at her home in front of the Austin Hilton Hotel downtown on 5th Street.