2 sheep are still lost in south Windsor, and this artist is painting them every day

In recent days, Kate Lamoure has been busy doing a series of paintings — each with a hidden or lost sheep.

Lamoure hopes the paintings will help bring awareness to an ongoing effort to rescue two sheep found roaming near traffic on the E.C. Row Expressway since mid-June.

"The area has actual lost sheep in it right now; an animal sanctuary is trying to capture them so that they can get to safety," Lamoure told CBC News.

"I've been doing a painting challenge where every day I'm doing a painting of the area and hiding a sheep within the painting for viewers to find, so that people can have kind of an awareness of what's going on."

Lamoure is sharing her paintings daily on the WindsorOntario Reddit page.

Charlotte's Freedom Farm — a Dresden, Ont., animal sanctuary — has been trying to locate and rescue the two sheep, with its volunteers making trips out to the area to find the animals.

It's not clear who owns the sheep but the organization believes they escaped from a vehicle somehow — because they're within the city, where sheep aren't permitted.

'The most bizarre and kind of magical thing'

Lamoure, who grew up in the area but now lives away, is back visiting family and was out walking with them when she first found out about the lost sheep.

"One of [the sheep] just booked it past us, and it was the most bizarre and kind of magical thing I ever saw in this neighbourhood," she said.

"After that encounter, I had a couple days of thinking about it, and I've been wanting to get into daily paintings while I'm here visiting family for the summer… so I bought a little reference sheep to help me paint, and I kind of started with one painting."

Lamoure said she posted the painting online and challenged herself to keep posting more based on the public's response.

But she said she is also "a longtime animal lover, and I want people to know about the sheep that are lost here because hopefully they'll drive more cautiously and perhaps they'll support local animal rescues or animal sanctuaries that are trying to protect animals and kind of foster a love of animals and education within our community."

A dash cam video posted to a popular Windsor social media group on June 17 shows a sheep in the middle of the expressway with traffic on the road.

Charlotte's Freedom Farm founder Lauren Edwards said there are sightings every day — including some saying they've almost hit the sheep on the busy expressway — and volunteers are going out regularly.

But seeing the sheep and catching them are two very different things.

"I wish I had a magic answer, but ... this is the most difficult rescue I've ever been involved in. And there's two of them, and they're not together. So...we need to do this twice," she said.

She said some of the difficulties stem from the expressway location, where it's not actually legal for the volunteers to be. Another challenge is that the sheep are fast and skittish and can't be enticed into a trap with food because they have an infinite supply to graze upon.

"I feel like people think this should be easy, but we're trying to rescue two sheep, one's on the expressway, one's just running through — there's a church and a school and a forested area. He's running up and down the streets, so these are terrified animals that can run a lot faster than a human."

One of the sheep has used a pen set up by volunteers but may have gotten spooked and is no longer using it. Edwards says she thinks luring the sheep into a pen remains the best option to trap them.

The pair are estimated to be about six months old and 40 to 50 pounds, according to Edwards. Because of their age when they escaped, Edwards says she believes they were raised for consumption. One is white with a dark face and the other is tan.

She's discouraging anyone from going out there on their own to search for the sheep.