As the artist gazed at the photograph her father had taken, she saw the lighting bring an inspiring scene to life: a cow lovingly leaning over her calf lying in the hay. But when 16 year-old Sophie Zhou picked up her brush to paint the touching scene, it was their “heartwarming” bond she aimed to express.
After around 70 hours of painstaking brushwork, Zhou, a junior at Kinkaid School in Houston, finished the evocative oil-on-canvas painting that garnered her the top prize at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this month. That very same painting then fetched a record-setting $276,000 after it was auctioned off.
