Thoroughbred Horse Painting - Determination

I seem to have missed posting a painting I finished last month, a beautiful bay thoroughbred racehorse.

It's always fascinating watch horses race. We assume horses only run races because they're trained to. But some of them really do seem to have an eagerness and determination to win within themselves. Since animals don't have the same sort of competitive ego that humans do, you have to wonder what motivates a horse to want to win. Not that they understand what "winning" is in the sense that we do. They don't understand fame and fortune and the meaning of receiving pretty ribbons, trophies, and flowers. But they seemed to be determined to be first, to run ahead of the others, for whatever reason. Maybe it comes from when they were wild, a desire to be the leader of the herd as it runs free across the plain. Or maybe there isn't really any desire or motivation there other than training and it's just our need to anthropomorphize that makes us see things like will, spirit, determination, and competitiveness in a racehorse. What do you think?

"Determination"

8"x10" oil

Prints and notecards available on Fine Art America:

My Art At SURTEX

It's been a while since I posted. It's not that I haven't been creating more art. Quite the opposite. I've been busy trying to get a new painting done for licensing. Speaking of licensing, THE big art licensing trade show, SURTEX, took place last week. My licensing agency, Art Licensing, attended and had a booth space there as they do every year. I was pleased to see they used a couple of my artwork images on their booth display panels. Art Licensing represents 400 artists with a combined total of about 100,000 images. I am honored that they chose two of my images out of all those to be used on their limited booth panel space. I'd say that means they think highly of my work and are working hard to promote it, and I appreciate that.

Here are the images used as well as pictures of the booth panels. The first image is my bald eagle painting, Morning Quest.

Here's the booth panel image. Can you find my eagle painting in the picture below?

 

Next up is my Apple Harvest Chickadees painting under the Fall Holidays section of the panel.

 I'm told by Art Licensing that the show was a great success. So I hope that means more product licensing contracts for my art will be coming soon! I'll keep you posted here and on Facebook and Twitter.

Special thanks to Syrena O'Neil at Art Licensing for taking these photos and sharing them.