The belted Galway cows in Camden Maine are a real tourist stop and favorite painting subject for my workshop. I had a few cows in the field moving around but I needed to make a composition out of them and not just paint the first thing that I saw. So discussed moving around the pieces of the landscape to create a couple different paintings and this is the final painting. 
I have used multiples of the cows looking different directions, and I cut down on the background trees, adding the pond and the background hill. I think it has a nice center of interest and is using about as much of the scene as I can. Overlap your shapes as much as you can to create better shapes and to give a feeling of depth. Landscapes should have multiple planes in order to feel right. A one dimensional painting will not be very interesting no matter how many details and colors you use.
Image of the cows that I used for the painting, I flipped the cow the other direction to have them moving into the painting not out of the frame and added a few extra players.
several sketches that I played with before painting
2 Comments on “In The Studio: A Composition Lesson From Camden, “The Galways””
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Love the sketches!
Hello Steve. I like very much the lesson that you post this time, with your explanation of how you have edited the scene and why, and with the different sketches that indicate the different compositions that you’ve raised. Thank you also for the photo of the scene. This watercolor is fantastic.