Why York artist Lauren Terry only paints cows: 'People go wild for Highland cows'

This studio might not be in the countryside but there are plenty of cows. They are captured in affectionate, lifelike prints on the walls, while a freshly painted cow looms from a canvas on the easel.

Lauren Terry knows about cows, you see. She is the artist who paints cows and only cows. Other artists paint cows some of the time; Lauren confines herself to bovine subjects.

“When I started people said: ‘Why are you just painting cows, not enough people like cows?’ I said: ‘I don’t know, I think I’ll just go with that for the time being’,” she says.

“There was something in my gut thinking ‘just go with cows’. When you have that niche, it does make people interested. Oh, you’re the cow lady, you’re the cowgirl.”

Confining her brushes to cows was a sound hunch, and business is good for her portraits, prints and homeware (cow themed, naturally). “I like to think of myself as a master in the field of cows,” she says, laughing.

Lauren, 32, lives in York and is from Scarborough. She moved to London after studying to be an actor and appeared in a terrible advert or two and understudied for some Alan Ayckbourn plays, hoping someone might fall ill, toured schools, then felt acting wasn’t for her.

She had studied art at school and painted a cow picture for her A-level. “I remember thinking at the time, I quite like painting cows.”

When she went back to her painting, a cow was her first subject. Her father took the picture to the framers, the Picture Place at Wykeham, near Scarborough, where there is a small gallery.

The framer said that if she painted 20 more, he would put them on a show. She sold five paintings, and one went into the office for Wykeham estate, and Lauren’s Cows was born. She was living in London then, squeezed for space and painting on the coffee table. “It was only when I moved to York that I was able to get studio space at Bar Lane,” she says.

Where that space was dark and cold, her studio now is high and airy, and she loves being here, painting cows. There must be something about this family and cows for her parents moved to Cumbria to live in a converted cow barn. Her mother runs the business side from Cumbria, visiting York to look after Lauren’s son, who will be two in May.

All of Lauren’s paintings are taken from photographs. She tries to take these herself, out in the field. “Sometimes if I have requests for a certain breed and can’t find them, I go to Instagram and things like that. There are so many great amateur photographers who own cows. It’s so easy to get a snap on your phone these days.

“I can go into the field with my professional camera and get nothing after two hours, and someone on their lunch break can snap a fantastic picture that makes a great painting.”

At first, she painted whatever cow took her fancy. Now people commission her to paint a particular one.

“I became informally known as the cow owner’s cow artist because it was all very much about getting the personality of the cow while staying true to the breed,” she says.

“I think people who own cows are attracted to the balance between character and colour but still keeping true to the animal. They don’t want a caricature.”

Along the way, Lauren has learned a lot about cows. “The more I’ve worked with them, the more I’ve grown to love them. Also, just the sheer spectrum of different breeds. I had just no idea how many types of cows there are,” she adds.

“The size of them, the size of a Holstein Friesian cow, they’re huge, they tower over you. And Highlands too, the real Laurel and Hardy ladder sketch as their horns swing around the place.

But there are loads, British Whites, Belted Galloways, things I just didn’t know existed.

“Texas longhorns, I had a great time chatting with a guy in Austin, Texas, painting some of his cows.”

She didn’t visit Texas, sadly. “I would never get close to a Texas Longhorn, there’s not a chance, but I’d love to travel the world, going to the regions where these cows are.”

The painting on the easel is of a Fleckvieh, a German breed kept on a farm in Kent. “I love her radar ears,” Lauren says, adding that she gave the cow a German vista.

“That’s a different style than some of my others. It’s more landscape while I am more known for solid colour and a really curious face coming out at you.”

Up on the wall are two of her best-selling prints, Scarlett, the windswept Highland cow, and Ted, the Highland calf. “Highland cows, people go wild for. There’s something almost quite mythical about them,” she says.

Lauren has grown to love the breed. “For such a big beast of an animal, so shaggy and wild, they’ve got such a nice nature about them, many are so docile. But you’ve got to give them the respect you’d give any animal of that size. I tend to go into a field and wait for them to come to me.”

She is careful around cows. “If possible, the farmer is always there unless the cows are on a public footpath. Cows are so curious you can just get trampled by them being curious. When you are taking a photo, you are so invested in that, then before you know it there’s a little puff of air on your neck, and there’s a cow here.”

Lauren paints bulls sometimes, including the Highland bull Archie, owned by Adam Henson from the BBC1 Countryfile programme. “Bulls aren’t normally a problem because they are so lazy,” Lauren says. It’s wise to keep a wary eye on mums and babies, and bullocks with their “frisky boys-will-be-boys nature”.

Farmers know their cows and will advise on the best subjects. “They’ll say: ‘Bessie, don’t bother with Bessie. She’s grumpy and not interested’.”

Lauren regards her studio as a sanctuary and goes there to paint three days a week. Oil paint takes too long to dry, so she works in acrylic.

“It does get a bit of a bad reputation but it’s because most acrylics used are entry level and are thin. If you use a heavy, professional acrylic, you get the same intensity you would with oil. It has a much faster drying time.”

When she wins a new cow commission, she draws the animal to show what the painting will look like. For one painting, she was asked to make the cow more windswept.

A painting is priced according to how long it will take. The one on the easel will take her about 40 hours and cost about £2,500. “That’s a limited-edition print. That’s the original and then I’ll make 75 prints,” she says.

People who want an exclusive painting with no prints spun off will pay more.

What she loves is that her paintings make people smile. “I’ve had people buy them who’ve had depression and they say it’s so nice having something on the wall that’s a friendly face.”

Lauren does have one artistic ambition that has nothing to do with cows. “I’d love to do a self-portrait,” she says. “It’s been on my bucket list for a long time, but something always springs up.” A cow, probably.

Lauren will take part in York Open Studios in April and her work can be seen at www.laurenscows.com/shop/artwork/