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Purple horses and blue cows explode out of a background of bright green. What? You've never seen a purple horse or blue cow? Neither has Cynthia Sampson-Files, a representational colorist, but that doesn't keep her from painting them in every color of the rainbow, even with polka dots. Wild colors are normal to Sampson-Files, who lives in Nucla, a rural south-western Colorado community of 1,000. "My clothes are too loud for a ranch town," she says, "and I'd paint our house purple if my husband would let me." Drawn to wild colors from the first day she picked up a crayon as a child, Sampson-Files was criticized at Utah State University, where she studied art, because cows in bright colors are too wild." However, after the first purple bull quickly sold, she felt vindicated.

"Cows are part of the landscape. People don't notice them. If I paint them yellow, blue or green, people suddenly see them in a different context," she says explaining her passion for portraying animals in bold shapes and vibrant colors. "It isn't about how the animals look but how they make me feel when I'm around them". Her joy at watching a herd of mustangs running free in Nevada erupted into a pastel of brilliant red, purple and yellow Wild Horses galloping across a vibrating green background. A Washington winery recently purchased the image to use on a new wine label called 14 Hands.

Cynthia Sampson-Files works on a new pastel, Mrs. America, done in red, white and blue.
 
 RODEOS AND 'COW SAFARIS'

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
Acrylic on canvas, 30" x 40".

 In addition to observing wild animals and her own critters--- a horse, three dogs, two cats and several chickens---- she visits zoos, equestrian events, rodeos and goes on "cow safaris," taking photographs to use as reference material. A member of the Pastel Cociety of Colorado, Sampson-Files also paints in acrylics but looks to the animal's personality to determine which media to use. "When painting birds, I prefer pastel to achieve the rich texture of feathers," she says "I use acrylics when portraying cows because I want to emphasize the designs in their markings and individual shapes and features of their heads." Before beginning any painting, she has the animal, idea, title and image worked out in her mind. It is only after deciding the dominant color required by a creature's personality that she picks up a brush or pastel stick.
All her pastels start as a fairly detailed drawing in colored pencil on black paper or black foam core. She then blocks in the "underpainting" with strokes of pastel in colors opposite of the final layer of the painting. To make the red and orange more vibrant on The Joneses, a portrait of chickens, Sampson-Files first layered green under the comb and blue under the feathers. " I let the opposites show through in the final painting to make the finish colors appear richer," she says. "I take a direct approach without a lot of blending. I like to make pure clean strokes of color, letting the black background show through between the colors so the viewer's eyes can do the blending".
 
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