Sunny cow, La Croix sur Lutry. 25 April 2025. 20x20 cm

Sunny Cow. La Croix-sur-Lutry. 25 April 2025

This original plein-air oil painting was created in La Croix-sur-Lutry, Switzerland, in April 2025. Painted directly outdoors, the work captures a simple rural scene transformed by intense sunlight, colour and atmosphere. At the centre of the composition stands a bright orange cow, surrounded by spring fields and soft landscape forms that dissolve into light.

Rather than presenting the animal with detailed realism, the painting focuses on presence and visual impact. The cow appears almost like a sudden burst of colour within the landscape. Its vivid orange body becomes the emotional centre of the composition, glowing against the pale greens, yellows and muted earth tones of the surrounding field.

The painting is built through energetic, visible brushwork. Thick layers of oil paint create a surface where forms remain open and fluid, allowing colour relationships to become more important than precise outlines. The landscape is suggested rather than described. Trees, fences and distant structures emerge only briefly before dissolving back into the rhythm of paint and light.

The title Sunny Cow reflects both the subject and the atmosphere. The work is filled with spring brightness, where sunlight seems to spread across every surface. The warm yellows of the field and the luminous sky create a feeling of openness and quiet rural calm, while the orange cow introduces an unexpected note of joy and vitality.

La Croix-sur-Lutry lies above the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) within the Lavaux region of the canton of Vaud. The surrounding landscape combines vineyards, meadows, agricultural land and views toward the lake, creating a setting where cultivated nature and everyday rural life remain closely connected. (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)

On this April day, the landscape carried the freshness of spring while already anticipating the warmth of summer. The painting preserves a fleeting encounter with sunlight, colour and the quiet presence of an animal within the open countryside.

Created during a single plein-air painting session, this work belongs to my ongoing series dedicated to the landscapes of Lavaux, Vaud and Western Switzerland. Each painting records a direct experience of place, season and atmosphere observed outdoors in nature.

Original plein-air oil painting by Olga Tacan.

Location: La Croix-sur-Lutry, Vaud, Switzerland
Subject: Cow in a sunlit spring field
Region: Lavaux near Lac Léman (Lake Geneva)
Medium: Oil painting
Date painted: 25 April 2025

Oil on paper

Plain air painting

Size 20 x 20 cm

Size with passé-partout  28x42 cm 

Date: 25 April 2025

Location: La Croix sur Lutry, Switzerland