My love for the British Isle farm animals and their characters are led me to improve my skill of a three-dimensional look in my paintings and to instinctively pick the best reference images to work with, from photos I’ve taken myself.
The Simmental or Swiss Fleckvieh is a Swiss breed of dual-purpose cattle. It is named after the Simmental – the valley of the Simme river – in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. It is reddish in colour with white markings, and is raised for both milk and meat. Among the older and most widely distributed of all breeds of cattle in the world, and recorded since the Middle Ages, the Simmental breed has contributed to the creation of several other famous European breeds, including the Montbeliarde (France), the Pezzata Rossa d'Oropa (Italy), and the Fleckvieh (Germany and Austria).
Simmental cattle are a large breed of cattle with long powerful thick legs, the cows have a blockish well-developed physique whilst the males are stockier, rounder and have more muscle definitions. The males head is rounder than the females which is more rectangular with a straight profile. They usually have a fluffy coat and ears with a small tight dewlap.
