the backstory

A while back, Sean ordered me a couple of large 40x40 inch canvases, as a little push to get me painting large-scale again. I had a couple of ideas about what to paint on them that came and went, none of which included horses and none of which I was excited about.

The idea to paint these two Triple Crown Champions didn’t occur to me overnight. Last year, I painted a small portrait of California Chrome that I fell in love with (it was auctioned off to help the animals at the Woodford Humane Society!) as well as the two cropped horse close-ups Nosey and Brown Eyed Girl for the Woodland Art Fair that are now my most popular prints!

Long story short, I got my hands on some really great reference photos of American Pharoah and Justify and dove right in. I never thought I’d have so much fun with black and white! I don’t normally start out my paintings in limited color, but with these, I wanted to take my time to get the tones right and then have a little fun with the color. I really have no idea how the finished paintings are going to look, but that’s the fun part of experimenting, right?!

Black and white prints of Justify and American Pharoah’s underpaintings will be released on Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 9am EST.

I hope you love them as much as I do!